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+Project Gutenberg's Sea-wolves of the Mediterranean, by Currey E. Hamilton
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
+the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+Title: Sea-wolves of the Mediterranean
+       The Grand Period of the Moslem Corsairs
+
+Author: Currey E. Hamilton
+
+Release Date: May 14, 2017 [EBook #13689]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SEA-WOLVES OF THE MEDITERRANEAN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Turgut Dincer, as an update to the original
+ebook produced by Robert Connal and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/Million Book Project).
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+SEA-WOLVES OF THE MEDITERRANEAN
+
+[Illustration: KHEYR-ED-DIN BARBAROSSA—CORSAIR,
+ADMIRAL, AND KING.]
+
+
+
+
+SEA-WOLVES OF THE MEDITERRANEAN
+
+THE GRAND PERIOD OF THE MOSLEM CORSAIRS
+
+BY COMMANDER E. HAMILTON CURREY, R.N.
+
+WITH PORTRAITS AND ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+  “Ships are but boards, sailors but men:
+   There be land rats and water rats, land thieves and water thieves,
+   I mean pirates.”
+
+   _Merchant of Venice._
+
+
+LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W 1910
+
+TO THAT GRACIOUS LADY
+
+TO WHOSE COUNSEL AND ENCOURAGEMENT
+
+I OWE SO MUCH
+
+MORE THAN ANY ONE—SAVE I—CAN IMAGINE...
+
+TO MY WIFE
+
+I DEDICATE THIS BOOK
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+When the ship is ready for launching there comes a moment of tense
+excitement before the dogshores are knocked away and she slides down
+the ways. In the case of a ship this excitement is shared by many
+thousands, who have assembled to acclaim the birth of a perfected
+product of the industry of man; the emotion is shared by all those
+who are present. It is very different when a book has been completed.
+The launching has been arranged for and completed by expert hands;
+she like the ship gathers way and slides forth into an ocean: but,
+unlike the ship which is certain to float, the waters may close over
+and engulf her, or perchance she may be towed back to that haven of
+obscurity from which she emerged, to rust there in silence and neglect.
+There is excitement in the breast of one man alone—to wit, the author.
+If his book possesses one supreme qualification she will escape the
+fate mentioned, and this qualification is—interest. As the weeks
+lengthened into months, and these multiplied themselves to the
+tale of something like twenty-four, the conviction was strengthened
+that that which had so profoundly interested the writer, would not
+be altogether indifferent to others. For some inscrutable reason the
+deeds of sea-robbers have always possessed a fascination denied to
+those of their more numerous brethren of the land; and in the case
+of the Sea-wolves of the sixteenth century we are dealing with the
+very aristocrats of the profession. Circumstances over which they had
+no control flung the Moslem population of Southern Spain on to the
+shores of Northern Africa: to revenge themselves upon the Christian
+foe by whom this expropriation had been accomplished was natural to
+a warrior race; and those who heretofore had been land-folk pure and
+simple took to piracy as a means of livelihood. It is of the deeds of
+these men that this book treats; of their marvellous triumphs, of their
+apparently hopeless defeats, of the manner in which they audaciously
+maintained themselves against the principalities and the powers of
+Christendom always hungering for their destruction.
+
+The quality which Napoleon is said to have ascribed to the British
+Infantry, “of never knowing when they were beaten,” seems to have also
+characterised the Sea-wolves; as witness the marvellous recuperation
+of Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa when expelled from Tunis by Charles V.;
+and the escape of Dragut from the island of Jerba when apparently
+hopelessly trapped by the Genoese admiral, Andrea Doria. All through
+their history the leaders of the Sea-wolves show the resourcefulness
+of the real seamen that they had become by force of circumstances, and
+it was they who in the age in which they dwelt showed what sea power
+really meant. Sailing through the Mediterranean on my way to Malta in
+the spring of this year, as the good ship fared onwards I passed in
+succession all those lurking-places from which the Moslem Corsairs were
+wont to burst out upon their prey. Truly it seemed as if
+
+  “The spirits of their fathers might start from every wave,”
+
+and in imagination one pictured the rush of the pirate galley, with its
+naked slaves straining at the oar of their taskmasters, its fierce,
+reckless, beturbaned crew clustered on the “rambades” at the bow and
+stern. It might be that they would capture some hapless “round-ship,”
+a merchantman lumbering slowly along the coast; or again they might
+meet with a galley of the terrible Knights of St. John or of the
+ever-redoubtable Doria. In either case the Sea-wolves were equal to
+their fortune, to plunder or to fight in the name of Allah and his
+prophet.
+
+That which differentiated the Sea-wolves from other pirates was the
+combination which they effected among themselves; the manner in which
+these lawless men could subordinate themselves to the will of one whom
+they recognised as a great leader. To obtain such recognition was no
+easy matter, and the manner in which this was done, by those who rose
+by sheer force of character to the summit of this remarkable hierarchy,
+has here been set forth.
+
+E. Hamilton Currey.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+                                                    Page
+  INTRODUCTORY                                         1
+
+  CHAPTER I
+  THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS                          13
+
+  CHAPTER II
+  THE COMING OF THE CORSAIRS                          28
+
+  CHAPTER III
+  URUJ BARBAROSSA                                     43
+
+  CHAPTER IV
+  THE DEATH OF URUJ BARBAROSSA                        59
+
+  CHAPTER V
+  KHEYR-ED-DIN BARBAROSSA                             75
+
+  CHAPTER VI
+  THE TAKING OF THE PEÑON D’ALGER; ANDREA DORIA       91
+
+  CHAPTER VII
+  THE APOTHEOSIS OF THE CORSAIR KING                 107
+
+  CHAPTER VIII
+  THE RAID ON THE COAST OF ITALY; JULIA GONZAGA      123
+
+  CHAPTER IX
+  BARCELONA, MAY 1535; THE GATHERING OF THE
+    CHRISTIAN HOSTS                                  139
+
+  CHAPTER X
+  THE FALL OF TUNIS AND THE FLIGHT OF BARBAROSSA     155
+
+  CHAPTER XI
+  ROXALANA AND THE MURDER OF IBRAHIM                 172
+
+  CHAPTER XII
+  THE PREVESA CAMPAIGN; THE GATHERING OF THE FLEETS  189
+
+  CHAPTER XIII
+  THE BATTLE OF PREVESA                              205
+
+  CHAPTER XIV
+  THE NAVY OF OARS; THE GALLEY, THE GALEASSE,
+    AND THE NEF                                      221
+
+  CHAPTER XV
+  DRAGUT-REIS                                        238
+
+  CHAPTER XVI
+  DRAGUT-REIS                                        254
+
+  CHAPTER XVII
+  DRAGUT-REIS                                        269
+
+  CHAPTER XVIII
+  THE KNIGHTS OF ST. JOHN                            286
+
+  CHAPTER XIX
+  DRAGUT-REIS                                        306
+
+  CHAPTER XX
+  THE SIEGE OF MALTA                                 324
+
+  CHAPTER XXI
+  ALI BASHA                                          344
+
+  CHAPTER XXII
+  LEPANTO                                            362
+
+  AUTHORITIES CONSULTED                              383
+
+  LIST OF THE KINGS OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, SPAIN,
+    SULTANS OF TURKEY, POPES OF ROME, AND GRAND
+    MASTERS OF MALTA FROM 1492 TO 1580               385
+
+  DISTANCES IN SEA MILES ON THE COAST OF NORTHERN
+    AFRICA                                           387
+
+  INDEX                                              389
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+I wish to record my cordial recognition of the kindness shown to me at
+Malta by Mr. Salvino Sant Manduca. The picture of the carrack opposite
+to page 300 was a gift from him. The galley of the Knights of Malta is
+a reproduction of a picture hanging in his house. I should also like to
+thank him for the time and trouble which he took on my behalf during my
+stay at Malta, and the keen interest he displayed in my subject.
+
+R. HAMILTON CURREY.
+
+
+  KHEYR-ED-DIN BARBAROSSA—CORSAIR, ADMIRAL, AND KING _Frontispiece_
+
+                                                        FACING PAGE
+
+  URUJ AND KHEYR-ED-DIN BARBAROSSA                               44
+
+  ANDREA DORIA, PRINCE OF ONEOLIA, ADMIRAL TO CHARLES V.         92
+
+  SOLIMAN THE MAGNIFICENT                                       110
+
+  THE EMPEROR CHARLES V                                         150
+
+  MULEY HASSAN KING OF TUNIS                                    162
+
+  GALEASSE UNDER SAIL                                           194
+
+  GALLEY UNDER OARS                                             222
+
+  BRIGANTINE CHASING FELUCCA                                    236
+
+  GOZON DE DIEU-DONNÉ SLAYING THE GREAT SERPENT OF RHODES       294
+
+  CARRACK IN WHICH THE KNIGHTS ARRIVED AT MALTA, 1530           300
+
+  JEAN PARISOT DE LA VALETTE, GRAND MASTER OF THE KNIGHTS
+    OF MALTA, AT THE SIEGE OF THAT ISLAND BY THE TURKS IN 1565  324
+
+  DEATH OF DRAGUT AT THE SIEGE OF MALTA                         340
+
+  A GALLEY OF THE KNIGHTS OF MALTA                              354
+
+  DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA                                           362
+
+  SEBASTIAN VENIERO                                             364
+
+
+
+
+SEA-WOLVES OF THE MEDITERRANEAN
+
+INTRODUCTORY
+
+
+In all the ages of which we have any record there have been men who
+gained a living by that practice of robbery on the high seas which
+we know by the name of Piracy. Perhaps the pirates best known to
+the English-speaking world are the buccaneers of the Spanish Main,
+who flourished exceedingly in the seventeenth century, and of whom
+many chronicles exist: principally owing to the labours of that John
+Esquemelin, a pirate of a literary turn of mind, who added the crime
+of authorship to the ill deeds of a sea-rover. The Sea-Wolves of the
+Mediterranean in the preceding century did not raise up a chronicler
+from among themselves: for not much tincture of learning seems to
+have distinguished these desperate fighters and accomplished seamen,
+descendants of those Spanish Moslems who had, during the Middle
+Ages, lived in a land in which learning and culture had been held in
+the highest estimation. Driven from their homes, their civilisation
+crushed, their religion banned in that portion of Southern Spain in
+which they had dwelt for over seven centuries, cast upon the shores
+of Northern Africa, these men took to the sea and became the scourge
+of the Mediterranean. That which they did, the deeds which they
+accomplished, the terror which they inspired, the ruin and havoc which
+they wrought, have been set forth in the pages of this book.
+
+It was the age of the galley, the oar-propelled vessel which moved
+independently of the wind in the fine-weather months of the great
+inland sea. Therefore to the dwellers on the coast the Sea-wolves were
+a perpetual menace; as, when booty was unobtainable at sea, they raided
+the towns and villages of their Christian foes. During all the period
+here dealt with no man’s life, no woman’s honour, was safe from these
+pirates within the area of their nefarious activities. They held the
+Mediterranean in fee, they levied toll on all who came within reach
+of their galleys and their scimitars. Places unknown to the geography
+of the sixteenth century became notorious in their day, and Christian
+wives and mothers learned to tremble at the very names of Algiers and
+Tunis. From these places the rovers issued to capture, to destroy, and
+to enslave: in Oran and Tlemcen, in Tenes, Shershell, Bougie, Jigelli,
+Bizerta, Sfax, Susa, Monastir, Jerbah, and Tripoli they lurked ready
+for the raid and the foray. At one time all Northern Africa would
+thrill to the triumph of the Moslem arms, at another there would go
+up the wail of the utterly defeated; but in spite of alternations of
+fortune the Sea-wolves abode in the localities of their choice, and
+ended in establishing those pirate States which troubled the peace of
+the Mediterranean practically until the introduction of steam.
+
+The whole record of the sixteenth century is one of blood and fire,
+of torture and massacre, of “punic faith” and shameless treason; the
+deeds of the sea-rovers, appalling as they were, frequently found a
+counterpart in the battles, the sieges, and the sacking of towns which
+took place perpetually on the continent of Europe.
+
+There was so much history made at this period, the stage of world
+politics was occupied by so many great, striking, and dazzling
+personalities, that the Sea-wolves and all they accomplished were to a
+great extent overshadowed by happenings which the chroniclers of the
+time considered to be of greater importance. In this no doubt they were
+right in the main; but, in spite of this opinion which they held, we
+find that time and again the main stream of events is ruffled by the
+prows of the pirate galleys. Such men as the Barbarossas, as Dragut,
+and Ali Basha could only have been suppressed and exterminated had the
+whole might of Christendom been turned against them, for they held in
+their hands two weapons, the keenest and most powerful with which to
+attain the objects which they had in view.
+
+The first and more powerful of these was the appeal in a rough and
+warlike age to the cupidity of mankind. “Those who are content to
+follow us,” they said in effect, “are certain to enrich themselves if
+they are men stout of heart and strong of hand. All around us lie rich
+and prosperous lands; we have but to organise ourselves, and to take
+anything that we wish for; we can, if we like, gather a rich harvest at
+comparatively small trouble.” Such counsels as these did not fall on
+deaf ears. Driven from the land of plenty—from glorious Andalusia with
+its fruitful soil, its magnificent cities, its vines and olives, its
+fruit and grain, its noble rivers and wide-spreading _vegas_—the
+Spanish Moslem of the day of the Sea-wolves was an outcast and a
+beggar, ripe for adventure and burning for revenge on those by whom he
+had been expropriated.
+
+Great historians like William Hickling Prescott tell us that, in the
+course of the seven centuries of the Moslem domination in Spain, the
+Moors had become soft and effeminate, that “the canker of peace”
+had sapped, if it had not destroyed, the virile qualities of the
+race, that luxury and learning had dried up at their source those
+primitive virtues of courage and hardihood which had been the leading
+characteristics of those stark fighters who had borne the banner of
+the Prophet from Mecca even to Cadiz. Tom by faction, by strife among
+themselves, they had succumbed to the arms of the Northern chivalry; by
+its warriors they had been driven out, never to return.
+
+When this was accomplished, when the curtain fell on the final scene
+of the tragedy, and the Moors, after the fall of Granada, were driven
+across the sea into Africa, there came to pass a most remarkable change
+in those who had been expropriated. The learning, the culture, the
+civilisation, by which they had been so long distinguished, seemed to
+drop away from them, cast away like a worn-out garment for which men
+have no further use. In place of all these things there came a complete
+and desperate valour, a bitter and headstrong fanaticism.
+
+It was one of the attributes of the Moslem civilisation in Spain,
+and one of the most enlightened thereof, that religious toleration
+flourished in its midst. Jew and Christian were allowed to worship at
+the altars of their fathers, no man hindering or saying them nay; one
+rule, and one alone, had to be preserved: none must blaspheme against
+Mahomet, the Prophet of God, as he was considered to be by the Moslems.
+The penalty for infraction of this rule was death; otherwise, complete
+liberty of conscience was accorded.
+
+We have spoken of the two weapons held by the leaders of the
+Sea-wolves. The first, as we have, said, was cupidity; the second
+was fanaticism, the deadly religious hatred engendered, not only by
+the wholesale expropriation of the Moslem population, but also by
+the persecution to which the Moriscoes—as those Moslems were known
+who remained in Spain—were subjected by their Christian masters. It
+requires little imagination to see how these two weapons of avarice
+and intolerance could be made to serve the purpose of those dominant
+spirits who rose to the summit of the piratical hierarchy. Not only
+did they dazzle the imaginations of those who followed in their train
+by promises of wealth uncounted, but they added to this the specious
+argument that, in slaying and robbing the Christian wheresoever he was
+to be found, the faithful Moslem was performing the service of God and
+the act most grateful to his holy Prophet.
+
+Could any rule of life be at the same time more simple and more
+attractive to the beggared Mohammedan cast on the sterile shores of
+Northern Africa to starve?
+
+With the main stream of history, to which we have before referred, we
+have no concern in this book. He who would embark thereon must sail
+a powerful vessel which must carry many guns. Also for the conduct
+of this vessel many qualities are necessary: a commanding intellect,
+acute perceptions, indefatigable industry, complete leisure, are among
+those things necessary to the pilot. These must be supplemented by a
+genius for research, a knowledge of ancient and modern languages, and
+an unerring faculty for separating the few precious grains of wheat
+from those mountains of chaff which he will have to sift with the
+utmost care. There are, however, subsidiary rivulets which feed the
+onward flow of events, and of such is the story of the Sea-wolves of
+the Mediterranean. On these the adventurous mariner can sail his little
+cockboat, discreetly retiring before he becomes involved and engulfed
+in the main stream. That he cannot altogether avoid it is shown by
+the fact that the men who are here chronicled took part in events of
+first-class importance in the age in which they lived. Kheyr-ed-Din
+Barbarossa fought the battle of Prevesa against his lifelong
+antagonist, Andrea Doria. Dragut was killed at the siege of Malta, at
+the moment almost of the fall of the castle of St. Elmo; had he lived
+it is more than probable that Jean Parisot de la Valette and his heroic
+garrison would have been defeated instead of being victorious. Ali
+Basha was the one Moslem commander who increased his reputation at the
+battle of Lepanto, because, as was usual in all maritime conflicts of
+the time, the corsairs, who had the habit of the sea, were more than a
+match for soldiers embarked to fight on an unfamiliar element.
+
+We shall speak, later on, of the autocratic rule of these leaders who
+possessed so absolute a domination over the men by whom they were
+followed. The fact of this absolute supremacy on the part of the chiefs
+is very curious, as theoretically in the confederacy of the Sea-wolves
+all were equal; we are, in fact, confronted with pure democracy, where
+every man was at liberty to do what seemed best in his own eyes. He
+was a free agent, none coercing him or desiring him to place himself
+under discipline or command. This, be it observed, was the theory. As
+a matter of fact the corsairs, who were extraordinarily successful in
+their abominable trade, abode beneath an iron and rigid discipline.
+This was enforced by the lash, as we shall see later on when it is
+related how Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa flogged one Hassan, a captain
+who, he considered, had failed in his duty: or by the actual penalty
+of death, which Uruj Barbarossa inflicted on one who had dared to act
+independently of his authority.
+
+The theory of equality obtained among the Mediterranean pirates; but
+the Barbarossas, Dragut, and Ali believed that, in practice, the less
+interference there was with their designs by those, whom Cardinal
+Granvelle denominated in a letter to Philip II. as “that mischievous
+animal the people,” the better it would be for all concerned. The
+conception held of rights and duties of “the mischievous animal”
+by these militant persons was, that it should behave as did those
+others recorded of the Roman centurion in Holy Writ: if it did not,
+and difficulties arose, the leaders were not troubled with an undue
+tenderness either towards the individual or the theory. Of this we
+shall see examples as we go on.
+
+This period has been called “The Grand Period of the Moslem Corsairs”
+cause it was in something less than a century, from the year of the
+expulsion of the Moors from Granada in 1492 to the death of Ali Basha
+in 1580, that the Sea-wolves were at the height of their power, that
+the piratical States of the Mediterranean were in the making. That
+subsequently they gave great cause of trouble to Christendom is
+written in characters of blood and fire throughout the history of the
+succeeding centuries; but the real interest in the careers of these
+men resides in the fact that they established, by their extraordinary
+aptitude for sea-adventure, the permanent place which was held by
+their descendants. Time and again in the sixteenth century the effort
+was made to destroy them root and branch: they were defeated, driven
+out of their strongholds on shore, crushed apparently for ever. But
+nothing short of actual extermination could have been successful in
+this; as, no matter how severe had been the set-back, there was always
+left a nucleus of the pirates which in a short time grew again into a
+formidable force. The Ottoman Turk, magnificent fighter as he was on
+land, seemed to lose his great qualities when the venue was changed
+from the land to the sea. The Janissaries, that picked corps trained
+as few soldiers were trained even in that age of iron, who never
+recoiled before the foe but who fought only to conquer or die, seem to
+have failed when embarked for sea-service. That which the hard teaching
+of experience alone could show—that the man who fights best upon the
+sea is he who has the habit of the sea—was at this time not generally
+recognised, and this it was that rendered the corsairs so supreme on
+the element which they had made their own. Some among the great ones of
+the earth there were who appreciated this fact, who, like that great
+statesman Ibrahim, Grand Vizier to Soliman the Magnificent, recognised
+what it was to lay their hands upon “a veritable man of the sea”; but
+the rule was to embark men from the shore and to entrust to them the
+duty of fighting naval actions.
+
+When “the Grand Period” came to an end, as it did about the date
+already indicated, the corsairs had become a permanent institution;
+they remained established at Algiers, Tunis, and other ports on
+the littoral of Northern Africa as a recognised evil. Pirates they
+remained to the end of the chapter, the scourge of the tideless sea;
+but no longer did they array themselves in line of battle against
+the mightiest potentates of the earth allied for their complete
+destruction. It was the men of the sea who set up this empire; it was
+they who defied Charles V., a whole succession of Popes, Andrea Doria
+and his descendants, the might of Spain, Venice, Genoa, Catalonia, and
+France. It was they who taught the so-called civilised world of the age
+in which they lived that sea-power can only be met and checked by those
+who dispose of navies manned by seamen; that against it the master of
+the mightiest legions of the land is powerless.
+
+This contention is by no means invalidated by the fact that frequently
+the corsairs were defeated by land forces embarked on board ship.
+Thus when Dragut was defending Tripoli against an expedition sent
+against him in 1559 by the combined forces of Spain, Tuscany, Rome,
+Naples, Sicily, and Genoa, of one hundred sail which embarked fourteen
+thousand troops, he was relieved by Piali, the Admiral of Soliman
+the Magnificent, who came to his assistance with eighty-six galleys,
+each of which had on board one hundred Janissaries, and who gained
+so striking a victory over the Christians that the Turkish Admiral
+returned to Constantinople with no less than four thousand prisoners.
+But in this case, as in so many others, the actual hostilities took
+place on shore, where the troops had the opportunity of displaying
+their sterling qualities.
+
+There is very little doubt that critics will point out that the
+corsairs were by no means universally successful; that, as in the
+case of the attack by Hassem, the ruler of Algiers in 1563, on Oran
+and Marzaquivir (a small port in the immediate vicinity of Oran), in
+the end the Moslems were badly beaten. This undoubtedly was the case,
+and there is no desire to magnify the deeds of the Sea-wolves or to
+minimise the heroic defence of Marzaquivir by the Count of Alcaudete,
+or that of Oran by his brother, Don Martin de Còrdoba, At the last
+moment of their wonderful defence they were relieved by a fleet sent by
+the King of Spain, and Hassem had to abandon his artillery, ammunition,
+and stores and beat a hasty retreat to the place from whence he had
+come.
+
+There was nothing remarkable in the fact that the corsairs were
+frequently defeated; what is really strange is that they should have
+achieved so great a success—success vouched for by the concrete
+instance that they established those sinister dynasties on the coast of
+Northern Africa which were the outcome of their piratical activities.
+
+In speaking of them, historians of later date than that at which they
+flourished are apt to hold them somewhat cheaply, to dismiss them as
+mere barbarians of no particular importance in the scheme of mundane
+affairs; as men who caused a certain amount of trouble to civilisation
+by their inroads and their plunderings. That which is certain is that
+they were for centuries a standing shame and disgrace to the whole of
+Christendom.
+
+To those who may perhaps be called the pioneers—that is to say, the men
+treated of in this book—a certain amount of sympathy and understanding
+may be conceded; for they had been driven from the land which had
+been theirs, it was their countrymen and their co-religionists who
+were being ground to powder beneath the fanatical cruelty of the
+Spanish Inquisition. That which they did was doubtless abominable,
+but it cannot be contended that they had not received the strongest
+provocation both from the material and the religious points of view.
+
+Once the “Grand Period” was passed, that period in which such men as
+the Barbarossas, Dragut, and Ali flourished, the chronicle of the
+Moslem States founded by them sinks to the degraded level of sheer
+robbery and murder; of a history of a tyranny established within one
+hundred miles of the shores of Europe, and of great kings and princes
+bargaining with piratical ruffians who held in thrall thousands upon
+thousands of their subjects. How it came about that the Christian
+States tolerated such an abuse is one of those mysteries which can
+never be explained; and if subsequent centuries displayed a greater
+refinement of manners, a more apt appreciation of all that is softer
+and kindlier in the human relationships of nation towards nation and
+of people towards people, they have not perhaps so much to plume
+themselves upon as had their rude forefathers of the sixteenth century,
+who, seeing the evil and feeling the effects thereof, did their best to
+extirpate those by whom this evil was caused.
+
+The question may be asked, how can it be that the lives and actions of
+such men as these are worth chronicling? It is because, not only that
+they modified profoundly the course of history in the age in which they
+lived, but also because that, hidden deep down, somewhere, in these men
+stained by a thousand crimes, ruthless, lustful, bloodthirsty, cruel as
+the grave, was the germ of true greatness, some dim spark of the divine
+fire of genius. Contending against principalities and powers, they held
+their own; in the welter of anarchy in which they lived they proved
+that there existed no finer fighting men, which alone give them some
+claim to consideration; but that which is most interesting to watch is
+the absolute domination obtained by the leaders over their followers.
+There is no other record of pirates who commanded on so large a scale;
+there is none which shows men such as these bargaining on equal terms
+with the great ones of the earth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS
+
+
+There is, in the deeds of men of action, an interest which is never
+aroused by those persons of brains and capacity by whom the world
+is really ruled. The statesman in his cabinet is the god within the
+machine; it is he who directs the acts of nations, it is he who moves
+the fleets and armies as if they were pieces on the chess-board; to
+him, as a rule, is the man of action subordinate, obeying his behests.
+Rule and governance are his, power both in the abstract and the
+concrete. Seldom in the history of the world do we come across the men
+who are at one and the same time statesmen and soldiers, who, taking
+their destiny in their own hands, work it out to the appointed end
+thereof. But, as we stray in the by-paths of history, we meet with
+some who, in their day, have influenced not only the age in which they
+lived themselves, but also the destinies of generations yet unborn. It
+would seem incredible that mere pirates, such as the Moslem corsairs
+of the Mediterranean, could be included in this category, and yet, as
+their story is unfolded, we shall see how the Sea-wolves rose from
+the humblest beginnings to trouble the peace of Europe, to found for
+themselves dynasties which endured.
+
+Uruj Barbarossa, Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, Dragut Reis, and Occhiali, or
+All Basha, were men who, in the sixteenth century, did much to change
+the conditions of the times in which they lived: it was the time of
+the Renaissance in Europe, a period of splendour in all the arts and
+sciences. These men added nothing to the knowledge of the civilised
+world as it then existed, save and except in one particular, which
+was, as Kheyr-ed-Din explained to Soliman the Magnificent on a certain
+memorable occasion, that he who rules on the sea will rule on the land
+also. In the present day, when all the nations and languages sit at the
+feet of Captain (now Rear-Admiral) Mahan, and acclaim his “Sea Power”
+series of books, it is interesting to find that he was anticipated
+in the most practical fashion possible by a corsair of the sixteenth
+century.
+
+This period was one in which great men abounded. The Emperor Charles
+V., Francis I. of France, and Henry VIII. of England, were on the
+thrones of their respective countries; in Hungary was John Hunyadi, at
+Constantinople Soliman the Magnificent held rule, while in Rome the
+“fatal house of Medici” were the successors of Saint Peter. War was a
+commonplace state of the times, but until the Crescent began to sweep
+the seas it had its manifestation in the perpetual quarrels of the
+nations of Christendom, which represented, as a rule, the insatiable
+ambitions of its rulers. But now new men forced themselves to the
+front, a new power arose which was very imperfectly understood, and
+which practically held the sea at its mercy. Gone were the halcyon
+days of peaceful trade which had been pursued for generations by
+Venetian and Genoese, by Spaniard and Frenchman; gone also, apparently
+never to return, was all sense of security for the wretched dwellers on
+the littoral of the Mediterranean, who lived in daily, and particularly
+in nightly, dread of the falcon swoop of the pirate galleys.
+
+It is amusing to read the old chroniclers, sticklers as they were for
+“the dignity of history,” continually having to turn aside from the
+main stream of their narrative of emperors, popes, and kings to descend
+to the level of the Sea-wolves, and to be constrained to set down the
+nefarious doings of these rovers of the sea. Bell, book, and candle
+were invoked against them in vain, and mighty monarchs had to meet them
+in the stricken field not merely once or twice—to their utter undoing
+and discomfiture—but many times, while victory inclined first to one
+side and then to the other.
+
+The Osmanli had ever been warriors since the times of the Prophet, of
+Abu-Bekr, of Othman, and of Ali; but so far their warlike achievements
+had been always on land, their only sea experience being confined to
+the crossing of the Straits of Gibraltar, when in the eighth century,
+under Tarik, they had swarmed into Andalusia, conquered Roderick the
+Goth, and set up that Moslem domination in Southern Spain which lasted
+until 1492, just before the events set forth in this book took place.
+Piracy in all ages is a thing in which a curious shuddering interest
+has been taken, and the deeds of the outlaws of the sea have never
+lacked chroniclers. There is for this a reason apart from the record
+of robbery and murder, which is the commonplace of piratical deeds:
+it resides in the perennial interest which men take in individual
+achievement, in the spectacle of absolute and complete domination by
+one man over the lives and the fortunes of others. This intense form of
+individualism is nowhere so well exhibited as in the story of piratical
+enterprise, where a band of men, outside of the law and divorced from
+all human kind by the atrocity of their deeds, has had to be welded
+into one homogeneous mass for the purpose of preying upon the world
+at large. Therefore he who would hold rule among such outlaws must
+himself be a man of no common description, for in him must be that
+quality which calls for instantaneous obedience among those with whom
+he is associated; behind him is no constituted authority, discipline is
+personal, enforced by the leader, and by him alone. Beneath him are men
+of the rudest and roughest description, slaves to their lusts and their
+passions, prone to mutiny, suspicious, and—worst of all—stupid.
+
+It is with these constituent elements that the piratical leader had to
+deal, trusting to the strength of his own arm, the subtlety of his own
+unassisted brain. Some among these leaders have risen to eminence in
+their evil lives, most of them have been the captains of single ships
+preying on commerce in an indiscriminate manner; but this was not the
+case with the Sea-wolves of the Mediterranean, Primarily sea-robbers
+they were of course, but as time and opportunity developed their
+characters they rose to meet occasion, to take fortune at the flood, in
+a manner that, had they been pursuing any other career, would most
+certainly have caused them to rise to eminence. Into the fierce and
+blood-stained turmoil of their lives there entered something unknown
+to any other pirates: this was religious fanaticism—a fanaticism so
+engrained in character, a belief held to with such passionate tenacity,
+that men stained with every conceivable crime held that their passage
+to Paradise was absolutely secure because of the faith which they
+professed. Tradition, sentiment, discipline, were summed up in one
+trite formula; but though we, at this distance of time, may hold it
+somewhat in derision, it was a vital force in the days of Soliman the
+Magnificent; and there was an added zest to robbery and murder in the
+fact that the pirates, as good Mohammedans, were obeying the behests of
+the Prophet every time that they cut a Christian throat, plundered a
+Christian argosy, or carried off shrieking women into a captivity far
+worse than death.
+
+That a pirate should be a warrior goes without saying, that a pirate
+should be a statesman is a thing almost incredible; but those who
+will read the story of the life of Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa will be
+forced to admit that here, at least, was a pirate who achieved the
+apparently impossible. Admiral Jurien de la Gravière has remarked that
+the Moslem corsairs of the sixteenth century were great men, even when
+measured by the standard of Henry VIII., of Charles V., of Soliman the
+Magnificent, of Ibrahim, his Grand Vizier, or of Andrea Doria, greatest
+among contemporary Christian mariners. To the seaman, of course, there
+is much that is fascinating in the deeds of his forerunners, and
+the ships of the corsairs had in them something distinctive in that
+they were propelled by oars, and were in consequence, to a certain
+extent, independent of the weather. Like the sailors of all ages, to
+the Sea-wolves gales and storms of all sorts and descriptions were
+abhorrent; and in consequence they had a well-marked piracy season,
+which, as we shall see, covered the spring and summer, while they
+carefully avoided the inclement months of autumn and winter.
+
+In a later chapter an attempt has been made to place before the reader
+pictures of the galley, the galeasse, and the nef, which were the names
+attached to the ships then in use; the name brigantine, far from having
+the significance attached to it by the sailor of the present day, seems
+to have been a generic term to denote any craft not included in the
+names already given.
+
+Although the sixteenth century had outgrown the principle of the
+general massacre of the enemy by the victors, still chivalry to the
+fallen foe was far to seek, as all persons captured at sea were, no
+matter what their rank and status, immediately stripped and chained to
+the rowers’ bench, where they remained until ransom, good fortune, or
+a kindly death, for which these unfortunates were wont to pray, should
+come to their release. To a large extent this savagery may be traced
+to the religious rancour which animated the combatants on both sides,
+as the fanaticism of the Moslem, of which we have already spoken, was
+fully matched on the side of the Christians by the bigotry of the
+Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem, otherwise known as the Knights of
+Malta, who were vowed to the extermination of what they, on their
+side, called “the infidel.” It was an age of iron, when men neither
+gave nor expected grace for the misfortunes which might befall them in
+the warrior life which they led. It was distinguished by many gallant
+feats of arms on both sides, but pity formed no part of the equipment
+of the fighting man bent on the death or capture of his enemy. Honestly
+and sincerely each side believed that they were doing the service of
+the Almighty in destroying the other party root and branch. The amount
+of human misery and suffering caused by the rise and progress of the
+Moslem corsairs was absolutely incalculable; the slavery of the rower
+in the galley in the time of which we speak was an agony so dreadful
+that in these days it is a thing which seems altogether incredible, a
+nightmare of horror almost impossible even to imagine.
+
+The life of the “gallerian” was so hard that his sufferings in many
+cases were mercifully ended in death in a very short time, as none
+save those of iron constitution could stand the strain imposed by the
+desperate toil and wretched food. Yet there are cases on record of men
+who had worked at the oar for actual decades, so unconquerable in their
+strength that even such a life as this had not the power to break them
+down.
+
+To the peaceful mariner who wished merely to trade, to the individual
+whose business called him overseas, this epoch must have been one of
+terror unspeakable. The ordinary perils of the deep were quite enough
+to keep timid folk at home in those days of clumsy, ill-found sailing
+ships, which could by no means work to windward, and did not sail
+remarkably well even with the most favouring breezes; when to this we
+add that every ship which started on a voyage in the Mediterranean had
+before her the chance of being captured by the corsairs, it was no
+wonder that he whose business led him oversea should make his last will
+and testament and bid a fond farewell to all his relatives.
+
+There is a record in the Mémoires of the Rev. Frère Pierre d’An,
+Bachelier en Théologie de la Faculté de Paris, etc., who wrote in a
+most heartfelt manner concerning the danger of the sea and the perils
+to be expected from the Barbary corsairs. He says, date 1637:
+
+  “An ancient writer, considering how little assurance
+  can ordinarily be placed in the sea, and how hazardous
+  it is to expose oneself and one’s goods to its mercy,
+  has remarked, with much reason, that it is infinitely
+  preferable to be poor on shore than to be rich at sea.
+  In which saying he mocks indeed at those ambitious,
+  avaricious, and mercenary men who, in order to gain false
+  glory and the things of this world, expose themselves
+  rashly to the manifest perils which are most of the time
+  the inevitable lot of the seaman. This same consideration
+  causes him also to utter these remarkable words: that
+  he repents himself of but one thing, and that is ever
+  to have travelled by sea when it was possible to have
+  done so by land. And, to say truth, he has good reason
+  to speak as he does, because it is impossible for the
+  most hardy navigators not to tremble with fear when it is
+  represented before their eyes that they must combat with
+  the winds, the waves, and the foam every time that they
+  adventure upon the deep.
+
+  “Because it is indisputable that this is the very Theatre
+  of the storms, and the place in the world most capable
+  of all sorts of violence and tragic adventure. This,
+  however, does not prevent those who covet the perishable
+  goods of this world from straying upon the sea, even in
+  unknown and untraversed regions, without ceasing and
+  without rest.
+
+  “If, however, they abandon the ocean for a time, it is
+  but to return to it again to seek once more war with
+  their ships, in order unjustly to make themselves masters
+  of the bodies and of the riches of others.
+
+  “Of such it may be remarked to-day are, in all the
+  maritime coasts, the implacable Corsairs of Barbary. For,
+  however great may be the dangers of which we have just
+  spoken, and no matter now many examples they may see of
+  the fury and inconstancy of Neptune, they cease not their
+  irritating performances, kindling warfare in all the
+  coasts of the Christian nations. It is there that they
+  exercise their infamous piracies, and there also that
+  they glory in the most shameful of all commerce—the trade
+  of the brigand.
+
+  “Which in all towns that are well policed have always met
+  with a swift and just retribution, because the law is
+  ordained against those who maintain such practices.
+
+  “But such does not happen among these pirates.
+
+  “On the contrary, it may truthfully be said that, while
+  in towns in which good persons dwell good actions receive
+  the palms and the crown, it is among the Corsairs but to
+  the wicked to whom are given recompense and praise.
+
+  “In effect the most determined among them—I mean the most
+  unworthy robbers who are best versed in all the infamies
+  of their trade and most accustomed to the practice of
+  violence—are those who are covered with honours, and
+  who pass in the estimation of their fellows for men of
+  heart and courage.
+
+  “Indeed experience has taught all Christian merchants
+  that the infidels of the coast of Barbary are all
+  brigands.
+
+  “Among these those of Algiers carry off the prize for
+  riches, for ships, for strength, and for villainy.”
+
+The bachelor in theology is somewhat sweeping in his criticisms, and
+his meaning is, perhaps, somewhat clearer than his grammar. One thing,
+however, is perfectly plain, that, in the opinion of the reverend
+brother, those who go to sea are to be divided into two categories,
+rogues and fools, with a strong preponderance of the worse Element of
+the two.
+
+Of the corsairs dealt with in this record of their deeds the two
+Barbarossas were the sons of a Mohammedan father and a Christian
+mother. Dragut Reis was a pure Mohammedan, and Ali Basha was a
+pure-blooded Italian. All these men, as will be seen, raised themselves
+to eminence in the profession of piracy; in each and every separate
+case starting at the very bottom rung of the ladder and rising, by
+sheer stress of valour and character, to the very top. Each in turn
+became Admiralissimo to the Grand Turk at Constantinople. Kheyr-ed-Din
+Barbarossa commanded the Ottoman fleet at the great battle of Prevesa,
+at which he met with his life-long competitor at sea, the famous
+Genoese Admiral, Andrea Doria. Dragut Reis was killed at the siege
+of Malta in 1565, and Ali Basha was the only Moslem commander who
+increased his reputation at the battle of Lepanto in 1571, when Don
+John of Austria shattered the power of the Moslem at sea for the time
+being.
+
+Although the “renegado” was very much in evidence in the vessels of
+the Moslem corsairs, still of course the bulk of the fighting men, by
+which the galleys were manned, were Mohammedans, the descendants of the
+warriors who had swept through Northern Africa like a living flame in
+the early days of the Mohammedan conquest.
+
+Cut adrift from the homes which had been theirs for over seven
+centuries—as we shall see in the next chapter—there was nothing left
+for the erstwhile dwellers in Andalusia but to gain their living by the
+strong hand. The harvest of the sea was the one which they garnered—a
+harvest of the goods of their mortal enemies strung out in lines of
+hapless merchant-vessels throughout the length and breadth of the
+tideless sea.
+
+It booted not that the great Powers of Europe sent expedition after
+expedition against them; these they fought to the death with varying
+fortune, ready, when the storm had passed over their heads, to start
+once more on the only career which promised them the chance of
+acquiring riches. Their whole history is a study of warfare, waged as a
+rule on the petty scale, but rising at times, as in the cases already
+mentioned, into events of first-class historical importance.
+
+The deeds of the buccaneers of the next century in the Spanish Main
+sink into comparative insignificance when compared with what was
+accomplished by such a man as Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, who was known,
+and rightly known, by his contemporaries, and for many generations
+of Moslem seamen yet to come, as “the King of the Sea.” The capture of
+Panama by Sir Henry Morgan in January 1671 was possibly as remarkable
+a feat of arms as was ever accomplished, but it cannot rank in its
+importance to civilised mankind on the same plane as those memorable
+battles in the Mediterranean of which mention has been made as having
+been fought by the Moslem corsairs.
+
+Fighting for their own hand, the booty reaped by these men was
+incredible in its richness. Sea-power was theirs, and they took the
+fullest advantage of this fact, fearing none save the great community
+of the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem, which, vowed to the
+destruction of the infidel, neither gave nor accepted quarter.
+
+We have said that the real interest in the lives of the corsairs arose
+from the fact that it was personal ascendancy, and that alone, which
+counted in the piratical hierarchy. Against Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa
+plots arose again and again, only to be defeated by the address of the
+man against whom they were directed.
+
+It was one of the cruellest of ages, and rough cruelty was the
+principal means adopted to ensure success; sheer terror was the weapon
+of the leader. Thus when one Hassan, a subordinate of Kheyr-ed-Din,
+failed to take a Spanish ship because she made too stout a resistance,
+his chief caused him to be soundly flogged and then thrown into prison.
+Such methods naturally raised up hosts of enemies in the wake of the
+piratical commanders, ready at any time to do them a mortal injury, and
+it is little short of miraculous that they should throughout a long
+period of years have been able not only to maintain, but to increase,
+their supremacy over the wild spirits of which their following was
+composed. It was, however, the golden age of autocracy, when men
+surrendered their judgment to some great leader, content to follow
+where he led, to endorse his policy at the cost of their lives.
+
+It is the autocrat who is made by the circumstances of his life who
+ultimately becomes supreme. The leaders among the corsairs were tried
+by every test of prosperity and of adverse fortune; they emerged from
+the ruck in the first instance because it was in them to display a more
+desperate valour than did their contemporaries, and it was only when
+they emerged triumphant from this, the first test, that they could
+begin to impose their will upon others. It was then that their real
+trials began, as the undisciplined are ever prone to suspicion, much
+given to murmuring against a leader who is not perpetually successful.
+
+As a rule, however, there were but few to criticise, as the office of
+critic was one fraught with far too much danger to be alluring. In
+maintaining their authority the leaders stopped at nothing, and the
+heads of the recalcitrant were apt to part with amazing suddenness from
+their bodies if they repined overmuch. The Moslem leader was, it is
+true, merely _primus inter pares_, and was distinguished by no outward
+symbol of the power which he possessed; but life and death lay in his
+hands, and life was cheap indeed.
+
+We have spoken hitherto of the leaders, but what of the men of which
+their following was composed? Rough, rude, and reckless, these latter
+lived but to fight and to plunder; to them any other life would have
+seemed impossible, and indeed this was practically the fact. In the
+communities in which they lived the adult male had no other means of
+gaining a livelihood. Since their expulsion from their ancient homes no
+ordered and peaceful method of existence had been possible for them.
+In the surroundings in which their forefathers had lived the arts of
+peace had been carried on in a civilisation to which there had been
+none comparable in the world as it then existed; on all this the Moslem
+had now to turn his back, and to earn a precarious living by the strong
+hand. War, sanguinary and incessant, was henceforward to be his lot,
+and it must be said that he turned to this ancient avocation with a
+zest which left but little to be desired from the point of view of
+those by whom he was led. In the new life of bloodshed and adventure he
+seemed to delight. Like the free-lance in all ages, he seems to have
+squandered his booty as soon as it was acquired, and then to sea once
+more, to face the desperate hazard of an encounter with the knights, to
+raid defenceless villages, to lie _perdu_ behind some convenient cape,
+dashing out from thence to plunder the argosy of the merchantman.
+Intolerable conditions of heat and cold he endured, he suffered from
+wounds, from fever, from hunger and thirst, from hope deferred, from
+voyages when no plunder came his way.
+
+His reward was the joy of the fight, the delight of the ambush
+skilfully laid, to see the decks of the enemy a dreadful shambles, with
+the Crescent flag of the Prophet above the detested emblem of the
+Cross. Then the return to Algiers laden with spoil: to tow behind him
+some luckless Christian ship, while aboard his own war-worn galley the
+drums beat and the trumpets sounded, and the banners floated free to
+the stainless Mediterranean sky. Then the procession of the captives
+through the crowded streets laden with what a short time before
+had been their own property—a mournful _cortège_ of men doomed to an
+everlasting slavery and of women destined for the harems of the Bashas.
+
+Thus was his life lived, and when death came it came as a rule from the
+slash of a sabre or the ball from an arquebus or a bombard; and then
+what matter, for had not Hassan Ali or Selim fallen in strife against
+the enemies of his faith, and did not the portals of heaven open wide
+to receive the man who had lost his life testifying to the fact that
+there was but one God, and that Mahomet was the Prophet of God?
+
+True in substance and in fact is that which was said by the Frère
+Pierre d’An that “it is indisputable that the sea is the Theatre of
+the storms and the place in the world most capable of all sorts of
+violence and tragic adventure.” Those who “coveted the goods of others
+straying on the sea,” called by the reverend brother “the implacable,
+corsairs of Barbary,” were to make life intolerable on that element for
+centuries to come, and if the Crescent did not supersede the banner of
+the Cross in the blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea, it remained as a
+portent and a dread symbol of human misery and unutterable suffering.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE COMING OF THE CORSAIRS
+
+
+The rise and progress of the Moslem corsairs of the Mediterranean is a
+most curious and interesting historical fact. The causes which led to
+results so deplorable to commerce, civilisation, and Christianity are
+set forth in this chapter in order that some idea may be formed of the
+state of affairs in that region at the end of the fifteenth and the
+beginning of the sixteenth centuries, and also that the reflex action
+of the great triumph of the Christian armies in Spain may be more fully
+understood.
+
+The maritime Christian States of the Mediterranean at this epoch
+were at the height of their power and prosperity, but were faced by
+the might of the Ottoman Empire, against which they waged perpetual
+warfare. Bitter and unceasing was the strife prosecuted by the Cross
+against the Crescent, and by the Crescent against the Cross; and
+riding, like eagles on the storm came the corsairs in their swift
+galleys ready to strike down the luckless argosy of the merchantman
+wheresoever she was to be met. But this was not all, as the shore as
+well as the sea yielded up to them its tribute in the shape of slaves
+and booty, and Christian mothers trembling in the insecurity of their
+homes would hush their wailing children with the terror of the names
+of Barbarossa, of Dragut, or of Ali Basha.
+
+Popes and emperors, kings and princes, found themselves compelled to
+form leagues against these Sea-wolves who devoured the substance of
+their subjects, and great expeditions were fitted out to fight with and
+destroy the corsairs. Had Christendom been united no doubt the object
+would have been attained; but, as will be seen at the end of this
+chapter, an “Alliance of Christian Princes against the Turks”—which
+generic term included the corsairs—was not always used in the manner
+best calculated to injure those common enemies.
+
+When in 1492 Granada was yielded up to “Los Reyes Catolicos,” Ferdinand
+of Aragon, and Isabella of Castile, by that luckless monarch known as
+Boabdil el Chico (or “the little”), the last remnant of the power of
+the Moors in Spain had gone never to return. On that small hill on the
+way to the coast still known as “el ultimo suspiro del Moro” (the last
+sigh of the Moor), Boabdil, as he looked for the last time on his lost
+capital of Granada, is said to have burst into tears. His fierce mother
+Ayesha had, however, no sympathy for her fallen son: “Thou doest well
+to weep like a woman for that which thou daredst not defend as a man,”
+was her biting—and totally unjust—comment, and the cavalcade pursued
+its miserable journey to the coast, from whence it embarked for the
+kingdom of Fez.
+
+Great was the jubilation in Christendom; for more than seven centuries
+the followers of the Prophet had dwelt in the land from which Tarik
+had expelled Roderick the Goth in the eighth century. There they had
+dwelt and held up a lamp of learning and comparative civilisation which
+shone brightly through the miasmatic mists of cruelty and bloodshed
+in the Middle Ages, and none can question that, under Moorish rule
+in Spain in those centuries, the arts of peace had flourished, and
+that science, agriculture, art, and learning had found generous and
+discriminating patronage in the courts of Còrdoba and Granada.
+
+And now all was over the iron chivalry of the North had broken in
+pieces the Paynim hosts. They were expelled for ever from Christian
+soil, or else were forced to live in a state of degrading servitude,
+sore oppressed by an alien rule, in the land which their forbears had
+won and kept by the sword.
+
+There was jubilation, as has been said, in Christendom, but the knights
+and nobles who flocked from all parts of Europe to join the standard of
+the Catholic monarchs had no prevision of the consequences, no idea of
+the legacy that they were leaving to their descendants.
+
+It is of this legacy that we have to speak, and there has been none
+more terrible, none fraught with more awful suffering for the human
+race. The broken hosts of the Moslem chivalry became the corsairs of
+the Mediterranean: ruthless pirates freed from all restraint of human
+pity, living only to inflict the maximum of suffering upon their
+Christian foes, who, having sown the wind at the taking of Granada,
+reaped in the coming centuries a whirlwind of blood and agony which
+continued down to the bombardment of Algiers by Lord Exmouth in 1816,
+and even later than that date.
+
+Warriors to a man, the hosts of Boabdil crossed the Straits of
+Gibraltar into Africa; warriors but now broken men, from whom had been
+reft not only their lands and houses but even the chance of remaining
+in their native country. Religious toleration had been the rule of
+the Moslem States in Spain. In the name of religion they had been
+expropriated; therefore toleration was slain, and to exalt the Crescent
+above the Cross became the duty of every fighting Mohammedan. Into
+all the ports and harbours of the North African littoral the Moslems
+intruded themselves, their one preoccupation to revenge themselves upon
+the Christians, of no matter what race or nationality. There was at
+this date but small opposition from the rulers of the Pagan States who
+held in their weak and inefficient hands such strong places of arms as
+Algiers and Tunis.
+
+Very soon the Moslems acquired the habit of the sea, and very soon the
+Christian States discovered how different was the Mohammedan dwelling
+at peace in Andalusia, or at worst fighting with his co-religionists,
+to the desperate corsairs created by their own act who now ravaged the
+shores of the tideless sea.
+
+In the years succeeding to the conquest of Granada the corsairs became
+the scourge of the Mediterranean. France, Spain, Genoa, Venice, were
+all at odds with them; as the trading vessels, which had hitherto
+passed to and fro unmolested, were now captured, haled into North
+African ports, their cargoes sold, and their hapless crews forced to
+labour, naked and chained to the benches of the pirate galleys, until
+death came and mercifully put an end to their sufferings.
+
+From Reggio to Genoa, from Venice to Taranto, the cry of rage and
+fear went up; it was re-echoed from the coasts of France and of the
+Balearic Islands, while Southern Spain seethed with disaffection, and
+the Moriscoes, as those Moors who remained in the country were known,
+were ever on the lookout to assist their bold brethren, the rovers of
+the sea. Christendom was completely bewildered: hitherto the relations
+between the nations and the Kings of Tunis, Tlemcen, Fez, and others
+of the North African potentates, had been of the most agreeable
+description. Both parties had denounced piracy, and had as far as in
+them lay done all in their power to discourage this form of robbery.
+But now all was changed, and, as has been said in the previous chapter,
+a situation arose analogous to that of the Spaniards in the West Indies
+a century and a half later when Morgan and the buccaneers were at the
+height of their maleficent prowess. The situation was analogous, but
+whereas Morgan, Scott, L’Ollonais, and others terrorised only such
+forces as Spain possessed in far-distant colonies, the corsairs were a
+terror to all the great nations of the world.
+
+Granada fell, as has been said, in 1492 amid the rejoicings of the
+Christian States; but it had been well for Christendom as a whole if
+the Caliphs of Còrdova and Granada had never been defeated, and they
+and their subjects driven from their homes: to form the nucleus of
+those piratical States which existed from this date until well into the
+nineteenth century, as the scourge and the terror of all those who,
+during those ages, desired to “pass upon the seas on their lawful
+occasions.” The capture of Granada was separated from the fall of the
+Byzantine Empire by a period of thirty-nine years, as it was in the
+year 1453 that Constantinople was captured by the Caliph Mahomet II.
+Byzantium fell, and perhaps nothing in the records of that Empire
+became it so well as that last tremendous struggle; and when on May
+29th, 1453, the Ottoman legions were victorious, the body of the last
+Emperor of Byzantium was found beneath a mountain of the slain only
+recognisable by his purple mantle sewn with golden bees. The Cross
+which Constantine the Great had planted on the walls 1125 years before
+was replaced by the Crescent, and the Christian Cathedral became that
+Mosque of St. Sophia which still endures.
+
+From the earliest days of the Moslem corsairs of the Mediterranean they
+were in close communication with their co-religionists of the Ottoman
+Empire; and this for a very good reason, which was that the Turk had
+not the habit of the sea, but was essentially a land warrior, and, as
+the story of the Sea-wolves progresses, we shall see how in a sense the
+Grand Turk and the pirates became interdependent in the ceaseless wars
+which were waged in the epoch of which we treat.
+
+The fall of Constantinople resounded throughout Christendom as though
+it had been the crack of doom, and all men held their breath wondering
+what next might portend. So stunned were the maritime States that
+they took no action, letting “I dare not wait upon I would.” Their
+indecision was fatal. Had the Venetians, the Genoese, and the Catalans
+at this juncture formed an alliance, they might have chased the
+Turks from off the face of the waters; but to mutual jealousy and
+indecision was added fear—fear of this new and mighty power which had
+arisen and had swept away one of the landmarks of Europe. So it fell
+out that Genoa entered into an arrangement with the Grand Turk, and
+Venice concluded a treaty of commerce on April 18th, 1454. It was the
+Caliph Mahomet who first fortified the Dardanelles, where he mounted
+thirty heavy guns before which Jacques Loredano, the Venetian admiral,
+recoiled, reporting to the Republic that henceforward none could pass
+the Straits. We have, however, nothing to do with the Grand Turk in
+these pages, save, and except in so far, as he had an effect on the
+lives of the corsairs. This effect will develop itself as we proceed.
+
+There is one body of men, however, concerning whom it may be as well
+to treat of briefly in this place, as the lives which they led and
+the deeds which they performed were inextricably entangled with those
+of the corsairs. These men were the members of that association first
+known as the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem, later as the Knights
+of Malta. Between them and the corsairs it was war to the death; and
+not only with these robbers, but also with any ship which sailed
+beneath the insignia of the Crescent.
+
+In 1291 the Soldan of Egypt chased the Knights Hospitallers, as they
+were also known, from the soil of the Holy Land; Philip IV. of France
+welcomed them in the island of Cyprus, and gave them the town of
+Limasol as an asylum. This for the time the knights were bound to
+accept, but they were impatient of charity, resentful of tutelage,
+proud and independent. Considering their own order as the greatest and
+most stable bulwark of the Christian faith, they bowed before neither
+King nor Kaiser; and the only boon they asked of great potentates, when
+allied temporarily with them in their eternal warfare, was that on all
+occasions theirs should be the post of the greatest danger.
+
+This, indeed, they did not ask as a favour, but claimed as a right. It
+is easily understood that such desperate warriors, who fought only to
+conquer or die, were allies sought for eagerly by all professing the
+same faith.
+
+Fulke de Villaret, Grand Master of the order in 1310, seized upon
+Rhodes, which, though nominally belonging to Greece, was at this time
+a refuge for bad characters of all nationalities. This island was in
+the most advantageous position, as it commanded the sea-route from
+Constantinople to Egypt and the ports of Asia Minor, and was also
+in close proximity to the coast of Caramania, from whence the order
+could draw the necessary timber for the building of their galleys and
+incidentally their motive power—in the shape of slaves—for the oars by
+which they were propelled.
+
+The knights fortified the island until it was practically unassailable
+in that age. In the meanwhile their navy grew so rapidly that, in
+1436, they were actually in a position to fight the Turks in line of
+battle. To Rhodes came the younger sons of noble families from every
+nation in Europe, all aflame with ardour to fight for “the religion”;
+and the great nobles themselves did not disdain to take service in so
+chivalrous an order.
+
+Their former enemy, the Soldan of Egypt, made a descent on the island
+in 1440, and in 1444 besieged the place in form; but he was beaten off,
+after forty-two days’ ceaseless fighting, with great slaughter.
+
+“Soldier and sailor too” were the bold Knights of Saint John; for them
+no toil was too arduous, no danger too great. In heat and cold, in
+storm and tempest, they plied their trade of war, their holy crusade
+to extirpate the infidel from off the face of the waters. They looked
+for no material reward, and riches and honours they contemptuously
+rejected. Strong in their marvellous faith that on their shoulders
+rested the propagation of Christianity in these latter days, they
+swept the seas with a calm assumption of victory which caused it to be
+half assured before the fight began. And when the battle was joined,
+where could be found such paladins as these men who claimed it as an
+inalienable right to head the hurricane rush of the boarders from the
+decks of their galleys, to be ever the leaders when the forlorn hope
+should mount the breach? Life for the knights of this order was looked
+at literally with a single purpose—the advancement of Christianity and
+the downfall of that pestilent heresy which proclaimed that Mahomet
+was the prophet of God. Against all who bowed the knee in the mosques
+of the false prophet their lives were vowed, and it is but the barest
+justice to them to record that on the altar of this their faith these
+were ungrudgingly poured forth.
+
+Naturally reprisals were the order of the day. Equally fanatical was he
+who held to the Moslem faith; in consequence many were the attempts
+to stamp out, once and for all, the prime enemies of the Ottoman
+Empire. In 1480 a Turkish fleet of one hundred and forty ships issued
+from the Dardanelles, an army awaited it on the coast of Caramania
+which was rapidly embarked, and on May 23rd the fleet anchored a few
+miles from the town of Rhodes. Here, then, was a trial of strength in
+which the Hospitallers delighted. After repeated attacks in detail, on
+July 28th a grand assault was made which the Turks considered would be
+absolutely decisive: it was decisive, but not in the fashion which they
+anticipated.
+
+The standard of the Janissaries already floated on the first curtain
+of the rampart when Pierre D’Aubusson rallied the knights for one last
+desperate effort. “Shall it be said in days to come that ‘the Religion’
+recoiled before a horde of Moslem savages; that the banner of Saint
+John was soiled by their infamous touch? But this is no time for talk.
+Ye have swords, Messires; use them!”
+
+Thus the Grand Master; and then the knights, in their battered armour
+and with their hacked and dinted swords, flung themselves once more
+upon the foe. The Janissaries closed in around them; but these fine
+troops were not what they had been two months before, and the close
+contact with the Hospitallers, which had endured sixty-five days,
+had been to them a lesson fraught with disaster: they had already
+lost six thousand men, and their adversaries were still absolutely
+undismayed. His helmet gone, his banner held aloft over his head,
+Pierre D’Aubusson was ever in the thickest of the fray unconquered,
+unconquerable; and pressing close behind him came the knights, each
+jealous for the glory of his “Auberge.” French, Venetian, Catalan,
+Genoese German, none can tell who fought best that day; but the
+Janissaries were beaten, and three thousand of their corpses cumbered
+the ditch into which they were hurled by their foes; there were besides
+fifteen thousand wounded in the Turkish camp.
+
+The heart was out of that great army which had embarked to the sound
+of trumpets and the blessings of the Mullahs but ten weeks before,
+and they sailed away a beaten force. Mahomet II. swore to avenge his
+defeat, but his days were numbered, and he died at Scutari on May 3rd,
+1481, at the age of fifty-two, and in the thirteenth year of his reign.
+
+In the year 1499 Daoud Pasha, Admiralissimo to Bajazet, the successor
+to Mahomet II., defeated Antonio Grimani the Venetian admiral in
+that combat known to the Republic as “La deplorabile battaglia del
+Zonchio.” The populace of Venice demanded that Grimani should be
+instantly beheaded, but he not only escaped their vengeance but lived
+to be nominated as Doge on June 6th, 1521, at the age of eighty-seven:
+certainly a curious record for an unsuccessful admiral of that date.
+
+In 1500 was formed the “Alliance of Christian Princes” at the
+initiative of the Borgia Pope Alexander VII. Louis XII., King of
+France, and Ferdinand V. of Spain announced their adherence to this
+effort against the Turk, and Pierre D’Aubusson, the veteran Grand
+Master of the Knights of Saint John, was nominated as Captain-General
+of the Christian armies. For the purposes of this war the admiral
+of the Papal galleys in the Mediterranean, Lodovico del Mosca,
+purchased from Ferdinand, King of Naples, all his artillery, of which
+a description is given by the Padre Alberto Guglielmotti, a Dominican
+friar, author of a work entitled, “La Guerra dei Pirati e la Marina
+Pontifica dal 1500 al 1560 A.D.” “There were thirty-six great bombards,
+with eighty carts pertaining to them; some drawn by horses, some drawn
+by buffaloes harnessed singly, or two, four, or even six together; two
+waggons laden with arquebuses for ships’ boats; nine with about forty
+smaller bombards (_bombardelles_) placed three, four, or even six on
+each waggon; twelve with ordinary pieces of artillery; as many more
+for the service of twelve big guns; thirty-seven carts of iron balls;
+three with gunpowder; and finally five laden with nitre, darts, and
+bullets. Splendid artillery of most excellent workmanship and great
+power escorted by two thousand men under arms, without mentioning the
+companies who marched before and after each waggon.”
+
+The French king had prepared a fleet and army under Count Philip
+of Ravenstein; the Spaniards were under the command of Gonsalvo de
+Còrdoba, the “Great Captain.” The history of the “Alliance of Christian
+Princes” is illustrative of the methods of those potentates at that
+time. After one or two unimportant skirmishes with the Turks, in which
+no great harm was done on either side, the French and Spaniards joined
+together, and seized the Kingdom of Naples: the prudent king of this
+territory, having sold his artillery to Lodovico del Mosca, did not
+await the coming of his Christian brethren.
+
+In the territory known to the Romans as Byzacena, which stretched
+from Algiers to the confines of Tripoli, there was reigning at this
+period one Abu-Abd-Allah-Mahomed, a Berber Moslem of the dynasty of
+Hafsit. Between this dignitary and Genoa a treaty of commerce had been
+arranged and signed. But treaties on the shores of the Mediterranean
+were capable of very elastic interpretation; they never reckoned
+with the corsairs, and these latter were in the habit of intruding
+themselves everywhere, and upsetting the most carefully laid plans.
+Curtogali, a corsair who had collected a great following, was now a
+power with which to reckon, and high in the favour of the Grand Turk
+at Constantinople. This robber presented himself at Bizerta—one of
+the ports of Abd-Allah-Mahomed—with a squadron of thirty ships, and
+demanded hospitality. As Curtogali disposed of thirty ships and some
+six thousand fighting men it would probably have been impossible for
+Abd-Allah to have refused his request in any case; but he was far from
+wishing to do so, as, by a convenient interpretation of the Koran, the
+pirate had to deliver up one-fifth part of all the booty which he reft
+from the Christians to the ruler of the country in whose harbours he
+sheltered. There was no place so convenient for the purposes of the
+pirate as Bizerta: from here he could strike at Sicily, at the Balearic
+Islands, at Rome, Naples, Tuscany, and Liguria, while at the same
+time he held the trade slowly sailing along the North African littoral
+at his mercy. Great were the depredations of Curtogali, and even Pope
+Leo X. trembled on his throne, while Genoa, Venice, and Sicily seethed
+with impotent fury.
+
+In the meanwhile who so happy as Abu-Abd-Allah-Mahomed? We cannot do
+better than to take the description of his position from the pages of
+the good Padre Alberto Guglielmotti. The Franciscan says: “He [that is,
+Abd-Allah] desired peace with all and prosperity for his own interests.
+Friendly to the merchants in their commerce; friendly to the corsairs
+in their spoils. Let all hold by the law: the former contentedly paying
+customs dues, the latter cheerfully handing over a fifth part of their
+robberies, and Abd-Allah—their common friend—would ever continue at
+peace with them all. Outside his ports the merchants and the pirates
+might fall by the ears if they would: that was no reason for him to
+trouble his head. On the contrary, he would joyfully await them on
+their return either with customs dues or tribute of the fifth as the
+case might be.”
+
+However well this state of affairs may have suited Abd-Allah, the
+Genoese held that the situation was far from satisfactory. In
+consequence they sent an army against Curtogali, and on August 4th,
+1516, they captured Bizerta, set free a number of Christian captives,
+and plundered the town. But they did not capture Curtogali, who,
+only five weeks after, made a daring attempt to carry off the Pope
+in person from the sea-shore in the neighbourhood of Rome. Curtogali
+ended his days as the Governor of Rhodes, from which the Knights
+of Saint John were finally expelled by Soliman the Magnificent on
+December 22nd, 1522. This was the greatest blow which the fraternity
+ever received. On December 24th the Turks made a triumphal entry into
+the town, and it was said that “Sultan Soliman was not insensible to
+the sorrowful position of his vanquished enemies, and when he saw the
+Christian Commander, Prince Philippe Villiers L’Isle Adam, he remarked:
+‘It weighs upon me somewhat that I should be coming hither to chase
+this aged Christian warrior from his house.’” At the beginning of the
+following year the knights left the island, never to return. On the
+day of this desolate embarcation the herald blew upon his trumpet the
+“Salute and Farewell” and the identical instrument upon which this call
+was sounded is still preserved in the armoury at Malta, to which barren
+island the knights were forced to retreat.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+URUJ BARBAROSSA
+
+
+In the year 1457 an obscure Roumelian or Albanian renegado named
+Mahomedi was banished from Constantinople by the Grand Turk; he
+established himself in the island of Mitylene and there married a
+Christian widow named Catalina, by whom he had two sons, Uruj and
+Khizr. The father had been a sailor and both sons adopted the same
+profession. It is from the pages of El Maestro Don Fray Prudencio
+de Sandoval that we glean these bare facts concerning the birth and
+parentage of these men who, in after-years, became known to all the
+dwellers on the shores of the Mediterranean as the “Barbarossas,” from
+their red beards. Sandoval, Bishop of Pampluna, published in the year
+1614 his monumental history of the Emperor Charles V., and through his
+splendid volumes the deeds of the Moslem corsairs run like the scarlet
+thread which is twisted through a Government rope. It is evident that
+the fact of having to deal with such rascals annoys the good Bishop
+not a little, as his severe and caustic comments frequently display.
+There was incident and accident enough in the life of the famous
+“Carlos Quinto” without the historian having to turn aside to chronicle
+the deeds of the pirates; but their exploits were so daring, the
+consequences thereof were so far-reaching, that the ominous crimson
+thread had to be woven into any narrative of the times in despite of
+the annoyance of the man by whom the rope was twisted.
+
+Of Mahomedi we possess no record save the remark concerning him to
+the effect that “el qual fue gran marinero”: in what way he displayed
+his gifts as a seaman we are not told. We have remarked before on the
+curious fact of how the “renegado,” or Christian turned Mohammedan,
+became the most implacable foe of his former co-religionists. We see in
+the case of the two Barbarossas that they had no drop of Moslem blood
+in them, as both parents came from Christian stock: and yet no greater
+scourges ever afflicted the people from whom both their father and
+mother originally sprang than did Uruj and Khizr Barbarossa.
+
+[Illustration: URUJ AND KHEYR-ED-DIN BARBAROSSA.]
+
+The characters of the two brothers were widely different. The elder was
+no doubt a “first-class fighting man,” a fine seaman, a born partisan
+leader; but here his qualities came to an end. Rough, cruel, imperious,
+brutal, he imposed himself upon those who became his followers; but
+in him were to be found none of the statesmanlike qualities which
+distinguished his far greater younger brother. His was the absolutely
+finite intellect of the tactician as opposed to the strategist, who,
+seeing his objective, was capable of dealing with circumstances as they
+immediately arose; but, partly no doubt from defective education, but
+principally from the lack of intellectual appreciation of the problems
+of the time in which he lived, could never rise to the heights which
+were scaled by Khizr, better known by the title conferred upon him
+later on by the Grand Turk as “Kheyr-ed-Din,” or “The Protector of
+Religion.”
+
+The sons of Mahomed, that “gran marinero,” naturally took to the sea,
+and as a young man Uruj became possessed of a ship—how we do not know,
+and it were better perhaps not to inquire. In this small craft he
+repaired to the coast of Caramania to make war upon the Christians; or,
+in other words, to begin an independent piratical career. Uruj in these
+days was young and inexperienced, or he would not have chosen this
+locality for his first venture, as this coast was in close proximity to
+the island of Rhodes, from whence the great galleys of the Knights of
+Saint John of Jerusalem set forth to exterminate the enemies of their
+faith.
+
+So it came about that Uruj, sailing out in his little ship from under
+the shadow of a wooded point, came in full sight of _Our Lady of the
+Conception_. There was nothing for it but immediate flight, and Uruj
+put his helm up and scudded before the breeze; but the great galley
+“goose-winged” her two mighty lateen sails, and turned in pursuit. The
+ship which carried Uruj and his fortunes was both fast and handy, and
+for a time she held her own; but it was only for a time, as those on
+board _Our Lady of the Conception_, finding that they were not gaining on
+the chase, put forth their oars and soon changed the aspect of affairs.
+The galley of the knights carried twenty-seven oars a-side, and each
+of these oars was manned by nine Moslem slaves. The sea was smooth and
+favourable for rowing, and soon the ravening pursuit closed in on
+the doomed corsair. As the interval between chaser and chased became
+less and less, those on board the pirate ship could see for themselves
+the fate which was awaiting them, as on the central gang-plank, which
+separated the rowers’ benches, the boatswain and his mates were
+unmercifully flogging the bare backs of the straining oarsmen to urge
+them to greater exertions. He who was captured at sea in those days was
+set to row until he died, and the calculating mercy which causes a man
+to feed and treat his beast well in order that it may do the better
+work was not to be relied upon here, as life was cheap and slaves were
+plentiful. Very soon the beak of the galley overhung the stern of the
+little ship. Escape was impossible, to fight would have meant the
+massacre of all on board; the choice was instant submission or a watery
+grave. Uruj lowered his sail, and he and his little company were ironed
+and flung into the depths of the galley until such time as they should
+be wanted to take their turn at the oars. In this ignominious fashion
+ended his first attempt at independent piracy.
+
+But a storm was brewing, and a heavy sea got up. The sails of the
+galley were lowered, her beak was put head-on to the wind, and she
+made for the shore. In this noisome confinement Uruj could hear above
+the crash of the seas and the whistling of the wind the shrieks of the
+hapless slaves as the whips of their taskmasters bit through skin and
+flesh: the galley-slave rowed stark naked chained to his bench. This
+was to be his fate, and he was well aware of the fact.
+
+At last, after nightfall, the galley anchored under the Isle of
+Castel Rosso, at the entrance of the Gulf of Satalie. It still blew
+hard, but, in the comparative peace of the anchorage, sounds hitherto
+hidden by the war of the elements now made themselves manifest. There
+were the snores of the sleepers, the clank of the leg-chains as the
+wretched slaves shifted their positions in the attempt to gain an
+easier place on the bench, there was also the sound of men carousing
+with loud laughter in the stern of the vessel; but above them all rose
+the hollow groaning as of one in mortal agony. This proceeded from a
+slave who was quite close to Uruj. There came a spell in the laughter
+and loud voices in the stern, and presently an imperious voice spoke:
+“That noise disturbs me; see that it ceases at once.” An obsequious
+answer came from out of the prevailing darkness: “It shall cease at
+once, Excellency.” Then came men with lanterns, who unshackled the
+wretch who groaned and—flung him overboard.
+
+The night grew worse, the wind backed, and the galley began to drag her
+anchors. The slaves were roused, and the oars got ready to shift her
+from her dangerous position on what had now become a lee-shore. Uruj
+had managed to slip his shackles, a defective bolt having given him
+his liberty; for him it was now or never, and he was a bold swimmer.
+He had seen enough and heard enough of _Our Lady of the Conception_,
+and, as the great oars plunged once more into the sea, the corsair,
+preferring the mercy of the elements to that of the knights, slipped
+over the side unobserved and swam for the shore. He reached dry land by
+a miracle, and from Satalie he found his way to Egypt, where he took
+service as a mariner in a ship of the Soldan of Egypt which was bound
+for the coast of Caramania, from which province the Egyptians, as well
+as the knights, drew the timber which they required for shipbuilding.
+But again this neighbourhood proved disastrous to Uruj, as the ship in
+which he sailed was attacked by a Christian galley, and he once more
+had to save himself by swimming on shore. There was no lack of incident
+in the life of a corsair of the sixteenth century.
+
+This time he presented himself to Khorkud, the Governor of Caramania,
+brother to Sultan Selim, the Grand Turk. The Governor, recognising him
+as an intrepid mariner, ordered the Basha of Smyrna to furnish him with
+a ship fitted for that _guerre de course_, which he desired to pursue
+against the Christians. The value of the corsair as an auxiliary was
+beginning to be recognised among the high Turkish officials. For the
+complaisance of Khorkud there were two reasons: in the first place,
+he was acting in the interests of his brother in sending to sea any
+really capable man to make head against his enemies, and the fact
+that Uruj was a pirate pure and simple did not weigh for a feather in
+the balance; in the second place, it was a decidedly good mercantile
+speculation as he ordered his inferior, the Basha of Egypt, to bear
+the expense of fitting out the necessary ship—which came to some 5,000
+ducats—and doubtless received a handsome percentage on all captures
+from his grateful protégé.
+
+This latter, as may easily be imagined, had had quite enough of
+the Caramanian coast, which had turned out a veritable nest of
+hornets; also, he had no desire at present to cultivate the further
+acquaintance of the knights, and therefore put the whole width of the
+Ionian Sea between himself and them, and succeeded in taking several
+rich prizes. He avoided Mitylene and returned to Egypt, wintering at
+Alexandria. It may here be remarked that the corsairs, as a rule,
+regarded the winter as a close season, as in those early days the
+mariner did not, if he could avoid it, risk his ship by sailing her at
+this period of storm and tempest. In consequence there was nothing to
+tempt the pirates to range the seas during these months, and if they
+had had a successful summer and autumn, as they generally did, they
+could well afford to lay up and await the coming of spring.
+
+But when storm and rain gave way to the smooth waters and balmy
+breezes, the Sea-wolves were certain of their prey, as the whole length
+and breadth of the tideless sea was sure to be filled with the ships of
+the detested Christians trafficking in every direction. In the ethics
+of the Moslem all ships which sailed under the banner of the Cross, no
+matter to what nation they belonged, were fair game, even supposing
+that her insignia were the Crescent—well, supposing the spot to be
+sufficiently remote, dead men tell no tales, and the pirates were to be
+trusted to see to it that none escaped.
+
+But, however this might have been, it is quite certain that no
+qualms of conscience troubled Uruj concerning those others: Genoese,
+Neapolitans, Catalans, Andalusians, French, or the dwellers of the
+Balearic Islands, were all fish sent by a bountiful Providence to be
+enclosed in his net, and he seized upon them without distinction.
+When in the full tide of his success there was but one thing which
+preoccupied the mind of the corsair, which was to find a ready market
+for his spoils and a convenient place in which to rid himself of
+an embarrassing number of captives. This, however, did not present
+an insuperable difficulty, as we have already seen in the case of
+Curtogali, and a similar arrangement was carried out by Uruj Barbarossa
+and his brother.
+
+Uruj now established himself at the island of Jerba, on the east
+coast of Tunis, which formed an admirable base from which to “work”
+the Mediterranean from the piratical point of view. Jerba had
+originally been conquered and occupied by the Spaniards in 1431, but
+the occupation had been allowed to lapse, and the island was lying
+derelict when the Barbarossas made it their headquarters. Here Uruj was
+joined by his younger brother Khizr, destined to become so much the
+more famous of the two; he had already made himself some reputation in
+piratical circles, and now brought his cool judgment and wise counsel
+to the assistance of that fiery fighting man his elder brother. The
+first question to be decided was that which we have already mentioned,
+namely, the disposal of spoil from prospective captures, and with this
+end in view the corsairs approached the Sultan of Tunis. This potentate
+made a gracious response to their overtures, and wished them all
+success in their enterprises. He promised them succour and support on
+the same terms which Curtogali had obtained, namely, one-fifth of all
+the spoil landed in his dominions.
+
+The price to be paid was a stiff one, and was so regarded by the active
+partners in this arrangement; they were, however, young and unknown,
+and had not the least intention of holding to their bargain when more
+favourable circumstances presented themselves. Now they held fair
+speech with the puppet princes of North Africa; the day was to come
+when they should chase them from their insecure thrones. It was at this
+time, shortly after the treaty with the Sultan of Tunis was concluded,
+that the younger Barbarossa received from the Grand Turk the glorious
+name of Kheyr-ed-Din, or “The Protector of Religion.” It was a somewhat
+remarkable title for a pirate, but perhaps its bestower was slightly
+deficient in a sense of humour.
+
+Sailing from Tunis in the spring of the year 1512, the brothers, with
+three galleys, fell in with _The Galley of Naples_, an enormous nef with
+a crew of three hundred. They instantly attacked, but were repulsed,
+night falling without either side having gained an advantage. This
+audacious proceeding illustrates the hardihood of the Moslem corsairs
+at this time. They were amply strong enough to range the Mediterranean
+and to capture, with no risk to themselves, the weak and unprotected
+argosies plying their trade in this sea; but this was not the method
+of the Barbarossas. Villains they may have been according to modern
+standards, pirates they were unquestionably; but they were grim,
+hard-bitten, fighting men, who shrank from no dangers in the pursuit
+of their prey, who reckoned that the humiliation and defeat of their
+Christian antagonists was as sweet a morsel as the booty reft from
+their hands. All night the three Moslem galleys and the great nef lay
+becalmed awaiting the conflict which was to come with the break of day;
+and it is easy to imagine that there was not much quiet sleep on board
+of either the Moslem or the Christian ships, for both on the one side
+and the other the issues loomed large. The corsairs had, so far, made
+no such important capture as this, which, could it be accomplished,
+would add enormously to their prestige, in addition to such spoils as
+they might acquire; but the combatants were fairly evenly matched in
+the matter of numbers, and the fight was one to a finish. The advantage
+on the side of the corsairs lay in the fact of their being three to
+one, and their being thus enabled to attack in three separate places at
+the same time. Terrible must have been that night of waiting for the
+unfortunates on board _The Galley of Naples_; there was no escape, and
+on board of her among her passengers were many women, whose fate was
+too terrible to contemplate should the day go against them. The first
+assault had been beaten off, it is true, but the struggle had been
+hard and bitter; would they be equally successful when the assault was
+renewed?
+
+Even such a night as this, however, comes at last to an end, and the
+prospect of action must have been welcomed by the men on both sides;
+of the women with so horrible a fate impending one can hardly bear to
+think. The ghostly fingers of the dawn touched the grey sea with a wan
+yellow light, outlining the nef and the slender, wicked-looking galleys
+with their banks of oars; over the surface of the deep a slight mist
+hovered, as though some kindly spirit of the sea would hide, if such a
+thing were possible, the deeds which were to come. The three galleys
+lay close together, and Uruj and his brother held a few last words of
+counsel.
+
+“It is agreed, then,” said the elder; “you, my brother, attack the
+starboard side and I on the port side, while Hassan Ali [indicating
+the captain of the third galley] will await the time when we are fully
+engaged, and will then board over the stern.”
+
+“It is agreed,” answered Kheyr-ed-Din, and Hassan Ali.
+
+As the strong sun of a perfect May morning in the Mediterranean leapt
+above the horizon, Uruj loosed his hounds upon their prey; the oars of
+the galleys churned the clear blue waters into foam, and the air was
+filled with the yells of the corsairs. “Allah! Allah!” and “Barbarossa!
+Barbarossa!” they cried. It was a war-cry that was destined to re-echo
+over many a conflict, both by land and sea, in the years that were to
+come.
+
+In a simultaneous, and as we have seen a concerted attack, the beaks
+of the galleys crushed into the broadsides of _The Galley of Naples_,
+and, ever foremost in the fray, Uruj and Kheyr-ed-Din were the first
+two men to board. Then, when men were hand to hand and foot to foot,
+when Moslem scimitar rang on Christian sabre, and the air was filled
+with the oaths and shouts of the combatants, the third remaining pirate
+craft grappled _The Galley of Naples_ by the stern, and a tide of fresh,
+unwounded men burst into the fray. This was the end; the Christians
+were both outnumbered and outfought, for among them were many who
+were not by profession warriors, whereas no man found a footing among
+the Sea-wolves, or was taken to sea as a fighting man, unless he had
+approved himself to the satisfaction of his captain that he was a
+valiant man of his hands. We have no record or list of the dead and
+wounded in this battle, but among the latter was Uruj, who was severely
+hurt. Not so Kheyr-ed-Din, who escaped scatheless and took command now
+that his brother was incapacitated. The dead were flung overboard with
+scant ceremony, and the wounded patched up as best might be, and then
+_The Galley of Naples_ was taken in tow, and the corsairs returned in
+triumph to Tunis. Faithful to their treaty, so far, they laid one-fifth
+of their spoils at the feet of the Sultan.
+
+A great procession was formed of Christian captives marching two and
+two. Four young Christian girls were mounted on mules, and two ladies
+of noble birth followed on Arab horses sumptuously caparisoned. These
+unfortunates were destined for the harems of their captors. The Sultan
+was greatly pleased at the spectacle, and as the mournful procession
+defiled before him cried out, “See how heaven recompenses the brave!”
+Jurien de la Gravière remarks: “Such was the fortune of war in the
+sixteenth century. A man leaving Naples to go to Spain might end his
+days in a Moorish bagnio and see his wife and daughters fall a prey to
+miscreants of the worse description.”
+
+It was not till the following spring that Uruj was fit once more
+to pursue his chosen calling, so severe had been his wounds; but
+once he was whole and sound again he put to sea accompanied by
+Kheyr-ed-Din, and this time he had conceived a singularly bold and
+desperate enterprise. Two years before the famous Spanish captain,
+Pedro de Navarro, had seized upon the coast town of Bougie, and had
+unfortunately left it in the hands of a totally insufficient garrison.
+This departure from the sound rules of warfare had already been
+punished as it deserved, as the garrison was perpetually harassed and
+annoyed by the surrounding Arab tribes. The idea of Uruj was to seize
+upon Bougie by a _coup de main_. The corsair, however, was a far finer
+fighter than he was a strategist, and was possessed of a most impatient
+temper. All went well to begin with, as he managed to intercept and
+to capture a convoy of Spanish ships sent to revictual the place,
+and had he been content to wait he might have counted with certainty
+on reducing the garrison by starvation, as it depended on this very
+convoy for its supplies. In vain the wary and cool-headed Kheyr-ed-Din
+counselled prudence and delay, but these words were not to be found in
+the vocabulary of his elder brother. “What had to be done,” he replied,
+“had better be done at once,” and at the head of only fifty men landed
+and assaulted the still uncompleted ramparts of Bougie.
+
+But if Uruj were rash and headstrong, so was not the commander of the
+Spanish garrison, who, massing his men for the repulse of the assault,
+waited till the last moment, and then received them with a volley of
+arquebuses, which laid many of them low, and so badly wounded their
+leader that he had to have his arm amputated on the spot: it says
+much for his constitution that he survived the operation.
+
+For the time being the brothers had had enough of shore enterprises,
+and confined themselves strictly to their piratical business at sea,
+which prospered so exceedingly that they became exceedingly rich and
+their fame and power increased day by day. As time went on and the
+wealth of the brothers and partners increased, there entered into
+the calculating brain of Kheyr-ed-Din the idea that the payment of
+one-fifth share to the Sultan of Tunis was but money thrown away.
+Twenty per cent, was eating into the profits of the firm in an
+unwarrantable manner, he considered, and now that the active partners
+therein had established so good a business connection, they were quite
+strong enough to dispense with a sleeping partner. Times had changed
+for the better, and Kheyr-ed-Din was anxious to take full advantage of
+the fact; if possible he determined to seize upon and hold some port,
+in which, not only would they be exempt from tribute, but also in which
+he and his brother Uruj should be the supreme arbiters of the fate of
+all by whom it might be frequented.
+
+Of Bougie and its stout Spanish garrison the brothers had had quite
+enough for the present: they sought, in consequence, for some harbour
+which presented equal advantages of situation, and their choice fell
+upon Jigelli, then belonging to the Genoese, who occupied a strong
+castle in this place.
+
+Jigelli lies well outside the confines of the kingdom of Tunis, about
+equi-distant from Bougie and Cape Bougaroni, some forty miles from
+each. It would appear that on this occasion it was the younger of
+the two brothers who took charge of the enterprise, and there were no
+slap—dash, unconsidered methods employed. By this time the fame of
+the Barbarossas had gone abroad from Valencia to Constantinople, from
+Rome to the foot—hills of the Atlas Mountains, and, to circumvent the
+Genoese garrison of Jigelli, Kheyr-ed-Din called to his aid the savage
+Berber tribes of the hinterland of this part of Northern Africa.
+
+Turbulent, rash, unstable as water, were these primitive dwellers of
+the desert; but they were fighters and raiders to a man, and ready
+for any desperate encounter if only it held out the promise of loot:
+they were as veritably the pirates of the land as were the Barbarossas
+pirates of the sea.
+
+Small chance, indeed, had the five hundred Genoese soldiers by which
+Jigelli was garrisoned when attacked from the sea by the Barbarossas
+and by land by an innumerable horde of Berbers who were reckoned to
+be as many as 20,000. Invested by land and sea, the garrison did all
+that it was possible for men to do. Provisions and water ran short,
+ammunition was failing, the ring of their enemies was encircling
+them day by day closer and ever closer. From the land nothing could
+be expected but an augmentation of their foes, and day by day the
+commander of the garrison strained his eyes seaward to watch if haply
+the proud Republic, to which he and his men belonged, would send
+succour, or the redoubtable Knights of Saint John would come to his aid.
+
+But the days lengthened into weeks, and the soldiers were gradually
+becoming worn out by the perpetual strain imposed upon them. There
+was one chance left, and one alone, which was to cut their way out
+through the besieging lines. Massacre to a man was their fate in any
+case, and thus it was that the commander, whose name has not come down
+to us, mustered his men for the last supreme effort. At dead of night
+the garrison, having destroyed as far as possible all that might be of
+use to the enemy, sallied out to their doom. They fought as men fight
+who know that the end has come; but valour could not avail against the
+numbers arrayed on the side of the enemy, and they were wiped off the
+face of the earth. The tribes looted the castle of everything portable,
+and then retired from whence they had come. For this Kheyr-ed-Din cared
+nothing; they were welcome to the poor possessions of some hundreds of
+half-starved Italian soldiers—let them take the shell, for him remained
+the kernel in the shape of a strong place of arms.
+
+Hardly, however, had the brothers succeeded in this enterprise when
+that tireless fighter Uruj again attempted the capture of Bougie;
+but his second attempt was even more disastrous than his first, and
+he lost half his flotilla. Then he asked for succour from Tunis; but
+the Sultan, much offended at the idea of the brothers setting up in
+a piratical business in which he was no longer a sleeping partner,
+angrily refused.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE DEATH OF URUJ BARBAROSSA
+
+
+The events recorded in the last chapter bring us down to the end of
+the year 1515, and while every endeavour has been made to present
+affairs in chronological sequence, it must be remembered that the dates
+of piratical expeditions are often impossible to obtain: the wrath
+of the chroniclers at the nefarious deeds of the corsairs greatly
+exceeding their desire for a meticulous accuracy in the matter of
+the exact time of their occurrence. Uruj, as has been seen, had by
+his headstrong folly once again placed his brother and himself in a
+decidedly awkward situation. By the losses which he had incurred in his
+second ill-advised attempt on Bougie he had so weakened the piratical
+confederation that the countenance of some potentate had again become
+necessary for their continued existence, and the Sultan of Tunis had
+now repudiated all connection with these ingrates.
+
+But, if craft and subtlety were not to be found in Uruj there was one
+who never failed to exhibit these qualities when they became necessary,
+and Kheyr-ed-Din once more came to the front. The Russian peasantry
+have a saying that “God is high and the Czar is far away.” In the
+sixteenth century the Grand Turk was in every sense “far away” from
+the struggling corsairs on the littoral of Northern Africa, and was a
+sovereign of such great and mysterious might that any man with a less
+fine instinct into the psychology of the times in which he lived than
+Kheyr-ed-Din would have hesitated long and anxiously before addressing
+him directly; would probably in the end not have done so at all. But
+desperate diseases require desperate remedies, and the politic corsair
+well knew that even the moral support of such an one as the Sultan of
+Constantinople was worth more than even material aid from a Sultan of
+Tunis.
+
+Consequently, greatly daring, he sent an embassy to the Sublime Porte
+with one of his most trusted captains at its head to lay the homage of
+the corsairs at the feet of Selim I. Very naturally these ambassadors
+did not go empty-handed, but took with them rich presents and numerous
+slaves. Selim was much pleased at the attention, coming as it did from
+such a distance—we have to remember that the coast of North Africa was
+an immense journey from Constantinople in those days—and the insight of
+Kheyr-ed-Din was triumphantly vindicated. Not only did the Sultan send
+a gracious reply in return, but—what was far more to the purpose—he
+sent a reinforcement of fourteen vessels to the corsairs bidding them
+to go on and prosper in their efforts to spread the true faith among
+the Christian heretics.
+
+There is nothing more curious in the history of the corsairs than the
+perpetual ups and downs of their lives. Thus in the present instance
+the ill-advised attack of Uruj on Bougie had reduced them to terrible
+straits; immediately afterwards the action of the Grand Turk once
+more set them upon their feet and enabled them to pursue an unchecked
+career of devastation. Aided by the reinforcements sent by Selim,
+their depredations assumed ever larger proportions, and, had they
+continued to receive this assistance, the course of history itself
+might have been changed. Ground to powder beneath the iron heel of
+their ruthless conquerors, the Moriscoes of Southern Spain were ever
+waiting the chance to rise and shake off the yoke by which they were so
+sore oppressed; from far and near reports were coming to hand of the
+continued successes of the corsairs, and all Andalusia seethed with
+passionate hope that the day of deliverance was at hand.
+
+But, alas for the vanity of human wishes! in the opening months of the
+year 1516 Selim recalled his ships and the chance was gone, never again
+to arise.
+
+It may have been that “the sorrowful sighing of the captives” never
+reached the ears of the successor of Othman in his palace on the
+shores of the Golden Horn; in any case, the Sultan was preparing for
+the conquest of Egypt, and in consequence recalled the ships which he
+had lent to assist the corsairs. The Moriscoes were thus left without
+hope, but so far as the corsairs were concerned they were enabled to
+strike another bargain with the Sultan of Tunis. This monarch had now
+got over his fit of the sulks, and discovered that customs dues from
+the peaceful trading mariners, although desirable enough, were not by
+any means so lucrative a form of revenue as was the one-fifth share
+of the booty of the pirates. Uruj and Kheyr-ed-Din for their part,
+although they had captured Jigelli, were totally unable to hold it:
+the capture had indeed been principally due to the assistance which
+they had received from the Berber tribesmen, but these nomads had
+disappeared into the deserts from whence they came, once the looting of
+the town and fortress had been completed.
+
+The corsair had to be armed at all points, in the moral as well as the
+material sense, as he was the enemy of all men, and all were vowed
+to his destruction. Every cruise which he took raised up against him
+fresh hatred and a more bitter animus, and we must remember that it
+was not only men individually, but Principalities and Powers that were
+arrayed in line of battle for his destruction. At the present juncture
+Spain was specially hostile, for not only had her possession of Bougie
+been twice attacked by the Sea-wolves, but a valuable convoy had been
+captured. An expedition, in consequence, was sent by the Spaniards
+against the Barbarossas, but this effort did not result in much damage
+being done to the offenders. The Spaniards destroyed four piratical
+vessels which had been abandoned by their crews at Bizerta, and pushed
+a strong reconnaissance into the Bay of Tunis itself. Here shots
+were exchanged between the Spanish fleet and the forts—under which
+Kheyr-ed-Din had drawn up his ships—and the Spaniards then abandoned
+the enterprise and returned from whence they had come.
+
+In the year 1510 the Spaniard, Count Pedro Navarre, had seized upon
+Algiers, which town was at this time one of the principal refuges
+of the Moorish fugitives, who had been driven from Granada, from
+Còrdoba, and from Southern Spain generally by Ferdinand and Isabella
+eighteen years previously. To say that the condition of these people
+was desperate is to speak but the bare truth, for what could exceed the
+misery of the situation in which they were left after the successful
+incursion of their Christian foes? What we are apt to lose sight of in
+the light of present-day circumstances is the fact that these Spanish
+Moors were a most highly civilised people, far more so indeed than
+their Christian contemporaries; that they had been driven with fire and
+sword from the land in which they and their forefathers had dwelt for
+over seven centuries, and that they now had been cast out literally
+to starve on the inhospitable shores of Northern Africa. So it came
+about that the common people exchanged the life of the peaceful and
+prosperous artisan or husbandman for that of the hand-to-mouth pirate,
+and the case of knight and noble among them was no better—perhaps
+rather worse—than the meanest among those who had been expropriated.
+
+Those who know the region in which these unhappy folk lived are aware
+of the material monuments which still exist and testify to the glorious
+past; and, seeing what they have seen, it is no great stretch of the
+imagination to picture to themselves the comfort, the elegance, and
+the luxury with which the inhabitants of Granada and Còrdoba lived
+surrounded. Over there, away across some few leagues of shining blue
+water, were the ruined homes of which many of the banished people
+still possessed the keys, awaiting the day when Allah and the Prophet
+should vouchsafe to them that return which they so naturally and
+ardently desired. To this day the key of the great Mosque at Cordoba
+is preserved at Rabat as a sacred relic of former dignity and power—a
+symbol to the Moslem of his perpetual banishment. If Cordoba with its
+mosque—still one of the wonders of the world, with its eleven hundred
+marble columns—were the principal shrine and holy of holies to these
+people, there were in addition hundreds of other temples of their
+faith now for ever desecrated in their eyes by the misfortune which
+had placed them in Christian hands. In Andalusia were the dishonoured
+graves of their kinsfolk, and, last and worst of all, in this land
+still dwelt thousands upon thousands of their co-religionists held in a
+degrading bondage by their implacable enemies.
+
+The capture of Algiers by Count Pedro Navarro was a crowning misfortune
+for the exiles, and when this commander seized upon the place he
+extracted from the inhabitants an oath of fidelity to the Spanish
+crown; he further erected a strong tower to overawe the town, and to
+keep its turbulent inhabitants in order. But such an oath as this,
+extracted at the point of the sword, was writ in water; it meant, of
+course, the suppression of piracy, and it also meant the starvation
+of most of those persons who dwelt in the vicinity. How the Moslem
+population existed for the six years after the incursion of Navarro
+is a mystery; but they probably moved their galleys, of which they
+possessed some twenty, further along the coast out of the range of
+the guns from Navarro’s Tower, and secure from the observation of those
+who held it for the Spanish king.
+
+In the year in which Selim descended upon Egypt the King of Spain,
+Ferdinand V., died, and grave troubles immediately broke out in Spain.
+This was an opportunity too good to be missed, as no reinforcements
+could possibly be expected for the garrison in Algiers as long as
+these disturbances lasted, and the Algerines took counsel together as
+to the best means of driving out their enemies. It is a commentary on
+the detestation in which they held the Spaniards that they should have
+allied themselves for this purpose with the savages of the hinterland.
+This, however, was what they did. As in the case of Jigelli, these
+people could always be relied upon to go anywhere in search of booty,
+and one Selim Eutemi entered the town at the head of his tribe. But
+sheer, stark, savage valour could make no impression on Navarro’s
+Tower and the ordnance that was mounted on its walls. The result was a
+stalemate, as the Spaniards could by no manner of means get out, and
+neither could their enemies, who swarmed innumerable in the town and
+the surrounding country, get in. In time, of course, they might hope
+to bring the garrison to surrender by starvation; but time pressed,
+and no man knew when the troubles in Spain might be adjusted and help
+come to the beleaguered. In the meanwhile Selim Eutemi and his men, who
+had been taught some rude lessons in the power of firearms, kept out
+of range of the cannon, while the Algerines held yet another council
+of war, the result of which was that they decided to ask help from
+Uruj and Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, and to them they appealed. By this
+time their fame was known to all men, and they could supply that which
+was lacking—namely ships, artillery, a first-class fighting force, and
+last, and best of all, the moral support which would stiffen and put
+heart into the motley horde which at present surged around the gates of
+the fortress of Navarro.
+
+The Algerines did not appeal in vain, and an instant promise of
+succour was forthcoming. Kheyr—ed—Din was away at sea, but Uruj, that
+indomitable fighter, started at once. From whence we are not told, but
+he must have been somewhere in the neighbourhood, as he and his men
+marched along the shore; while, keeping pace with them, came a fleet of
+eighteen galleys and three barques laden with stores.
+
+But before proceeding to the assistance of the Algerines Uruj had a
+personal matter to which to attend, and he wished to combine pleasure
+with serious business. One of his old companions had seceded from his
+command and had established himself at Shershell, where he lived the
+life of an independent corsair within easy striking distance of the
+Balearic Islands and the coast of Spain, his following composed of a
+horde of those broken men of whom mention has been made. Shershell was
+an unfortified town, and surrendered unconditionally upon the arrival
+of Uruj and his army. Kara-Hassan, for such was the name of this
+independent corsair, came out to greet his old-time chief; he was met
+with violent reproaches, and the altercation ended by Uruj having him
+beheaded on the spot. It was ill to quarrel with the Barbarossas.
+
+Freed from this rival, the Mitylene corsair had now uncontested
+supremacy on the coast, a supremacy none was likely to contest in
+the future, as he brooked no opposition, and had come to consider
+that independent piracy in the Mediterranean was in some sort an
+infringement of the rights of himself and his brother. One of the most
+salient peculiarities of the corsairs at this time was the apparent
+recklessness with which they assailed others who were participants in
+their nefarious business. Self-interest and policy would seem, to the
+observer in the present day, to have dictated quite a different course
+of action; but we shall see, when we come to deal with the life-history
+of Kheyr-ed-Din, that this infinitely wiser and more intellectual man
+apparently allowed himself to be swayed by gusts of passion, in which
+he savagely maltreated those with whom he was associated, and from whom
+dangerous hostility was certainly to be feared if they escaped with
+their lives. At this distance of time it is impossible to gauge the
+motives by which men such as these were actuated, more particularly in
+the case of Kheyr-ed-Din, whose character was a blend of the deepest
+subtlety and calculated ferocity.
+
+Having settled with Kara-Hassan, Uruj continued his march along the
+coast. Arrived at Algiers, he opened in form a siege of Navarro’s
+Tower; but, being unable to make any impression on its defences, he
+abandoned the siege after twenty days’ fruitless fighting, during which
+he lost a number of men in his assaults. Baffled and furious, he turned
+on the Berber chieftain, the luckless Selim Eutemi, and caused him to
+be assassinated, regarding him as being responsible for the failure.
+The Spanish chroniclers relate, with some wealth of detail, how Uruj
+personally fell upon Selim Eutemi, when that chieftain was in his bath,
+and strangled him with his own hands. However this may have been, the
+Spanish records of the deeds of the corsairs cannot well be taken _au
+pied de la lettre_; there is no doubt that Selim was murdered, and from
+that time the Berbers recognised that he who had come to help was now
+remaining to plunder. Uruj now established himself in the town, and set
+to work making raids into the adjoining country, carrying off sheep,
+cattle, and slaves. For the Berbers this was a true awakening. He who
+now oppressed them had come in the guise of a champion to assist them
+in the sack and plunder of Navarro’s Tower; they had exchanged King
+Log, who dwelt securely locked up, for a King Stork of the most active
+description. Although we cannot sympathise with such people, it is
+quite possible to understand their very natural annoyance at the turn
+which things had taken, and it does not surprise us (in this age of
+“punic faith”) that a conspiracy was set on foot between the dwellers
+of the hinterland and the Spaniards of the fortress.
+
+Uruj was informed of all that was going on through his own spies, and,
+although he kept his finger on the pulse of the conspiracy, he acted as
+though the tribesmen were still his very faithful friends and allies.
+The corsair was more patient than his wont. In this affair he wished
+for ample proof of delinquency, and also for a vengeance adequate to
+the occasion when he should discover all the guilty parties; and so
+some weeks went by while the plot was maturing, apparently, from the
+point of view of the conspirators, to a successful conclusion. But Uruj
+had bided his time with a subtlety and _finesse_ which would have done
+credit to Kheyr-ed-Din himself.
+
+It was the custom of the corsair and his chief adherents to attend the
+principal mosque on Fridays; and therefore, when the conspirators were
+cordially invited to attend on the following Friday, and, after the
+service was over, to attend Uruj to his dwelling and there confer with
+him, they went, nothing doubting, to their deaths. As the discourse of
+the Mullah came to an end a crash resounded throughout the building:
+six stalwart swordsmen had flung the great gates of the mosque
+together, and barred all exit. Excepting the conspirators, twenty-two
+in number, the remainder of the edifice was filled with the galley’s
+crews of the corsair, men who, had he given the order, would have
+cheerfully set alight to the sacred building itself and roasted the
+Mullahs themselves in the flames.
+
+To the corsairs, after they were seated in the mosque, the word had
+been passed that the Berber tribesmen had meditated this treachery
+against them, which, had it succeeded, would have meant the death or
+enslavement of them all. It was therefore a trap of a singularly deadly
+description into which the countrymen of Selim Eutemi walked on this
+Friday morning.
+
+The doors being closed, the conspirators were one by one dragged
+before Uruj, who, bitterly reproaching them, gave order for their
+instant death. They were haled out through rows of jeering pirates, and
+beheaded in the street immediately in front of the principal entrance
+of the mosque. When the slaughter of the twenty—two was accomplished
+Uruj strode from the mosque over the weltering corpses of the traitors
+amid the plaudits of his own men, ever ready to acclaim deeds of blood
+and cruelty. After this there were no more plots against the corsair
+in Algiers. News of all these desperate doings in Algiers had by this
+time filtered across into Spain, and El Maestro Don Fray Prudencio de
+Sandoval recounts how, when the tidings came to Fray Francisco Ximenes,
+the Cardinal Archbishop of Toledo, that that prelate, much scandalised
+that the might of Imperial Spain should be flouted by a mere pirate,
+sent Don Diego de Vera with some fifteen thousand men to recapture the
+town, and relieve the beleaguered garrison in the tower. This was in
+the month of September 1516.
+
+Don Diego landed “en el dia de San Hieronymo,” and threw up
+entrenchments within gunshot of the town. Great things were expected
+of this expedition, as Sandoval notes that in 1513 Don Diego de Vera,
+in the war against the French, had gained the approval of Count Pedro
+Navarro (“avia bien aprovado con el Conde Pedro Navarro”), and it was
+not expected that a mere pirate rabble would ever make head against
+the Spanish troops. De Vera opened fire on the walls of the town
+from his entrenchments, but hardly had he done so when Uruj, leading
+his corsairs, which formed the spearhead to an innumerable army of
+Berbers and Arabs, made a sortie.
+
+“Upon them one day did Barbarossa make an onslaught, and when he saw
+that the Spanish soldiers were ill commanded, he flung his forces upon
+them with loud cries. And so great was the fear inspired by Barbarossa
+that they were routed almost without loss to the Moors; and with much
+ease did these latter slay three thousand men and capture four hundred
+on the day of San Hieronymo in this year.”
+
+(“Salio un dia à el Barbarossa y como vio los soldados Españoles
+desmandados diò en ellos con gran gritos. Y fue tan grande el miedo que
+vieron que Barbarossa los desbaratò casi sin daño y con mucho facilidad
+mato tres mil hombres y cautivo quatro cientos dia de San Hieronymo
+deste año.”)
+
+This quotation is given in full to set out the amazing fact that in
+this battle over three thousand were killed while only four hundred
+were captured, which shows that it must have been in the nature of an
+indiscriminate massacre; the only captive of any note was the captain,
+Juan del Rio. Diego de Vera had had enough of the corsairs, and sailed
+away with the remainder of his force. Of what became of him or of them
+there is no record, but he must have been a singularly incompetent
+commander when he could not make head against a rabble of pirates and
+Moors with the army at his disposition. Sandoval does not attempt to
+minimise the defeat, which, of course, would have been impossible; he
+contents himself with the following delightfully quaint reflection:
+“But many, many times Homer nods; this disaster must have come upon
+us for our sins, upon which it is most important that we should always
+think and meditate.”
+
+Who so triumphant now as Uruj Barbarossa? It is true that the fortress
+of Pedro Navarro still remained in the hands of its splendid and
+undaunted garrison, and was destined so to remain for some years to
+come; but they were impotent for harm, and the conqueror of Don Diego
+now turned his arms in another direction. Kheyr-ed-Din was at Jigelli
+when he heard of the victory gained by his brother, and sailed at once
+with six ships to his support. The town of Tenes fell into the hands of
+the brothers, with an immense booty, and then Uruj marched on Tlemcen.
+The Sultan of Tlemcen, the last of the royal race of the Beni-Zian, did
+not await the coming of the corsair. All through the northern coasts
+of Africa the name of Barbarossa was a synonym of terror; the sad fate
+of Selim Eutemi, of Kara-Hassan, of the twenty-two conspirators of
+the mosque, had been noised abroad, and the superstitious tribesmen
+firmly believed that these red-bearded corsairs were the accomplices
+of Shaitan, even if they did not represent him themselves in their
+own persons. Who were these men, they asked one another tremblingly,
+who feared neither God nor devil, and who caused even the redoubtable
+Spaniards to fly before them like the leaves in front of an autumn gale?
+
+When men begin to talk and to think like this there is not much fight
+left in them, and so it came about that, after the most feeble of
+resistances, the Sultan of Tlemcen fled to Fez. Thus, almost without
+striking a blow, Uruj found himself master of a province from which
+the Spaniards were accustomed to draw the necessary provisions for the
+upkeep of the garrison of Oran. But Tlemcen is but some seventy miles
+from Oran, and Oran is so close to Spain as to be easily reinforced; in
+consequence Uruj was soon blockaded by the Spaniards, and remained so
+for seven months. But no blockade could keep Uruj Barbarossa for long
+within stone walls; sortie after sortie did the gallant corsair lead
+against the foe, and it was in one of these that he characteristically
+came by his death. Ever rash and impetuous, he allowed himself to be
+drawn too far away from possible shelter or support; and, as there was
+something dramatic in the whole life of this man, so also was there
+in the manner of his death. They had him trapped at last, this grim
+Sea-wolf, and he stood at bay in a stone corral used for the herding of
+goats.
+
+As the wolves in winter circle round the leaguer on the heath, So the
+greedy foe glared upward panting still for blood and death.
+
+By his side was his faithful lieutenant Venalcadi. In a breathless
+mêlée Christian sword and Moslem sabre clashed and rang. His turban
+gone, his great curved scimitar red to the hilt, the undaunted corsair
+fought his last fight as became the terror of his name. Almost had
+he succeeded in breaking through the ring of his foes when Garzia de
+Tineo, _alferez_ (or lieutenant) to Captain Diego de Andrade, wounded
+him severely with a pike. Uruj stumbled, was struck on the head with
+another weapon; he reeled and fell. The fight was over, and one of the
+Barbarossas bit the dust. Garzia de Tineo leaped upon the fallen man
+and cut off his head. It is recorded that Garzia de Tineo was wounded
+in the finger by Uruj in the course of the combat, and that for the
+rest of his life he proudly exhibited the scar as a sign that it was
+none other than he who had killed the famous corsair.
+
+Uruj Barbarossa was undoubtedly a remarkable man. At a time when the
+Mediterranean swarmed with warriors none was more feared, none was
+more redoubtable than he. By sheer valour and tenacity he had fought
+his way to the front, and the son of the obscure renegado of Mitylene
+died a king. It is true that his sovereignty was precarious, that it
+was maintained at the edge of the sword; none the less, in that welter
+of anarchy in which he lived he had forced himself to the summit, and,
+pirate, sea-wolf, and robber as he was, we cannot withhold from him a
+meed of the most hearty admiration.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+KHEYR-ED-DIN BARBAROSSA
+
+
+Uruj had arrogated to himself the title of King of Tlemcen, but with
+his death this shadowy sovereignty came to an end, and the Spaniards
+seized upon the province. This, however, did not avail them much, as
+the Sultan of Fez sent against them an innumerable army, and they
+in their turn were dispossessed. It was in the year 1518 that Uruj
+fell beneath the pike of Garzia de Tineo, and now the first place in
+the piratical hierarchy was taken by Kheyr-ed-Din. In this man the
+genius of the statesman lay hidden beneath the outward semblance of
+the bold and ruthless pirate; ever foremost in the fight, strong to
+endure, swift to smite, he had by now long passed his novitiate, had
+established an empire over the minds of men which was to endure until
+the end of his unusually prolonged life. With a brain of ice and a
+heart of fire, he looked out, serene and calm, upon the turbulent times
+in which he lived, a monstrous egotist desiring nothing but his own
+advancement, all his faculties bent upon securing more wealth and yet
+more power.
+
+He played a lone hand, for he brooked even less than did his truculent
+brother any approach to an equality with himself among the men who
+followed in his train. Absolute supremacy was his in the life which he
+lived, but none knew better than he upon what an unstable basis his
+power rested. He now called himself the King of Algiers, but still that
+lean, sun-dried garrison held with desperate tenacity to the tower
+of the redoubtable Navarro, and any moment a fresh Spanish relieving
+force might be upon him and chase him forth even as Uruj had been
+chased from Tlemcen. He saw that he must consolidate his power, must
+for the present, at any rate, have some force at his back which would
+provide that material and moral backing which was essential to his
+schemes. Once before he had successfully approached the Grand Turk,
+the Padishah, the head of the Mohammedan religion, and from him he had
+received that which he had asked; on this former occasion, however, he
+had not been in the same position as he now occupied.
+
+The corsair must have meditated long and anxiously on the best way
+in which to approach the autocrat of Constantinople; in the end he
+probably hit upon the best solution of the problem by again sending
+an ambassador with precise instructions as to the manner in which he
+was to act. For this important service his choice fell upon one of his
+captains, Hadj-Hossein by name, and to him he imparted all that he was
+to say, and—what was almost as important—what he was not to say.
+
+The duty of the ambassador was to magnify the importance of his master,
+but to do so in such a manner that the Padishah was not to imagine
+that a rival to his own greatness had arisen at Algiers. Selim was at
+this time in Egypt, where he had just completed the conquest of the
+Mamelukes, and thither did Hadj-Hossein repair. He laid at the feet of
+the conqueror the respectful homage of the King of Algiers, who, he
+assured Selim, desired nothing better than to become the vassal of the
+Commander of the Faithful. Also, he informed him, that in the name of
+Selim public prayer was offered in the mosques on Fridays, that his
+image and superscription were struck on the coins, that in every manner
+possible recognition was made of the fact that he, and he alone, was
+the chosen of God upon earth. This manner of stating the situation was
+both delicate and politic. A less wise man than Kheyr-ed-Din might have
+assumed a note of equality from one Moslem potentate to another, but
+the corsair was perfectly conscious of his limitations—he knew exactly
+how the Grand Turk could be useful to him, and he was not going to mar
+his chance by the display of an untimely arrogance.
+
+Hadj-Hossein proved himself to be a tactful and successful ambassador.
+The Sultan accepted the homage offered, and made many inquiries
+concerning the war prosecuted by Hossein’s master against the enemies
+of the true faith in the distant region of Algiers. His queries were
+all answered with deep submission and the most subtle of flattery, much
+of which latter was no doubt a perfectly honest expression of opinion.
+As to the average Mohammedan of this period the Padishah was a being
+set apart by Heaven to fulfil the decrees of the Prophet.
+
+The ambassador, when he rejoined his master, must have been a proud
+man, as so well had he fulfilled his mission that he carried back with
+him to Algiers not only a gracious message, but the insignia of the
+Sanjak, Scimitar Horse and Tambour, conferred upon that loyal Moslem
+Kheyred-Din Barbarossa, who, in the words of the Padishah, “abandoning
+a sterile independence, sought in all the bloody hazards of his life
+nought but the glory of God and His Prophet” To us this hyperbole,
+addressed to a pirate, seems merely ridiculous, but in those days
+of fanaticism the beliefs of men, both Christians and Moslems, are
+something which it is impossible for us to realise. On either side the
+way of salvation was the path of conquest, and the man who was heretic
+to the faith which you professed was rightly served if you could cut
+him and his off from among the congregation.
+
+It was well for the corsair to make as many friends as possible, as
+among his enemies he counted all the kings of Christendom; and, looking
+back on his career, it seems but little short of a miracle that he was
+not crushed out of existence, not once but a hundred times. But, as has
+been said already, the root of true statesmanship was in Kheyr-ed-Din.
+He watched with eager eye the quarrels of the great kings on the
+continent of Europe; he saw his life-long rival at sea, the greatest
+of all Christian mariners, Andrea Doria, the Genoese admiral, transfer
+his allegiance from the French King Francis I. to the Emperor Charles
+V. He noted and took full advantage of the perpetual squabbles between
+the Genoese and Venetian Republics, and all the time was in touch
+with the Sea-wolves, who swarmed on the coasts of Africa, and lurked in
+every creek and harbour of the Ionian Sea. “In all the bloody hazards
+of his life,” to quote once again the words of the Grand Turk, “he
+could, in the end, depend more or less on the corsairs, whether they
+ostensibly sailed beneath his banner or whether they did not, as when
+danger threatened what name was so potent as that of Barbarossa, which
+his followers asserted to be worth ten thousand men, when shouted on
+the day of battle!”
+
+That which is most extraordinary in the life of Kheyr-ed-Din is the
+perpetual danger and stress in which it was lived. Time and again the
+heavy menacing clouds gathered around his head; strenuous and unceasing
+were the efforts made by his enemies to destroy his power, to capture
+the person of this militant robber who flung an insolent defiance to
+the whole of Christendom. The storms gathered and broke with various
+effects, which sometimes sent the corsair flying for his life a hunted
+fugitive, as others saw him once more victorious. But no reverses had
+the power to damp his ardour, or to render him less eager to arise,
+like some ill-omened phoenix, from the ashes of defeat: to vex the
+souls of those who held themselves to be the greatest men on earth.
+
+It was shortly after the death of his brother Uruj that the storm arose
+which bade fair to sweep, not only Kheyr-ed-Din but all the corsairs
+of the North African coast, clean out of their strongholds, for the
+Emperor Charles V., at this time young, eager, and enthusiastic,
+gave orders for their destruction. These robbers troubled the peace
+of Europe; they did more than this, they insulted the Majesty of the
+Emperor, and Charles regarded their perpetual incursions in the light
+of an affront to his personal dignity. The divinity which hedged such
+a monarch as the grandson of “Los Reyes Cathòlicos,” Ferdinand and
+Isabella, was a very real thing, and, if offended, was likely to find
+concrete expression in the most vigorous form. Charles, much annoyed
+at the necessity for chastising a band of robbers, determined that he
+would make an end of them once and for all. To Don Hugo de Moncada, the
+Viceroy of Sicily, to Don Perisan de Ribera at Bougie, to the Marquis
+de Comares at Oran, orders were sent to prepare their forces for an
+attack on Algiers.
+
+There was no lack of good-will on the part of the Christian princes,
+nobles, and governors. The Spanish veterans in Sicily were rusting
+for want of employment, the levies on the African littoral welcomed
+anything in the way of war as a distraction from the deadly monotony
+of their lives. The soldier in these days who rested too long upon
+his arms became in time practically useless for the purpose for which
+he existed; but such rulers as Charles V. gave their fighting men but
+small cause of complaint in the matter of want of employment. The Pope
+sent his blessing and a contingent, and, to show how serious was the
+purpose of the Emperor, who took the command in person, let us set
+forth the total of the expedition which was to utterly destroy and
+root out the corsairs and their leader:
+
+
+             FLEET.                          SAILING SHIP TRANSPORT.
+
+  Galleys of the Pope                   4  The Frigate of Malta           1
+        ”      of Malta                 4  Division of Spezzia          100
+        ”      of Sicily                4      ”    of Fernando Gonzaga 150
+        ”      of Antony Doria          6      ”    of Spain            200
+        ”      of Naples                5
+        ”      of Monaco                2
+        ”      of Marquis of Terra Nova 2
+        ”      of Vicome de Cigala      2
+        ”      of Fernando de Gonzaga   7
+        ”      of Spain                15
+        ”      of Andrea Doria         14
+                                      ———
+  Total Galleys                        65  Total Transports            451
+                                                                       ===
+  Add Transports                      451
+                                      ———
+  Total Fleet                         516
+                                      ===
+
+
+  We now come to the military side of the expedition, which consisted of:
+
+
+  The Household of the Emperor     200
+  Noblesse                         150
+  Knights of Malta                 150
+  Servants                         400
+  German Corps                   6,000
+  Italians                       5,000
+  Spanish from Naples and Sicily 6,000
+  Soldiers from Spain              400
+  Adventurers                    3,000
+  Italian Cavalry                1,000
+  Spanish Cavalry from Sicily      400
+  Light Cavalry                    700
+                                ——————
+  Total Army                    23,900
+                                ======
+
+
+We next come to the Armament of the Fleet:
+
+
+  Soldiers of the Galleys (50 in each)     3,250
+  Galley Slaves (average 70 in each)       4,500
+     ”     ”     The Frigate of Malta         80
+  540 sailing ships of all sorts, mostly
+      small (at an average of 10 each)     4,500
+                                          ——————
+  Total _Personnel_ of the Fleet          12,330
+  Add Army                                28,900
+                                          ——————
+  Total _Personnel_ of the Expedition.    36,230 men.
+                                          ======
+
+
+It was late autumn when the expedition at last set sail, and the
+imperious temper of Charles was such that he refused to be governed by
+the advice of the seasoned mariners, such as Andrea and Antony Doria,
+and others who dreaded the effect of the gales which the armada was
+likely to encounter on the coast of Africa. The Emperor was not to be
+gainsaid, and the fleet set sail. They arrived, says Sandoval, “en el
+dia de San Hieronymo,” Saint Bartholomew’s day; and there then arose
+such a storm as the Mediterranean seldom sees. Some of the army had
+landed, some were still afloat, the corsairs accounted for the luckless
+soldiers ashore, the elements destroyed many left in the ships: 26
+ships and 4,000 men were lost.
+
+Bitterly mortified, Charles, who had personally displayed valour and
+conduct of unusual distinction in this disastrous expedition, returned
+to Europe to turn his attention to his everlasting quarrels with the
+King of France. Meanwhile Don Hugo de Moncada had escaped with a
+remnant of his forces to Iviza, in the Balearics, where he wintered,
+and where his men mutinied because he was unable to pay them.
+
+As there was depression almost amounting to despair in the camps of
+Christendom, so was there concurrently the widest rejoicing in the
+tents and on board of the galleys which flew the Moslem flag. What
+mattered it that it was the elements which had saved Kheyr-ed-Din
+from annihilation? was it not a cause the more for jubilation, as had
+not the Prophet of God himself come to the assistance of those who
+were upholding his holy standard? Were not his favours made manifest
+in that he had sent, to lead his votaries to victory, such an one as
+Kbeyr-ed-Din Barbarossa?
+
+Pope and Emperor, King, Duke, and Viceroy had tried conclusions with
+the pirates, and their fleet and army had melted away as the mists melt
+in the hot sunshine on the Mediterranean; truly were the descendants of
+the dispossessed Moors of Còdoba and Granada taking a terrible revenge
+on those by whom they had been expropriated.
+
+Barbarossa was never one to let the grass grow under his feet; he had
+the Christians on the run, and he intended to take full advantage
+of this pleasing circumstance. Accordingly he despatched a trusted
+lieutenant, one Hassan, with instructions to harass the coast of
+Valentia, to ravage with fire and sword all those unfortunate towns and
+villages which he could reach. This corsair entered the Rio de Ampasta
+and destroyed all before him, the inhabitants fleeing as the news was
+carried by escaped fugitives and by the red glare of the villages
+flaming to heaven in the night. Satiated with blood, laden with spoil,
+and burdened with many wretched captives, Hassan put to sea once more
+in triumph.
+
+It may here be mentioned how terrible was the damage wrought by the
+piratical fraternity in the Mediterranean, and the manner in which
+it has been brought to light in somewhat remarkable fashion quite
+recently. Since the French occupation of Tunis it was charged against
+them that they had taken away from the natives of the country those
+fertile lands which lay upon the shores of the sea, and had given them
+to French subjects. The facts of the case were that for centuries these
+lands had been entirely out of cultivation, the reason being that,
+until the complete suppression of piracy in the Mediterranean took
+place, none dared to dwell within raiding distance of the sea for fear
+of being carried off into slavery.
+
+But to return to Hassan. That warrior, having cleared the Spanish
+coast, got separated from three of his consorts during the night.
+The next day, at dawn, he sighted a Spanish sailing-vessel, which he
+thought to make an easy prize. The wind was light, and the galleys—that
+is to say, the one on which Hassan was aboard and his remaining
+consort—were soon churning up the waters in pursuit as fast as their
+oars could carry them. Hassan reckoned on an easy capture, as he made
+certain she was but a peaceful trader with some score or so of throats
+to cut. He was, however, badly out of his reckoning, as on board of her
+was a veteran company of Spanish infantry, stark fighters to a man, who
+feared no odds, and who were skilfully commanded by Captain Robeira,
+grown grey in the Moorish wars. With bloodcurdling yells the galleys
+swept alongside with the fighting men massed on the high poops and
+forecastles of their vessels. Behind the high bulwarks of the “round
+ship” (as the sailing craft of the day were denominated to distinguish
+them from the long ships, or galleys) crouched the Spaniards, their
+muskets in their hands. Captain Robeira had them perfectly in hand, and
+not a piece was discharged until the beaks of the galleys crashed into
+her sides.
+
+Robeira then gave the order to fire, and at the short range into packed
+masses of men the volley did terrible execution. Completely surprised,
+the corsairs attempted to board, but were repulsed and driven back
+with more slaughter. His men becoming demoralised, Hassan withdrew
+amidst the ferocious taunts of the Spaniards, who had escaped almost
+unscathed. Sore and angry, the corsairs continued their voyage for
+another three days, at the expiration of which they arrived at Algiers.
+Hassan, who had acquired quite a considerable booty, expected a warm
+reception; this he received, but hardly in the way that he expected.
+He told his tale to Kheyr-ed-Din, which that commander received in
+frowning silence; when he had finished the storm burst.
+
+“O miserable coward! dost thou dare to stand in my presence and to
+confess that thou hast been whipped like a dog by those sons of burnt
+fathers, the Spaniards?”
+
+The miserable Hassan attempted to justify himself by reference to the
+booty which he had obtained and the number of captives with which he
+had returned; but this, far from assuaging the wrath of Barbarossa,
+only made it worse.
+
+“Dastard and slave! thou boastest that, thou hast destroyed defenceless
+villages and brought back many captives, but that shall avail thee
+nothing. No profit shalt thou derive from that. Let the captives be
+brought before me.”
+
+This was done, and to the horror even of those hardened men of blood
+who followed in the train of Barbarossa, they were all executed. Even
+this wholesale massacre did not assuage the wrath of the corsair.
+Standing and surveying the weltering shambles which tainted the air,
+he pulled ferociously at his red beard, and commanded that they should
+whip Hassan till the blood ran; when this was done thoroughly and
+to the satisfaction of the despot, he gave orders that he should be
+chained and thrust into the prison of the fortress.
+
+Terror stalked abroad in Algiers. No man knew when his turn might
+come after this awful example of what it meant to incur the wrath of
+Barbarossa. The corsair gave orders for the execution of Venalcadi,
+who, it will be remembered, was with Uruj when that warrior came by his
+death; but Venalcadi was popular among the pirates, and they connived
+at his escape.
+
+For so cool and politic a man as Kheyr-ed-Din this outburst is wholly
+inexplicable. Judged by our standards, the flogging of Hassan was not
+only brutal but silly, as raising up to himself enemies of the most
+bitter description in the midst of his own followers; and yet cruelty
+was so engrained in this man that he never forewent his revenge. It is
+a standing miracle that he escaped assassination in the age in which
+he lived, and the only explanation would appear to be that men were too
+much afraid of him to make the attempt.
+
+The immediate result of the flogging of Hassan and the attempted murder
+of Venalcadi was that the latter collected a following and made war
+upon Kheyr-ed-Din, who, with incredible folly, then released Hassan,
+and sent him with five hundred men to fight against Venalcadi. The
+result was what might have been anticipated: Hassan joined forces with
+Venalcadi, and together they attacked the tyrant and drove him out of
+his stronghold.
+
+Kheyr-ed-Din had the one supreme merit of never knowing when he was
+beaten. Driven from the shore, there was for him always the sea to
+which to retire; so on this occasion he embarked his family and such
+of his riches as were portable, and took to the sea once more. “Yendo
+a buscar nuevos asientos y nuevos amigos” (seeking a new home and new
+friends), says Sandoval.
+
+It was well for the corsairs that the Christians had selected the
+previous year for their attack, as, had they fallen upon them when
+Barbarossa was no longer in power at Algiers and the pirates were
+fighting among themselves, the latter would have been wiped out of
+existence. It was ill fighting with Kheyr-ed-Din, whether you professed
+the religion of Christ or that of Mahomet, and this the revolting
+corsairs were very soon to discover. Barbarossa sailed away from
+Algiers a hunted fugitive, only to return again as a conqueror.
+
+Eastward the dispossessed ruler of Algiers took his course, and
+very soon discovered that which he sought—allies to assist him
+against the revolted Venalcadi and the recalcitrant Hassan. Lurking
+in the neighbourhood of Bizerta, he discovered El Judeo (the Jew),
+Cachidiablo (Hunt the Devil), Salaerrez, Tabas, and other corsairs,
+who collectively composed a formidable force. These were all old
+acquaintances and some old followers of Kheyr-ed-Din, and to them did
+he relate the piteous tale of the cowardice of Venalcadi, whom he
+accused of having deserted his brother Uruj in his direst necessity,
+thereby causing his death; the abominable conduct of Hassan, who had
+turned and bitten the hand that fed him. With tears in his eyes did
+this accomplished actor reluctantly reveal the base ingratitude of
+which he had been the recipient; so much did he contrive to work upon
+the feelings of his auditors that they one and all vowed to stand by
+him, and to replace him as ruler of Algiers, from which he had been
+thrust by men whose shameful treachery was only equalled by their
+ingratitude.
+
+Forty sail in strength, they set out to avenge the wrongs of the gentle
+and long-suffering Kheyr-ed-Din, that master of craft in every sense
+of the word. Reaching Algiers, they disembarked artillery and stores
+and began an attack in form; but Venalcadi, whose forces were equal,
+in fact slightly superior, to those of his antagonists, made a sally,
+and battle was joined in the open. A most sanguinary combat ensued,
+in which the forces of Kheyr-ed-Din were decidedly worsted. For a
+considerable period his fate hung in the balance. Then occurred one
+of those singular and remarkable things only possible in such an age
+of anarchy and bloodshed. Barbarossa had in his train sixty Spanish
+soldiers captured by him from the force of Don Hugo de Moncada. Well
+did the corsair know their value: there were no finer fighting men in
+all the Christian armies. Hastily summoning them, he promised them
+their freedom if they would now throw in their lot with him and assist
+in the downfall of Venalcadi.
+
+The offer was no sooner made than accepted, and the Spanish veterans,
+fresh and unwearied, threw themselves into the heart of the fray.
+Shoulder to shoulder and blade to blade in their disciplined valour,
+they broke through all opposition; they fought for liberty as well as
+life, to exchange the noisome confinement of the piratical galley for
+the free air of their homes and their country. Soon the soldiers of
+Venalcadi turned and fled back to the city; the day was once again with
+Kheyr-ed-Din. For four days longer did Algiers hold out, and then a
+traitor betrayed Venalcadi into the hands of his enemies. Instantly his
+head was struck off, placed on a pole, and paraded in full sight of the
+garrison, who were promised their lives on condition of surrender.
+
+The city opened its gates once more, and Barbarossa entered in triumph.
+The corsair was as good as his word to his Spanish captives, and
+restored to them their liberty. He went even further, and was liberal
+in his _largesse_ to those who had fought so well for him. If he can
+be credited with such an emotion as gratitude, he must have felt it
+for Moncada’s stout infantrymen, as, had it not been for them, it
+would have been his head and not that of Venalcadi which would have
+decorated the pole. The Spaniards departed to their own country—that is
+to say, such of them as desired to do so; but one Hamet, a Biscayan,
+declared that life was so intolerable for a common man such as he in
+his own country that he desired to throw in his lot with Barbarossa.
+Thirty-nine others followed his example, abjuring the Christian faith
+and becoming renegadoes.
+
+Those of the garrison left alive were glad enough to return once more
+to their allegiance to their former master. The episode of the mutiny
+of Venalcadi and Hassan was a lesson not only to them: the fame of it
+spread far and wide throughout the Mediterranean. Who now could be
+found to combat Barbarossa? and all along the coasts of the tideless
+sea echo shudderingly answered—Who?
+
+With the new accession to his strength Kheyred-Din had no difficulty in
+making himself master of Tunis, and he sent Cachidiablo with seventeen
+galleys to harry once more the coast of Spain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE TAKING OF THE PEÑON D’ALGER; ANDREA DORIA
+
+
+Although Kheyr-ed-Din had made himself master of Algiers, there still
+remained the fortress of Pedro Navarro in the hands of the Spaniards.
+This strong place of arms had now been in their practically undisputed
+occupation for twenty years; from out of its loopholed walls and
+castellated battlements the undaunted garrison had looked forth while
+the tide of war both by land and sea had swept by. They had been
+unmolested so far, but now their day was to come.
+
+In command of the Peñon d’Alger, as it was called by the Spaniards,
+was a valiant and veteran cavalier, by name Martin de Vargas. For
+twenty years, as we have said, the gold-and-crimson banner of Spain
+had floated from its crenulated bastions; since the days of Pedro
+Navarro it had held its own against all comers. It must have been with
+a sinking heart that Martin de Vargas and his brave garrison beheld
+the town fall once again into the hands of Kheyr-ed-Din; they knew, as
+by this time did all the Mediterranean and the dwellers on the coasts
+thereof, the implacable enmity of the corsair to the Christians, and
+how short a shrift would be theirs should they fall into his hands.
+
+On his side Kheyr-ed-Din looked with longing eyes on this remnant of
+the power of Spain in Africa. Could he but dislodge Martin de Vargas,
+he had the whole of Northern Africa practically at his disposal;
+Algiers would then be really his, to fortify for all time against
+the inroads of his foes. He was master by land and sea, the time was
+propitious; the corsair decided that the hour had come. He had seen the
+repulse of his brother Uruj, none knew better than did he the temper of
+the men by whom the Peñon was held, or the valiance and the unswerving
+fidelity of that caballero of Spain, Martin de Vargas. He tried to
+induce that officer to surrender to him, offering every inducement
+to the Spanish commander to come to terms. He was met with a haughty
+refusal, couched in the most contemptuous language. He tried the most
+blood-curdling threats, which were no empty menaces, as his adversary
+well knew: these were received in silence.
+
+One more embassy he tried, and to this he received the following answer:
+
+  “I spring from the race of the De Vargas, but my house
+  has never made it a practice to boast of the glory of
+  their long descent: they professed merely to imitate
+  the heroism of their ancestors. Spurred forward by this
+  worthy desire, I await with calmness all your efforts,
+  and will prove to you, with arms in my hands, that I am
+  faithful to my God, my country, and my king.”
+
+[Illustration: ANDREA DORIA, PRINCE OF ONEGLEA, ADMIRAL TO CHARLES V.]
+
+Barbarossa summoned to his palace his kinsman and trusted adherent
+Celebi Rabadan, and they mutually decided that there was nothing
+they could do save take up arms against this most insolent and
+uncompromising warrior. In the meanwhile they would try what craft
+would do; and accordingly two young Moors were introduced into the
+Peñon, under the pretext that they had seen the error of their ways
+and were anxious to embrace the Christian religion. Martin de Vargas,
+like all Spanish caballeros, was an ardent proselytiser, and he ordered
+the two young men to be taken into his own house and instructed by the
+chaplain of the garrison. The next day was Easter Day, and the two
+young Moors, while the entire garrison were at Mass, signalled to their
+co-religionists a prearranged sign indicating that now was the time to
+attack. Unfortunately for them, a woman in the employment of De Vargas
+saw them, and they were immediately hanged from the battlements in full
+view of Barbarossa. That potentate was filled with fury at what he
+considered an insult to the Mohammedan religion, and again consulted
+with Celebi as to the feasibility of another assault. It was true,
+he said, that his messengers had been hanged, but they had made the
+prearranged signal. Still, the walls were hardly sufficiently breached,
+he thought, and his own men were singularly disheartened by the ill
+success of their previous efforts. Did Celebi Rabadan think another
+attempt desirable?
+
+That person was in a quandary, because he could not gather what it was
+that Barbarossa wished him to say. He knew that if he recommended an
+assault, and that it proved once again unsuccessful, that the full
+fury of the tyrant would fall upon his head; at the same time he was
+almost equally afraid to broach the idea which had been prevalent in
+Algiers for some time that Martin de Vargas must assuredly be in league
+with Shaitan, or he could never have held out in the way that he had
+done. In consequence he temporised and hesitated, while Barbarossa
+pulled at his famous red beard and regarded him with scowling brows.
+
+The situation was saved for Celebi Rabadan by an accident. There
+swam off to the ship a traitor from the Spanish garrison, and this
+man informed them that his whilom comrades were positively at their
+last gasp, ammunition all but exhausted, and the food-supply barely
+sufficient to last another two days.
+
+“To such an end come those who deny the Prophet of God,” exclaimed
+Barbarossa, and gave orders that this news be communicated to all
+his men, who were to prepare for the final assault on the morrow. He
+further offered a reward for the capture of Martin de Vargas alive.
+
+On May 16th, 1530, the corsairs once again advanced to the assault. By
+this time the walls had been battered until a practicable breach had
+been formed, and over this swarmed thirteen hundred of the starkest
+fighters of the Mediterranean, In the breach, bareheaded, his armour
+hacked and dinted, stood the undaunted chieftain of the Spaniards: over
+his head floated that proud banner which had never cast its shadow on
+a worthier knight of Spain. The garrison, worn to a shadow by their
+hardships and their hunger, most of them wounded, and all of them
+sore spent, were in no case to resist this, the most formidable attack
+to which they had been subjected. It was all over in a very short time,
+and a dreadful massacre ensued.
+
+Martin de Vargas, though sorely wounded, was taken alive and conducted
+to the presence of Barbarossa. Wounded, shaken, bruised, his fortress
+in the hands of his enemy, the dying shrieks of his murdered garrison
+still ringing in his ears, the amazing spirit of the man was still
+utterly unsubdued. “It is to the treason of a ruffian that you owe
+your triumph,” he said to his captor, “and not to your valour: had I
+received the smallest relief I could still have repulsed and kept you
+at bay. You have my maimed and mutilated body in your possession, and I
+hope that you are satisfied. But my body is accustomed to pain, and I
+therefore defy you and your dastardly cruelty.”
+
+To do Barbarossa justice he admired the undaunted spirit of his
+prisoner, and he replied:
+
+“Fear nothing, De Vargas, I will do all in my power to ease your hurts
+if you will do that which I ask of you.”
+
+De Vargas replied:
+
+“As an earnest of your faith, I demand the punishment of the traitor
+through whose information you were enabled to take the citadel.”
+
+Barbarossa ordered the soldier to be brought before them, and, having
+nearly flogged him to death, had him beheaded. He then presented the
+head to De Vargas, saying:
+
+“You observe my complaisance. I now ask you to embrace the Mohammedan
+faith; then I will overwhelm you with benefits and honours, and make
+you the Captain-General of my guards.”
+
+De Vargas looked at him in indignation and replied:
+
+“Dost thou believe that I, who but now demanded the just punishment of
+a man who had forsworn himself, could stoop to such an act of baseness
+as this? Keep your ill-gotten riches; confer your dignities on others;
+insult not thus a caballero of Spain.”
+
+There was a breathless pause. None had ever used such language to
+Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa and lived to tell the tale. Nor was it to be so
+in this case.
+
+“You and yours have caused me too much trouble,” he answered
+indifferently. He made a sign to the executioner who had beheaded the
+soldier, and the next moment the head of De Vargas was swept from his
+body.
+
+The gallant Spaniard, it is to be hoped, came by his end in the way
+just narrated; but the chroniclers disagree among themselves, and
+“El Señor Don Diego de Haedo, Arcobispo de Palermo y Capitan General
+del Reyno de Sicilia por El Rey Felipe nuestro señor,” states that
+Barbarossa kept De Vargas in confinement for three months and then had
+him beaten to death. One can only sincerely hope that the first account
+is the true one; but Haedo was nearer to the time of the occurrence,
+and, as he wrote in the reign of Philip II., is more likely to have
+known the facts. But however this may have been, there was an end for
+all time of Spanish domination on the north coast of Africa, and from
+this we may date the permanent establishment of those piratical States
+in that part of the world.
+
+The star of Kheyr-ed-Din was once more in the ascendant. Not only had
+he crushed out the incipient mutiny of Venalcadi and taken his life,
+but he had consolidated his power by the taking of the Peñon d’Alger.
+He celebrated this occasion in the most practical manner possible: a
+stop was put to the indiscriminate massacre of the garrison, and five
+hundred of the Spaniards were captured alive; it was their dreary
+fate to pull down entirely the tower of Pedro Navarro, which they had
+defended so gallantly and to utilise the material in making a causeway
+from the Peñon to the shore. Barbarossa was determined that on no
+future occasion should his enemies have the chance of dominating his
+town of Algiers. He was now a sovereign in fact and in deed, regarding
+even so mighty a monarch as Charles V. with comparative equanimity.
+Terrible was the wrath of the latter when the news of the fall of
+the Peñon, the massacre of the garrison, and the death of his trusty
+servant De Vargas, was brought to him. The Sea-wolves seemed to exist
+but to exasperate him, and this latest news came just at one of the
+most prosperous epochs of his career.
+
+The titles of “Carlos Quinto,” as recorded by Sandoval, read like the
+roll of some mighty drum. Nor were these titles mere vain and empty
+boastings, as was so often the case at that time among the minor
+rulers of the earth. On February 22nd, 1580, just before the fall of
+the Peñon, he had placed on his own head the iron crown of Lombardy;
+his viceroys ruled in Naples and Sicily, his dukes and feudatories
+in Florence and Ferrara, in Mantua and in Milan; there was no more
+Italy. All these recent acquisitions had been rendered possible by
+the defection of Andrea Doria, the Genoese seaman, from Francis I. of
+France to the side of the Emperor. From henceforward it was against
+this modern Cæsar that Barbarossa had to contend; the monarch under
+whose banner swarmed the terrible Schwartz-Reiters of Germany, for
+whose honour marched the incomparable infantry of Spain, for whom the
+fleets of the gallant Genoese sailed in battle-array under the orders
+of the greatest admiral of the day, Andrea Doria. All these disciplined
+legions of Christendom were arrayed against the corsair king; banded
+together for the destruction of that daring pirate whose flag floated
+in insolent triumph above the white walls of Algiers.
+
+As from this time onwards we shall hear much concerning Andrea Doria,
+it is fitting that some account should here be given of this great
+patriot, great soldier, and still greater seaman. Andrea Doria, of
+the family of the Princes of Oneglia, of Genoa, was born at Oneglia
+on November 30th, 1468, and was the son of Andrea Coeva and Marie
+Caracosa, both of the family of Doria. At the death of his mother the
+young Andrea, then nineteen years of age, was sent to Rome, where his
+kinsman Dominique Doria, of the elder branch of the family, was captain
+of the Papal Guard of Pope Innocent VIII. Here he rose rapidly: owing
+to his extraordinary address in all military exercises, he was marked
+out for preferment, and would probably have succeeded his kinsman as
+grand officer, had it not been for the death of Innocent VIII. The
+successor to Innocent, Alexander VI., was not favourable to the claims
+of the Dorias; so young Andrea, acting on the advice of Dominique,
+repaired to the court of Duke Urbino, then regarded as the best school
+for young nobles desirous of following a military career. After some
+time spent at the court of Urbino, Dominique counselled that Andrea
+should enter some other service, as there was no glory to be obtained
+under a prince who was never at war. Accordingly Andrea passed into the
+service of the King of Aragon, who, having invaded Naples, was giving
+plenty of employment to all would-be warriors.
+
+In the record of his early days we find that in the year 1495 he made
+a journey to Jerusalem to visit the holy places, and that he then
+returned to Italy, where Ferdinand of Aragon was attempting to recover
+the kingdom of Naples. “The Great Captain,” Gonsalvo de Cordoba, was
+warring against Doria’s kinsman, Juan Roverejo; this commander had
+rendered a great service to the Dorias by rescuing David Doria from
+imprisonment at Ancona, and Andrea decided to throw in his lot with
+him. He accordingly armed twenty-five cavaliers at his own expense,
+and joined Roverejo, who put him in charge of the fortress of Rocca
+Guillelma. In this place Andrea was besieged by Gonsalvo de Cordoba,
+the first warrior of the age; here he displayed such extraordinary
+ability in defence that, on the occasion of a truce, Gonsalvo urged
+upon Andrea to join the Spaniards. Andrea made answer that
+honour bound him to Roverejo, but, could he be released from his
+arrangement with him, he might then consider the proposition of “The
+Great Captain.” Roverejo refused, but, as Charles VIII. immediately
+afterwards evacuated Italy, Andrea was free to follow his own
+inclinations, and took service with Lodovico Sforza, Duke of Milan.
+
+From this time onward until 1503 Andrea was constantly employed in war,
+and made for himself such a reputation that in this year the Republic
+of Genoa requested him to take command of their navy. This offer he
+refused, as he said that he knew nothing about the sea. They pressed
+him, saying that to a man of his genius nothing was impossible, and
+in the end he gave a somewhat reluctant consent. He soon proved his
+competence in his new sphere of activity, as his first act was to
+capture the Fort of the Lantern, in the neighbourhood of Genoa, which
+was then held by the French for Louis XII. The Republic confirmed his
+appointment as General of the Galleys with many compliments, and he
+put to sea and captured three of the war-galleys of the corsairs, also
+two Turkish ships laden with valuable merchandise. He fitted out the
+galleys for his own service, sold the merchantmen, and made an immense
+sum of money.
+
+His next act was to defeat the corsair, Cadolin, who had eight galleys
+to Doria’s six; these he added to his own fleet, which now consisted
+of fourteen vessels, he having begun with three. As Cadolin was one
+of the most famous corsairs of the day, this capture made an immense
+sensation, and all men, Moslems as well as Christians, were asking
+one another, “Who was this Doria?”
+
+They had their answer, as time passed, in the career of this
+astonishing warrior, who in his time played so many parts, who served
+under so many flags, and yet who remained consistently a patriot all
+the time. As this is not a history of Doria, we have no space to trace
+out his life step by step as it was lived; suffice it to say that,
+disapproving of the government of his native Republic under the family
+of the Adorno, Andrea offered his sword and his fleet to the King of
+France, Francis I. His offer was received with joy, and he was made
+Captain-General of the Galleys of France. In his new capacity he sailed
+for the coast of Provence, which was being devastated by the fleet of
+Charles V. He sank several of the Spanish vessels, captured others, and
+secured sufficient booty to pay his soldiers and sailors—a fact most
+welcome to Francis, who was in desperate straits for money.
+
+Eventually, however, a dispute arose between Francis and Doria, which
+was to have disastrous effects for the King. At this time Charles V.
+was suzerain of Genoa, which was held for him by the Adorno. Philippin
+Doria, nephew of the admiral, met at sea with Hugo de Moncada outside
+the Gulf of Salerno; a battle ensued, in which Philippin was victorious
+and Moncada was slain. Amongst others who were captured was the Marquis
+de Guasto and Camille Colonna; these high officers, together with three
+of the captured galleys, were sent by Philippin to his uncle at Genoa.
+
+In the meantime some malcontents reached the Court of France and
+complained to the King that Andrea Doria had not captured Sicily, which
+they averred he could easily have done. These men were backed up by
+a certain number of the courtiers, who were bitterly jealous of the
+fame of Doria and the esteem in which he had been held by Francis.
+The monarch, easily swayed by any determined and persistent attack,
+decided to levy a fine on the inhabitants of Genoa as a punishment for
+the supineness of their countryman, who was his Captain-General of the
+Galleys; his argument being that they must pay him for the plunder
+Doria had missed by not taking Sicily when he should have done so.
+
+This was worse than a crime—it was blunder of the very first magnitude,
+and such a blunder as could only have been made by a very stupid as
+well as a very arrogant man. Doria by this time was a warrior of
+European celebrity, and one to whom even kings used the language of
+persuasion; to attempt to browbeat him was to court disaster.
+
+Francis sent the Vicomte de Tours to Genoa to levy the fine, but the
+Vicomte did not prosper on his mission. Outside of Genoa he was met by
+the outraged admiral on horseback at the head of some fifty Genoese
+nobles and a numerous company of foot-soldiers. De Tours reported that
+the name and authority of the King of France was held in derision
+by the fierce old admiral, who so alarmed the envoy himself that he
+thought it prudent to retire to Florence, from whence he wrote a long
+letter to his master complaining of his reception by Doria.
+
+This attempt to levy a fine on Genoa was not, however, the only
+deadly blow which the King of France was aiming at her. The children of
+Francis were at this time in Madrid, as hostages for the good behaviour
+of their father, and that monarch was in treaty secretly with Charles
+to restore Italy to the _status quo ante bellum_, which would have had
+the effect of handing over Genoa to Antony Adorno. He also began the
+fortification of Savona, in order that from there he might be in a
+position to strike at the Genoese—from a military point of view, if
+necessary—but in any event to cripple the trade of that city. Andrea
+Doria, as soon as he became aware of this latter action on the part of
+Francis, was thoroughly roused, and wrote him the letter quoted below,
+which illustrates the fact that he was quite aware of his own great
+importance in Europe. It was not a time in which men held such language
+as did Doria on this occasion unless they were very sure of themselves
+and their followers.
+
+  “GREAT PRINCE,
+
+  “It is an ill use of power to reverse order in human
+  affairs. Genoa has always been the capital of Liguria,
+  and posterity will see with astonishment that your
+  Majesty has deprived it of this advantage with no
+  plausible pretext. The Genoese are well aware how
+  inimical to their interests are your projects with regard
+  to Savona. They beg of you that these may be abandoned,
+  and that you will not sacrifice the general good to the
+  views of a few courtiers. I take the liberty to add my
+  prayers to theirs, and to ask of you this grace as the
+  price of the services I have rendered to France. Should
+  your Majesty have been put to expense, I shall join to
+  my request the sum of forty thousand gold crowns.
+
+  “With the humble duty of Andrea Doria,
+
+  Captain-General of the Galleys of France.”
+
+Theodore Trivulce, who held Savona for the King of France, was roundly
+told by Doria that “the people of Genoa would never suffer the taking
+of Savona by the King of France, as it had from time immemorial
+belonged to them,” and added, “for myself I will sacrifice the
+friendship of the King in the interests of my fatherland.”
+
+The last straw came, however, when the Marshal de Lautrec demanded
+from Andrea the prisoners taken by Philippin Doria at Salerno. To this
+Doria returned a curt negative, whereupon Francis sent one Barbezieux
+to supersede Doria and to seize upon the person of the veteran admiral.
+But that seaman, now sixty years of age, was not to be taken by any
+king or soldier. He moved his twelve galleys from Genoa to Lerici, on
+the east coast of the Gulf of Spezzia, and when Barbezieux arrived
+he sarcastically told him to take the galleys. Barbezieux had no
+better fortune than his predecessor, the Vicomte de Tours, and retired
+discomfited and boiling over with rage to report matters to the King.
+
+It has been said that among the prisoners of Philippin Doria was the
+Marquis de Guasto. This nobleman had been an interested spectator
+of the quarrel, and now approached Doria suggesting that he should
+throw in his lot with Charles. The admiral, who all through had been
+acting in the interests of his native country, seeing its ruin
+approaching from the ambitions of Francis, consented, and wrote to
+his nephew Philippin telling him of his decision, and his reasons
+for that which he proposed to do. Philippin therefore rejoined his
+uncle at Lerici with his eight galleys. The negotiations were short,
+sharp, and decisive, and were conducted through the medium of De
+Guasto. Charles offered the admiral sixty thousand ducats a year;
+this was accepted. The only other stipulation made by the Emperor was
+natural enough, which was that all the Spanish galley-slaves in the
+fleet of Andrea should be released and their places taken by men of
+other nationalities. This was of course conceded, and the transaction
+was complete. Henceforward the most formidable force at sea on the
+Christian side was at the disposal of the Spanish King.
+
+This transference took place in the year 1528, and it was in the same
+year that the citizens of Genoa, in recognition of the unexampled
+services of the admiral to the State, elected him perpetual Doge.
+
+This honour Doria declined, declaring that it was more glorious to have
+deserved than to possess the honour, and that he considered he could be
+of more use to his fellow citizens by gaining for them the protection
+of great princes than by remaining as chief judge in his own country.
+
+The Senate of Genoa, astonished by his noble modesty, hailed him as
+the father and liberator of his country, ordered that a statue of him
+should be erected in the public square, that in the same place a palace
+should be built for him at the public expense, and that it should be
+called Plaza Doria; further, that he and his posterity should be
+for ever exempted from taxation, and that a device should be engraved
+on a plate of copper and attached to the walls of the palace, where it
+could be seen of all men, announcing to posterity the services that
+this great man had rendered to his fellow citizens, to be for ever a
+memorial of their gratitude.
+
+The chronicler of these events draws a parallel between Doria and
+Themistocles, who, when discontented with the Athenians, passed into
+Persia and offered his services to Xerxes, to the great joy of that
+monarch, who cried aloud, “I have Themistocles, I have Themistocles.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE APOTHEOSIS OF THE CORSAIR KING
+
+
+If Charles V. made no such outward manifestation of his joy as did the
+Persian monarch, he possibly was no less pleased than Xerxes; this he
+showed by his acts, and the value that he attached to the services of
+Doria was instanced in the directions which he gave. He ordered the
+Governors of all his possessions in Italy to do nothing without first
+consulting the admiral; to lend him prompt aid, whether he demanded
+it in his own name or in that of the Republic of Genoa. He made him
+Admiralissimo of his navy, with power to act as he liked without even
+consulting him, as his Emperor. It will be seen that Charles had in him
+sufficient greatness to trust whole-heartedly when he trusted at all;
+the faith which he reposed in the Genoese seaman was amply justified
+by events, and no action of his during the whole of his singularly
+dramatic reign was ever to result so entirely to his profit. When in
+after-life Charles had received from the Pope the Imperial Crown, and
+when, on his return, he put into Aigues-Mortes in Doria’s galley, he
+there met with Francis, who, in a burst to confidence, advised the
+Cæsar never to part with his admiral.
+
+On that stage, which was the blue waters of the tideless sea, we
+shall, from this time forward, watch the fortunes of those two great
+sea-captains, Andrea Doria and Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa. With them the
+ebb and flow of conquest and defeat alternated. Great as was the one,
+it cannot be said that he was greater than the other; but when the
+supreme arbitrament was within the grasp of both, as it was at the
+naval battle of Prevesa, neither the Christian admiral nor the Moslem
+corsair would reach out his hand and grasp the nettle of his fate.
+Hesitation at this moment, when, in the fulness of time, the rivals
+stood face to face with arms in their hands, was the last thing that
+would have been expected of such dauntless warriors, such born leaders
+of men! and the battle of Prevesa presents a psychological problem
+of the most baffling and perplexing description. We are, however,
+anticipating events which will fall into their proper sequence as we
+proceed.
+
+Kheyr-ed-Din, now firmly established in Algiers, devoted his energies
+to the undoing of his Christian foes by the systematic plunder of their
+merchant-vessels. At this period he, personally, seems to have remained
+ashore, and sent his young and aspiring captains to sea to increase his
+wealth by plunder, his consequence by the hordes of slaves which they
+swept into the awful bagnios of Algiers; and Sandoval, that quaint and
+delightful historian, is moved to indignation and complains with much
+acrimony of “las malas obras que este corsario hizo a la Christiandad”
+(the evil deeds done to Christianity by this corsair). These were on
+so considerable a scale at this time that he had to devote to them far
+more space than he considered consonant with the dignity of history.
+
+But if all were going on well on the coast of Africa for the Crescent,
+such was far from being the case in the northern waters of the
+Mediterranean; for Andrea Doria, serving His Most Catholic Majesty at
+sea, had defeated the Turks at Patras and again in the Dardanelles,
+which unpleasant fact caused no little annoyance to Soliman the
+Magnificent. On land the Sultan was sweeping all before him; at sea
+this pestilent Genoese was dragging into servitude all the best
+mariners who sailed beneath the banner of the Prophet. There was
+wrath and there was fear at Constantinople, and the captains of the
+galleys which sailed from the Golden Horn felt that their heads and
+their bodies might at any moment part company—the Grand Turk was in
+an ill humour, which might at any moment call for the appeasement of
+sacrifice; so it was that men trembled.
+
+It was at this time, in 1533, that Soliman bethought himself of
+Kheyr-ed-Din. There was no better seaman, there was no fiercer fighter,
+there was no man whose name was so renowned throughout the length and
+breadth of the Mediterranean, than was that of the corsair king who was
+vassal to the Sublime Porte. Soliman was confronted with a new, and, to
+him, an almost mysterious thing, for the onward conquering step of the
+Moslem hosts was being checked by that sea-power so little understanded
+of the Turk, and the imperious will of the Sultan seemed powerless to
+prevent the disasters conjured from the deep.
+
+[Illustration: SOLIMAN THE MAGNIFICENT.]
+
+Soliman the Magnificent, who was not inaptly described by this title,
+for he was successful as both warrior and statesman, meditated both
+long and anxiously on the new development of affairs before he made up
+his mind to the step of calling to his assistance the corsair king. But
+he possessed that truest attribute of greatness in a ruler, the faculty
+of discerning the right man for any particular post. Brave and reckless
+fighters he possessed in super-abundance, but somehow—somehow—none of
+these fiery warriors had that habit of the sea which enabled them to
+make head against such a past-master in the craft of the seaman as
+Andrea Doria. The Genoese was chasing the Turkish galleys from off the
+face of the waters. Constantinople itself was a sea-surrounded city; it
+was necessary that a check should be administered to the arms of the
+Christians on this element. It is easy to imagine the preoccupations
+of the Turkish monarch. The despot rules by force, but he also holds
+his power by the address with which it is wielded, and he can by no
+means afford to disregard his personal popularity if he is to make the
+best use of his fighting men in such a turbulent epoch as was the first
+half of the sixteenth century. Soliman had the wit to know that he had
+no mariner who was in any way comparable to Doria; he was also aware
+that Kheyr-ed-Din had risen from nothing to his present position by his
+sheer ability as a seaman. It would appear, therefore, a very natural
+thing that he should invite the co-operation of the King of Algiers,
+but that with which he had to reckon was the furious jealousy that such
+an appointment must inevitably arouse among his own subjects.
+
+It says much for the steadfast moral courage of the man that he
+eventually decided to take the risk; it says even more for the absolute
+correctness of his judgment that he never afterwards repented of the
+step which he then took.
+
+Once the mind of the Grand Turk was made up he hesitated no longer. The
+Capitan de Rodas, one of his personal guard, was sent to Barbarossa to
+request him to come to Constantinople and take command of the Ottoman
+fleet. There were no conditions attached; the honour was supreme.
+Barbarossa loaded the messenger with rich gifts, and overwhelmed him
+with honours. For Kheyr-ed-Din this was in a sense the apotheosis of
+his career. The Grand Turk, the head of the Mohammedan religion, had
+not only recognised his kingship, but had conferred on him an honour
+unprecedented, unlooked for, and one of the highest value to a man of
+such an insatiable ambition. Into the cool and crafty brain of this
+prince among schemers instantly sprang the thought that now at last his
+kingdom was secure, that in future the whole of the Barbary coast would
+own no other lord than he.
+
+Preparations for the voyage were immediately begun, and, as an earnest
+of the new importance which he derived from the advances of Soliman,
+the corsair actually sent presents to the King of France and proffered
+him his aid against his enemies. To such a pass as this had one of the
+most powerful monarchs in Christendom been reduced by the defection of
+Andrea Doria. Algiers he left in the keeping of his son Hassan, and
+in charge of Hassan his kinsman Celebi Rabadan and a captain of the
+name of Agi. In the middle of August, 1533, Barbarossa left Algiers,
+his fleet consisting of seven galleys and eleven fustas. Sailing
+northward, he fell in with a fleet which he at first feared was that
+of Doria, but which, fortunately for him, was that of a corsair named
+Delizuff from Los Gelues. Courtesies were interchanged between the two
+leaders, and Barbarossa succeeded in persuading Delizuff to accompany
+him to Sicily, where it was possible they might fall in with Doria, and
+with their combined forces inflict defeat upon the Christian admiral.
+Delizuff was nothing loath to join forces with so noted a commander as
+Kheyr-ed-Din, as he had no desire to tackle Doria single-handed, and at
+the same time wished to extend the sphere of his plunderings, which had
+been cruelly restricted recently by the wholesome fear instilled into
+the Sea-wolves by the new admiral of Charles V.
+
+Accordingly, reinforced by the fifteen fustas and one galley of
+Delizuff, the Algerian fleet once more proceeded on its voyage.
+Although bound for Constantinople at the request of Soliman, at a time
+when it would have been thought that delay was not only dangerous but
+impolitic, and although the corsair was endeavouring to merge the
+pirate in the king who dealt on terms of equality with those whom
+he now regarded as his brother monarchs, still the old instinct of
+robbery was too strong to be resisted; the lust of gain and the call
+of adventure were still inherent in the man whose famous beard was now
+far more white than red. Advancing age had not tamed the spirit nor
+weakened the frame of this leader among the Moslems.
+
+Sailing through the Straits of Bonifacio, they touched Monte Cristo,
+a small island where they found a slave who had formerly belonged to
+Delizuff. This man was base enough to betray his own native island
+of Biba into the hands of the corsairs, who sacked it thoroughly and
+carried off its inhabitants; they also captured thirteen large ships
+going to Sicily for wheat, and burnt them, making slaves of their
+crews. In the fight with these vessels Delizuff was killed. Shortly
+after this, some disagreement arising between the crews of the ships
+of Barbarossa and the men in Delizuff’s fleet, the Algerian commander
+seized a man out of one of Delizuff’s galleys and had him summarily
+shot. The death of Delizuff naturally caused some confusion in his
+command, and the high-handed proceeding of Kheyr-ed-Din caused great
+resentment, not unmixed with fear, as the terror inspired by the
+Barbarossas was a very real sentiment. Under their command no man knew
+when or at how short notice his life might not be required of him;
+but the glamour of success was ever around them, and they never, in
+consequence, lacked for followers. But the taking out and shooting of
+one of their comrades was too much for the pirates from the islands of
+Los Gelues, from whence Delizuff was in the habit of “operating.” In
+the words of Sandoval, “they were not used to such tyranny and cruel
+usage.” In consequence they concerted among themselves and one dark
+night sailed off, leaving Kheyr-ed-Din to continue his voyage with
+his original following.
+
+That warrior, nothing disconcerted, pursued his way to the island of
+Zante, where he fell in with a Turkish “flota,” under the command
+of the Bashas Zay and Himeral. To these officers of the Grand Turk
+Barbarossa used most injurious language, bitterly reproaching them with
+not having sought out and destroyed Andrea Doria, which he declared
+they ought to and should have done. This is yet another instance of
+the extraordinary character of the man. These persons were the highest
+officers in the fleet of the Ottoman Empire; it was more than possible
+that they would be placed under the command of Barbarossa as soon as
+his new position as Admiralissimo was adjusted at Constantinople; and
+yet, in spite of these facts, the corsair had taken the very first
+opportunity which presented itself grossly to insult these men. It is
+true, as we shall see, that his injurious words came home to roost in
+the future; but arrogant, conquering, contemptuous, Barbarossa seems to
+have shouldered his way through life, fearing none and feared by all.
+
+The fact of his known cruelty accounts for much of the dread which he
+inspired, but it was something far more than this which caused the son
+of the Albanian renegado to ride roughshod as he did over all with whom
+he was brought into contact. Men felt, in dealing with Barbarossa,
+that here was a rock against which they might dash themselves in vain.
+In all his enterprises he spared not himself. He asked no man to do
+that which he was not prepared to do, but if any failed him there
+was no mercy for that man; and, although in deference to modern
+susceptibility no mention is made of the tortures he so frequently
+caused to be inflicted on his victims, they were none the less a daily
+spectacle to those who lived under his rule. He possessed, it is true,
+the rough geniality of the fighting man, a certain “Hail fellow, well
+met!” manner in greeting old comrades, and yet none of these men there
+were who did not tremble in an agony of fear when the bushy brows were
+bent, when the famous red beard bristled in one of his uncontrollable
+furies. The real secret of his success must have been that, no matter
+how uncontrollable did his passions appear to be, the man was always
+really master of himself. Further, he possessed a marvellous insight as
+to where his own interests lay. He used as his tools the bodies and the
+minds of the men who were subject to him, and he carried his designs to
+an assured success by the aid of that penetrating, far-seeing mental
+power with which, above all else, he must have been gifted. He could
+drive men, he could lead them, he could invariably persuade when all
+else failed him. In this we have had an instance when he was chased
+from Algiers by the combined efforts of Venalcadi and Hassan, whom he
+had flogged; for no sooner did he meet with other corsairs than he
+persuaded them to take up his quarrel—which, it must be understood, was
+none of theirs—and to replace him on that precarious throne from which
+he had been so rudely thrust. We have already said that he was a man
+who never knew when he was beaten, and in the years which we have yet
+to chronicle this characteristic appears again and again; for age
+had no effect apparently, either mentally or physically, on this man of
+iron who had by this time reached the age of seventy-seven.
+
+Leaving the high officers of his future master, the Grand Turk,
+smarting under the opprobrium which he had heaped upon their heads,
+Barbarossa fared onward with his fleet to Salonica, capturing a
+Venetian galley on the voyage: from thence he made his way to the
+Dardanelles, where he anchored and remained several days, to make ready
+his fleet for the spectacular entry which he intended to make into
+Constantinople.
+
+The city on the Golden Horn was all agog for the arrival of Barbarossa;
+no matter what private opinions the inhabitants might have had
+concerning him, of which we shall hear more presently, they were none
+the less all curious to a degree to catch sight of this man, so famous
+in his evil supremacy on that distant shore of Northern Africa.
+
+Kheyr-ed-Din, among his other qualities, possessed in the highest
+degree that of a successful stage-manager; no pageant which he
+undertook was ever likely to fail from the want of the striking and
+the dramatic. It was now his business to impress the citizens of
+Constantinople with an idea of his greatness, and none knew better
+than he that it is the outward and visible sign which counts among
+the orientals, more perhaps than the inward and spiritual grace: he
+may also possibly have felt that he did not possess the latter to any
+overwhelming extent.
+
+Even before he left Algiers this entry to the chief city of the
+Ottoman Empire had been in the mind of Barbarossa, who had caused to
+be embarked a quantity of flags and pennons for the decoration of
+his grim war-galleys when they should stream into the Golden Horn.
+There were also bands of music, which, it is to be presumed, utilised
+the delay in the Dardanelles to attain to something like “a concord of
+sweet sounds,” as the incidents of the voyage from Algiers, so far,
+had hardly been conducive to much time to spare for band-practice. The
+galleys were scrubbed and gaily painted; round the ship of Kheyr-ed-Din
+ran a broad streak of gold on the outer planking to denote the presence
+of a King of Algiers, and at last all was ready. The fleet weighed
+anchor, and, with banners flying and bands playing, entered the
+harbour. The shores were black with spectators; even the Sultan himself
+deigned to look forth on the coming of the man from whom he expected
+such great things.
+
+Ceremonial was the order of the day. Soliman the Magnificent was too
+wise a man not to know what was being said in his capital that day;
+it was his part to accustom the minds of men to the fact that he,
+Soliman, had chosen Barbarossa to command his fleet, and that there
+could be no looking back. The decree had been signed, the invitation
+had been sent, the man had arrived, there could be no possible retreat
+from the situation. The anchors splashed into the placid waters close
+to the shore, and the ships were soon so surrounded by boats as to be
+almost unapproachable; then came official persons from the Sultan with
+greetings to the famous seaman; also came Bashas and officers (“con
+carga de guerra,” says Sandoval), to offer a welcome and to stare
+in undisguised curiosity at the man chosen by their sovereign to
+make head against the famous Andrea Doria. This preliminary courtesy
+completed, there came the next act in the drama, which consisted in the
+immemorial custom of the East in the offering of gifts from Barbarossa
+to the Sultan, from the vassal to his suzerain. The Janissaries,
+splendid in scarlet and gold, tall above the ordinary stature of man,
+bristling with weapons inlaid in gold and silver, cleared the common
+vulgar from the streets approaching the palace of the Sultan; they
+formed the spearhead of the procession clearing a way for the King
+of Algiers, who, mounted on a splendid bay stallion, the gift of the
+Sultan on his arrival, headed the captives who bore the gifts. Of these
+the exact number is not stated, but the procession was headed by two
+hundred women and girls, each of whom carried in her hand a gift of
+gold or silver; one hundred camels were loaded with silks and golden
+ornaments, and other “curious riches” (“con otras mil cosas de que hizo
+ostentacion”), says Sandoval. There were also lions and other animals,
+brocades and rich garments.
+
+All of this reads no doubt somewhat too like the tales in the “Arabian
+Nights”; but we have to remember that, if you have led a long and
+eminently successful life as a robber, you have necessarily accumulated
+a store of riches. In the case of Barbarossa he had begun in extreme
+youth, and was now an old man; he had been quite in the wholesale way
+as a thief, and now desired to pay a good price for that which he
+coveted, namely, the post of Admiralissimo to the Grand Turk. It may
+be objected that he had already been offered and had already accepted
+the post; this is quite true, but there were certain conventions to
+be fulfilled on the side of the recipient of the bounty of the Sultan
+quite understood on both sides, although no word had passed on the
+subject. In those days the man who desired the favour of an Eastern
+potentate never dreamed of approaching him empty-handed, and the more
+liberal that he was in the matter of gifts the greater was the favour
+with which he was regarded. Therefore the principle acted upon by
+Kheyr-ed-Din on this occasion was both wise and politic; that is to
+say, he placed certain of his riches in a perfectly sound investment,
+certain to yield him an admirable percentage, not only in added
+personal prestige, but also in the placing under his command of such a
+force as he had never before commanded, with unlimited opportunities
+of preying on the detested Christian on a far larger scale than it had
+ever been his good fortune to do before.
+
+The Sultan Soliman was not called “the Magnificent” without just cause;
+his life was splendid in its social prodigality, as it was in war and
+in statesmanship; yet even he was somewhat astonished at the amazing
+richness of the gifts which were laid at his feet by a man whom he knew
+to be, in spite of the kingly title which he had assumed, merely a
+rover of the sea. Therefore, in spite of himself, he was impressed. To
+him, it is true, in his splendour and magnificence, the intrinsic value
+of that which was brought to him by Barbarossa mattered but little; but
+the fact that the corsair was in a position to do so opened the eyes
+of the Sultan to the manner of man with whom he had to deal. Hitherto
+he had but known of him by hearsay, as the one Moslem seaman who
+was likely to be capable of making a stand against the terrible Doria,
+who had now become the plague of the Sultan’s existence. He now knew
+that the man who disposed of such incredible riches must be, no matter
+what his moral character, a man who stood a head and shoulders over any
+commander in the Ottoman fleet sailing out of the Golden Horn.
+
+Both materially and psychologically this man somewhat bewildered the
+despot: and his _alter ego_, the Grand Vizier, happening to be away on a
+mission to Aleppo, Soliman had no one with whom to confer in a strictly
+confidential manner; for, after the manner of autocrats, he had but
+few familiars, in fact it may be said none at all save the statesman
+mentioned. His reception of the corsair lacked, however, nothing in
+cordiality. He inquired after the incidents of the voyage, interested
+himself graciously in all that he was told concerning Africa and the
+conflicting claims of Christian and Moslem in that region, and was
+generally courteous to his distinguished visitor. He placed at his
+disposal a palace and attendants on a scale commensurate with the state
+of a reigning sovereign, and sent his most distinguished generals to
+confer with Kheyr-ed-Din. The latter, for the first time in his life,
+was thoroughly out of his element. His had been the life of the seaman
+and the soldier to begin with, and of later years that of a rude and
+unquestioned despot on a savage coast, surrounded by myrmidons to whom
+his voice had been as the voice of a god. Never had it been his lot
+before to dwell within the limits of such a comparative civilisation
+as that which obtained in Constantinople at this date; never before
+had it been necessary for him to restrain that naturally fiery and
+impetuous temper of his and to speak all men fairly.
+
+The strain must have been great, the effort enormous, and he knew,
+as he was bound to know, that his coming had unloosed jealousies and
+heart-searchings innumerable, with which he could not deal in the usual
+drastic fashion common to him. The winter was coming on, which was,
+as we have before remarked, very much of a close season both for the
+pirate and the honest merchant seaman. In consequence there was not
+very much chance against the foes of Soliman for the present. When that
+opportunity offered he promised himself that the courtiers and the
+soldiers of the Grand Turk would very soon discover that the fame of
+Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa was no empty matter, and that there existed no
+seaman in all the Ottoman dominions with whom they could compare the
+“African pirate,” as he had reason to believe that he was scornfully
+called behind his back.
+
+A weaker man would have been daunted by his surroundings, by the
+manifestly unfriendly atmosphere in which he lived, and by the dread
+that perhaps, after all, Soliman might go back upon his word. There
+were no lack of counsellors, he knew very well, who would advise the
+Sultan to his undoing, if that monarch gave them the opportunity;
+and, as time passed, so his anxiety grew. Soliman also could not have
+felt particularly comfortable at this juncture, with a sullen spirit
+possessing his men “con carga de guerra,” bitterly resenting the
+step which he had taken, and the appointment which he had made. For
+the present, however, he made no sign, treating Kheyr-ed-Din with
+distinguished courtesy, but making no reference to the future. Soliman
+was revolving the problem in his acute mind, doubtless weighing the
+unpopularity of the step which he had taken against the services likely
+to be rendered to him by his strange guest. And thus several weeks
+passed at Constantinople, probably amongst the most trying of all those
+in the unusually prolonged life of Kheyr-ed-Din.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE RAID ON THE COAST OF ITALY; JULIA GONZAGA
+
+
+The Grand Turk had spoken, the appointment had been made, Barbarossa
+had arrived; but though autocrats can cause their mandate to be obeyed,
+they cannot constrain the inward workings of the minds of men. In
+spite of the awe in which Soliman the Magnificent was held, there
+were murmurs of discontent in the capital of Islam. The Sultan had
+been advised to make Barbarossa his Admiralissimo by his Grand Vizier
+Ibrahim, who was, as we have said, his alter ego. This great man had
+risen from the humblest of all positions, that of a slave, to the giddy
+eminence to which he had now attained by the sheer strength of his
+intellect and personality. The Grand Vizier it was who had pointed out
+to his master that which was lacking in the Ottoman navy: brave men
+and desperate fighters he had in plenty, but the seaman who cleared
+the Golden Horn and made his way through the archipelago into the open
+sea beyond had forces with which to contend against which mere valour
+was but of small avail. Out there, somewhere behind the blue line of
+the horizon, did Andrea Doria lie in wait; and if the Moslem seaman
+should escape the clutches of the admiral of the Christian Emperor,
+were there not those others, the Knights of Malta, who, under the
+leadership of Villiers de L’lsle Adam, swept the tideless sea in an
+unceasing and relentless hostility to every nef, fusta, and galley
+which flew the flag of the Prophet?
+
+It had come to a pass when the Ottoman fighting man was by no means
+anxious to go to sea. He was still as brave as those marvellous
+fanatics of seven centuries before, who, in the name of God and of
+His Prophet Mahomet, had swept all opposition aside from the path of
+Islam, had conquered and proselytised in a manner never paralleled
+in the world before. At the call of the Padishah, for the honour of
+the Prophet, the sons of Islam were as ready to march and to fight as
+had ever been the warriors of the earlier Caliphs. But they had ever
+been soldiers; the habit of the sea was not theirs, and they found
+that, time after time, such sea-enterprises as they did undertake were
+shattered by the genius of Doria, or broken into fragments by the
+reckless, calculating assaults of the knights. And so it came about
+that there was but little heart in the navy of the Padishah, and those
+who served therein had but slight confidence in those by whom they
+were led. To use a metaphor from the cricket-field, it was time “to
+stop the rot” by sending in a really strong player. He was not to be
+found within the confines of orthodox Islam, and must be imported from
+outside.
+
+The man had been found; could he be forced on an unwilling and
+discontented populace?
+
+Who, it was asked in Constantinople, was this man who had been called
+in to command the ships of the Ottomans at sea? They answered their own
+question, and said that he was a lawless man, a corsair: were there not
+good seamen and valiant men-at-arms like the Bashas Zay and Himeral,
+who should be preferred before him; this man who had come from the ends
+of the earth, and of whom nobody knew anything good? Again, could he be
+trusted? Something of the history of the Barbarossas had penetrated to
+the capital of Turkey, and it was known that scrupulous adherence to
+their engagements had not always characterised the brothers: who should
+say that he might not carry off the galleys of the Grand Turk on some
+marauding expedition designed for his own aggrandisement? There was yet
+more to be urged against him: not only was he infamous in character,
+but he was no true Mussulman, for had not his father been a mere
+renegado, and—worst of all—had not his mother been a Christian woman?
+
+It was thus that the talk ran in that blazing autumn in Constantinople.
+Naturally there were plenty of persons who carried reports to
+Kheyr-ed-Din, and that astute individual soon made up his mind as
+to the most advantageous course for him to pursue. With the full
+concurrence of the Sultan, he left Constantinople and journeyed to
+Aleppo to see Ibrahim. The latter was both cunning and tenacious.
+Removed from the capital, the tide of gossip and discontent only
+reached him at second-hand; but he was not to be deterred by popular
+clamour even had he been in the midst of it. None knew better
+than he who and what was Barbarossa; in fact, it may be confidently
+asserted that none in Constantinople had anything like the same
+knowledge of this man and all that concerned him. Ibrahim had not named
+Barbarossa to his sovereign without weighing all the pros and cons of
+the matter, and that which was now happening in the capital had been
+fully anticipated by him. It pleased the Grand Vizier very much that
+Kheyr-ed-Din should take this long journey to see him; not from any
+ridiculous idea that this was an act of homage due to the dignity of
+his position—Ibrahim was far too great a man for such pettiness—but
+because it enabled him to see for himself what manner of man was this
+redoubtable pirate on whom he was relying to defeat the enemies of the
+Sublime Porte at sea. The corsair must have made the most favourable
+impression possible on the Grand Vizier, as that statesman wrote to
+Soliman:
+
+  “We have put our hands on a veritable man of the sea.
+  Name him without hesitation Basha, Member of the Divan,
+  Captain-General of the Fleet.”
+
+The Grand Turk had no intention of going back upon the appointment
+already made, but he was none the less pleased to receive from his
+Vizier so strong an endorsement of his policy; and now the time had
+come to stop the mouths of the murmurers and scandal-mongers of
+Constantinople. Accordingly he formally recalled Barbarossa from
+Aleppo, gave him, with his own hand, a sword and a royal banner, and
+invested him with plenary power over all the ports of his kingdoms,
+over all the islands owning his jurisdiction, command of all ships,
+vessels, and galleys, and of all soldiers, sailors, and slaves therein.
+The die was cast, the erstwhile corsair, the son of the renegado of
+Mitylene and his Christian wife was henceforward the supreme head of
+the Ottoman fleet.
+
+The following description of the famous corsair may be found
+interesting at this juncture.
+
+Barbarossa was at this time seventy-seven years of age. Courageous
+and prudent, he was as far-seeing in war as he was subtle in peace.
+A tireless worker, he was, above all things, constant in reverse of
+fortune, for no difficulties dismayed him, no dangers had power to
+daunt his spirit. His ruddy skin, his bushy eyebrows, his famous red
+beard, now plentifully streaked with white, his square, powerful frame,
+somewhat inclined to stoutness, above all, his penetrating and piercing
+eyes, gave to his aspect a certain terror before which men trembled and
+women shrank appalled.
+
+All this harmonised well with his reputation as a chief so resolute,
+so pitiless, that it was the boast of his followers that his very
+name shouted in battle put to flight the Christian vessels. His smile
+was fine and malicious, his speech facile, revealing beneath the rude
+exterior of the corsair the subtle man of affairs, who, from nothing,
+had made himself King of Algiers, and was now, by the invitation of
+Soliman the Magnificent, Admiralissimo of the Ottoman navy.
+
+Well may Jurien de la Gravière say that “in the sixteenth century
+even the pirates were great men.”
+
+It has been stated that in speech Barbarossa was facile. He was not
+only so, but he possessed a power of addressing such a man as Soliman
+in terms which, while delicately flattering that mighty monarch, gave
+him also a lead which he might follow in the future disposition of such
+power as he possessed at sea.
+
+On his return from Aleppo Kheyr-ed-Din was received in audience by
+the Sultan. We must be pardoned if we give the long speech which he
+addressed to his new master in its entirety; and we have to remember
+that the man who made it was now an old man who, all his life, had been
+absolutely free and untrammelled, owing allegiance to no one, following
+out his own caprices, and sweeping out of his path any whom he found
+sufficiently daring as to disagree with him. That this ruthless despot
+should have been able so to change the whole style and manner of his
+address so late in life is only one proof the more of the marvellous
+gifts which he possessed.
+
+It was in the following words that the corsair addressed the Sultan:
+
+  “Dread Sovereign, fortune itself has made it a law
+  to second you in all your enterprises because that
+  you are always ready to declare war upon the enemies
+  of Mahomet the Prophet of God, on whom be peace. You
+  have extended the limits of your vast possessions, you
+  have vanquished and slain the King of Hungary, you
+  have humiliated Charles V., this Emperor with whom the
+  Christians dare hold you in comparison. These have been
+  the recompenses received by you for the pure flame
+  with which your zeal for the religion of Mahomet has ever
+  burned.
+
+  “But these successes and these triumphs are not capable
+  of contenting that thirst for glory with which your being
+  is animated, and I am humbly desirous of indicating to
+  you the means of culling fresh laurels. Experience has
+  taught me the way, and I can assert, without fear of
+  being accused of vanity, that in this matter I can be of
+  great assistance to your Majesty.
+
+  “That which fortune has done for me in the past that
+  will it continue to do for me in the future. Age has
+  not enfeebled me, continual exercise has but rendered
+  me stronger; I can therefore promise to you the most
+  ready service both by land and sea. The desire which has
+  always been mine to persecute the Christians caused me to
+  conceive the idea of serving in your sea-army.
+
+  “If Heaven is favourable to my vows, the Spaniards will
+  soon be chased from Africa; the Carthaginians, the Moors,
+  will soon be your very submissive subjects; Sardinia,
+  Corsica, Sicily, will obey your will. As for Italy, it
+  will soon be desolated by famine when I attack it in
+  formidable force, without fearing that the Christian
+  Princes will come to its aid.
+
+  “Mahomet II., your illustrious grandfather, formed
+  the project of conquering this country; he would have
+  succeeded had he not been carried off by death. If I
+  counsel you, dread Sovereign, that you should carry war
+  into Europe and Africa, it is not that I desire your arms
+  should be turned back in Asia from against the Persians,
+  the ancient enemies of the Ottomans. I require but your
+  sea-army, which is no use against the Persians. While you
+  shall be conquering Asia I shall be subduing Africa.
+  The first enterprise which I shall undertake will be
+  against Muley Hassan, the King of Tunis; he has all the
+  vices and possesses not one single virtue. He is a man of
+  sordid avarice, of unexampled cruelty; he has rendered
+  himself odious to the entire human race.
+
+  “He had twenty-two brothers, all of whom he has caused
+  to be murdered. That which is a common failing among
+  tyrants is his: he dare not place himself at the head of
+  his troops. He prefers to endure the outrages which he
+  suffers at the hands of the Moors to taking up arms and
+  inflicting upon them a salutary vengeance. He had the
+  baseness to enter into an alliance with the Spaniards,
+  and to favour their conquests in Africa. It will be all
+  the easier for me to exterminate this wild beast because
+  I have with me his brother, who prayed me to save him
+  from the cruelty of Muley Hassan.
+
+  “When I besiege Tunis I shall present him to the
+  inhabitants, who love him as much as they hate Muley
+  Hassan. They will open their gates to me, and I shall
+  gain the town without the loss of a single man: it will
+  be then you who will be master. On my way thither I will
+  do what harm I can to the Christians; I will endeavour
+  to defeat Andrea Doria, who is my personal enemy and my
+  rival in glory: should I succeed in defeating him your
+  Majesty will possess the empire of the sea. Be then
+  persuaded, great Prince, by me, and believe that he who
+  is master of the sea will very shortly become master on
+  land.”
+
+It is somewhat difficult to fathom the reasons which induced
+Barbarossa to treat Soliman to his sanctimonious diatribe concerning
+the King of Tunis; coming, as it did, from a pirate, it was merely
+ludicrous, and could not for one instant have deceived the remarkably
+shrewd person to whom it was addressed. The corsair stated the facts
+correctly, but the reasons which led to an Eastern autocrat disposing
+of his family in this manner were so obvious at the time that, if
+Soliman felt any emotion at all concerning the event, it was probably
+one of admiration! Regarded from the practical, apart from the
+sentimental side, what the proposition amounted to was that Barbarossa
+should attack a king with whom the Grand Turk had no sort of quarrel,
+and that, once his territory had been reft from him, that it should be
+handed over to the ruler of Constantinople for the greater glory of the
+Sublime Porte. What mental reservations there were on the part of the
+corsair we are not told, but had Soliman known him better he would have
+been aware that never had Barbarossa pulled any chestnuts from the fire
+of life which were not intended for his own eating; and that it was
+extremely unlikely, at his time of life, that he was now going to alter
+the habits of his long and strenuous career.
+
+There was one thing, however, that Kheyr-ed-Din was not; he was no
+bragger or boaster, and, whatever may have been his mental reservations
+in his interview with the Sultan, that which he stated he would do,
+that he did. And now the time had come when the grim old Sea-wolf had
+done with intrigue and the unaccustomed atmosphere of a Court and went
+back to his native element, the sea.
+
+Soliman, it must be said to his credit, was no man to deal in
+half-measures, and when once he had given his trust he gave it
+whole-heartedly, generously. In consequence he gave Barbarossa
+eighty galleys, eight hundred Janissaries, eight thousand Turkish
+soldiers, and eight hundred thousand ducats for expenses (some three
+hundred thousand pounds sterling of our money). All the necessary
+preparations were carried out under the orders of Barbarossa, who
+was given a roving commission to do what seemed best to him for the
+advancement of the glory of his master and the discomfiture of his
+Christian foes. The commission which he now received was practically
+that which had been given by Charles V. to Doria, the most flattering
+with which any man can be entrusted, as in his hands were left issues
+of peace and war usually only vested in the sovereign.
+
+All through the early summer of 1534 the dockyards and the arsenals
+of Constantinople hummed with the note of preparation; Ibrahim had
+returned from Aleppo and threw himself, heart and soul, into these
+activities, which meant the sailing of the Ottoman fleet under the
+command of “that veritable man of the sea,” Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa.
+Stilled were the murmurs of the year before; the corsair, invested with
+plenary powers by the Sultan himself, was now in a position to make his
+authority felt; added to this, the more sensible of the malcontents had
+been won round by the Grand Vizier to the view that as, so far, the
+Ottoman navy had been conspicuously unsuccessful at sea, it was just as
+well to make use of the most capable Moslem seaman upon whom they could
+lay their hands. As to his moral character, that they could afford to
+discount, and as to the question of his faithfulness or the reverse,
+it was pointed out with irresistible logic by Ibrahim, that never
+before had the Sea-wolf had such glorious opportunities of plunder as
+now, when he could count ten ships for every one that had followed in
+his wake before.
+
+It was in July 1534 that the Ottoman fleet left Constantinople, and
+Kheyr-ed-Din began operations by a descent upon Reggio, which he
+sacked. On August 1st he arrived at the Pharos of Messina, where he
+burnt some Christian ships and captured their crews; then he worked
+north from Reggio to Naples, ravaging the coast and depopulating
+the whole littoral, burning villages, destroying ships, enslaving
+people. In this expedition he is said to have captured eleven thousand
+Christian slaves. There is perhaps nothing more amazing in the whole
+history of this epoch than the number of the slaves captured by the
+corsairs, and the damnable cruelties exercised upon them; these were,
+of course returned by the Christians with interest whenever possible.
+As an instance of the treatment to which the slaves were subjected
+it is only necessary to mention the course taken by Barbarossa when
+he left Algiers in the previous year. There were at that time seven
+thousand Christian captives in his power; immediately before starting
+he had the entire number paraded before him, and, under the pretext
+of having discovered a plot, which in no circumstances could possibly
+have existed, owing to the supervision of the slaves, he caused twenty
+of them to be beheaded on the spot in order to strike terror into the
+remainder during his absence.
+
+Back to the Golden Horn streamed ship after ship laden with plunder
+and with slaves. “The veritable man of the sea” was proving the
+correctness of the choice of the Sultan, the acumen of the Grand Vizier
+who had recommended his appointment. Barbarossa was determined to leave
+nothing undone to prove to Soliman that his choice had indeed been
+a worthy one when he had selected him as admiral of his fleet: also
+he had in his mind those others who spoke slightingly of him as “the
+African pirate”; they should know as well as their master of what this
+pirate was capable. Northward the devastating host of Barbarossa took
+its way; the fair shores of Italy smoked to heaven as the torches of
+the corsairs fired the villages. Blood and agony, torture and despair,
+followed ever on the heels of the Sea-wolves of the Mediterranean. And
+now a fresh pack had been loosed, as it was, of course, in enormously
+increased strength that Barbarossa returned to the scene of so many of
+his former triumphs.
+
+Plunder and slaves were all very well in their way, and acceptable
+enough on the shores of the Golden Horn; but Kheyr-ed-Din had a pet
+project in view on this particular cruise, which was to capture Julia
+Gonzaga and to present her to Soliman for his harem. The lady destined
+by him for this pleasant fate was reported to be the loveliest woman
+in Europe, a fitting gift for such an one as the Grand Turk. The fame
+of her surpassing loveliness had reached even the corsairs. She was
+the widow of Vespasian Colonna, Duchess of Trajetto, and Countess of
+Fundi; she had now been a widow since 1528, and lived at Fundi, some
+ninety miles north-east of Naples. Barbarossa laid his plans with
+his accustomed acuteness, and it was only through an accident that they
+miscarried.
+
+There was one undeniable advantage in the system which swept off into
+slavery the whole of the inhabitants of a country-side, and that was,
+if at any time you required a guide at any particular point on the
+coast, he was sure to be forthcoming from one of the vessels in the
+fleet. Now Barbarossa did not exactly know where Julia Gonzaga was to
+be found, so he set his captains to work to discover the necessary
+slave. This was soon accomplished, and there was really no occasion for
+a slave on this occasion, as a renegado of Naples knew the castle in
+which Julia Gonzaga was residing at the time, and readily agreed to act
+as guide to the expedition sent to accomplish her capture. Kheyr-ed-Din
+had made a sudden dash along the coast with some of the swiftest of his
+galleys for the purposes of this capture. In consequence the people in
+Naples and the neighbourhood were not even aware that the piratical
+squadron was on the coast before they anchored, as near as it was
+practicable to do, to the residence of the Duchess of Trajetto. The
+fleet actually arrived after dark, having kept out to sea and out of
+sight during the day.
+
+As soon as the anchors were down a party of two thousand picked men
+were landed and marched silently and with all expedition to the castle
+of Fundi. The escape of the Duchess was really providential. She had
+already gone to bed, and the fierce marauders were actually within the
+grounds of the castle before her distracted people became aware of
+their presence. But fortunately some among them kept their heads,
+and it also so happened that her bed-chamber was the opposite side
+of the castle to that by which the pirates approached. A horse was
+brought round under the window of the room, and, in her night-dress
+with nothing but a shawl wrapped around her, was Julia Gonzaga lowered
+out of her window on to the back of her horse. As she galloped for dear
+life down the avenue of her home she heard the shrieks of her miserable
+household murdered in cold blood by the furious pirates who had thus
+been balked of their prey.
+
+Dire was the vengeance taken by the corsairs. They sacked Fundi and
+burned the town; they killed every man on whom they could lay their
+hands, and carried off the women and girls to the fleet.
+
+Kheyr-ed-Din was furious with anger and disappointment. “What is the
+value of all this trash?” he demanded, with a thundering oath, of
+the commander of the unsuccessful raiders, surveying as he spoke the
+miserable, shivering women and girls. “I sent you out to bring back a
+pearl without price, and you return with these cattle.”
+
+Thus balked of his prey, Barbarossa swung his fleet round to the
+southward and westward and sailed for Sardinia, where, from the Straits
+of Bonifacio to Cape Spartivento, he left no house standing that would
+burn, or man alive who was not swept in as a captive. The descent of
+the corsairs in force, such as Kheyr-ed-Din now had at his disposal,
+was one of the most awful calamities for a country that it is possible
+to imagine. When Sardinia had ceased to yield up either booty or
+slaves the fleet sailed for Tunis, where it arrived before Bizerta on
+August 15th. The arrival of the corsairs was totally unexpected, and
+caused the greatest consternation. The story which Barbarossa had told
+to Sultan Soliman concerning the reigning King Muley Hassan was correct
+in every detail, and there is no doubt that he was a bloody and cruel
+tyrant of the worst description.
+
+Therefore when the wily Barbarossa sent on shore and informed the
+sheiks and ulemas of the place that he had come in the name of the head
+of the Mohammedan religion to free them from this monster by whom they
+were oppressed, and that he intended to place on the throne the brother
+of Muley Hassan, Raschid, who had miraculously escaped from the fate
+which had overtaken all the other members of his house, the townspeople
+were inclined to listen to his advances and to admire the picture which
+he drew of the peace and prosperity which would accrue to them should
+Raschid, and not Muley Hassan, be on the throne of their country. That
+which he inferred in all his dealings with these people was that he had
+Raschid with him ready to step into the shoes of his unpopular brother
+as soon as the latter should be deposed by a justly indignant populace.
+The fact of the matter was that Kheyr-ed-Din had taken the fugitive
+prince with him to Constantinople, thinking to make use of him, and
+that, when he was sailing, Soliman had absolutely forbidden him to
+remove Raschid from his capital.
+
+Completely deceived, the townspeople allowed the landing of eight
+hundred Janissaries. The tyrant, who was, as Barbarossa had told the
+Sultan, a craven coward, waited for no further demonstration of force,
+but incontinently fled into the interior with such valuables as he
+could carry. As soon as this was reported to Barbarossa he landed in
+force and entered the town, and then the townspeople noticed that the
+soldiers were all shouting for Soliman and for Barbarossa. They then
+demanded that Raschid should be produced according to promise, but
+naturally he was not forthcoming. Those who had acclaimed the soldiers
+of Soliman as liberators now began to arm against them, and they very
+shortly discovered, from some Tunisians who had come in the fleet from
+Constantinople, that Raschid had been left behind in that city.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+BARCELONA, MAY 1535; THE GATHERING OF THE CHRISTIAN HOSTS
+
+
+Some idea of the terror inspired by the actions of the Sea-wolves at
+this date is contained in the following extract from “The Golden Age of
+the Renaissance,” by Lanciani:
+
+  “The Bastione del Belvedere, which towers in frowning
+  greatness at the north-east end of the Vatican Garden and
+  commands the approach to the Borgo from the upper-end
+  valley of the Tiber, was begun by Antonio de Sangullo
+  the younger, and finished by Michel Angelo after the
+  death of Antonio, which took place on September 30th,
+  1546. This great piece of military engineering must not
+  be considered by itself, but as a part of a great scheme
+  of defence conceived by Paul III, to protect the city
+  against a hostile invasion from the sea. The Pope could
+  not forget that, in August 1534, the fleet of infidels
+  commanded by Barbarossa had cast anchor at the mouth of
+  the Tiber to renew its supply of water, and that if its
+  leader had thought fit they could have stormed, sacked,
+  and plundered the city, and carried off the Pope himself
+  into slavery without any possibility of defence on the
+  Christian side. This point has not been taken into due
+  consideration by modern writers; the fortifications of
+  Rome, designed or begun or finished at the time of
+  Paul III., have nothing to do with the sack of 1527, with
+  the Connétable de Bourbon, or with the Emperor Charles V.
+  All the bastions, that of the Belvedere excepted, point
+  towards the sea-coast, which was perpetually harried and
+  terrified by Turkish or Barbary pirates. These would
+  appear with lightning-like rapidity in more than one
+  place at a time, and carry off as many unfortunate men,
+  women, and children as they could collect.... To prevent
+  the recurrence of such disasters the sea-coast was lined
+  with watch-towers, the guns of which could warn the
+  peasants of the approach of suspicious vessels.”
+
+That Paul III. had good warrant for the precautions which he designed
+to take is not only instanced by the fact of Barbarossa anchoring in
+the mouth of the Tiber on the occasion of the raid with which we are
+at present concerned, but from what had occurred to his predecessor on
+the Papal throne in 1516. Pope Leo, son of Lorenzo the Magnificent,
+was accustomed to leave Rome in the autumn for hunting, and fishing in
+the sea, of which latter pastime he was particularly fond. One of his
+favourite resorts was the castle of Magliana, five miles from Rome,
+on the banks of the Tiber. On September 18th, 1516, he left Rome and
+proceeded to Civita Lavinia, on the Laurentian coast. Here he was
+waited for by the corsair Curtogali, who, with fifteen ships off the
+coast and an ambush on shore, was ready to carry him off. Curtogali is
+supposed to have derived his information as to the movements of the
+Pope from some traitor about the Papal Court who desired the downfall
+of “the fatal House of Medici.”
+
+Some one, however, warned the Pope, who fled, accompanied by his
+retinue, at a headlong gallop to Rome, never drawing bridle until he
+reached the safe seclusion of the Vatican.
+
+We must now return, however, to that eagle who fluttered so sorely the
+dovecotes, both Christian and Moslem, and whose loudly proclaimed faith
+in the Prophet never permitted his religion to stand inconveniently
+in the way of his material advancement in the world. The soldiers
+and sailors of the corsair entered Bizerta shouting for Soliman and
+Barbarossa. There was no mention of Raschid, that Prince of the Hafsit
+dynasty, whom Kheyr-ed-Din had declared to the townspeople he had
+come to restore to the throne of his ancestors. Too late the town
+sprang to arms, under a chief named Abdahar, and in the first instance
+accomplished a considerable success. Barbarossa’s men were unprepared,
+and a number of them were slain. Driven into a bastion of the walls,
+a party of the corsairs were desperately defending themselves, when
+one Baetio, a Spanish renegado, discovered that a cannon behind them
+pointing seawards was loaded. He succeeded, with the assistance of
+others, in slewing it round and discharged it at close quarters into
+the packed masses of the enemy. This caused a frightful demoralisation
+to set in; the corsairs rallied and soon swept all before them. The
+massacre turned from the one side to the other, and it is said that no
+less than three thousand of the unfortunate townspeople were slain.
+Barbarossa only called off his men when they were wearied out by the
+slaughter.
+
+Kheyr-ed-Din now graciously accepted the submission of the
+townsfolk; that is to say, such of them as were left, and took charge
+of the entire kingdom as governor for the Sultan of Turkey. He sent
+out ambassadors to the neighbouring Arab and Berber chieftains of
+the hinterland, repaired fortifications, appointed magistrates—all
+ostensibly in the name of that phantom prince whom the Tunisians were
+destined never to see, and who never returned to his native country.
+
+King of Algiers, _de facto_ King of Tunis, Admiralissimo to Soliman the
+Magnificent, his name a portent in Christendom, his fame reaching from
+Spartel to Tunis, and from the shores of France to the foothills of the
+Atlas, Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa was at the height of his power. Never
+before had a corsair risen to such eminence, never again was there
+destined to be so magnificent a sea-robber. Thus it was that the year
+1535 opened gloomily for all those Powers whose coasts were washed by
+the tideless sea. Italy, torn and bleeding, her strong men slain, her
+fairest matrons and maids carried off into the most odious captivity,
+was lamenting the terrible fate to which she had been exposed by the
+raids of the pirate admiral. In Catalonia, in Genoa, in Venice, along
+what is now known as the Riviera, men trembled and women wept; for who
+could say that it might not be upon them that the next thunderbolt
+might fall? In Venice taxation was raised to the breaking strain
+to provide galleys wherewith to combat the foe, while the Genoese
+fortified their coasts and poured out money like water upon arms,
+armaments, and ammunition. Says Sandoval:
+
+“Desde el Estrecho de Meçina hasta el de Gibraltar ninguno de la parte
+de Europa pudiera tomer comida ni sueño seguro de lo que viviera en las
+riberas del mar.” (From the Straits of Messina to those of Gibraltar
+none living in Europe on the shores of the sea were able to eat in
+peace or to sleep with any sense of security.)
+
+The Emperor Charles V. was roused to action, stung by the intolerable
+humiliation of the position into which he had been placed by a mere
+corsair.
+
+King of Sicily, Naples, and Spain, as well as Emperor of Germany, in
+any direction he might turn he would find a trail of blood and fire
+over the fair face of his dominions in the Mediterranean. Although it
+might gall his pride to admit that his enemy was formidable, Charles
+was too wise a man, too experienced a warrior to underrate his foe.
+He repaired the fortifications of Naples and Sicily at great cost:
+he wrote letters to the Pope, to Andrea Doria, to the Viceroys of
+Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia, to the Marquis de Vasto, and Antonio de
+Leyva to collect all the arms and munitions necessary for the attack
+on Barbarossa. He sent orders to Don Luis Hurtado de Mendoza, Marquis
+de Mondejar, Captain-General of the Kingdom of Granada, to collect
+money and to have men ready in the ports of Andalusia. He gave orders
+for eight thousand German soldiers to hold themselves in readiness;
+these were to be joined by the veterans of Coron and Naples, which
+body counted four thousand more; in Italy he also raised another eight
+thousand men. All this was done under the seal of secrecy, which the
+Emperor most peremptorily ordered was to be observed.
+
+But news travelled in the first half of the sixteenth century, although
+newspapers, war correspondents, and telegraphs were not; when all
+the feudatories of the greatest king in Christendom were busy it was
+impossible for the matter to remain hidden. Even had it been within
+the range of possibility to conceal what was going on there was one
+circumstance which would have rendered all effort to this end nugatory.
+Charles had invited Francis of France to join in this holy war against
+the scourge of Christendom: not only did Francis refuse to join, but
+he had the incredible baseness to betray the scheme to Barbarossa.
+It would be pleasanter to think that some mistake had been made in
+this matter, but unfortunately it is beyond dispute, as the facts
+have been placed on record by Sandoval, whose history, it must be
+remembered, was published in 1614. In this matter he is quite precise,
+as he states that a “Clerigo Francese,” one Monsieur de Floreta, was
+sent with despatches from Francis to Barbarossa at Tunis, and that
+this treacherous envoy from Christendom gave the corsair king all the
+available information that he had been able to collect before starting.
+
+This was typical of that “Golden Age of the Renaissance” in which it
+took place; when real devotion to all arts, sciences, and amenities of
+a higher civilisation went hand in hand with crime of the vilest and
+treachery of the basest description. Well might Barbarossa, and such as
+he, laugh to scorn the pretension that his Christian enemies were
+one whit better than were they, when they could point to the fact that,
+to serve a private revenge, a great Christian king could betray his
+co-religionists to their Moslem foes. Shamelessly did the Sea-wolves
+seek their prey wherever it was to be found; their methods were
+villanous and seemingly without excuse, but, after all, there was some
+colour, some shadow of right in what they did, for their argument was
+that they were merely getting back from Christendom that which had been
+reft from them in the near past in the kingdoms of Còrdova and Granada.
+But who shall find excuse for the Christian kings, governors, and
+princes at this epoch? They sought their prey no less ravenously than
+did the pirates, and with just about the same amount of justification:
+witness the sacking of Rome by Charles V. in 1527, and the unexampled
+act of treachery just recorded of Francis of France.
+
+Kheyr-ed-Din had lived all his turbulent life among wars and rumours
+of wars: the head of the tiller, the hilt of the scimitar, the butt of
+the arquebus, had been in his hand since early youth; bloodshed and
+strife were the atmosphere in which he lived and breathed. Desperate
+adventures by land and sea had been his ever since he could remember;
+there was no hazard that he had not run, no peril which he had not
+dared. But now even he, the veteran of far more than one hundred
+fights, was grave and preoccupied when he considered the greatness,
+the imminence of his peril. The “Clerigo Francese” had put him in
+possession of the fact that Carlos Quinto was exerting all his strength
+for the combat which was to come; and Barbarossa was far too old
+a fighter, far too wise a warrior, to underrate by one soldier or by
+one galley the forces that the Emperor could put into line against
+him; from far and near his foes were gathering for his destruction,
+and he did not deceive himself in the least as to what the fate of his
+followers and himself would be should the Christian hosts be victorious.
+
+But, nevertheless, such an emergency as this found the man at his
+best: ready to take fortune at the flood when she smiled upon him,
+he was perhaps at his very greatest in adversity; and when all
+around him trembled and paid one of their infrequent visits to the
+Mosque to implore the aid of the Prophet, the veteran corsair was
+coolly reviewing the situation, seeking a way to weather the tempest
+before which lesser men shrank appalled, declaring that the end had
+come. The storm was coming in a squall of such violence as even he
+had never before experienced, but, thanks to his friend the King of
+France, he had been forewarned. He sent at once to his master, Soliman
+the Magnificent, at Constantinople, to impart to him the direful
+intelligence; then the bagnios were thrown open, and, under pitiless
+lash and scourge, the Christian captives toiled from dawn till dark
+to repair the fortifications of Tunis. Silent and unapproachable,
+conferring with none, the grim old Sea-wolf sat in his palace
+overlooking the bay and considered the question of whether he should
+give battle by land or sea when the time came. If it were possible,
+he came to the conclusion that it should be the latter; he had been
+evicted from his kingdom on land once before, but he knew that in
+the open ocean few cared to face Barbarossa, and he might fall on Doria
+first and the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem second if matters
+turned out favourably for him. In any case, he must summon all the aid
+that was possible.
+
+East and west flew the galleys of Kheyr-ed-Din, scudding before the
+wind if that were favourable, or churning the surface of the sea with
+straining, strenuous oars should the wind be foul or a calm prevail.
+
+It was an appeal for aid to the Moslem corsairs from Algiers, from
+Tlemcen, from Oran, from Los Gelues (or Jerbah), and from all the
+countless islands of the Archipelago, where they lurked to seize
+their prey—Tunis, which flew the Crescent flag of the Prophet, was in
+danger—let them rally against the grandson of the man who expelled the
+Moors from Spain.
+
+Grim and sinister, the corsairs came flocking to the standard of
+Barbarossa. Well they knew that, should he fall, it was but a matter
+of time for them all to be chased from off the face of the waters. Of
+cohesion there was but little among them, and, in spite of the bond
+of a common religion and a common hatred of the Christian, they were
+swayed far more by a lust for plunder than by such considerations as
+these. In times of imminent danger, however, men naturally crave for
+a leader, and in piratical circles all was now subordinated to the
+instinct of self-preservation.
+
+Meanwhile, in Christendom their great enemy was maturing his plans.
+To the Marquis de Cañete, Viceroy and Captain-General of the Kingdom
+of Navarre, Charles wrote, confiding to his care the charge of
+the Empress, with instructions that her orders were to be implicitly
+obeyed during his absence. Having done this he journeyed to Barcelona,
+at which city he arrived on April 8th, 1535. Here he was immediately
+joined by the armada of Portugal—twenty caravelas raised, armed, and
+paid for by the King, Don Juan of Portugal. This fleet was commanded by
+the Infante Don Luis, brother to the Empress, and carried on board the
+vessels of which it was composed a whole host of nobles and gentlemen
+of quality, who had come to fight under the approving eyes of the Cæsar
+of the modern world.
+
+On May 1st came Andrea Doria with twenty-two galleys, and those already
+in the harbour crowded the sides of their vessels to watch the arrival
+of the famous Genoese seaman.
+
+Four abreast in stately procession the great galleys swept into
+the harbour. With that love of “spectacle” so inherent in the
+southern nature, everything was done to ensure the military pomp and
+circumstance of the coming of the first sea-commander of the Emperor.
+At first with furious haste, and then slowing down to make the approach
+more stately, the fleet of Andrea moved on. From mast and yard and
+jackstaff of the galleys of the admiral floated twenty-four great
+banners of silk and gold embroidered with the arms of the Emperor,
+with those of Spain, of Genoa, and of the Dorias, Princes of Oneglia.
+The principal standard bore upon it a crucifix, broidered at the sides
+with pictures of Saint John and the Virgin Mary; another represented
+the Virgin with her Son in her arms. With the sound of trumpets,
+clarions, chirimias, and atambours the fleet moved to within a short
+distance of the Portuguese and saluted them; then, as the thunder of
+the guns ceased and the light wind blew away the smoke, they circled
+round and stopped abreast of the royal vessel on which Charles had
+embarked. Once again the guns barked a royal salute, while knights and
+nobles, seamen and soldiers hailed their Emperor with frenzied shouts
+of “Imperio! Imperio!”
+
+Then Andrea Doria stepped into his boat and was rowed across the
+shining water to visit the Emperor, who received him, we are told,
+“with great honour and many tokens of love.”
+
+On May 12th arrived Don Alvaro de Bazan, General of the Galleys of
+Spain. This magnificent caballero made an entrance in much the same
+state and circumstance as did Doria, and during the remainder of the
+stay of the armada in Barcelona there was much banqueting and feasting
+and drinking of healths to the Emperor and confusion to the Moslem foe.
+It was once again as it had been in those days in which Ferdinand and
+Isabella had descended upon the doomed city of Granada, and had built,
+in full sight of its defenders, the town which they called Santa Fe (or
+the Holy Faith) as an earnest that they would never leave until that
+symbol of their faith had triumphed. To witness this victory the best
+blood of Europe had flocked, and now, forty-three years later, when
+the audacious Moslem had raised his head once more, the descendant of
+the warriors who had followed “Los Reyes Católicos” rallied to that
+standard which Carlos Quinto, their grandson, had set up on the
+shores of Catalonia. Sandoval devotes pages of his work to the names,
+styles, and titles of the noble caballeros who joined the army for the
+destruction of Barbarossa.
+
+On May 16th Charles embarked in the _Galera Capitana_ of Andrea Doria,
+accompanied by many grandees and caballeros of the Court, as well as
+illustrious foreigners like Prince Luis of Portugal, and held a review
+of the armada. There was much expenditure of powder in salutes to the
+Emperor, and all vied with one another in shouting themselves hoarse
+in honour of the great monarch who deigned to lead in person the hosts
+of Christendom against the infidel, who had defied his might and dared
+to offer him battle. On May 28th the Emperor travelled some leagues
+inland, starting before dawn, to visit the Monastery of Nuestra Señora
+de Monferrato, in which was kept a singularly holy image of the Virgin.
+Here he confessed and received the sacrament, and then returned to
+Barcelona.
+
+[Illustration: THE EMPEROR CHARLES V.]
+
+On May 30th he embarked in the Royal Galley, the _Galera Bastarda_,
+which had been prepared for him by Andrea Doria, his Captain-General
+of the Galleys. This vessel seems to have somewhat resembled the barge
+of Cleopatra in the magnificence of its appointments, as its interior
+was gilded, and it was fitted up with all the luxury that could be
+devised at this period. Silken carpets and golden drinking-vessels,
+stores of the most delicate food and of the rarest wines, were embarked
+to mitigate, as far as possible, the inevitable hardships of a
+sea-passage, and there were not lacking instruments of music wherewith
+to beguile the Cæesar with concord of sweet sounds. Perhaps that
+which strikes the modern seaman most in this recital of all the useless
+matters with which the vessels of the great were burdened at this
+period is the extraordinary number of flags and banners with which they
+went to sea.
+
+The catalogue of those in the _Galera Bastarda_ makes one rather wonder
+how there was room for anything else of more practical usefulness when
+it came to fighting. There were in this galley twenty-four yellow
+damask banners, inscribed with the imperial arms; a pennon at the
+main of crimson taffeta of immense length and breadth, with a golden
+crucifix embroidered thereon. Two similar ones bore shields with the
+arms of the Emperor, and there was a huge flag of white damask sewn
+with representations of keys, communion chalices, and the cross of
+Saint Andrew, in crimson, with a Latin inscription. There were yet two
+others of scarlet damask “of the same grandeur,” embroidered round the
+edge with “Plus Ultra,” the device of Spain. Among a further varied
+assortment was one which bore the inscription: “Send, O God, thine
+angel to guard him in all his goings.”
+
+The fleet under the command of Andrea Doria numbered sixty-two galleys
+and one hundred and fifty nefs. There were also a miscellaneous
+assortment of small craft, known in those days as “brigantines,”
+employed in the carriage of stores and ammunition. We have seen, on a
+former occasion, what terrible losses attended one of these armadas
+when really bad weather was encountered, and therefore it is not
+surprising that, on his second venture, Charles should have selected
+the finest season of the year for his descent upon the coast of Africa.
+They were brave men, these Mediterranean seamen, and the risks which
+they ran in their strangely formed, unseaworthy craft were of course
+much enhanced when they were loaded to the gunwale with stores,
+provisions, horses, banners, and last, but by no means least, a mob of
+seasick soldiery.
+
+Into this armada were crowded twenty-five thousand infantry and six
+hundred lancers with their horses.
+
+Cagliari, in Sardinia, was the last rendezvous of the expedition, and
+here it arrived in the early part of June, where a week was spent in
+making the final preparations; and at last, on June 10th, a start was
+made for the coast of Africa.
+
+Meanwhile in Tunis Kheyr-ed-Din was working double tides. He was
+kept well informed by his spies of all that was going on, and his
+preparations for defence were as adequate as they could be made;
+the corsairs, as we have said, had come flocking in at his call. He
+had withdrawn as many of his fighting men from Algiers as he deemed
+prudent. Knowing that the attack was directed against him personally,
+he had not much fear that it would be diverted at the last moment.
+It would have been true strategy on the part of Charles to have done
+this, but the Emperor considered that his honour required that the
+attack should be an absolutely direct one, and so Algiers was left on
+one side, to the ultimate upsetting of his plans. We say this because,
+although in this case he was to take Tunis and to restore to the
+throne of that country the puppet King Muley Hassan, and although
+he was to rescue some twenty thousand Christian captives, he did not
+capture Barbarossa, who was to live for many years to continue and to
+carry on his unceasing war against the Christians.
+
+There was no artifice left untried by the despot of Tunis. To the
+African princes, Moors as well as Arabs and Berbers, did Kheyr-ed-Din
+send embassies. For these he chose cunning men well versed in the means
+of exciting the furious passions of these primitive and ferocious
+peoples, and it was their mission to represent Muley Hassan as an
+infamous apostate who was prompted by ambition and revenge, not only
+to become the vassal of a Christian king, but to conspire with him
+to extirpate the Mohammedan faith. The subtle policy inflamed these
+ignorant and bigoted Mohammedans to the point of madness, and from
+far and near they threw in their lot with the man who represented
+himself to be the rallying-point for all those in Africa who desired
+not only to preserve their holy religion but also their personal
+liberty. From Tripoli and Jerba, from Bougie and Bona, from the shores
+of Shott-el-Jerid, through all the dim hinterland that stretches from
+thence north-westwards to Algiers, the tribesmen came flocking in. The
+wild riders of the desert had been rounded up, and it is said that
+no less than twenty thousand horsemen, in addition to an innumerable
+crowd of infantry, responded to the call of the master schemer who
+was but using these guileless savages to further his own personal
+ends. The land-pirates of the desert, those stormy petrels whose
+lives only differed from those of the followers of Kheyr-ed-Din in
+that they carried on their depredations on the land instead of on the
+sea, camped in their thousands in the environs of Tunis and boasted of
+the deeds which they were about to perform. Kheyr-ed-Din stimulated
+their enthusiasm with presents of the most costly description. Ever
+wise and politic, he knew when it was necessary to pay royally, and
+on this occasion surpassed himself in prodigality. For all this he
+himself cherished no illusions; he had the measure of the fighting
+men of his foes at his fingers’ ends, and the most that he expected
+from these wild irregulars was that they might, perchance, stay an
+onset and worry the imperial army with dashing cavalry raids. But that
+they should hold their own with the incomparable infantry of Spain,
+or make head against the stolid valour of the German men-at-arms, was
+not contemplated by Barbarossa. In his Janissaries, in his hard-bitten
+fighting men from the galleys, he could expect much; but there were but
+some few thousands of these, while the disciplined host against which
+he was called upon to combat was at the least twenty-five thousand—the
+flower of the imperial forces. The situation was unique, one on which
+the world had never looked before—all the might of Christendom going
+up against one who, no matter by what titles he might choose to
+describe himself, was no more than a vulgar robber. He was, however, a
+robber on such a scale as had never before been equalled—a force which
+remained unsubdued during the whole of his extraordinary and unusually
+protracted career.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE FALL OF TUNIS AND THE FLIGHT OF BARBAROSSA
+
+
+Autocracy in the sixteenth century was a very real and concrete fact.
+The orders of great kings were, as a rule, implicitly obeyed, and, when
+they were not, there was likely to be trouble of the worst description
+for those by whom they had been contravened. It is this that causes us
+to regard as most extraordinary one of the happenings in the armada
+which sailed from Barcelona for the coast of Africa. A most peremptory
+order was issued that no women, no boys, no one, in fact, save fighting
+men of approved worth, should find a place in the ships. Says Sandoval,
+“No se consintiesen en la armada mugeres ni muchachos ni otra gente
+inutil, mas de aquellos solos que eran para pelear.” (There were not
+allowed in the armada women, boys, or useless persons, but only those
+who were capable of fighting.) It appears, however, that the women
+paid no sort of attention to this ordinance, and the historian gravely
+relates that “it was no use turning them out of the ships as, as soon
+as you sent them down one side they returned and climbed up the other,”
+It seems almost incredible, but is none the less a fact, that four
+thousand women accompanied the expedition and landed at Tunis. The
+autocracy of the Emperor apparently stopped short where women were
+concerned, or else he was indifferent whether they came or not.
+
+On June 16th the armada arrived before Tunis, and the army disembarked
+to attack the fortress known as La Goletta. Into this strong place of
+arms Barbarossa had sent some six thousand of his best men, mostly
+Turkish soldiers, under the command of Sinan-Reis, a renegado Jew, and
+one of the fiercest and most faithful of his followers. To the camp of
+the Emperor came the fugitive King, Muley Hassan, in whose cause the
+armada had nominally been assembled—how nominal this was we shall see
+later by the light of the treaty concluded between him and the Emperor.
+Charles had complete command of the sea for the time being, and, in
+consequence, the ex-Sultan was amazed at the profusion and luxury which
+reigned in the camp of the Christians; and he concluded that these
+indeed must be the lords of the earth, as luxury and profusion was
+hardly the note of such courts as then existed in the northern portion
+of the African continent.
+
+Although the army was landed, and with it artillery for the bombardment
+of the Goletta, there remained, of course, “the army of the sea,”
+under the orders of the redoubtable Doria; and while the Marquis del
+Guasto, who was in supreme command on shore, prepared to batter down
+the defences of the fortress on the land side, the attack was carried
+on simultaneously from the sea by the galleys. The actual presence of
+the Emperor stimulated the various nationalities under his eyes
+to vie with one another in deeds of daring, and they contended among
+themselves for the posts of the most honour and danger. The attacks of
+the African horsemen were brushed on one side by the disciplined valour
+of the Andalusian cavalry, while the great guns thundered from land
+and sea against the walls of the doomed Goletta. Sinan and his Ottoman
+soldiers performed prodigies in the way of repairing breaches in the
+walls as soon as they were made; but Kheyr-ed-Din from the city watched
+the progress of the bombardment gloomily, as he saw and knew that the
+fall of the Goletta was but a matter of days. All this time he was far
+from idle; sortie after sortie did the dauntless old warrior lead in
+person against those engaged in the task of bombardment. Time and again
+he heartened the Arab and Berber levies to attack, but the sallies were
+repulsed, and the lightly armed Africans were driven like chaff before
+the wind when they swooped down on the lines of investment.
+
+But the time came at last when Sinan and his gallant Turks could hold
+the place no longer; the walls were breached in six or seven places,
+and Spaniards, Germans, and Italians made a simultaneous attack. Sinan
+fighting to the last, evacuated the fortress, and retired actually
+through the water across a shallow part of the bay to the city, with
+the remnant of his once magnificent force; and now Barbarossa knew that
+the end was come, and that Tunis must pass from his hands to those of
+the Christian Emperor. It was not only the fall of the Goletta that
+troubled him, but the equally important fact that by this the fleet
+of the enemy was enabled to lay hands upon his own fleet, consisting
+of eighty-seven galleys and galliots, together with his arsenal, and
+no less than three hundred cannon, mostly brass guns of excellent
+construction, mounted on the walls and planted on the ramparts. The
+surprising amount of this artillery gives a measure of the strength of
+the fortress and the efforts it must have cost the besiegers with such
+a man as Sinan in command.
+
+That the end was near was known to all, and not the least of their
+embarrassments was the presence within the city walls of some twenty
+thousand Christian captives. The city was large, the defences were
+spread out over a great area, it was abundantly evident that it could
+not be held, and, in consequence, Barbarossa summoned his principal
+officers and communicated to them his decision.
+
+  “We will not remain here to be slain like rats in a trap
+  by the accursed of God by whom we are attacked. No,
+  rather will we perish, sword in hand, as our fathers
+  have done before us; but first there is a danger against
+  which we have to guard. Within these walls are twenty
+  thousand prisoners who will rise against us at the first
+  opportunity; let us, then, first put them to death, and
+  then we will leave this place and show our enemies how
+  the true Moslems can die.”
+
+Even those hardened men of blood shrank before the horror which was
+proposed to them by their chief, and Sinan-Reis took up his parable and
+spoke the minds of all when he said that follow him to the death they
+would cheerfully do, but stain themselves with so awful a massacre
+was to place themselves outside the pale of humanity for ever. It was
+seldom that they crossed his mood, and Barbarossa listened in frowning
+silence, accepting as a partial excuse that time pressed, and to put
+to death twenty thousand persons would occupy longer time than they
+could spare. On the morrow a battle was fought which, as Kheyr-ed-Din
+anticipated, ended in the complete rout of the Moslems. Everywhere the
+Corsair King was in the forefront of the battle, and it is said that he
+disposed of fifty thousand men on this occasion; but this is probably
+an exaggeration, and in any case the bulk of his forces consisted
+of those African levies which, in a pitched battle against European
+troops, were practically useless owing to their want of discipline
+and cohesion. Very soon the hosts of the Emperor had prevailed, and
+the Arabs and Berbers had fled back into the wilderness from whence
+they had come and whither it was useless to pursue. Barbarossa, at the
+head of such of his corsairs and Turks as were left—a number estimated
+at some three to four thousand—burst through all opposition and also
+escaped, travelling so rapidly that pursuit was abandoned almost at
+once. And then the event happened which the Moslem leader had foreseen:
+some of the Christian captives managed to get free from their shackles
+within the city and released others; they overpowered those left to
+guard them, and threw open the gates to the soldiery of the Emperor.
+
+Then occurred one of those awful horrors of which this time was so
+prolific: before Charles or his generals could prevent them the
+soldiery had swept into the town and commenced to slay, to plunder,
+and to ravish, without distinction of age, sex, or nationality.
+Ostensibly these Christian warriors had come to rescue the inhabitants
+of Tunis from the oppression of Barbarossa, but while that chieftain
+was in full flight across the mountains to Bona, those by whom he
+had been defeated entered the town, which they had come to save,
+and perpetrated a massacre so awful that it is said that no less
+than thirty thousand people perished. It is a terrible blot on the
+escutcheon of the Emperor; as, although he and his generals deprecated
+the massacre—and indeed to do them justice tried to prevent it—this is
+no excuse for allowing their men to get out of hand, when they must
+have been aware of the inevitable result: as the Moslem corsairs at
+their worst were equalled in their iniquities by the European soldiery,
+once the strong hand of discipline had relaxed its grip.
+
+It may have been that the Emperor was displeased with this excess of
+zeal on the part of his army; but, if it were so, the chroniclers are
+silent concerning the matter, being far too busy singing the praises
+of the Cæsar to think of such a trifle as the massacre of most of
+the persons whom he had come to deliver. The wretched inhabitants of
+Tunis must have found it somewhat difficult to distinguish between the
+corsair, who killed three thousand of their fellow townsmen, and the
+Christian Emperor, who had massacred ten times that number. Charles,
+however, reaped great glory from an expedition which had but one good
+result, which was, that he succeeded in rescuing twenty thousand
+captives; these men, very naturally, on their return to their homes
+in every corner of Europe, magnified the wonderful deeds of that prince
+who had been instrumental in securing their release, and the massacre
+of the Tunisians was conveniently ignored. Charles had defeated
+Barbarossa and expelled him from Tunis; he had now displayed his
+magnanimity and altruism by the terms which he imposed on the miserable
+Muley Hassan. As far as that individual was concerned, he certainly
+deserved nothing better; but, as a _finale_ to an expedition blessed by
+the Pope, and looked upon almost in the light of a modern crusade, it
+certainly displays a remarkably keen eye for the main chance.
+
+The preamble of the treaty runs as follows:
+
+  “That the King of Tunis, recognising that he had been
+  expelled from his kingdom by Barbarossa, and that the
+  Emperor in person, with a powerful armada, had come
+  and expelled this tyrant, taking from him the fortress
+  and town of Tunis and restoring them to the King
+  Muley Hassan: that this monarch is most grateful for
+  so magnificent a service, and in recognition thereof
+  contracts to liberate all Christian captives who may be
+  in his realm, to give them a free passage to their homes,
+  and from this time forward binds himself to extend to all
+  Christians kind and generous treatment.”
+
+There can be no exception taken to this, which was the least which the
+Emperor had the right to expect; but this was only, as we have said,
+the preamble.
+
+Muley Hassan was further made to contract to hold his kingdom in fee to
+the Spanish Crown, to covenant that no corsair should use his ports
+for any purpose whatsoever, that the Emperor should not only retain
+the Goletta but that all other fortified seaports should be put into
+his hands, that the King of Tunis should in future pay twelve thousand
+crowns per annum ‘for the subsistence of the Spanish garrison of the
+Goletta, that he should enter into no alliance with the enemies of
+the Emperor, and should annually present, as an acknowledgment of his
+vassalage, six Moorish horses and six hawks.
+
+Muley Hassan had exchanged the comparatively dignified position of a
+prince in exile, who has been expropriated by the strong hand, for that
+of the puppet of one of the greatest enemies of his religion. Neither
+he nor his people were one whit the better for the change, and, as far
+as vassalage was concerned, they would in all probability, in the state
+of religious feeling at the time, have sooner been subordinate to the
+Moslem corsair than to the Christian King.
+
+[Illustration: MULEY HASSAN, KING OF TUNIS.]
+
+Barbarossa, as we have seen, frankly acknowledged that he sought
+his own advantage, and, when he possessed himself of Tunis, made no
+pretence of any altruistic motive. The Emperor, on the other hand,
+having come in the guise of a Christian reformer, simply stole the
+kingdom from Barbarossa and kept it for himself. Incidentally he
+released the captives, which enabled him to pose once more as the great
+champion of the oppressed. But, however this may have been, there is
+no doubt that he had performed a notable feat of arms, and even the
+most mighty monarch then in Europe felt uplifted by the fact that he
+had defeated the greatest of the corsairs: accordingly, on July 25th
+Charles wrote to England, France, Portugal, Milan, Florence, Venice,
+Genoa, Siena, Mantua, and Naples: “De manera que en pocas dias se supo
+in toda Europa su buena fortuna.” (So it was in a few days the whole of
+Europe was acquainted with his good fortune.)
+
+Martin Nunez, “Caballero de Toledo,” was sent on a special embassy to
+the Pope to acquaint the Pontiff at first hand of all that happened,
+and the success which had attended the arms of the Emperor, and also to
+thank his Holiness for the assistance which he had rendered by sending
+the Papal galleys. Jorge de Melo, a Portuguese caballero, was sent to
+his own country with despatches, and other nobles and high officials
+were despatched to the Emperor’s Viceroys in the various parts of his
+dominions. In the long circular letter which Charles addressed to all
+these potentates—and which is reproduced in its entirety by Sandoval—he
+says “that the Christian captives found in Tunis amounted to something
+like eighteen to twenty thousand, that Barbarossa had escaped with some
+five thousand Turks, corsairs, and renegadoes, of which three thousand
+were on horseback and two thousand afoot; that, as they suffered from
+great scarcity of provisions, and the almost total lack of water, many
+were falling by the way, and many others were being murdered by their
+quondam allies for such goods as they possessed, or for the value of
+their arms and clothing.”
+
+We must now return to Kheyr-ed-Din. What the sufferings of that
+chieftain and the remnant of his gallant army must have been in their
+flight to Bona they alone knew. It was the height of summer,
+and burning tracks of desert and rugged mountain passes had to be
+surmounted; naturally they could have carried but very little food,
+and water they had to find on the way. In addition to this, as we have
+seen in the despatch of Charles, the tribesmen turned against them,
+cutting off stragglers and murdering and plundering as opportunity
+offered. Barbarossa himself was an old man, so old that it seems
+nothing short of a miracle that he should have survived the hardships
+of this awful march. Not only did he do this, but apparently arrived
+at Bona in condition to continue his journey by sea at once, had he
+cared to do so. He had lost his newly acquired kingdom, he had lost
+nearly his entire fleet, his arsenal and stores were in the hands of
+his enemies; if ever a man was completely crushed it was he on this
+memorable occasion. As we have said before, however, it was in times of
+the greatest stress when the indomitable character of this man rose to
+meet the occasion, and, while his foes were congratulating one another
+that at last there was an end of the scourge of the Mediterranean and
+the bugbear of Christendom, the hunted fugitive was merely preparing
+himself for fresh acts of aggression.
+
+The real fact of the matter was that he was above all and before all
+a seaman. The defeat of Kheyr-ed-Din meant merely the transference of
+his malign activities from one sphere to another—from the sea to the
+land, or from the land to the sea. King he called himself, and king _de
+facto_ he was both in Algiers and Tunis, reigning with unexampled
+cruelty, a prototype of those other corsair kings by whom he was
+succeeded. But the real source of his power lay, not in stone walls
+and fortifications, nor in ill-trained levies of African tribes, but
+in his own genius for command at sea, and the manner in which he was
+able to inspire with his own dauntless and desperate spirit those hardy
+mariners who followed in his train, the descendants of the “Moriscoes”
+who hailed from the ancient Moorish kingdoms of Cordoba and Granada.
+
+Thus it was in the present instance. He had been unable to withstand
+the might of Cæsar and his legions, but Tunis was not the whole
+of Northern Africa, nor had quite all his eggs been kept in that
+one basket. He had kept fifteen galleys in reserve at Bona, and,
+in consequence, on his arrival there, was able to embark at once.
+This he did, and hardly had he done so when there appeared upon the
+scene fifteen galleys commanded by Adan Centurion and John Doria.
+Kheyr-ed-Din had had enough of fighting just for the present; his
+men and he were wearied out by the hardships of their flight, and
+accordingly he drew up his galleys under the fort at Bona and awaited
+an attack, should the enemy care to deliver one. But Adan Centurion’s
+heart failed him; to cut out the old Sea-wolf from under one of his
+own batteries was more than he had the stomach for, and he accordingly
+sailed away. “Fue sin duda la perdida grande” (this no doubt was a
+great pity), is the comment of Sandoval, who goes on to say that, had
+the Genoese been the men that they had been aforetime, this would never
+have been, and that they would have gone in and burnt or disabled
+the galleys of the corsair, slain their leader, or driven him ashore.
+Hot on the tracks of Adan Centurion and his nephew John came the
+veteran Andrea Doria with forty galleys, but he was too late, and the
+bird had flown; had it been he who had arrived in the first instance,
+then it is more than probable that matters would have turned out
+differently, and Kheyr-ed-Din had then and there terminated his career.
+It is true that Andrea possessed himself of Bona, and the Corsair King
+was shorn of yet another of his land-stations, but for the time he had
+cut himself adrift from the land, and had gone back to that element in
+which he was particularly at home.
+
+Doria left Bona in the charge of Alvar Gomez and a company of
+Spanish troops and then sailed away, if possible to find and capture
+Barbarossa, thus to set the seal of completeness on the victory which
+had been won by his master the Emperor. Another stronghold of the
+corsairs was now in most competent hands, as Alvar Gomez Zagal was
+one of the most renowned caballeros of Spain, son of that Pero Lopez
+de Horusco on whom the Moors themselves had bestowed the title of “Al
+Zagal,” or “The Valiant,” on account of his extraordinary bravery.
+
+On August 17th Charles re-embarked his army and evacuated the country,
+leaving, however, one thousand Spanish veterans, under the command of
+Bernard de Mendoza, in charge of the Goletta, as a permanent memorial
+of the expedition, and as a guarantee that the wretched Muley Hassan
+should fully comply with the treaty obligations which had been
+imposed upon him. It is true that Barbarossa had not been captured,
+but his city had been taken, his fleet had been destroyed, and he
+himself was now a fugitive, unable any further to trouble the peace
+of Christendom or the dignity of the Emperor by whom he had been so
+soundly chastised. In consequence the Cæsar departed well pleased with
+himself and with those who had been acting under his orders, to whom he
+distributed orders and titles, as a memento of the occasion upon which
+they had finally broken up the power of those by whom his peace had so
+long been troubled.
+
+One of the difficulties in dealing with the career of Kheyr-ed-Din
+Barbarossa is that, in times when he was unsuccessful, or when, as on
+the present occasion, he had received a severe setback, it is next
+to impossible to find out what he was doing or where exactly he was
+preparing for his next coup. In this case, in particular, the old-time
+historians were thanking God that the Emperor had rid the world of a
+particularly pestilent knave, and ceased to trouble themselves much
+about him until he forced himself once more upon their notice. Had
+Charles at this time recognised the greatness of the man whom he had
+just so signally defeated he might have changed the course of history.
+Had he, instead of sailing back to Europe, content with that which
+he had accomplished in Tunis, pushed his attack home on Algiers, he
+might have made himself master of the whole of Northern Africa, as,
+in the disorganised state in which the corsairs now found themselves,
+they could certainly have offered no effective resistance. But to
+the Emperor these rovers of the sea presented themselves merely in
+the light of robbers. Robbers, it is true, on a somewhat large scale,
+but still not persons of sufficient importance to detain him from the
+infinitely more pressing affairs which awaited him on the opposite
+shores of the Mediterranean Sea.
+
+In addition to the fifteen galleys which Kheyr-ed-Din picked up at Bona
+he had in reserve at Algiers some fifty others. Escaping the attention
+of Adan Centurion and John Doria, and the infinitely more formidable
+squadron of Andrea, he headed once more for Algiers, and for a time
+seems to have remained quiet, no doubt recuperating from the fatigues,
+disappointments, and physical hardships which he had so recently
+undergone. He was apparently undisturbed during the winter by his
+Christian enemies, and was in consequence able to think out his future
+plans of campaign and to collect and put heart into his scattered
+followers, who, in ones and twos, were gradually, such of them as were
+left, finding their way back to the headquarters of piracy and its
+indomitable chieftain.
+
+That cool calculator of the chances of life knew that this must be so;
+the power of the corsairs generally had received the worst blow it had
+ever encountered since the dispossessed Moriscoes had taken to the sea
+for a living; those of them who remained alive were without ships—that
+is to say, without their only means of making a livelihood—and that
+they should gravitate towards Algiers and its master was as nearly a
+certainty as anything human could be. And, as was anticipated by the
+chief, so it came to pass. Into the city straggled broken, starving,
+sullen men who had lost their all, for whom the future held nothing but
+misery and despair unless they could get to sea once more.
+
+It was on occasions such as this that the intellectual eminence of
+Barbarossa was so marked. Rough and cruel as he was, he possessed
+nevertheless a magnetic power over the minds of men, on which, when
+it so pleased him, he could play with the most extraordinary effect.
+And now, when the rank and file of the corsairs were ragged, hungry,
+and smarting under defeat, he dealt with them tenderly and graciously;
+and the sum of his teaching was to the effect that they had but to
+follow him once more and all the evils from which they were suffering
+would be presently remedied. So it came about that men who, before the
+defeat, had commanded ships of their own, were glad enough to become
+units on board the galleys of Kheyr-ed-Din, animated by the pleasing
+hope that soon again, under the leadership of this man, they might
+regain all, nay more, than they had lost. It must be remembered that
+Barbarossa argued from sound premises when he held out such hopes as
+these to the desperate remnant of the corsairs in Algiers in that sad
+winter of 1535. He was the greatest of them all, and they, as well as
+he, knew this to be a fact: if they had lost their all in the past
+battles, they had been fighting in a common cause to preserve their own
+lives and their liberty to plunder the Christian at sea. And now there
+was work and there was bread to eat for those who once again would
+throw in their lot with their old leader; and, although it may be
+said that these men had no alternative, still they threw themselves
+with heartiness into that which the master mind decreed should be their
+work, and this was none other than the preparation of the galleys for
+another campaign against the Christian.
+
+“What matter, comrades?” said the veteran on one occasion when he was
+superintending the fitting out of the galleys. “These dogs have gone
+back from whence they came, and they have left that creature, Muley
+Hassan, to do their will in Tunis. It is true that there is Mendoza and
+his thousand Spaniards in the Goletta, but did not Martin de Vargas
+hold the Peñon here? And where is De Vargas, and in whose hands is
+the Peñon now? We know from whence the garrisons of Spain draw their
+supplies, and believe me that there will be hungry men in the Goletta
+in this coming year. Once we get to sea again, there will be more than
+enough for every good man who believes in the Prophet, and who has the
+sense to follow Barbarossa. For every ducat that you have lost see, in
+the coming year, if you do not gain ten; the Christians are off their
+guard now, and they think that they have done with me because they have
+captured Tunis.” He laughed his great, jovial laugh. “By the beard of
+the Prophet—upon whom be peace!—they have yet to find out the man with
+whom they have to deal.”
+
+It took a master mind to instil heart of grace into men who so recently
+had had so bad a beating as these; but in the end they began to cheer
+up, and to recollect how Barbarossa had sooner or later always risen
+from defeat as strong or stronger than before; also they recalled the
+fact that he was the chosen of the Padishah, and that that potentate,
+the representative of the Prophet on earth, would assuredly come to his
+assistance now that Tunis, which had been taken in his name, had been
+reft from Barbarossa by the Christians. Gradually hope took the place
+of despair, and when the corsairs took to the sea in the early part of
+the following year it was with renewed confidence in both themselves
+and their leader.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+ROXALANA AND THE MURDER OF IBRAHIM
+
+
+At the coming of spring Barbarossa was at sea again with thirty-two
+ships ready for any eventuality, his crews aflame with ardour for
+revenge against those by whom they had been so roughly handled. He
+chose for the scene of operations a place on the coast of Majorca some
+fifteen miles from Palma; from here he commanded the route of the
+Spaniards from their country to the African coast, and it was against
+this nation that he felt a great bitterness owing to recent events.
+Eagerly did the corsair and his men watch for the Spanish ships, the
+heavier vessels lying at anchor, but the light, swift galleys ranging
+and questing afar so that none might be missed. Very soon the vigilance
+of the Moslems was rewarded by the capture of a number of vessels,
+sent by Bernard de Mendoza laden with Turkish and Moorish slaves,
+destined to be utilised as rowers in the Spanish galleys. These men
+were hailed as a welcome reinforcement, and joyfully joined the forces
+of Kheyr-ed-Din when he moved on Minorca, captured the castle by a
+surprise assault, raided the surrounding country, and captured five
+thousand seven hundred Christians, amongst whom were eight hundred
+men who had been wounded in the attack on Tunis—all these unfortunates
+were sent to refill the bagnio of Algiers.
+
+This private war of revenge was, however, destined soon to come to
+an end, as Soliman the Magnificent in this year became involved in
+disputes with the Venetian Republic, and recalled “that veritable
+man of the sea,” as Barbarossa had been described by Ibrahim, to
+Constantinople.
+
+In this city by the sea there had taken place a tragedy which,
+although it only involved the death of a single man, was nevertheless
+far-reaching in its consequences; for the man was none other than that
+great statesman Ibrahim, Grand Vizier, and the only trusted counsellor
+of the Padishah. He who had been originally a slave had risen step by
+step in the favour of his master until he arrived at the giddy eminence
+which he occupied at the time of his death. It is a somewhat curious
+commentary on the essentially democratic status of an autocracy that a
+man could thus rise to a position second only to that of the autocrat
+himself; and, in all probability, wielding quite as much power.
+
+Ibrahim had for years been treated by Soliman more as a brother than
+as a dependent, which, in spite of his Grand Viziership, he was in
+fact. They lived in the very closest communion, taking their meals
+together, and even sleeping in the same room, Soliman, a man of high
+intelligence himself, and a ruler who kept in touch with all the
+happenings which arose in his immense dominions, desiring always to
+have at hand the man whom he loved; from whom, with his amazing grip
+of political problems and endless fertility of resource, he was certain
+of sympathy and sound advice. But in an oriental despotism there are
+other forces at work besides those of _la haute politique_, and Ibrahim
+had one deadly enemy who was sworn to compass his destruction. The
+Sultana Roxalana was the light of the harem of the Grand Turk. This
+supremely beautiful woman, originally a Russian slave, was the object
+of the most passionate devotion on the part of Soliman; but she was as
+ambitious as she was lovely, and brooked no rival in the affections of
+Soliman, be that person man, woman, or child. In her hands the master
+of millions, the despot whose nod was death, became a submissive slave;
+the undisciplined passions of this headstrong woman swept aside from
+her path all those whom she suspected of sharing her influence, in no
+matter how remote a fashion. At her dictation had Soliman caused to be
+murdered his son Mustafa, a youth of the brightest promise, because, in
+his intelligence and his winning ways he threatened to eclipse Selim,
+the son of Roxalana herself.
+
+This woman possessed a strong natural intelligence, albeit she was
+totally uneducated; she saw and knew that Ibrahim was all-powerful with
+her lover, and this roused her jealousy to fever-heat. She was not
+possessed of a cool judgment, which would have told her that Ibrahim
+was a statesman dealing with the external affairs of the Sublime Porte,
+and that with her and with her affairs he neither desired, nor had he
+the power, to interfere. What, however, the Sultana did know was
+that in these same affairs of State her opinion was dust in the balance
+when weighed against that of the Grand Vizier.
+
+Soliman had that true attribute of supreme greatness, the unerring
+aptitude for the choice of the right man. He had picked out Ibrahim
+from among his immense entourage, and never once had he regretted his
+choice. As time went on and the intellect and power of the man became
+more and more revealed to his master, that sovereign left in his hands
+even such matters as despots are apt to guard most jealously. We have
+seen how, in spite of the murmurings of the whole of his capital, and
+the almost insubordinate attitude of his navy, he had persevered in the
+appointment of Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, because the judgment of Ibrahim
+was in favour of its being carried out. This, to Roxalana, was gall
+and wormwood; well she knew that, as long as the Grand Vizier lived,
+her sovereignty was at best but a divided one. There was a point at
+which her blandishments stopped short; this was when she found that her
+opinion did not coincide with that of the minister. She was, as we have
+seen in the instance of her son, not a woman to stick at trifles, and
+she decided that Ibrahim must die.
+
+There could be no hole-and-corner business about this; he must die,
+and when his murder had been accomplished she would boldly avow to her
+lover what she had done and take the consequences, believing in her
+power over him to come scatheless out of the adventure. In those days,
+when human life was so cheap, she might have asked for the death of
+almost any one, and her whim would have been gratified by a lover who
+had not hesitated to put to death his own son at her dictation. But
+with Ibrahim it was another matter; he was the familiar of the Sultan,
+his _alter ego_ in fact. It says much for the nerve of the Sultana that
+she dared so greatly on this memorable and lamentable occasion.
+
+On March 5th, 1536, Ibrahim, went to the royal seraglio, and, following
+his ancient custom, was admitted to the table of his master, sleeping
+after the meal at his side. At least so it was supposed, but none knew
+save those engaged in the murder what passed on that fatal night; the
+next day his dead body lay in the house of the Sultan.
+
+Across the floor of jasper, in that palace which was a fitting
+residence for one rightly known as “The Magnificent,” the blood of
+Ibrahim flowed to the feet of Roxalana. The disordered clothing, the
+terrible expression of the face of the dead man, the gaping wounds
+which he had received, bore witness that there had taken place a
+grim struggle before that iron frame and splendid intellect had been
+levelled with the dust. This much leaked out afterwards, as such things
+will leak out, and then the Sultana took Soliman into her chamber
+and gazed up into his eyes. The man was stunned by the immensity of
+the calamity which had befallen him and his kingdom, but his manhood
+availed him not against the wiles of this Circe. Ibrahim had been
+foully done to death in his own palace, and this woman clinging so
+lovingly around his neck now was the murderess. The heart’s blood of
+his best friend was coagulating on the threshold of his own apartment
+when he forgave her by whom his murder had been accomplished. This was
+the vengeance of Roxalana, and who shall say that it was not complete?
+
+The Ottoman Empire was the poorer by the loss of its greatest man, the
+jealousy of the Sultana was assuaged, the despot who had permitted
+this unavenged murder was still on the throne, thrall to the woman
+who had first murdered his son and then his friend and minister. But
+the deed carried with it the evil consequences which were only too
+likely to occur when so capable a head of the State was removed at so
+critical a time. Renewed strife was in the air, and endless squabbles
+between Venice and the Porte were taking place. With these we have no
+concern, but, in addition to other complaints, there were loud and
+continuous ones concerning the corsairs. Venice, “The Bride of the
+Sea,” had neither rest nor peace; the pirates swarmed in Corfu, in
+Zante, in Candia, in Cephalonia, and the plunder and murder of the
+subjects of the Republic was the theme of perpetual representations to
+the Sultan. The balance of advantage in this guerilla warfare was with
+the corsairs until Girolame Canale, a Venetian captain, seized one of
+the Moslem leaders known as “The Young Moor of Alexandria,” The victory
+of Canale was somewhat an important one as he captured the galley of
+“The Young Moor” and four others; two more were sunk, and three hundred
+Janissaries and one thousand slaves fell into the hands of the Venetian
+commander. There being an absence of nice feeling on the part of the
+Venetians, the Janissaries were at once beheaded to a man.
+
+The whole story is an illustration of the extraordinary relations
+existing among the Mediterranean States at this time. Soliman
+the Magnificent, Sultan of Turkey, had lent three hundred of his
+Janissaries, his own picked troops, to assist the corsairs in
+their depredations on Venetian commerce. Having done this, and the
+Janissaries having been caught and summarily and rightly put to death
+as pirates, the Sultan, as soon as he heard of what had occurred,
+sent an ambassador, one Yonis Bey, to Venice to demand satisfaction
+for the insult passed upon him by the beheading of his own soldiers
+turned pirates. The conclusion of the affair was that the Venetians
+released “The Young Moor of Alexandria” as soon as he was cured of the
+eight wounds which he had received in the conflict, and sent him back
+to Africa with such of his galleys as were left. There was one rather
+comical incident in connection with this affair, which was that when
+Yonis Bey was on his way from Constantinople to Venice he was chased by
+a Venetian fleet, under the command of the Count Grandenico, and driven
+ashore. The Count was profuse in his apologies when he discovered
+that he had been chasing a live ambassador; but the occurrence so
+exasperated Soliman that he increased his demands in consequence.
+
+Barbarossa, who had spent his time harrying the Spaniards at sea ever
+since the fall of Tunis, was shortly to appear on the scene again. He
+received orders from the Sultan, and came as fast as a favouring wind
+would bring him. Kheyr-ed-Din had been doing well in the matter of
+slaves and plunder, but he knew that, with the backing of the Grand
+Turk, he would once again be in command of a fleet in which he might
+repeat his triumph of past years, and prove himself once more the
+indispensable “man of the sea.”
+
+Soon after his arrival his ambitions were gratified, and he found
+himself with a fleet of one hundred ships. Since the death of Ibrahim,
+and the incident which terminated with the despatch of Yonis Bey to
+Venice, the relations between the Grand Turk and the Venetian Republic
+had become steadily worse, and at last the Sultan declared war. On May
+17th, 1537, Soliman, accompanied by his two sons, Selim and Mohammed,
+left Constantinople. With the campaign conducted by the Sultan we are
+not concerned here; it was directed against the Ionian Islands, which
+had been in the possession of Venice since 1401. On August 18th Soliman
+laid siege to Corfu, and was disastrously beaten, re-embarking his men
+on September 7th, after losing thousands in a fruitless attack on the
+fortress. He returned to Constantinople utterly discomfited. It was
+the seventh campaign which the Sultan had conducted in person, but the
+first in which the ever-faithful Ibrahim had not been by his side.
+
+This defeat at the hands of the Venetians was not, however, the only
+humiliation which he was destined to experience in this disastrous
+year; for once again Doria, that scourge of the Moslem, was loose
+upon the seas, and was making his presence felt in the immediate
+neighbourhood of Corfu, where the Turks had been defeated. On July
+17th Andrea had left the port of Messina with twenty-five galleys,
+had captured ten richly laden Turkish ships, gutted and burned
+them. Kheyr-ed-Din was at sea at the time, but the great rivals
+were not destined to meet on this occasion. Instead of Barbarossa,
+Andrea fell in with Ali-Chabelli, the lieutenant of Sandjak Bey of
+Gallipoli. On July 22nd the Genoese admiral and the Turkish commander
+from the Dardanelles met to the southward of Corfu, off the small
+island of Paxo, and a smart action ensued. It ended in the defeat of
+Ali-Chabelli, whose galleys were captured and towed by Doria into Paxo.
+That veteran fighter was himself in the thickest of the fray, and,
+conspicuous in his crimson doublet, had been an object of attention
+to the marksmen of Chabelli during the entire action. In spite of the
+receipt of a severe wound in the knee, the admiral refused to go below
+until victory was assured. He was surrounded at this time by a devoted
+band of nobles sworn to defend the person of their admiral or to die
+in his defence. His portrait has been sketched for us at this time by
+the Dominican Friar, Padre Alberto Gugliel-motto, author of “La guerra
+dei Pirati e la marina Pontifica dal 1500 al 1560.” The description
+runs thus: “Andrea Doria was of lofty stature, his face oval in shape,
+forehead broad and commanding, his neck was powerful, his hair short,
+his beard long and fan-shaped, his lips were thin, his eyes bright and
+piercing.”
+
+Once again had he defeated an officer of the Grand Turk; and it may be
+remarked that Ibrahim was probably quite right in the estimation, or
+rather in the lack of estimation, in which he held the sea-officers of
+his master, as they seem to have been deficient in every quality save
+that of personal valour, and in their encounters with Doria and the
+knights were almost invariably worsted. For the sake of Islam, for the
+prestige of the Moslem arms at sea, it was time that Barbarossa should
+take matters in hand once more.
+
+The autumn of this year 1537 proved that the old Sea-wolf had lost
+none of his cunning, that his followers were as terrible as ever.
+What did it seem to matter that Venetian and Catalan, Genoese and
+Frenchman, Andalusian and the dwellers in the Archipelago, were
+all banded together in league against this common foe? Did not the
+redoubtable Andrea range the seas in vain, and were not all the efforts
+of the Knights of Saint John futile, when the son of the renegado from
+Mitylene and his Christian wife put forth from the Golden Horn? What
+was the magic of this man, it was asked despairingly, that none seemed
+able to prevail against him? Had it not been currently reported that
+Carlos Quinto, the great Emperor, had driven him forth from Tunis
+a hunted fugitive, broken and penniless, with never a galley left,
+without one ducat in his pocket? Was he so different, then, from all
+the rest of mankind that his followers would stick to him in evil
+report as well as in the height of his prosperity? Men swore and women
+crossed themselves at the mention of his name.
+
+“Terrible as an army with banners,” indeed, was Kheyr-ed-Din in this
+eventful summer: things had gone badly with the crescent flag, the
+Padishah was unapproachable in his palace, brooding perchance on that
+“might have been” had he not sold his honour and the life of his only
+friend to gratify the malice of a she-devil; those in attendance on the
+Sultan trembled, for the humour of the despot was black indeed.
+
+But “the veritable man of the sea” was in some sort to console him
+for that which he had lost; as never in his own history—and there
+was none else with which it could be compared—had the Corsair King
+made so fruitful a raid. He ravaged the coasts of the Adriatic and
+the islands of the Archipelago, sweeping in slaves by the thousand,
+and by the end of the year he had collected eighteen thousand in the
+arsenal at Stamboul. Great was the jubilation in Constantinople when
+the Admiralissimo himself returned from his last expedition against
+the infidel; stilled were the voices which hinted disaffection—who
+among them all could bring back four hundred thousand pieces of gold?
+What mariner could offer to the Grand Turk such varied and magnificent
+presents?
+
+Upon his arrival Barbarossa asked permission to kiss the threshold
+of the palace of the Sultan, which boon being graciously accorded to
+him, he made his triumphal entry. Two hundred captives clad in scarlet
+robes carried cups of gold and flasks of silver behind them came thirty
+others, each staggering under an enormous purse of sequins; yet another
+two hundred brought collars of precious stones or bales of the choicest
+goods; and a further two hundred were laden with sacks of small coin.
+Certainly if Soliman the Magnificent had lost a Grand Vizier he had
+succeeded in finding an admiral!
+
+All through the earlier months of 1538 the dockyards of Constantinople
+hummed with a furious activity, for Soliman had decreed that the
+maritime campaign of this year was to begin with no less than one
+hundred and fifty ships. His admiral, however, did not agree with this
+decision; to the Viziers he raged and stormed. “Listen,” he said, “O
+men of the land who understand naught of the happenings of the sea.
+By this time Saleh-Reis must have quitted Alexandria convoying to the
+Bosphorus twenty sail filled with the richest merchandise; should he
+fall in with the accursed Genoese, Doria, where then will be Saleh-Reis
+and his galleys and his convoy? I will tell you: the ships in Genoa,
+the galleys burned, Saleh-Reis and all his mariners chained to the
+rowers’ bench.”
+
+The Viziers trembled, as men did when Barbarossa stormed and turned
+upon them those terrible eyes which knew neither fear nor pity. “We be
+but men,” they answered, “and our lord the Sultan has so ordained it.”
+
+“I have forty galleys,” replied the corsair; “you have forty more. With
+these I will take the sea; but, mark you,” he continued, softening
+somewhat, “you do right to fear the displeasure of the Sultan, and I
+also have no wish to encounter it; but vessels raised and equipped
+in a hurry will be of small use to me. In the name of Allah the
+compassionate and his holy Prophet give me my eighty galleys and let me
+go.”
+
+In Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa sound strategical instinct went hand in hand
+with the desperate valour of the corsair. To dally in the Golden
+Horn while so rich a prey was at sea to be picked up by his Christian
+foes was altogether opposed to his instincts: never to throw away a
+chance in the game of life had ever been his guiding principle.
+
+Soliman, great man as he undoubtedly was, had not the adamantine
+hardness of character which enabled his admiral to risk all on the
+hazards of the moment; or possibly the Grand Turk was deficient in that
+clearness of strategical instinct which never in any circumstances
+forgoes a present advantage for something which may turn out well in
+a problematical future. Soliman, sore, sullen, and unapproachable,
+dwelt in his palace brooding over the misfortunes which had been his
+lot since the death of Ibrahim. Barbarossa, who so recently had lost
+practically all that he possessed, and who had reached an age at which
+most men have no hopes for the future, was as clear in intellect, as
+undaunted in spirit, as if he had been half a century younger: to be
+even once more with those by whom he had been defeated and dispossessed
+was the only thing now in his mind. The capture of Saleh-Reis and
+his convoy would be a triumph of which he could not bear to think.
+Further, it would add to the demoralisation of the sea forces of the
+Sultan, which were sadly in need of some striking success after the
+defeats which had so recently been their portion. The Sultan had
+decided that one hundred and fifty ships were necessary; his admiral
+thought otherwise. There was too much at stake for him to dally at
+Constantinople; his fiery energy swept all before it, and in the
+end he had his way. On June 7th, 1538, he finally triumphed over the
+hesitations of the Viziers and put to sea with eighty sail.
+
+The Sultan, from his kiosk, the windows of which opened on the
+Bosphorus, counted the ships.
+
+“Only eighty sail; is that all?” he asked.
+
+The trembling Viziers prostrated themselves before him.
+
+“O our Lord, the Padishah,” they cried, “Saleh-Reis comes from
+Alexandria with a rich convoy; somewhere lurking is Andrea Doria, the
+accursed; it was necessary, O Magnificent, to send succour.”
+
+There was a pause, in which the hearts of men beat as do those who know
+not but that the next moment may be their last on earth.
+
+The Sultan stared from his window at the retreating ships in a silence
+like the silence of the grave. At last he turned:
+
+“So be it,” he answered briefly; “but see to it that reinforcements do
+not lag upon the road.”
+
+If there had been activity in the dockyards before it was as nothing to
+the strenuous work that was to be done henceforward.
+
+Before starting on this expedition Kheyr-ed-Din had made an innovation
+in the manning of some of the most powerful of his galleys, which
+was of the utmost importance, and which was to add enormously to the
+success of his future maritime enterprises. The custom had always been
+that the Ottoman galleys had been rowed by Christians, captured and
+enslaved; of course the converse was true in the galleys of their foes.
+There were, for the size of the vessels, an enormous number of men
+carried in the galleys of the sixteenth century, and an average craft
+of this description would have on board some four hundred men; of
+these, however, the proportion would be two hundred and fifty slaves
+to one hundred and fifty fighting men. That which Kheyr-ed-Din now
+insisted upon was that a certain proportion of his most powerful units
+should be rowed by Moslem fighting men, so that on the day of battle
+the oarsmen could join in the fray instead of remaining chained to
+their benches, as was the custom with the slaves. It is, however, an
+extraordinary testimony to the influence which the corsair had attained
+in Constantinople that he had been able to effect this change in the
+composition of some of his crews; it must have been done with the
+active co-operation of the Sultan, as no authority less potent than
+that of the sovereign himself could have induced free men to undertake
+the terrible toil of rower in a galley. This was reserved for the
+unfortunate slave on either side owing to the intolerable hardship of
+the life, and results, in the pace at which a galley proceeded through
+the water, were usually obtained by an unsparing use of the lash on the
+naked bodies of the rowers.
+
+This human material was used up in the most prodigal manner possible,
+as those in command had not the inducement of treating the rowers well,
+from that economic standpoint which causes a man to so use his beast of
+burden as to get the best work from him. In the galley, when a slave
+could row no more he was flung overboard and another was put in his
+place.
+
+The admiral, however, even when backed by the Padishah, could not
+man a large fleet of galleys with Moslem rowers, and, as there was a
+shortage in the matter of propelling power, his first business was to
+collect slaves, and for this purpose he visited the islands of the
+Archipelago. The lot of the unhappy inhabitants of these was indeed a
+hard one. They were nearer to the seat of the Moslem power than any
+other Christians; they were in those days totally unable to resist an
+attack in force, and in consequence were swept off in their thousands.
+
+Seven islands cover the entrance to the Gulf of Volo. The nearest
+to the coast is Skiathos, which is also the most important; it was
+defended by a castle built upon a rock. This castle was attacked by
+Barbarossa, who bombarded it for six days, carried it by assault, and
+massacred the garrison. He spared the lives of the inhabitants of the
+island, and by this means secured three thousand four hundred rowers
+for his galleys. He had to provide motor-power for the reinforcements
+which he expected. In July he was reinforced from Constantinople by
+ninety galleys, while from Egypt came Saleh-Reis, who had succeeded
+in avoiding the terrible Doria, with twenty more; the fleet was thus
+complete.
+
+Barbarossa ravaged Skios, Andros, and other islands, putting them under
+contribution, and in this manner raised some eight thousand ducats;
+from a pen of guinea-fowl to a king’s ransom, nothing escaped the maw
+of this most rapacious of corsairs. Candia and some other islands
+yielded up some small spoil, but the sufferings of such insignificant
+folk as the wretched islanders were soon lost to the sight of the
+Christian world in the magnitude of the events which were now
+impending.
+
+Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, Corsair, Admiral, and King, the scourge of
+the Mediterranean, and Andrea Doria, Prince of Oneglia, Admiral of the
+modern Cæsar, Charles V., Emperor and King, were at last to meet face
+to face.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE PREVESA CAMPAIGN; THE GATHERING OF THE FLEETS
+
+
+Some thirty-five miles to the south-eastward of Cape Bianco (the
+southernmost point of the island of Corfu) lies Prevesa, at the
+entrance of the Gulf of Arta, or, as it was known in classic times,
+the Ambracian Gulf. In these seas, in the year 31 B.C., was fought
+one of the most memorable battles of antiquity, for it was here that
+Octavius, afterward Augustus Cæsar, defeated the forces of Antony and
+Cleopatra. There have been many controversies of late years as to
+whom the original idea of breaking the line in naval combats is due:
+anyhow, it can claim a respectable antiquity, as it was practised at
+the battle of Actium by Octavius, who by a skilful manoeuvre caused
+Antony to lengthen his line, which he then cut through and attacked the
+ships of Cleopatra, which were in support: this was too much for the
+lady, who fled with her sixty ships, followed by Antony, to his eternal
+disgrace. The remainder of his fleet fought bravely for a time, but
+was eventually defeated, the land army also surrendering to Octavius.
+The date of the actual battle of Actium was September 2nd, 31 B.C.:
+it was in September 1538 that the battle of Prevesa between Andrea
+Doria and Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa took place, and the conditions of the
+battle were almost exactly similar.
+
+To this very place came, 1569 years later, the Christian and the
+Moslem, the Crescent and the Cross, each under its most renowned
+leader, each side burning with an inextinguishable hate. It was one of
+the peculiarities of this warfare that into it entered so much actual
+personal feeling, each side hating the other for the love of God in
+the most poisonous fashion. Save and except the battle of Lepanto in
+1571 (with which we shall deal later in the story of Ali Basha, or
+Occhiali as he was called by his Christian opponents) the contest
+at Prevesa was far the most important ever fought by those strange
+oar-propelled vessels known as galleys. It was memorable in many ways,
+but particularly so for the ages of the men in chief command. Andrea
+Doria was at this time seventy years of age; in fact, Guglielmotti
+gives the date of his birth as 1466, thus making him two years older.
+That amazing veteran Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, who died in his bed at
+Constantinople on July 4th, 1546, at the age of ninety, must have been
+eighty-two. Vicenzo Capello was sixty-eight, as the epitaph on his
+tomb at Venice in the church of Santa Maria Formosa says that he was
+seventy-two in the year of his death, 1542.
+
+Once again Christendom was nerving itself for a supreme effort against
+the corsairs, and, during the time that Barbarossa was raiding and
+ravaging among the islands of the Archipelago, the Christian fleet
+was gradually assembling. At first it numbered some 150 galleys,
+81 Venetian, 36 Pontifical, and 30 Spanish; Charles V. sent, at the
+last moment, 50 ships on which were embarked 10,000 troops. The force
+totalled altogether 59,000 to 60,000 men, 195 ships, and 2,594 cannons.
+This was no doubt a most formidable armada, but the policy of those
+by whom it was composed was not all directed to the same end. While
+Charles desired, above all things, to exterminate the corsairs for
+good and all, which was, in the circumstances, the only sound view
+of the matter, the Venetians were for fighting defensive actions to
+maintain their supremacy in the Ionian Islands, and were disposed to
+let the future take care of itself. There was not, in consequence, that
+absolute unanimity among the various commanders of the expedition as
+was necessary for its complete success.
+
+The concentration of the Christian fleet took place at Corfu. The
+Venetians arrived first, with Vincenzo Capello in command; Marco
+Grimani brought thither the Papal contingent; they anchored and waited,
+but Andrea Doria did not appear. Days lengthened into weeks, and
+Grimani and Capelli chafed and fumed; provisions were running low and
+the dignity of Venice and of the Pope were flouted by this strange
+remissness on the part of the Admiral of the Emperor. At last, furious
+with impatience, Grimani made a raid into the Gulf of Arta, which was
+defended at the entrance by the fortress of Prevesa. The only result
+of this ill-timed attack was that two Papal captains and a number of
+soldiers were killed. Grimani then returned to Corfu, to find Capello
+irritated to the last extent by the non-appearance of Doria.
+
+At last, on September 5th, the Imperial fleet hove in sight. It was
+composed of forty-nine galleys, but these were supplemented by a great
+number of sailing ships; the sailing craft, however, did not arrive
+till September 22nd. These vessels were gradually making way among the
+Spaniards since the discovery of the new world.
+
+At this time the Venetians possessed fourteen nefs. Doria had augmented
+these by twenty-two of his own, and the total number of thirty-six
+was commanded by Franco Doria, a nephew of the admiral. The Venetian
+nefs were commanded by Alessandro Condalmiero, captain of the _Galleon
+of Venice_. This was the most formidable fighting vessel in the
+Mediterranean; she was reckoned an excellent sailor, she was by far the
+most heavily armed sailing ship then afloat; in fact, in the opinion of
+contemporary seamen, she was “an invincible fortress.”
+
+Doria, Grimani, and Capello had now nearly 200 ships carrying nearly
+60,000 men. Such a force, in all ages, has been considered great.
+William the Conqueror conquered Britain with a less number; it is
+almost half the total of the personnel of the British fleet in the
+present day which has to defend a country with 40,000,000 inhabitants,
+and all this force had been raised, armed, and equipped to combat with
+a Moslem corsair.
+
+Barbarossa had succeeded in assembling 122 ships. He was accompanied
+by all the most famous corsairs of the day, among whom was Dragut,
+who fell at the siege of Malta, and of whom we shall have more to say
+in due time. Far and wide ranged the swift galleys of the Ottoman
+fleet, for the plan of the commander of the Moslems was to locate and
+destroy his enemies in detail if possible. At last news came to him
+that Grimani’s ships had been sighted in the Gulf of Arta. Not one
+moment did he lose; he would fall upon the Papal contingent with his
+whole force and destroy it utterly. Such, at least, was his plan when
+he sailed for Prevesa; but, notwithstanding his haste, he was too late.
+Happily for himself, Grimani had returned to Corfu before the arrival
+of his enemy.
+
+At this juncture Barbarossa hesitated; had he not done so, and had
+he followed Grimani to Corfu, he might have destroyed both him
+and Vincenzo Capello in detail before the arrival of Doria. The
+Prevesa campaign is a curious study of hesitation on both sides, and
+the idea naturally occurs were not the corsair and the Christian
+commanders-in-chief too old for the work on which they were engaged?
+Men of over seventy are not impetuous, but grave and deliberate as
+a rule; but there is no rule without its exceptions, and Doria and
+Barbarossa were not as other leaders. Up to the present their dash and
+initiative had been unimpaired. There was no question that Barbarossa
+not only made a mistake in hesitating, but that by it he lost the
+game. Instead of striking at once he did what he had never done before
+in the whole of his career, which was to send to Constantinople for
+instructions. Some of his galleys had captured a fishing-boat off
+Corfu, the crew of which had seen Doria’s fleet. The Moslem leader
+sent the fishermen themselves to report to Soliman exactly what they
+had seen, and to ask for and bring back instructions from that
+potentate. What Barbarossa had discovered was that the odds were very
+much against him; so much, in fact, that he would have to act on the
+defensive. In consequence, he steered for Prevesa and entered the Gulf
+of Arta, which is approached by a long narrow strait, dominated by
+the castle of Prevesa. Once inside he anchored his galleys in such a
+position that they could fire direct out to sea, thus overwhelming with
+their fire any vessel attempting to enter.
+
+Barbarossa now occupied the same position as did Octavius in his
+combat with Antony. The rôle of the latter general was now taken by
+Doria. Antony, like Doria, had heavy ships which could not advance
+to the attack owing to their too great draught. Octavius, with his
+light-draught ships, could both attack and retreat into safety if
+overmatched.
+
+On September 22nd Doria, having collected all his ships, gave orders
+to fill up with wood, water, and fresh provisions. On the 25th, to
+the sound of the trumpet, the Commander-in-Chief, with his fleet of
+two hundred sail, weighed anchor and sped before the wind rapidly
+southwards. Grimani commanded the advance-guard, Doria was in the
+centre, Vincenzo Capello, with his Venetians, brought up the rear.
+Formed in two columns, the nefs followed the galleys; the _Galleon of
+Venice_, commanded by Condalmiero, a squadron in herself, preceded them.
+
+[Illustration: GALEASSE UNDER SAIL.]
+
+From the anchorage at Corfu to the entrance of the Gulf of Arta is
+about fifty-eight miles, and, traversing this distance during the hours
+of daylight, the fleet anchored, as night fell, under Cape Prevesa.
+The Galleon which acted as what we should now call the guide of the
+fleet, anchored in sixteen feet of water, which was barely sufficient
+to keep her afloat.
+
+The Gulf of Arta, in which, as we have said, the fleet of the Moslems
+were now anchored, presents very curious physical peculiarities: it
+is twenty-two miles in length from east to west, and fifteen miles in
+breadth from north to south. This sheet of water is formed into an
+immense bay by the configuration of the land, and its depth, in places,
+is from one hundred and thirty to two hundred feet. Inside it all the
+navies in the world might ride at anchor, were it not for the fact that
+the entrance is closed by a bar upon which the depth varies from six
+and a half to thirteen feet. With his light-draught ships Barbarossa
+occupied the interior position, while the heavy ships of Doria must in
+any event remain outside. A strong sea-breeze was blowing on shore;
+all night the nefs and the galleys were nearly rolling their gunwales
+under. In these packed and crowded vessels the misery and discomfort of
+their crews may be imagined. On the morning of the 26th, however, the
+west wind dropped, and a light wind sprang up from the northward.
+
+The position at this time was one of surpassing interest. Here at long
+last the two most renowned sea-captains of the time were face to face.
+Each was aware that his antagonist was worthy of his steel, also that
+great issues, political and national, hung upon this conflict; which
+was no mere affair of outposts, but a struggle to the death as to
+whether the Crescent or the Cross was in time to come to be supreme
+in the tideless sea. And yet—such is the irony of fate—this battle
+proved indecisive, and it was not until thirty years later, at the
+battle of Lepanto, that this momentous question was set at rest for a
+time.
+
+Would Doria, greatly daring, go in and risk all in attacking a
+fortified position; or would Barbarossa make a sally and fight it out
+to the death on the element on which he was so supremely at home?
+
+But Doria had no mind to attack a fleet anchored under the guns of
+a fortress; Barbarossa would not risk all in an encounter with a
+foe possessed of great numerical superiority without orders from
+Constantinople. On Doria’s side nothing but a disembarkation and a
+land-attack would offer a fair security for success, Kheyr-ed-Din,
+who held, as we have said, the interior position, was well aware of
+this fact, and in this supreme moment of his career was not disposed
+to give away any advantage. The situation occupied by Kheyr-ed-Din
+at the battle of Prevesa was, in a sense, different from any which
+he had held before, as he was in this case hampered by his sense of
+responsibility as Admiralissimo to the Grand Turk. What happened on the
+distant shores of Africa mattered but little to that monarch, and he
+had been content to allow his admiral an entirely free hand; here in
+Europe, on the shores of Greece, so close relatively to his own capital
+city, it was a very different matter, and Soliman was kept in touch
+with the happenings of his fleet as far as was possible in those days.
+But if the great corsair did not add to his reputation in this eventful
+campaign he still displayed an aptitude in realising the situation
+which, it is safe to say, was shown by none of those under his
+command.
+
+Prevesa illustrates for us more than any other action the difficulties
+with which the path of the partisan leader in these days must always
+have been filled; and how it was that personal ascendancy was the only
+force to which such a leader had to trust Sheer dominance of the minds,
+the wills, and the bodies of others had placed Kheyr-ed-Din where he
+was; all his life he had commanded undisciplined pirates, and yet now,
+when he was the properly accredited officer of a mighty monarch, when
+he might have expected far more discipline and subordination than had
+ever been his lot in the past, he was met with a contumaciousness which
+he was unable to quell, and was forced into taking steps which, in his
+own unequalled knowledge of war, he knew to be doomed to disaster.
+
+Around him the Reis, or captains of the Moslem galleys, clamorously
+demanded that he should take precautions against a land-attack. It
+was true that the raid which had been made by Grimani had been easily
+repulsed, but in present circumstances there was no question of a mere
+raid, as, should the Christian admiral so decide, he could land twenty
+thousand men. Sinan Reis, an old Osmanli warrior, furious with jealousy
+that the chief command should be in the hands of a corsair, sustained
+his opinion in a manner which augured ill for the hearty co-operation
+of all the Turkish forces. Sinan was just one of those blindly valiant
+fighters from whom the politic Ibrahim had desired to deliver his
+master when he had urged the appointment of Kheyr-ed-Din: brave as
+a lion, keen as the edge of his own good scimitar, fanatical, as
+became a Hodja who had visited the Holy Places, Sinan was a type of
+the Turkish sea-officer: devoid of strategical instinct and tactical
+training, his one idea was a headlong attack, then victory or the
+houris of Paradise. It will be seen that Barbarossa had not only Doria
+and the Christian fleet and army against which to contend on this
+occasion.
+
+The peril conjured up by Sinan Reis on this occasion was not altogether
+an imaginary one: the idea of a disembarkation had, in point of fact,
+been seriously discussed that very morning by Andrea Doria and his
+council of war, at which Hernando de Gonzaga, Generalissimo of the
+troops embarked, had advised a landing. His argument, embodied in a
+long and technical harangue, may be reduced to the following:
+
+  “If we cannot go straight at the enemy and force our way
+  through the entrance under his cannon why should we not
+  reduce the fortress of Prevesa by a siege? Once masters
+  of this height, we could close the strait by sinking
+  in it vessels laden with stones, and we then have the
+  Ottoman fleet at our mercy.”
+
+But Doria the sailor was not to be led by Gonzaga the soldier. He said:
+
+  “The advice seems sound, but in reality it would prove
+  most dangerous if followed. Barbarossa must have
+  landed some of his men, the cavalry which defeated
+  Grimani’s raid will no doubt come again from the
+  interior, if necessary. If we deprive our ships of their
+  soldiers we expose ourselves to a sea-fight under most
+  disadvantageous conditions. But most, important of
+  all is the fact that time presses; the season is far
+  advanced; at any time the fleet may be driven off these
+  shores by a storm, in which case what would become of
+  the troops left on shore? Again, if it comes on to blow
+  a tempest from the westward we may lose not only our
+  troops, but our ships, in fact the whole expedition.”
+
+At the battle of Actium, Octavius occupied the shore upon which
+Hernando Gonzaga wished to land and assault; but notwithstanding this
+fact Octavius did not attempt the passage of the gulf but waited for
+his enemy outside. Doria was therefore all the more justified in not
+sacrificing ships and men in attempting to force an entrance now
+that this same shore was in the hands of the enemy. He was asked, he
+said, to thrust his head into the mouth of the wolf, and this he was
+determined not to do.
+
+In the meanwhile Barbarossa was using much the same language to his
+captains as was Doria.
+
+“My brothers,” said he, “you wish to transport cannon and raise
+redoubts on this uncovered shore because you think that the Christians
+will disembark and seize it: if you attempt this I tell you that the
+guns of the enemy will annoy you terribly., Not only this, supposing
+that Doria, profiting by the moment that our vessels are empty of
+troops, should attack in force, we cannot with five thousand men
+repulse twenty thousand. The fort of Prevesa will defend itself quite
+sufficiently well with its own garrison; our business is to think
+of the fleet and not to weaken in any way our means of attack and
+defence, If the infidels force, or attempt to force, an entry into
+the port, they will be most likely merely losing time and ammunition
+in cannonading us. You know that it is principally in this that these
+accursed dogs do trust, whereas we, O men of Islam, will place our
+confidence in God, in Mahomet his Prophet, in the strength of our right
+arms, in the keenness of our scimitars; we will carry them by boarding,
+therefore we must keep our crews on board,”
+
+But Barbarossa had not that absolute domination of the forces under
+his command which should be the prescriptive right of any leader.
+Sinan-Reis, the implacable be-turbaned old Osmanli, held him in bitter
+scorn. “Your advice may be good,” he retorted, “but we think our plan
+the better.”
+
+The admiral suggested a reconnaissance of the site, which was merely
+a ruse to gain time. This was carried out under his own supervision,
+and confirmed him in the idea that disembarkation was folly; but
+Sinan-Reis and the Janissaries held obstinately to their opinion, while
+the “Joldaks,” or Turkish soldiers in the galleys, grumbled among
+themselves that Kheyr-ed-Din must indeed be full of vanity to reject
+the counsels of one like Sinan-Reis.
+
+Both commanders-in-chief, Christian and Moslem, seem on this occasion
+to have taken an absolutely correct view of the problem as it was
+presented; but whereas Andrea Doria was a real commander-in-chief,
+Barbarossa was forced to consider and to defer to the opinions of men
+whom he knew to be in the wrong.
+
+It was against his better judgment that Kheyr-ed-Din at last
+yielded; the men were backing up their officers, a spirit of
+disaffection was abroad in the armada: such a thing as this a wise
+chief must gauge at its true value, and stop before it goes too far.
+The Osmanli were murmuring against “the corsair”; it was time to let
+them see whether they or their war-worn leader possessed the greater
+wisdom.
+
+According to Moslem chroniclers the valour of Kheyr-ed-Din was only
+equalled by his piety; consequently he murmured a prayer into that
+famous beard of his, which was now so much nearer to white than red,
+and gave orders that the cannon shall be immediately disembarked. “Let
+the will of God and of His Prophet be accomplished; that which is
+written is that which will take place,” exclaimed this pious man as he
+watched the preparations being carried out under the supervision of
+Mourad-Reis.
+
+That which “took place” was precisely and exactly what the
+Commander-in-Chief had predicted from the first: no sooner had
+Mourad-Reis landed upon the exposed beach, and attempted to open a
+trench, than he was met by a furious and concentrated fire from the
+galleys and nefs of the Christian fleet. To entrench themselves was
+impossible in the circumstances, as they had been told by the Admiral
+before they started on this harebrained adventure. There could be
+only one result, which was that, after a cruel and perfectly useless
+slaughter, the soldiers of Mourad-Reis had to retreat before the hail
+of shot poured upon them, and to return ignominiously to their vessels.
+
+It is not on record what Kheyr-ed-Din said to Sinan, Mourad, and
+those other tacticians who had recommended the landing; which perhaps
+is a pity.
+
+Doria then made a tentative movement against the strait by a detachment
+of galleys; Barbarossa told off an equal number to oppose them, and
+they mutually cannonaded and skirmished during the day. There was much
+noise and excitement, but practically no advantage was gained by either
+side, as Doria’s men could not risk passing the guns of the fort, nor
+could those of Barbarossa the chance of being cannonaded by the heavy
+vessels lying in wait-for them outside. And so the day closed down with
+no success on either side, but with a decisive demonstration to the
+Moslems that, if they desired victory, to their admiral had better be
+left the organisation by which it was to be obtained.
+
+Whether Doria really desired a pitched battle can never be known; that
+which is certain is that, during the whole time the fleets were in
+touch, all his dispositions make it appear there was nothing of which
+he was so much afraid. And yet it was the opportunity of his life; he
+had superiority in numbers, he had valiant and experienced leaders,
+and sixty thousand men thirsting for battle, under his command. Also
+he had his opportunity, which, had he seized upon, must have ended
+in victory, did those who were under his orders only fight as he had
+every reason to believe that they would. As it was, he threw away
+the gift of fortune, and left to the Osmanli the practical dominance
+of the Mediterranean Sea until that great day in 1571 when Don John
+of Austria, the natural son of Charles V., proved to the world at
+Lepanto that the Turk was not invincible upon the waters.
+
+It is true that Doria was awkwardly situated; Kheyr-ed-Din held the
+interior position, and that leader was a great believer in the adage
+that “if Brag is a good dog, Holdfast is a better.” He was well aware
+of his numerical inferiority, and in consequence refused to listen
+to the frenzied appeals of the excited Moslems to be led against the
+Christian dogs. It may seem a contradiction in terms to speak of the
+moral courage of a pirate; but if ever that quality were displayed
+to its fullest extent it was exhibited by Barbarossa in the Prevesa
+campaign. In his intellectual outlook on all that was passing, both
+inside and outside of the Gulf of Arta, in this September of 1538, we
+see Kheyr-ed-Din at his best. Ever a fighter, he knew when to give
+battle and when to refrain, when to sweep headlong upon the foe, but
+also when to hold back and to baffle by waiting till the psychological
+moment should arrive. Around him Sinan-Reis, Mourad-Reis, and half a
+hundred others of their kidney were clamouring; they hurled insults at
+his head, they heaped opprobrium on “the corsair,” they practically
+incited their troops to mutiny in their mad appeals to be led against
+the foe.
+
+But “the corsair” kept his head, and kept his temper, and saved the
+Ottoman fleet for his master from his great rival, Doria. That noble
+Genoese seaman was for once in his life “letting I dare not wait upon I
+would”; he would not order the attack for which his men were waiting,
+and no provocation, apparently, could tempt Barbarossa to play
+Antony to the Octavius of Doria; the Christian admiral was tempting
+Providence at that advanced season of the year in keeping the sea on an
+hostile coast on which at any time he might be driven by a tempest. His
+old and experienced antagonist was well aware that the winds and the
+waves might save him the trouble of destroying the fleet of the enemy;
+an equinoctial gale would do that far more effectually than could he.
+If Doria had an uneasy consciousness that he might at any time see the
+shore littered with oarless galleys and dismasted nefs, while the sea
+was filled with drowning men, the same vision had been vouchsafed to
+his imperturbable adversary. Had it been left to the entire initiative
+of Barbarossa, his Fabian tactics would assuredly have prevailed in
+the end; but as it was he was surrounded by a clamouring host of men,
+soldiers by trade, who, understanding nothing of the happenings of the
+sea, merely derided as cowardice any postponement of what they regarded
+as the inevitable battle. The admiral of the Sultan held out as long as
+it was possible, but at last, owing to a new factor in the case, was
+forced, against his better judgment, to offer the battle which it was
+in his power to have withheld.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE BATTLE OF PREVESA
+
+
+  How Alessandro Condalmiero fought the _Galleon of Venice_—
+  “The King of the Sea is dead.”
+
+There is something almost pathetic in the spectacle of a really great
+leader badgered and importuned by lesser men to adopt a course which
+he, with a superior insight, knows to be unsound. In the matter of the
+landing Barbarossa had demonstrated that it was he whose knowledge of
+war was superior to those who were so ready to thrust upon him their
+opinions; this, however, did not content them, and they now desired to
+close with the foe waiting for them outside. If ever a commander was
+justified in waiting on events it was Barbarossa at this juncture; the
+business of a commander-in-chief is to ensure victory, and if he sees,
+as did the Moslem admiral on this occasion, that more is to be gained
+by delay than by fighting, then he is justified in refusing battle:
+particularly is this the case when the enemy is in greatly superior
+force blockading on an open and dangerous coast at an inclement
+season of the year. Every day that Doria was kept at sea added to
+his difficulties, as fresh water and provisions would be running
+short, and the energies of the human engines by which his galleys
+were propelled would be weakened; naked men chained to a bench were
+suffering from the blazing heat of the days, the cold and drenching
+dews of the nights. All these things had the veteran seaman weighed in
+his mind, they all inclined him to wait still longer in that secure
+anchorage where he could not be touched by his foe.
+
+There was one counsellor, however, whom even Kheyr-ed-Din could not
+resist, and who had hitherto kept silence; this was the eunuch Monuc,
+legal counsellor to Soliman, who had accompanied the armada. He now
+brought the weight of his influence to bear upon the side of Sinan-Reis
+and his colleagues.
+
+“Are you going,” he asked the admiral, “to allow the infidels to escape
+without a battle? Soliman can find plenty of wood to build new fleets,
+plenty of captains to command them; he will pardon you if this fleet
+is destroyed: that which he will never pardon is that you should allow
+Doria to escape without fighting. You have brave men in plenty; why not
+lead them to the attack?”
+
+The patience of the veteran gave way at last; none who knew Barbarossa
+had ever seen him shrink from fighting—to this his whole career bore
+witness. He had delayed the issue from the soundest of strategical
+reasons, which those under his command were too stupid and too
+prejudiced to understand: what cared they for reason in their blind
+valour?—they wished only to do or die heedless of the fact that
+their lives might be spent in vain. Truly it was no thanks to the
+subordinates of Kheyr-ed-Din that this campaign did not end in disaster
+to the arms of the Ottoman Porte. Such backing as the admiral had
+came from among his own men, the corsairs whose lives had been spent
+at sea, but their opinions were but dust in the balance once the
+all-powerful Monuc ranged himself on the side of the malcontents.
+
+“Let us then fight,” said the admiral to Saleh-Reis, “or this fine
+talker who is neither man nor woman will accuse us before the Grand
+Turk and we shall all probably be hanged.”
+
+The Christian fleet during the night of September 26–7th had made some
+thirty miles to the southward; just before daybreak the wind freshened
+and drew right ahead; Doria approached the island of Santa Maura and
+anchored under the small islet of Sessola.
+
+Barbarossa had now decided to leave his anchorage, but the veteran
+seaman did not disguise from himself the risks which he ran: a greater
+sea captain than he once said “only numbers can annihilate,” and it was
+at annihilation that both the Moslem and the Christian aimed: in this
+case, however, he knew that he could but hope for a hard-won victory,
+and only that if Allah and his Prophet were unusually favourable to
+his cause. He assembled his captains, many of whom had served with him
+during long periods of his career, and directed them to form line: he
+said, “I have but one order to give, follow my movements attentively
+and regulate your own accordingly.”
+
+With fustas, brigantines, galleots, and galleys, the Ottoman fleet
+amounted in all to one hundred and forty sail. With shouts of joy the
+soldiers hailed the command to weigh the anchors, and in a very short
+time all were slowly moving seaward.
+
+The die was cast: Doria from his anchorage at Sessola saw the sea white
+with the sails of the enemy, the blue water churning to foam beneath
+the strokes of his oars; the Ottoman fleet was issuing from the Gulf
+of Arta manoeuvring with precision and deploying into a single line
+abreast; which line being slightly concave, either from accident or
+design, resembled the form of a crescent. In advance came six great
+fustas commanded by Dragut; the left wing hugged the shore as closely
+as possible; the Ottoman commander-in-chief intended to commence
+operations on the first principles of strategy by flinging his whole
+force on a portion of that of the enemy.
+
+Andrea Doria remained undecided: he was on a lee shore, and that shore
+was the coast of the enemy; although his foes were advancing to the
+attack it seemed as if he had no mind to fight: whether he had or
+had not he displayed a most remarkable sluggishness, hesitating for
+three hours before getting up his anchors; these he only weighed at
+last under pressure from the bellicose Patriarch of Aquilea, Vincenzo
+Capello, and the Papal captain, Antonio Grimani. Doria had counted on
+the support of the _Galleon of Venice_ and the nefs; but the galleon was
+becalmed four miles from the land and ten miles from Sessola, where
+Doria was at the beginning of the action.
+
+Condalmiero sent a light skiff from the _Galleon of Venice_ to the
+commander-in-chief demanding orders and help from the galleys.
+
+“Begin the fight,” answered the admiral, “you will be succoured.”
+
+The position of Condalmiero was that of a modern battleship which is
+disabled and surrounded by foes in full possession of their motive
+power; the great galleon floated inert upon the waters while the
+galleys could fight or fly as they wished. The captain of the galleon,
+however, had no alternative save to surrender or fight; but there was
+no hesitation on his part, for a more gallant officer never trod the
+decks of a warship of the proud Republic to which he belonged.
+
+The Moslem galleys were now close upon him, although as yet out of
+gun-shot; around him they wheeled and circled like a flight of great
+sea-birds, their ferocious crews shouting their war-cries calling
+upon Allah and the Prophet to give them the victory for which they
+craved; many a brave Venetian who heard for the first time the name of
+Barbarossa shouted in battle must have braced himself for the coming
+conflict, knowing all that was imported by that terrible name. The
+sun shone in a cloudless sky, the galleon lay becalmed in the middle
+of furious and ravening foes, the succour promised by Doria was ten
+miles away; they saw no movement which indicated help, and the odds
+against them were heavy indeed. But all the nervousness was not on
+one side, for the _Galleon of Venice_ was something new in the naval
+warfare of the time; she carried engines of destruction in the shape
+of great guns which the corsairs could by no means equal. Of this they
+were well aware, and the attack was delayed while the oarsmen in the
+galleys rested on their oars out of range to allow them breathing time
+before the supreme moment arrived. But the hounds were only held in
+leash; there came a signal which was answered by a concentrated yell
+of fury and of hate; then from right ahead, right astern, on the port
+side and the starboard, the galleys were launched to the attack. But
+all on board the great Venetian vessel was as still as that death which
+awaited so many of the combatants in this supreme struggle.
+
+Condalmiero had caused the crew of the galleon to lie down upon her
+decks, and stood himself, a gallant solitary figure in his shining
+armour, a mark for the hail of shot so soon to be discharged. It came,
+and with it the mast of the galleon bearing the Lion Standard of St.
+Mark crashed over the side into the water; renewed yells of triumph
+came from the Moslems, but still that ominous silence reigned on board
+the galleon. Untouched, unharmed, the Osmanlis came on firing as
+rapidly as possible until they were absolutely within arquebuss range.
+Closer they came and closer; then the sides of the galleon burst into
+sheeted flame, and the guns levelled at point-blank range tore through
+the attacking host. Condalmiero was throwing away no chances; he had
+directed his gunners to allow their balls to ricochet before striking
+rather than to throw them away by allowing them to fly over the heads
+of the enemy.
+
+The first broadside did terrible execution; a ball one hundred and
+twenty pounds in weight, fired by the chief bombardier, Francisco
+d’Arba in person, burst in the prow of a galley so effectually that
+all her people flew aft to the poop to prevent the water rushing in;
+but the vessel was practically split in twain, and sank in a few
+moments. All around were dead and dying men, disabled galleys, floating
+wreckage; the _Galleon of Venice_ had taken a terrible toll of the
+Osmanli; the order to retreat out of range was given, and never was
+order obeyed with greater alacrity.
+
+With accuracy and precision the galleon played upon such vessels as
+remained within range, doing great execution. But she was now to be
+subjected to an even severer test than the first headlong attack. She
+had demonstrated to the Moslem leaders that here was no vessel to be
+carried by mere reckless valour; a disciplined and ordered offensive
+was the only plan which promised success; the Osmanli must use their
+brain as well as their courage if that tattered flag, rescued from the
+water, and nailed to the stump of the mast of the galleon, was ever to
+be torn down. There was something daunting in the very aspect of the
+solid bulk of the huge Venetian, something weird in the manner in which
+her crew never showed, save only the steadfast figure of her captain
+immovable as a statue of bronze, where he stood on her shot-torn poop.
+
+This Homeric conflict was a triumph of discipline and gunnery on the
+part of the Venetians; alert, accurate, and cool, the gunners of the
+galleon threw away none of their ammunition: inspired by the heroic
+spirit of their captain, great was the honour which they did on this
+stricken field to the noble traditions of their forbears and the
+service to which they belonged.
+
+The first attack had been most brilliantly repulsed, but this was
+only preliminary to a conflict which was to last all through the
+day; the Moslem galleys withdrew out of gunshot and re-formed; then a
+squadron of twenty advanced, delivered their fire, and retired; their
+place was then taken by a second squadron, which went through the same
+performance, and then came on a third. In this manner the attack, which
+began one hour after noon, and which was continued until sunset, was
+conducted. The galleon had thirteen men killed, and forty wounded; no
+doubt the slaughter would have been much greater had it not been for
+the enormous thickness of her sides and for the fact that the guns
+carried by the galleys were necessarily light. Notwithstanding, the
+galleon suffered terribly, she was a mass of wreckage; twice fire had
+broken out on board of her, she was cumbered by fallen masts, battered
+almost out of recognition, but still Condalmiero and her gallant crew
+fought on imperturbably with no thought of surrender. Covered with
+blood, wounded in the face and the right leg by flying splinters, her
+captain preserved his magnificent coolness, and his decimated crew
+responded nobly to his call. At eventide the fire from the galleon
+was almost as deadly as it had been at the first onslaught, and many
+galleys of the Turks were only saved from sinking by the activity
+and bravery of their carpenters, who, slung over their sides in
+“boatswains’ chairs,” drove home huge plugs of wood with their mallets
+into the shot-holes made by the Venetian guns.
+
+At the hour when the sun dipped below the horizon all the Turkish fleet
+seemed assembled to assault the colossus which so long had resisted
+their attack; there was a pause in the combat, and the firing died
+down. Condalmiero and his men braced themselves for the assault which
+they felt to be inevitable: for now the darkness was swiftly coming, in
+which they could no longer see to shoot, and under cover of which their
+numerous foes could assail them by boarding in comparative safety. Now
+the moment had come for the last act in this terrible drama of the sea.
+They had held their own at long odds throughout the whole of a hot
+September day, and as the level beams of the setting sun shone on their
+shattered ship they were prepared to die, fighting to the last man for
+the honour of Venice and the glory of St. Mark.
+
+Stiff and worn, wearied almost to the breaking strain, there was no man
+on board who even dreamt of surrender; all the guns were charged to the
+muzzle with bullets and broken stone, the artillerists match in hand
+stood grimly awaiting the order to fire, straining their eyes and their
+ears in the gathering darkness; in a few minutes at most they knew that
+the fate of the _Galleon of Venice_ must be decided.
+
+On board his galley, decorated for this occasion with scarlet banners,
+Barbarossa himself directed the assaulting line. Never before when the
+battle was joined had the gallant corsair been known to draw back; and
+yet on this occasion he not only hesitated but actually hauled off. The
+Venetians saw to their amazement that the expected attack was not to
+be pushed home; for Barbarossa and his captains fell upon some lesser
+vessels: the _Galleon of Venice_ was victorious.
+
+Meanwhile Doria was displaying his mastery of tactics when it was
+hard fighting that was wanted; he pretended that he wished to draw
+the Ottoman fleet into the high seas in order that he might destroy
+their galleys by means of the broadsides of his nefs; consequently
+he executed useless parade movements when he should by all the rules
+of warfare have closed with his enemy who was in distinctly inferior
+force; as he had a fair wind there is only one conclusion to be drawn,
+and that is that he did not want to fight.
+
+His manoeuvres certainly mystified the Turks, who viewed his tactics
+with mistrust, thinking them the outset of some deeply laid scheme; it
+never entered into their calculations for one moment that the great
+Andrea Doria, the terror of the Mediterranean sea, and the victor in
+scores of desperate engagements, was anxious to avoid a fight.
+
+Grimani and Capello, docile to the orders of their admiral, followed
+him full of uneasiness and distrust; they were fighting men of the most
+fiery description; to them the issue seemed of the simplest: there was
+the enemy in inferior force to themselves, they had the weather gauge,
+why delay the attack?
+
+“For much less than this,” says Admiral Jurien de la Gravière, “the
+English shot Admiral Byng in 1756.” The conduct of Doria on this
+occasion has certainly never been explained; the two other leaders went
+on board and remonstrated with their commander-in-chief; they were
+neither of them men who could be treated as negligible quantities on
+the field of battle; both belonged to that brilliant Venetian nobility
+so renowned in commerce and in war. Marco Grimani was in command of the
+Papal galleys, in itself a mark of the highest esteem and confidence
+from a potentate second to none in his influence in the civilised
+world. To Vincenzo Capello, Henry the Seventh of England confided
+his royal person and the command of his fleet when he crossed the
+Channel to encounter Richard the Second at Bosworth field. Five times
+had he filled the office of Providiteur in Venice, twice had he been
+commander-in-chief of her fleet, he was in perpetuity Procureur of St.
+Mark, to him Venice owed her naval discipline. He wore on this day the
+mantle of crimson silk with which the Republic invested her generals.
+Bitter was the rage in his heart, and bitterly must he have spoken
+to Doria, who, in spite of all remonstrances, continued his futile
+manoeuvrings.
+
+There was glory won on this day, but it was gained neither by Andrea
+Doria nor Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa. The _Galleon of Venice_ with
+Alessandro Condalmiero and his gallant crew had shown to all a splendid
+example of disciplined valour unexcelled in sixteenth-century annals.
+
+Barbarossa had captured a Venetian galley, a Papal galley, and five
+Spanish nefs, but he had recoiled from the assault on Condalmiero
+when the prize was actually within his grasp. For the rest it was a
+day of manoeuvring and tactics; tactics when sixty thousand men had
+been embarked on board two hundred ships for a specific and definite
+object on the side of the Christians and under the command of their
+most celebrated admiral; and yet the balance of advantage was actually
+gained by the inferior force. No subsequent glories can ever wipe this
+stain from the scutcheon of Doria, or can excuse the fact that at
+the most supreme moment of his career he failed to fight the battle
+that he was in honour, in conscience, and in duty bound to deliver.
+Next day the wind came fair for Corfu, and Doria, his ships untouched,
+unscathed, unharmed, put his helm up and sailed away followed by his
+fleet.
+
+Sandoval records the fact that Barbarossa, roaring with laughter the
+while, was accustomed to say that Doria had even put out his lanterns
+in order that no one might see whither he had fled. This was an
+allusion to the fact—or supposition—that Doria extinguished on that
+night the great poop lantern carried by him as admiral.
+
+When Soliman the Magnificent heard of the result of this battle
+he caused the town of Yamboli, where he was at the time, to be
+illuminated, and in the excess of his joy he added one hundred thousand
+aspres to the revenues of the conqueror; there were processions to
+the Grand Mosque, and all Islam rejoiced and sang the praises of
+the invincible admiral who had humbled to the dust the pride of the
+Christian and caused the dreaded Doria to fly from before the fleet of
+the Sultan.
+
+This, the most historical, if not the greatest feat in the life of
+Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, was for him a triumph indeed; with a vastly
+inferior force he had driven from the field of battle his “rival
+in glory,” as he himself had denominated Andrea Doria, and he had
+accomplished this feat notwithstanding the almost mutinous condition
+of his own forces. In spite of this it is with Condalmiero and with
+him alone that the glory of this day must rest; alone, absolutely
+unsupported as we have seen, he fought one of those fights which bring
+the heart into the mouth when we read of them; the stern pride of the
+Venetian noble, who despised as canaille the pirate hosts by whom
+he was assailed, had its counterpart in the sturdy valour of Chief
+Bombardier Francisco d’Arba and the other nameless heroes of which
+that good company was composed; to them we render that homage which so
+justly is their due.
+
+The whole campaign of Prevesa, as we have said, is a curious study
+in hesitation, in dilatoriness, in absolute lack of initiative and
+virility on the part of the two chief actors in the drama: that Doria
+should fly from the field of battle in an untouched ship is only one
+degree less incredible than that Barbarossa should have relinquished
+his attack on the _Galleon of Venice_. It would almost seem as if on this
+occasion each of the great rivals was hypnotised by the presence of
+the other; all their lives they had been seeking honour and riches on
+the sea, they knew, of course, that all men in both the world of Islam
+and that of Christendom looked upon them in the light of the special
+champions of the opposing sects, that the eyes of the entire world
+were fastened on this meeting of theirs in the classic waters of the
+Ambracian Gulf. In consequence neither man was at his best; indeed,
+we might go further than this, and say that on this occasion both
+lamentably failed. There is no fault to be found with the strategic
+preliminaries to the final conflict, each admiral acting with prudence
+and wisdom in the situation in which he found himself placed. That the
+perfectly correct idea of not giving battle to a superior force when he
+held so strong an interior position was given up by Barbarossa, was, as
+we have seen, not his fault; and when he issued from his anchorage, in
+deference to a sentiment among those under his command which he could
+no longer resist, his dispositions seem to have been made with his
+usual skill. Where he failed, however, was where, from all his previous
+history, we should least have expected failure, in his abandonment of
+the attack on the _Galleon of Venice_; this, of course, was inexcusable,
+and can only be set down to failure of nerve at the supreme moment. The
+ship had been battered by artillery all day long, a huge percentage
+of her company were dead and wounded, and the remainder worn out with
+fatigue. On the Moslem side we have seen that there were squadrons of
+galleys able to relieve one another with no interference from Doria,
+who was persisting in his futile manoeuvring miles away. Had the
+galleon been boarded, as she might and should have been, at nightfall,
+nothing could have saved Condalmiero and his crew: so strenuous,
+however, had been their resistance, that the Turkish seamen feared the
+issue; in consequence the battle between them and the Venetians was a
+drawn one, with all the honours on the Christian side.
+
+It is here that we shall take leave of Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, as
+although he was yet to live another eight years before he died in his
+bed at Constantinople in July, 1548, there are no further happenings of
+any great importance in his career.
+
+“Valorous, yet prudent, furious in attack, far-seeing in preparation,
+he ranks as the first sea-captain of his time;”[1] as the story of his
+life has unfolded itself in these pages we have seen what manner of
+man it was who terrified Europe, who made for himself a reputation
+which stands out clear and distinct among all the great men of which
+this century was so prolific. One of the surest methods of estimating
+a strenuous man of action is to seek for the names of those by whom
+he was surrounded: the men selected by him to assist in the carrying
+out of the work of his life; thus in reading of Napoleon Bonaparte
+we interest ourselves in his marshals, in reading of Nelson we note
+the captains by whom he was supported. In the case of Kheyr-ed-Din
+Barbarossa, a great man of action if one ever lived, we find no trace
+of devoted adherents on that high plane of command we have indicated
+in the cases cited above. That he had devoted followers enough is
+absolutely certain, but of high officers we very seldom find a trace,
+and these he treated with contumely and offence on many occasions;
+witness the treatment meted out to Hassan and to Venalcadi. There
+is practically no trace of his domestic life to be found, we cannot
+discover that he possessed any intimate friend. There is none other in
+all history to whom he can be satisfactorily compared; there are few
+who in their generation have wielded such enormous powers, who have
+climbed so high from the sheer unassisted force of their own intellect
+and their own character.
+
+[1] Stanley Lane Poole.
+
+Physical strength such as is vouchsafed to one man in a million, a
+constitution nothing could impair, endurance incomparable, were his
+bodily attributes: an intellect cold, clear, and penetrating was
+his, joined to an imperturbability of temperament which enabled him
+to accept with a cheerful philosophy blows by which weaker men were
+absolutely prostrated; his outlook on life was not dimmed by any
+affections, and pity was a sensation which to him was entirely alien.
+In this record of his deeds the reader has been spared all mention of
+the atrocious tortures he was in the habit of inflicting on his victims
+for any or no provocation, and many of them are as incomprehensible as
+they are sickening. That in which he was supreme was his craft as a
+seaman in an age when real seamen were rare; on land he was frequently
+defeated, at sea there seems to be no record of such an occurrence. To
+sum up, he appears to us in the light of history as a body, a brain,
+and an intellect, without any trace of a heart. His path through life
+was one unending trail of blood and fire, moistened by the tears of his
+countless victims, followed by the curses of those whom he despoiled.
+Yet, in spite of this, it is impossible not to admire the man who, by
+his own superhuman energy, ever swept all obstacles from his path,
+and caused the whole of the civilised world to quail at the name of
+Barbarossa.
+
+He died peacefully in his bed at Constantinople in July, 1546, to the
+grief of the world of Islam and the inexpressible joy of Christendom.
+“The king of the sea is dead,” expressed in three Arabic words, gives
+the numerical value 953, the year of the Hegira in which he died.
+
+For many years after his death no Turkish ship ever left the Golden
+Horn without her crew repeating a prayer and firing a salute over the
+tomb of Beshiktsah, where lie the bones of the first and greatest of
+Turkish admirals, the corsair who was at one and the same time admiral,
+pirate, and king.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE NAVY OF OARS. THE GALLEY, THE GALEASSE, AND THE NEF
+
+
+In the sixteenth century the vessel of war in the Mediterranean was
+essentially that oar-propelled craft known to us as the galley. As time
+went on she was gradually superseded by the sailing man-of-war which
+was able to carry that heavy ordnance which the light scantling of the
+galley did not permit of her mounting; but for the use of the corsairs
+who lived by means of raids and surprise attacks, whose business it was
+to lie perdu on the trade routes, the mobility of the galley was of
+prime importance, and they could not afford to trust to the wind alone
+as a motive power. The galley was analogous to the steam vessel in that
+it was independent of the wind to a large extent: human bone and muscle
+supplied the part of engines, and those who fought upon the sea caused
+themselves to be moved over the face of the waters by the exertions
+of their enemies. It is true that upon one occasion, as we have seen,
+Kheyred-Din Barbarossa did possess a fleet of galleys the rowers of
+which were all Moslems, which crew upon battle being joined dropped
+their oars, seized their weapons and assisted in the conquest of the
+foe. But this was an isolated instance, as it was almost impossible
+at any time and in any circumstances to procure free men ready to
+undertake a life of such intolerable suffering as that of a rower
+on board a galley; in consequence these men were almost invariably
+slaves, or else in later times condemned felons whose judges had sent
+them to work out their sentences upon the rowers’ bench. The great
+characteristic of the galley was her mobility, and in a comparative
+degree her speed, as for a short burst, when her crew of rowers were
+fresh, their trained muscles were capable of tremendous exertion; for
+any length of time, however, it is obvious that her speed must have
+declined as the rowers became exhausted. She was long, narrow, of
+extremely low freeboard, and slight depth of hold; a galley of 125 feet
+between perpendiculars would perhaps be 180 feet over all taking in
+the poop and the prow. A galley of this length would only have a beam
+of 19 feet and a depth of hold of 7 feet 6 inches. The sailing ship
+of contemporary times would for the same length have had a beam of
+about 40 feet and an extremely high freeboard; she was in consequence
+necessarily slow and incapable of sailing on a wind.
+
+So distinct at this time was the line drawn between the sailing vessel
+and the galley that the actual terminology used was entirely different;
+that is to say, the names of such things as masts, sails, rudder,
+tiller, stern, stempost, cutwater, etc., were not the same words; the
+sailor who used sails could not understand his brother mariner who used
+oars, and _vice versa_.
+
+[Illustration: GALLEY UNDER OARS.]
+
+What was necessary of course in the galley was many oars and many
+hands to use them; the vessel was most skilfully constructed for this
+purpose so as to get the fullest power from her human engines; the
+result was that men were crowded on board of her to such an extent that
+there was scarcely room to breathe, such a craft as the one of which
+the dimensions have been given having on board some four hundred men.
+
+Barras de la Penne, a French officer who in 1713 first went on board a
+galley, thus describes what he saw:
+
+  “Those who see a galley for the first time are astonished
+  to see so many persons; there are an infinite number of
+  villages in Europe which do not contain an equal number
+  of inhabitants; however, this is not the principal cause
+  of one’s surprise, but that so many men can be assembled
+  in so small a space. It is truth that many of them have
+  not room to sleep at full length, for they put seven men
+  on one bench; that is to say, on a space about ten feet
+  long and four broad; at the bows one sees some thirty
+  sailors who have for their lodging the floor space of the
+  rambades (this is the platform at the prow of the galley)
+  which consists of a rectangular space ten feet long by
+  eight in width. The captain and officers who live on the
+  poop are scarcely better lodged, and one is tempted to
+  compare their grandeur with that of Diogenes in his tub.
+
+  “When the unpitying Libyan Sea surprises these galleys
+  upon the Roman coasts, when the Norther lashes to foam
+  the Gulf of Lyons, when the humid east wind of Syria
+  is driving them off shore, everything combines to make
+  life on board a modern galley a hell of misery and
+  discomfort. The creaking of the blocks and cordage, the
+  loud cries of the sailors, the horrible maledictions
+  of the galley slaves, the groaning of the timbers,
+  mingled with the clank of chains and the bellowings of
+  the tempest, produce sentiments of affright in the most
+  intrepid breasts. The rain, the hail, the lightning,
+  habitual accompaniments of these terrific storms, the
+  waves which dash over the vessel, all add to the horror
+  of the situation, and although devotion is not as a rule
+  very strongly marked on board a galley, you will hear
+  these folk praying to God, and others making vows to the
+  Saints; these would do much better not to forget God and
+  his Saints when the danger is past.
+
+  “Calm itself has also its inconveniences, as the evil
+  smells which arise from the galley are then so strong
+  that one cannot get away from them in spite of the
+  tobacco with which one is obliged to plug one’s nostrils
+  from morning till night.”
+
+The gallant officer here goes into further details concerning the
+vermin on board which it will be as well to spare the reader.
+
+Jean Marteille de Bergeraq, who died at Culenbourg in 1777, was
+condemned to serve on board the galleys in 1707 “in his quality of
+Protestant”; he must indeed have been a man of iron constitution as he
+lived to the age of ninety-five. This is his description of the life of
+a _forçat_:
+
+  “They are chained six to a bench; the benches are four
+  feet wide covered with sacking stuffed with wool over
+  which are thrown sheepskins which reach to the floor.
+  The officer who is master of the galley slaves remains
+  aft with the captain to receive his orders; there are
+  two under officers, one amidships and one at the prow;
+  all of these are armed with whips, with which they flog
+  the absolutely naked bodies of the slaves. When the
+  captain gives the order to row, the officer gives the
+  signal with a silver whistle which hangs on a cord round
+  his neck; the signal is repeated by the under officers
+  and very soon all the fifty oars strike the water as
+  one. Imagine six men chained to a bench as naked as they
+  were born, one foot on the stretcher the other raised
+  and placed on the bench in front of them, holding in
+  their hands an oar of enormous weight, stretching their
+  bodies towards the after part of the galley with arms
+  extended to push the loom of the oar clear of the backs
+  of those in front of them who are in the same attitude.
+  They plunge the blades of the oars into the water and
+  throw themselves back, falling on to the seat which bends
+  beneath their weight. Sometimes the galley slaves row
+  thus ten, twelve, even twenty hours at a stretch, without
+  the slightest relapse or rest, and on these occasions
+  the officer will go round putting into the mouths of
+  the wretched rowers pieces of bread soaked in wine to
+  prevent them from fainting. Then the captain will call
+  upon the officers to redouble their blows, and if one of
+  the slaves falls fainting upon his oar, which is a common
+  occurrence, he is flogged until he appears to be dead and
+  is then flung overboard without ceremony.”
+
+The Italian captain, Pantero Pantera, of the _Santa Lucia_ galley, in his
+work on “L’Armata Navale” published in 1614, gives it as his opinion
+that although soldiers and sailors could be obtained for service in the
+galleys if good pay were given, still no money could tempt any free man
+to adventure himself as a rower for any length of time owing to the
+intolerable sufferings which the “gallerian” was called upon to endure.
+As, however, in the opinion of the captain it was most necessary
+that the galleys should be manned, he thought that all judges should
+in future send criminals aboard; those who had committed murder as
+“lifers,” those who had committed lesser crimes _pro rata_. Those who by
+the nobility of their birth or their physical incompetence were unable
+to handle the oar should be called upon to pay for substitutes to act
+for them; these were called “Buone-Voglie.”
+
+There was not much difference after all between the methods used by the
+seventeenth-century Italian to those actually in force in England at a
+much later date when the Press Gang swept the honest and the dishonest
+into its net in its midnight raids.
+
+“The galley slaves,” observes Pantera, “cherish repose and sincerely
+wish to avoid fatigue; in order to incite them to do their duty it is
+necessary to use the whip as well as the whistle; by using it with
+severity the officers will find that they are better obeyed, and it
+will in consequence be good for the service, for fear of the whip is
+the principal cause of good behaviour among the gallerians.” Further on
+he observes that it is well not to flog them too severely and without
+reason, “for this irritates the gallerians, as I have frequently
+observed: this may cause them to despair and to wish for death as the
+only sure way out of their troubles.” The excellent Pantera a little
+later on even says that he cannot agree that the attempt to cure a sick
+gallerian “is all nonsense, as is maintained by some persons,” as sick
+men are a source of danger on board. He apparently was not prepared to
+throw them overboard alive, but urges that the best way to avoid such
+pestilences among them as killed forty thousand Venetians at the
+port of Zara in 1570 is to embark sound and good victuals.
+
+It is interesting to have a contemporary view of the correct treatment
+of the galley slave from those who had to do with him. In the case
+of the corsairs and their adversaries the gallerians were as a rule
+prisoners of war, but as time went on and wars became less frequent
+than they were throughout the sixteenth century, another source of
+supply was tapped by sending to the galleys the criminals of any
+country which desired to fill up the rowers’ benches. In consequence
+there was always one thing which was feared above all others on board a
+galley, and that was a rising of the slaves.
+
+If they were not your enemies officially, they were a set of desperate
+criminals ripe for any mischief should they get loose, and chained,
+starved, beaten, frozen with the cold, baked by the summer heats,
+tortured, murdered, they had nothing earthly for which to hope except
+escape. If in the heat of battle there should occur a rising of the
+slaves, then their masters knew that victory would declare itself
+surely on the side of the enemy. Therefore that they should be
+securely chained was the first and most important thing to which the
+boatswain of a galley and his mates had to see. If by a bold stroke
+they once freed themselves from their shackles it was a fight to the
+death for those who erstwhile had been in command, as the gallerians,
+outnumbering them and caring nought for their lives in comparison to
+their liberties, were far the most formidable foes that they could be
+called upon to encounter. When men are so treated that their daily
+life is one long martyrdom they become the most dangerous force
+in existence, and on the occasions which sometimes happened that the
+slaves got the upper hand, there were none left of the fighting men of
+the galley to tell the tale of their discomfiture.
+
+In time of battle the gallerians were of course equally exposed to
+death and wounds from the projectiles of the enemy as were the orthodox
+fighting men; but to them came no rejoicing at the sound of victory;
+rather they prayed for the defeat of their masters, as it frequently
+happened that those against whom they were arrayed were their own
+countrymen and friends by whom they hoped for release. Thus at Lepanto,
+the Christian slaves, seeing the right wing of the Turkish fleet thrown
+into disorder by the galleys of the Allies, broke out into furious
+mutiny, succeeded in shattering their fetters and chains, attacked
+their masters the Turks in the rear with incredible energy with any
+weapons upon which they could lay their hands, and thus contributed in
+no small measure to the ultimate triumph of the Christian arms.
+
+The Captain Pantero Pantera and Barras de la Peine have written
+exhaustively on the galley, her crew, her armament, her manner of
+provisioning, her masts, sails, rigging, etc., and Admiral Jurien de
+la Gravière has given a most painstaking exposition concerning the
+technicalities of these craft. But to enter into too much detail would
+be to weary the reader unnecessarily, who, it is apprehended, merely
+desires that a general idea should be given of the way in which these
+vessels were handled and fought.
+
+It would appear that during the whole time that oar-propelled vessels
+were used as warships their form did not differ to any material
+extent, as certain limitations of size were obviously imposed on them
+by the mere fact that they had to be moved by so finite and feeble a
+force as human muscles, hearts, and lungs. No cruelty, however ghastly,
+could extract from the gallerians more than a certain amount of work,
+and the Captain Pantero Pantera, as we have seen, even advocates that a
+certain minimum of consideration should be shown to them in order that
+better work might be obtained. It was probable, however, that in the
+case of the Christian slaves captured by the corsairs even this minimum
+was to seek, as the numbers swept off by them were so enormous that
+they could be used up and replaced without inconveniencing these rovers
+of the sea, to whom compassion for suffering was absolutely unknown.
+
+The Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, or the Knights of Malta as they
+were also called, used the galley in their unceasing warfare with the
+Moslem. The General of the Galleys was a Grand Cross of the Order; the
+captains were knights, and the second officer, or first lieutenant, was
+known as the Patron. The crew of a galley of the knights had twenty-six
+rowing benches and carried two hundred and eighty rowers and two
+hundred and eighty combatants; the armament consisted of one bow cannon
+which discharged a forty-eight pound ball, four other small guns, eight
+pounders, and fourteen others which discharged stones.
+
+“The Religion,” as the Knights were in the habit of describing
+themselves, had certain definite stations assigned to each knight,
+seaman, or officer during action. It is to be imagined, however,
+that these were merely for the preliminary stages of the fight,
+as it was seldom that time allowed for more than one discharge, or
+at the most two, of the artillery, before the opposing galleys met
+in a hand-to-hand conflict which must have immediately become an
+indiscriminate mêlée.
+
+The manner in which the galley should engage is thus contained in an
+answer to a question of Don John of Austria, the victor of Lepanto. He
+wrote to Garcia de Toledo, fourth Marquis of Villafranca, and General
+of the Galleys of Sicily, to ask his opinion as to what distance it was
+most efficacious to open fire in a naval action. Toledo replied that
+“one cannot fire more than twice before the galleys close. I should
+therefore recommend that the arquebussiers should hold their fire
+until they are so close to the enemy that his blood will leap into the
+face of him who discharges his piece. I have always heard it said, and
+this by captains who are well skilled in the art of war, that the last
+discharge of the cannon should be coincident with the noise made by the
+breaking of the spurs carried in the prows of the galleys; in fact that
+the two noises should be as one; some propose to fire before the enemy
+does: this is by no means my advice.”
+
+Artillery, it will be seen from this, played a comparatively
+unimportant part in the combats between galley and galley; that in
+these craft men still relied on the strength of their right arm and the
+edge of their swords; there was still a certain contempt for villainous
+saltpetre, which was looked upon as a somewhat cowardly substance,
+preventing the warrior from settling his disputes in the good old
+fashion of his forbears. In any case, when you practically had to
+push the muzzle of your gun against your enemy’s body in order to hit
+him, it was not a weapon upon which much reliance was to be placed.
+
+There were, in addition to the galley, the nef and the galeasse;
+the former of these was a sailing vessel pure and simple like those
+remarkable caravels in which Columbus discovered America.
+
+What these caravels were exactly like it was the good fortune of
+the writer to see in the year 1893. This was the date of the great
+exhibition of Chicago, and the American Government were most anxious to
+have, and to exhibit if possible, an exact replica of these historic
+craft. They accordingly communicated with the Spanish Government and
+inquired if by any chance they possessed the plans and specifications
+of the caravels of Columbus? Search was made in the archives of Cadiz
+Dockyard and these priceless documents were discovered. From them the
+ships were built in every respect the same as the wonderful originals
+and then towed across the Atlantic by the United States cruiser
+_Lancaster_. On their way they were brought to Gibraltar, where the
+writer’s ship was then stationed, and were anchored inside the New
+Mole. The _Santa Maria_, the flagship of Columbus, was a three-masted
+vessel with a very high “forecastle” and “sterncastle” and very deep in
+the waist; she had three masts, the foremast carrying one square sail,
+the mainmast having both mainsail and main-topsail, the mizzen was
+rigged with a lateen sail, on the mainsail was painted the Maltese and
+on the foresail the Papal cross, and on deck she carried a brick-built
+cooking galley. A most beautiful model of this vessel is to be seen
+in the Science and Art Department of the South Kensington Museum.
+
+The nef in its later manifestations became a much more seaworthy vessel
+than this, with four masts, the two foremost ones square-rigged and
+carrying courses and topsails, the two after ones carrying lateen
+sails; the latter from their small size and their proximity to one
+another could not have had much effect on the sailing qualities of the
+ship. The nefs in the fleet of Don John of Austria in 1571 were rigged
+in this fashion and comprised vessels of eight hundred, nine hundred,
+and even one thousand tons, while a contemporary English vessel, the
+_Great Harry_ or _Henri Grace à Dieu_, was as much as fifteen hundred
+tons, and carried no less than one hundred and eighty-four pieces
+of ordnance. It was from the nef and the galeasse that the sailing
+man-of-war arrived by the process of evolution. The galley in the first
+instance was the vessel of men who fought hand to hand, the men in
+whom personal strength and desperate valour were blended, who desired
+nothing so much as to come to close grips with their enemy. Such rude
+engines of war as the pierriers, or short cannons which discharged
+some forty or fifty pounds of broken stone upon the enemy, were first
+mounted in the galley; these were followed by improved artillery as
+time went on. But although the galleys eventually carried quite big
+guns, as instanced by the forty-eight pounder in the galleys of the
+Knights of St. John, still it soon became apparent that the limit was
+reached by guns of this weight; the galley was essentially a light
+vessel and was not built to withstand those rude shocks caused by
+firing heavy charges of powder.
+
+The galeasse was the connecting link between the navy of oars and the
+navy of sails. The navy of oars was in its generation apt for warlike
+purposes; but it was in its essence a force analogous to the light
+cavalry of the land; useful for a raid, a sudden dash, but without that
+great strength and solidity which came in later years to the building
+of the sailing line of battleship.
+
+The galeasse was really a magnified galley, one which used both sails
+and oars, on board of which the rowers were under cover; she was built
+with a forecastle and a sterncastle which were elevated some six feet
+above the benches of the rowers, and her very long and immensely heavy
+oars were of course proportionate to the size of the vessel. The
+description of a galeasse of nearly one thousand tons burden is set
+forth as follows by Jurien de la Gravière:
+
+  “Her draught of water was about 18 feet 6 inches, she
+  was propelled by 52 oars, 48 feet in length, each oar
+  being worked by 9 men. Her crew consisted of 452 rowers,
+  350 soldiers, 60 marines, 12 steersmen, 40 ordinary
+  seamen, 86 cannoneers, 12 petty officers, 4 boatswains’
+  mates, 3 pilots, 2 sub-pilots, 4 counsellors, 2 surgeons,
+  4 writers, 2 sergeants, 2 carpenters, 2 caulkers, 2
+  coopers, 2 bakers, 10 servants, a captain, a lieutenant,
+  a purser. In all some thousand men, or about the same
+  number as the crew of a three-decker of a later date.”
+
+The fleet of the “Holy League” at the battle of Lepanto had in it
+six galeasses from the arsenal of Venice; and whereas an average
+galley carried 110 soldiers and 222 galley slaves, the crews of these
+galeasses comprised 270 soldiers, 130 sailors, and 300 galley slaves.
+
+The speed of the galley was calculated by the French engineer Forfait
+to be in the most favourable circumstances, that is to say in a flat
+calm, but four and a half knots for the first hour, and two and a
+quarter to one and a half miles per hour for subsequent hours; the
+exhaustion of the rowers consequent on their arduous toil would not
+admit of a greater speed than this. The studies of Forfait were made
+when the invasion of England by rowing boats was a topic of burning
+interest. It is evident from this that long voyages, trusting to the
+oar alone, could not be undertaken; but as we have seen, the galley was
+also provided with motive power in the shape of two masts carrying the
+lateen sail, which may be still seen in so many Mediterranean craft.
+
+That the galley was no vessel in which to embark in bad weather is
+instanced for us by the disasters which befell a Spanish fleet of
+these craft in 1567 under the Grand Commander of Castile, Don Luiz
+de Requesens. A revolt of the Moors in Granada had caused Philip the
+Second to wish to withdraw a certain number of Spanish troops from
+Italy. Requesens was sent to Genoa with twenty-four galleys to embark
+a detachment of an army corps then stationed in Piedmont. Each galley
+embarked one hundred and fifty soldiers; they then got under way and
+reached the island of Hyères, where they anchored, the weather being
+too bad to proceed. At the end of their eighth day in port a number
+of vessels were seen flying to the eastward before the wind; it was
+a squadron of Genoese.
+
+Requesens, who was no seaman, was furious. Here were the Genoese at
+sea, and he wasting his time in harbour; if they could keep the sea
+why could not he, he demanded? He instantly ordered the anchors to be
+weighed. The commander of the Tuscan galleys, of which there were ten
+in the fleet, immediately went on board the galley in which Requesens
+was embarked and represented that the wind was foul and that should
+they leave their anchorage they could make no headway once they got
+clear of the land. But Requesens was obstinate: “if others can go
+on their way it is shameful that I should not proceed on mine,” he
+protested. Alfonso d’Aragona argued with him in vain, representing
+that his master, the Duke of Tuscany, would hold the Grand Commander
+responsible for damage to his galleys. It was all in vain, as the Grand
+Commander was too arrogant and stupid to listen to advice from anybody.
+The fleet put to sea and struggled out a mile from the land; when they
+got thus far Requesens discovered his mistake and regretted that he had
+not taken the advice of the mariners; but it was now too late, they had
+drifted to leeward of their anchorage and could not get back again.
+
+One galley, a new vessel, ran into another which was an old one, and
+sank her on the spot, carrying all her luckless crew to the bottom.
+The remaining vessels scattered far and wide; Alfonso d’Aragona
+found refuge in the Bay of Alghieri, two more of his galleys reached
+an anchorage in the Isle of St. Pierre, another sheltered in the
+Gulf of Oristano; three galleys were shipwrecked on the coast in
+this neighbourhood and lost many of their men; yet another, called
+the _Florence_, was twice nearly wrecked on the coast of Barbary, and
+eventually reached the Bay of Cagliari. A Genoese captain found himself
+as far afield as the Island of Pantellaria, two galleys were never
+heard of again, and the Grand Commander himself anchored eventually in
+the Bay of Palamos on the Spanish coast. Of the twenty-four galleys
+which left their anchorage twelve were lost and the twelve which
+remained were practically valueless until large sums had been spent in
+repairs.
+
+It is small wonder in the light of these events that the seamen who
+ranged the Mediterranean in vessels propelled by oars regarded the
+winter as a close season and laid up their galleys in harbour. They
+were seaworthy enough for ordinary weather, but could not withstand
+such a tempest as the one in which Requesens put to sea. The whole
+story is only a further proof of the folly of putting supreme command
+of a sea-going venture in the hands of a man totally ignorant of the
+hazards he was called upon to encounter. In the sixteenth and even in
+the seventeenth centuries this was done perpetually, and if no disaster
+occurred it was because no bad weather was encountered.
+
+[Illustration: BRIGANTINE CHASING FELUCCA.]
+
+As time went on the sailing ship became larger and larger and was
+able to mount more and more powerful ordnance; this had the effect of
+discounting the value of the galley as a fighting ship; in consequence
+she became practically obsolete, for the line of battle, after the
+combat at Lepanto. In spite of this she was to linger on for many
+long years to come as the weapon of the corsairs who had established
+themselves on the coast of Africa. The “long ship” was still to be the
+cause of many an awful sea tragedy, whether the actors therein were
+the pirates who hailed from the Barbary coast or their most capable
+imitators the notorious rovers of Sallee.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+DRAGUT-REIS
+
+
+  How he became Lieutenant to Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa—His
+  capture by Jannetin Doria—His four years as a galley
+  slave—His ransom by his old chief.
+
+In character, in capability, in strategic insight, in tactical
+ability, not one of the predecessors or the successors of Kheyr-ed-Din
+Barbarossa can be compared to him; he was the greatest and most
+outstanding figure of all those corsairs of whose deeds we hear so
+much during the sixteenth century, the man above all others who was
+feared and hated by his contemporaries in Christendom. He lived, as we
+have said, for another eight years after the battle of Prevesa, but
+his great age prevented him from pursuing a very active career. There
+were, however, other and younger men, trained in the terrible school
+of hardship in which his life had been passed, who proved themselves
+to be his very worthy successors, even if they did not display the
+same genius in war and statecraft. The conditions of this period are
+somewhat remarkable when we come to consider them; Europe, which had
+been sunk in a rude and uncultured barbarism during the middle ages,
+was emerging under the influence of the Renaissance into a somewhat
+higher and nobler conception of life. It is true that the awakening
+was slow, that morally the plane on which the peoples stood was far
+from being an elevated one, that altruism was far from being the note
+of the lives lived by the rulers of the so-called civilised nations.
+For all this they had emerged from that cimmerian darkness in which
+they had lived so long, and the dawn of better things, of more stable
+government, of some elementary recognition of the rights of those
+governed, was beginning to show above the murky horizon.
+
+But if the sun of European progress was slowly and painfully struggling
+through the clouds, the light which had shone brightly for over seven
+centuries of Moslem advance was certainly and surely dying. Beneath the
+mail-clad heel of the Christian warrior the torch of learning which
+had burned so brightly in Cordova and Granada had been extinguished
+and ground into the dust, and the descendants of the alumni of those
+universities were seeking their bread in the Mediterranean Sea in the
+guise of bloodthirsty and desperate pirates.
+
+There were no longer among the Moors of Andalusia learned philosophers,
+expert mathematicians, wise astronomers, and practical agriculturists;
+there was among them but one art, one science, one means of gaining a
+livelihood—the practice of war—and their very existence depended on the
+spoils which could be reft from the hereditary enemy. The corsair who
+grew to man’s estate, brought up in Algiers, Tunis, Tenes, Jerba, or
+any other of the lurking places in which the sea-wolves congregated,
+had as a rule no chance but to follow the sea, to exist as his father
+had existed before him; he must fight or starve, and in a fighting
+age no youngster was likely to be backward in taking to the life of
+wild excitement led by his elders. Unless following in the train of
+one of the leaders, such as Barbarossa, the Moslems were apt to take
+to the sea in a private capacity; a certain number of them joining
+together to man a small craft which was known as a brigantine. As has
+been said in a previous chapter, this word must not be understood in
+the light of the terminology of the modern seaman: the brigantines of
+the Moslem corsairs were really large rowing boats, carrying fourteen
+to twenty-six oars, and made as seaworthy as the small size of such
+craft would allow. Should the venture of the crew of a brigantine prove
+successful, then the reis, or captain, might blossom out into the
+command of a galley, in which his oars would be manned by his slaves;
+but, in the first instance, he would man his brigantine with a crew of
+Moslem desperadoes working on the share system and dividing anything
+that they could pick up; in this manner most of those corsairs who
+became famous commenced their careers, and rose as we have seen from
+the thwart of a brigantine to the unstable eminence of a throne in
+Algiers, Tunis, or Tlemcen.
+
+This life which they led made of them what they were, namely desperate
+swordsmen, efficient men at arms, incomparably skilful in the
+management of the craft in which they put to sea; but it did nothing
+else for them in the way of education; in consequence he who would rise
+to the top, who aspired to be a leader amongst them and not to remain a
+mere swash-buckling swordsman all his life, was bound to acquire that
+dominance necessary for control of the wild spirits of the age. Nor
+was this ascendancy by any means easy to obtain, as the rank and file
+led lives of incredible bitterness, almost inconceivable to modern
+ideas. What they suffered they alone knew, but it was compounded of
+hunger, thirst, heat, cold, sickness unrelieved by care or tending,
+wounds which festered for lack of medicaments, death which ever stared
+them in the face, and last, and worst of all, the risk of capture by
+some Christian foe, by whom they would be chained to the rowers’ bench
+and taste of a bitterness absolutely unimaginable. As a set-off to
+this the man who aspired to lead must offer to his followers at least
+a record of success in small things; also he had to be something of an
+enthusiast, something of an orator, some one subtly persuasive. Against
+all the disagreeables of the strenuous life of the corsair he had to
+hold before the dazzled eyes of Selim, Ali, or Mahomet the promise of
+fat captures of the merchant vessels of the foe; when they had but
+to slit a few throats and to return with their brigantines laden to
+the gunwale with desirable plunder. Again he had to hearten them for
+possible encounters with Spaniards, with the terrible Doria, or worst
+of all with the dreaded Knights of St. John themselves; to point out
+that to die in conflict with the infidel was a sure passport to heaven
+and its houris, and to invoke great names, such as that of Barbarossa
+to show to what dizzy heights the fighting Moslem could climb. In such
+an age and among such men as these it was no mean feat to become a
+leader by whom men swore and to whom they yielded a ready obedience.
+
+Fashioned by the hammer of misfortune on the anvil of racial
+expropriation, such leaders arose among the Moslems, men of iron,
+before whom all who worshipped at the altars of Islam bowed the knee.
+These men, whose fame extended throughout all the length and breadth
+of the Mediterranean, taught to European rulers something of the value
+of that great force which is known to us under the modern name of “Sea
+Power.”
+
+Next in importance to Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa himself and in many ways
+his very worthy successor, was Dragut Reis. We have it on the authority
+of Messire Pierre de Bourdeille, the Seigneur de Brantôme, that Dragut
+was born at a small village in Asia Minor called Charabulac, opposite
+to the island of Rhodes, and that his parents were Mahommedans. Being
+born within sight and sound of the sea, the youthful Dragut naturally
+graduated in the school of the brigantine and completed his education
+on board of a galley. His training was that which makes the best of
+fighting seamen, as from contemporary records he appears to have passed
+all his life actively engaged on board ship. At a very early age he
+entered the service of a master gunner who served on board the galleys
+of the Grand Turk. Under his auspices the youngster became an expert
+pilot in his own home waters, and likewise a most excellent gunner.
+Dragut was evidently a youth of ability and determination, as almost
+before he reached man’s estate he had succeeded in buying a share in
+a cruising brigantine where his venture prospered so exceedingly that
+he was soon able to become sole proprietor of a galeasse. Here again
+fortune favoured the enterprising young man; his name began to be
+known as a formidable corsair in the Levant, where he was remarkable
+for his knowledge of that portion of the Mediterranean.
+
+To better his condition he offered his services to Barbarossa at
+Algiers, who accepted this new subordinate with joy, delighted to have
+so valiant and capable a man under his orders.
+
+“During some years,” says J. Morgan in his _Compleat History of Algiers_,
+1728, “he was by that basha intrusted in the direction of sundry
+momentous expeditions; in which he acquitted himself much to the
+satisfaction of his principal: as having never once been unsuccessful.”
+When we remember the treatment meted out by Barbarossa to some of his
+unsuccessful lieutenants, Dragut must be esteemed a very fortunate
+man. His master, we are told, advanced him to all the military offices
+of the State—it would be interesting to know what these were in a
+purely piratical confederation ruled by a pirate! In the end Dragut
+was appointed to be kayia, or lieutenant, and given entire command of
+twelve galleys.
+
+“From thenceforward this redoubtable corsair passed not one summer
+without ravaging the coasts of Naples and Sicily; nor durst any
+Christian vessel attempt to pass between Spain and Italy; for if
+they offered it he infallibly snapped them up, and when he missed
+his prey at sea, he made himself amends by making descents along the
+coasts plundering villages and towns and dragging away multitudes of
+inhabitants into captivity.”
+
+That “no vessel durst pass from Spain to Italy” is no doubt a
+picturesque form of exaggeration on the part of the historian; at
+the same time, when Dragut was at the height of his activities there is
+no doubt that any one passing through those seas ran a great risk of
+capture; so much so in fact that at this period, from 1538, the date
+of the battle of Prevesa, until Lepanto in 1571, all maritime commerce
+in the Mediterranean was greatly circumscribed. At the beginning of
+this epoch, which saw the rise of the Moslem corsairs, these robbers
+perforce confined themselves more to the North African coast than
+was the case later on. The pioneers of the piratical movement, after
+the fatal date 1492, which saw the wholesale expulsion of the Moors
+from Spain, were comparatively speaking inexpert practitioners in the
+art and mystery of piracy; they had not the habit of the sea, and in
+consequence confined their depredations to the neighbourhood of their
+own selected ports in Africa, which dominated that sea lane running
+east and west through the Mediterranean, which then, as now, was one of
+the greatest highways of commerce of the world. Gradually, as we have
+seen, under the able guidance of the two Barbarossas, but particularly
+that of the second and greater of the two, piracy became a commonplace
+in the north, as well as in the south, of the tideless sea; the
+corsairs, as time went on, even devoting more time and attention to
+the coast of Italy and the islands of the archipelago than they did to
+the recognised trade routes. These latter had become by 1540 similar
+to an estate which has been shot over too frequently; birds had become
+both wild and scarce, it was hardly worth while to go over the ground,
+except now and again on the chance of picking up a straggler. Towns
+and islands, on the other hand, even if they did not yield much in
+the way of actual plunder, were always good cover to beat for slaves,
+which had a certain value in the markets of Algiers and Tunis. Another
+circumstance which had led to the now frequent raids on the littoral of
+the European countries was the countenance and support accorded to the
+corsairs by the Grand Turk: so admirably did they fit into the scheme
+of his ambitions, that by the time Dragut arrived at a commanding
+position they were, so to speak, officially recognised as a fighting
+asset of the Sublime Porte; and, as we have seen, the Sultan did not
+hesitate to lend his picked troops, the Janissaries, to the corsairs
+when engaged in their ordinary piratical business. To the Grand Turk
+the corsairs were Moslems who were prepared to fight on his side,
+and who, taking it all in all, really cost him hardly anything; in
+fact, at this date, owing to the magnificent gifts made to the Sultan
+by Kheyr-ed-Din, the Padishah must have made something out of his
+association with the sea-wolves.
+
+By the year 1540 Dragut had distinctly “arrived”; that is to say, he
+had succeeded in making himself so dreaded that Charles V. ordered
+Andrea Doria to seek him out and destroy him at any cost. The Christian
+admiral was “to endeavour by all possible means to purge the sea of so
+insufferable a nuisance.”
+
+Andrea got ready a fleet, which he entrusted, together with the care
+and management of this affair, to his nephew Jannetin Doria. This was
+the nephew who, in the disastrous attack by Charles on Hassan Aga
+at Algiers in the following year, was so nearly lost in the storm
+which destroyed the fleet of the emperor; and of whom Andrea Doria is
+reported to have said, “It was decreed that Jannetin should be reduced
+to such an extremity purposely to convince the world that it was not
+impossible for Andrea Doria to shed a tear.” Certainly from what we
+know of the celebrated Genoese admiral it is hard to imagine him in a
+tearful mood. Jannetin Doria put to sea, and, after a long hunt, found
+the object of his quest at Andior on the coast of Corsica; Dragut was
+at anchor in the road of Goialatta, under a castle situated between
+Cabri and Liazzo. The corsair knew nothing of his enemies being at sea,
+and was in consequence keeping no particular look-out. Although we are
+not told the composition of the fleet of Jannetin Doria, it must have
+been a large one, as Dragut had under his orders thirteen galleys, and
+was unable to withstand the attack to which he was subject. He was also
+assailed from the shore, as well as the sea, as the castle under which
+he was at anchor opened fire upon him as soon as it was discovered by
+its garrison that the new arrivals were Christians. The fire was too
+hot for the corsair to withstand, and, to add to his embarrassments,
+the beach soon became lined by hundreds of the fierce Corsi, awaiting
+the inevitable end when they should be able to fall upon the defeated
+Moslems and wipe them from off the face of the earth; it was a warfare
+in which there was no mercy, and if the pirates were to fall into the
+hands of the islanders they knew well that they would be exterminated.
+
+In all his venturesome life things had never gone so badly with Dragut
+as upon this occasion. On the one side, should he and his men land
+they would be massacred; on the other hand, his road to the open sea
+was barred by an immensely superior force. Recognising the logic of
+circumstances, and seeing no way of escape, the white flag was hung out
+by the Moslem leader. The only terms, however, which he could obtain
+were immediate surrender or instant death. It must have been a moment
+of anguish to the man who hitherto had always ridden on the crest of
+the wave of success and achievement to be thus trapped like a rat;
+and to have the added bitterness of the thought that had he exercised
+seamanlike care and precaution in keeping a good look-out he might
+have escaped. As it was, he was allowed no time for reflection, but
+had to decide on the instant: he did the only thing possible in the
+circumstances, which was to haul down his flag and to become the thrall
+of his lifelong foes.
+
+The principal captives were made to pass before young Doria. When
+Dragut beheld him he cried out in a fury: “What! Am I a slave to that
+effeminate Caramite?” for Doria was but a beardless youth. These
+opprobrious epithets being interpreted to the young nobleman, “highly
+incensed he flew at Dragut, tore out his beard and moustaches, and
+buffeted him most outrageously: nay his passion was so great it is said
+that had he not been prevented, he certainly would have sheathed his
+sword in the bowels of that assuming prisoner.”
+
+For four long years Dragut rowed in Doria’s galley. No distinctions
+were made in those days, and knight or noble, companion or grand
+master, basha or boy, was, if caught, condemned to the rowers’ bench to
+slave at the oar beneath the boatswain’s lash, perchance alongside some
+degraded criminal, filthy and swarming with vermin. While Dragut was
+employed as a galley slave there came on board the craft in which he
+rowed Monsieur Parisot, Grand Master of the Knights of Malta. This high
+officer, recognising his old enemy, called out to him in Spanish:
+
+“Hola, Señor Dragut, usanza de guerra” (“The usage of war, Señor
+Dragut”).
+
+To which the undaunted corsair merely replied with a laugh:
+
+“Y mudanza de fortuna” (“And a change of luck”).
+
+The Grand Master, who had known the chain and lash himself, smiled and
+passed on—there was no pity in those days.
+
+But Dragut was not destined to end his life as a galley slave, for,
+when indeed hope must have died within him, after more than four years
+of this veritable hell upon earth, there sailed one day into the
+harbour of Genoa the great Kheyr-ed-Din himself. The Admiralissimo of
+the Grand Turk, full of years, honours, and booty, was on his last
+cruise, and one of the last acts of his active life was the rescue of
+Dragut, the man who had served him so well, and for whom he had so high
+a regard as a resourceful mariner, from the degrading servitude into
+which he had fallen. The Spanish historian, Marmol, recounts that the
+sum of three thousand ducats was paid by Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa for
+the redemption of Dragut. As this history was published in 1573, we
+must conclude that the author who wrote of these events so soon after
+they had happened is correct; at the same time, Barbarossa was in
+command of one hundred galleys of the Grand Turk, and it was never his
+custom to pay for anything which he could take by force. However this
+may have been, and the point is not one of very great importance, the
+Genoese Senate was terrified lest their territory should be ravaged;
+they wrote accordingly to their Grand Admiral, requesting that Dragut
+might be released and sent on board of the galley of the admiral basha.
+This was immediately done, and the man who for four years had tugged at
+the Christian oar was once again in a position to make war on those who
+had been for that period his masters.
+
+Not only had he tugged at the Christian oar, but also he had tasted of
+the Christian whip—and of very little else, as the food of the rower
+was as scanty as it was disgusting; in consequence, if he had been an
+implacable foe to Christendom before this event, he was not likely to
+have become less so while toiling in the Genoese galley.
+
+The practical retirement of Barbarossa from that sphere of activity in
+which his life had been passed now left Dragut-Reis the most feared and
+the most formidable of all the Moslem corsairs in the Mediterranean.
+From the time of his release by Barbarossa until the day of his death
+at the siege of Malta in 1565, he followed the example shown him by
+that prince among pirates with so much assiduity as to render him only
+second to Kheyr-ed-Din in the detestation in which he was held.
+Says Morgan: “The ill-treatment he had met with during his four years’
+captivity was no small addition to the Innate Rapaciousness of his
+Disposition.”
+
+In the year 1546, Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa died, and to replace him the
+Sultan Soliman ordered all the mariners in his dominions to acknowledge
+Dragut-Reis as their admiral, and to obey him in the same manner as
+they had obeyed his predecessor. From this date he was the foremost
+corsair in the Mediterranean, and the feats which were performed by him
+showed that the Padishah had not erred in his selection.
+
+The ambition of Dragut increased with his power, and he determined,
+following the example of the Barbarossas, to seize and hold some strong
+place of arms possessed of a commodious port in which he might be the
+supreme ruler. Accordingly, in the depth of winter in the year 1548, at
+a time which was, as we have pointed out, a close season for piratical
+enterprises, and during which attack from the sea was not expected,
+he collected all the corsairs whom he could gather, and fell upon the
+Spaniards on the coast of Tunis, at Susa, at Sfax, and at Monastir.
+These places had been taken from the corsairs in the previous summer
+by Andrea Doria; they formed a sort of regular battle-ground when the
+combatants were in want of something to do, and were held alternately
+by the King of Tunis, the Spaniards, and the corsairs.
+
+Dragut was well aware that as soon as the spring arrived he would be
+attacked; he also knew that the attack would come in sufficient force
+to drive him out, as none of these towns was really strong or easily
+defended; in consequence he concentrated his attention on the town of
+“Africa,” otherwise known as Mehedia, and in the Roman histories as
+Adrumentum.
+
+This great city lay some leagues to the east of Tunis on a tongue of
+land projecting into the sea; its fortifications were regular, its
+walls of great thickness, height, and solidity, and were strengthened
+by many towers and bulwarks; the guns were large, numerous, and in
+good condition. At the back of the town, on an eminence, stood a large
+fortress, the citadel of the place; the harbour was large and secure,
+with an inner basin forming a port for galleys; the entrance to this
+was closed by a strong chain. The sea washed the walls of the city;
+indeed, it was entirely surrounded, except where by a narrow neck of
+land it joined the shore.
+
+The inhabitants, natives of the place, had shaken off the yoke of the
+King of Tunis, and had formed themselves into a kind of independent
+republic. They admitted neither Turk nor Christian within their walls,
+trusting neither party, and fearing from them the fate which befell
+Susa, Sfax, and Monastir.
+
+“Africa” was the goal of the desires of Dragut-Reis: once in possession
+of this, by far the strongest city on the littoral of Northern Africa,
+he thought that he might abide secure against the attacks of Charles
+and of Andrea Doria. He had seen the enormous expedition of 1541
+against Algiers come to naught on account of the wholesale wrecking of
+the fleet in which it had sailed by a tempest of unexampled violence.
+But he was too level-headed a man to think that a miracle like this
+would be likely to come to pass a second time for his own special
+behoof, and preferred to act the part of the strong man armed who
+keepeth his goods in peace. He had, however, first to gain over the
+inhabitants of “Africa” to his views, and they proved anything but
+anxious to listen to his blandishments. The more he tried to ingratiate
+himself the less inclined did these people seem to listen.
+
+“My ambition,” said the silver-tongued corsair, “is to become a
+citizen of your great and beautiful city. If you will admit me to its
+privileges it shall be my business to render you the richest people in
+the whole Mediterranean, and your city the most dreaded place in the
+world.”
+
+The “Africans,” however, were obdurate; they knew a pirate when they
+saw him quite as well as any one else, and they were quite aware that,
+should they open their gates to Dragut, sooner or later they would have
+to stand a siege from the Christian forces, which was a thing they by
+no means desired.
+
+But Dragut was not yet at the end of his resources; he was rich, and
+he spent money freely in order to gain over to his side those men of
+importance by whom such a question as this was bound to be decided.
+By rich presents and other blandishments he succeeded in securing the
+friendship of one Ibrahim Amburac, who was not only a leader among
+the inhabitants, but also governor of one of the towers by which the
+city was surrounded. Through him he approached the Council by which
+the town was ruled, only to receive a very decided negative: the
+Council observed the outward forms of politeness to this formidable
+person who was speaking them so fair: in reality, they hated and feared
+the corsairs only one degree less than they did Andrea Doria and his
+Christians. To admit the one was to bring upon themselves the vengeance
+of the other; therefore if they could keep them both out they intended
+so to do. The ill-omened courtesy of the corsair filled their hearts
+with apprehension, and they viewed his immediate departure, after the
+refusal of the council had been conveyed to him, with undisguised
+relief. Had they but known their man a little better, their uneasiness
+would have been far greater than their joy at his temporary absence.
+Those things desired by Dragut which he could not obtain by fair means
+he usually seized by the strong hand; and when he left so hurriedly,
+and at the same time so unostentatiously, he had already entered into a
+plot with Ibrahim Amburac. This leader, furious at the rebuff which he
+had received at the hands of his fellow councillors on the subject of
+the admittance of Dragut to the citizenship of “Africa,” was now ready
+to deliver that city into the hands of the corsairs by treachery.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+DRAGUT-REIS
+
+
+  How the corsairs captured the town of “Africa”; of
+  its recapture by Andrea Doria and its eventual total
+  destruction by Charles V.
+
+Dragut had made it a practice never to appear in the harbour of
+“Africa” in any great force, as he had no desire to frighten the birds
+whom he desired to snare; on the occasion of which we are now speaking
+he had but two galleys, and their departure from the outer harbour
+passed almost unnoticed, as the ruck of the population were accustomed
+to visits from the corsairs, who came to fill up with provisions
+and fresh water. Swiftly as hawks his vessels swept along the coast
+collecting the garrisons of Susa, Sfax, and Monastir to aid him in
+his latest design; they were all picked men and singularly apt for
+the stern business which their leader destined them to undertake. In
+this manner he soon collected five hundred of the stoutest and most
+reckless fighters who sailed out of the ports of Northern Africa, and,
+when it became noised abroad among them what the service was for which
+they were required, there was universal joy and eagerness. True the
+adventure was a formidable one: to capture “Africa” was no light task,
+even for such men as these under so renowned a leader; there was
+further the difficulty that the persons against whom they went up to
+fight were no Christians but Moslems like themselves. But against this
+was the declaration of Dragut, who represented to his following that
+there was really no choice in the matter; that to these stiffnecked
+and singularly ungrateful people he had offered the protection of the
+corsairs, that they had refused in the most contumelious manner, and in
+consequence there was nothing for it but the strong hand. They—that is
+to say the corsairs—knew right well that some strong place of arms in
+which to shelter themselves and their vessels was an absolute necessity
+for their continued existence, as at any moment Doria or the Knights
+of Malta might be on their track in superior force, and then what was
+their fate likely to be if they had no harbour under their lee in which
+to shelter? Further it was hinted that “Africa” would provide very
+nice pickings in the way of loot, and when this came to be generally
+understood the promptings of the Mahommedan conscience yielded easily
+to the sophistries with which it was lulled.
+
+The council of the town of “Africa” troubled themselves but little more
+concerning Dragut, his ships, and his corsairs; he had departed, and
+as the days wore on and no further tidings of him came to hand, these
+simple folk thanked God that they were rid of a knave and went about
+their usual avocations as unconcernedly as if no sea-wolves lurked
+under the shadowed headlands of that continent in which their homes
+were situated. They were a people essentially of the land; although
+they dwelt on the confines of the ocean the ways and habits of those
+who earned a precarious living on the waters were a sealed book to
+them, and with the “Africans” it was a case of “out of sight out of
+mind” so far as the corsairs were concerned. But that black-hearted
+traitor Ibrahim Amburac and the few others who had been gained over by
+the gold of Dragut watched and waited for the attack which they knew to
+be impending.
+
+The inhabitants of the doomed city never saw their assailants until
+they were actually upon them, so well had the surprise attack been
+planned by the leader of the corsairs. He had collected five hundred
+men, and this was but a small number with which to assail so strong a
+place; but Dragut knew exactly what he was doing and the effect likely
+to be produced by the introduction of this number of highly trained
+men-at-arms among a population which, although brave and warlike,
+lacked the elements of organisation for the defence of their city.
+
+So it was that, all preparations being completed, he stood along the
+coast anchoring out of sight of his objective, but close enough to
+reach it by midnight after darkness had fallen. He had every confidence
+in himself, an absolute trust in the hardbitten fighters whom he was
+about to lead; success or failure now rested in the hands of traitors
+within the city.
+
+“Faith unfaithful kept them falsely true,” for when Dragut and his
+followers arrived at a certain rendezvous outside the walls which had
+been agreed upon previously, there they found Ibrahim Amburac and
+his men ready to assist them in scaling this obstacle. It will be
+remembered that Ibrahim Amburac was personally in charge of one
+of the towers with which the walls were guarded, and thus his task
+of aiding those who came from without was a singularly easy one. But
+even at midnight the passage of five hundred men could not remain long
+undiscovered as they clambered in over the walls. Soon an alarm was
+raised and the “Africans” rushed to arms and hurried to the quarter
+from which danger threatened. The townsmen were well armed and brave,
+also they were numerous; but it was the old story of the break-up of
+undisciplined valour by highly organised attack.
+
+In the choking heat of the African night townsmen and corsairs wrestled
+in deadly conflict hand to hand and foot to foot; but these untrained
+landsmen stood but a poor chance against the picked fighting men of the
+Moslem galleys who had been inured to bloodshed from their earliest
+youth and trained by such a master in the art of war as Dragut. That
+warrior, his great curved scimitar red to the hilt, the blood dripping
+from a gash in his cheek, his clothing torn and in disarray, followed
+by a gigantic negro bearing a flaming torch, was ever in the thickest
+of the fray. Behind him his lieutenants Othman and Selim strove to
+emulate his prowess, while all around surged his devoted band of
+fanatics.
+
+“Allah! Allah!” and “Dragut! Dragut!” pealed the war-cry of the
+corsairs; foot by foot and yard by yard that spearhead of dauntless
+dare-devils pressed onwards into the packed masses of the “Africans,”
+who, fighting stubbornly, nevertheless were borne back by the fury of
+the terrible onslaught.
+
+Torch-bearers among the pirates leaped into houses and set them ablaze,
+the flames volleyed and crackled, the dense smoke rolled upwards to the
+stainless sky, the night was a hell of blood and fire.
+
+There was a sharp order repeated and passed on, the corsairs drew
+back, and the “Africans” shouted that the triumph was theirs; but they
+little knew Dragut, the sea-hawk who poised to strike anew. A blazing
+beam dropped across the street, the townsfolk shouted in insult and
+derision; but the joy which they had experienced at seeing their
+adversaries recoil was but a short and fleeting emotion. Giving himself
+and those who had hitherto been engaged time to breathe and recover
+themselves, Dragut waited while the noise of the strife died down,
+and nought was heard but the roar of the flames and the crash of the
+burning buildings.
+
+The leader turned to his followers, among whom dwelt an ominous
+silence. “Dost remember Prevesa,” he cried, “when Andrea Doria and the
+best of the Christian warriors fled before you like sheep before a dog:
+are these miserable townsmen to stay your onward march?”
+
+There remained for an appreciable period after he had spoken a tense
+silence; the red light from the burning houses shone on the lean faces
+alight with the fierce fire of fanaticism, with an inextinguishable
+lust of slaughter. There came an answering frenetic roar, “Lead!
+Lead! Dragut! Dragut! Dragut!” It was enough: the corsair had tried
+the temper of the steel, he had now but to use the edge. There was an
+ordered movement on the part of the pirates: a fresh hundred men,
+who had hitherto taken no part in the combat, now pressed to the front
+and formed the advance, those who had been before engaged now forming
+the supports; that which had been the shaft of the spear now forming
+its head. With Dragut leading, these fresh unwounded men swept forward
+over the burning beam; irresistible as some mighty river in spate,
+these disciplined ruffians, headed by this master spirit, burst through
+the ill-organised resistance opposed to them, and slew and slew and
+slew.
+
+Behind them, alert and wary, came the supports, asking no quarter and
+giving none, cutting up the wounded, trampling under foot friend and
+foe alike who fell in the weltering shambles which marked the onward
+path of their leader and the advanced party. Very soon the broken hosts
+of the “Africans” cried piteously for mercy; the fight was over, and
+Dragut-Reis, wounded, breathless, but victorious, stood master of the
+strongest place of arms in all the continent of Africa. It is true that
+treachery had given him his opportunity, but once that was obtained
+the rest he had done for himself: the stealthy advance by sea, the
+midnight march to the exact spot on the walls where he was awaited by
+Ibrahim Amburac, the marshalling of his five hundred for the conflict,
+and the actual conduct of the fight itself, were all to the credit of
+this apt pupil of the great Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, As warriors his
+followers were worthy of their leader: defeated the corsairs frequently
+were, but, in the combats in which they engaged, they were frequently,
+as we have seen in the course of this story, largely dependent
+upon auxiliaries in whom no trust could be placed; and at Prevesa, at
+the siege of Malta, and later on at the battle of Lepanto, the spot
+on which they fought, were it on the land or on the sea, was ever
+the one which formed the nucleus of resistance. It was not only that
+fighting was their particular trade; that, of course, might be said
+also of any man who trailed a pike or carried an arquebus and marched
+in the ranks of Spain, France, Genoa, or Venice. In the case of the
+sea-wolves it was the perpetual practice in the art of war, as it was
+then understood, that caused them to be the men that they were. Much of
+their fighting could hardly be dignified by such a name, as in their
+everlasting raids on villages and undefended places they seldom lost
+many of their number: when, however, it came to the real thing, as it
+did on the occasion we have just recounted, the long years of training
+told, and opposition had to be strong indeed if it were not to be
+beaten down by such a leader as Dragut, by such men as his picked five
+hundred.
+
+What passed between Dragut and the council of “Africa,” who in so
+unqualified a manner had refused that warrior as a citizen, is not on
+record; all that we know is that the Moslem leader dispensed with their
+services, and did not invite his new fellow-townsmen to share with him
+the burden of government. There was hurry in the administration of the
+corsair states, as the form of rule which they adopted was apt to irk
+the rulers in Christendom. In this particular instance Dragut, having
+expelled the Spaniards from the coast towns, knew that a reckoning with
+the Emperor and his militant admiral, Andrea Doria, was but a matter
+of time, and, in all probability, of a very short time.
+
+Promptly, hurriedly, but efficiently, the corsair organised his
+new possession: such laws as he decreed did not err on the side of
+tenderness towards a people so ungrateful as to have refused his
+protection in the first instance, and who had only accepted the gift
+at the point of the sword. His nephew Aisa, a man young in years but a
+past-graduate in the school of his terrible uncle, was left in charge,
+while Dragut himself sailed once more with his fleet, for, as it is put
+by the Spanish historian Marmol, “truly the sea was his element.”
+
+Once again had a Moslem corsair bid defiance to that ruler whom
+Sandoval and Marmol in their histories greet by the name of the “Modern
+Cæsar.” It was told to Charles that Susa, Sfax, and Monastir had
+fallen, that “Africa” was in the hands of the corsairs; “was he never
+to be free from these pestilent knaves,” he demanded of his trembling
+courtiers? Hot-foot came the couriers from Charles to Andrea Doria,
+with orders to take Dragut dead or alive, but alive for choice; and up
+and down the tideless sea in the summer of 1549 did the great Genoese
+seaman range in search of the bold corsair. Doria was getting a very
+old man now, but his eye was undimmed, his strength yet tireless, his
+vigilance and zeal in the service of his master unabated.
+
+Dead or alive, great was the reward offered for the capture of Dragut,
+but the veteran admiral required no stimulus of this sort to urge
+him to put forth his utmost endeavours, to strain every nerve and
+sinew in the chase. All his life he had been fighting the corsairs,
+mostly with conspicuous success; but what Andrea could never forget—and
+what his enemies never allowed him to forget even had he been so
+inclined—was the fact that, at the supreme crisis of his valiant life,
+when he met with Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa at the battle of Prevesa, he
+had come off so badly that his under officers of the Papal and Venetian
+fleets had made representations, on their return to their respective
+headquarters, which had detracted from his fame, and lowered him in the
+estimation of Europe. Further than this, he knew that Barbarossa had
+laughed at and made game of him among his wild followers: this to the
+aristocrat, the Prince of Oneglia, the admiral who treated on almost
+equal terms with such men as the Pope, Charles of Spain, and Francis of
+France, was an insult hard to be borne; the next corsair with whom he
+should meet should not escape so easily as had Kheyr-ed-Din, that the
+admiral had sworn.
+
+Personal pique and vanity, racial detestation, and religious fanaticism
+were in his case all allied together to spur him on in the chase of
+this the last of the Emperor’s foes; but, search as he might, during
+that summer Doria could never get on to the track of Dragut. The
+corsairs, as we have just remarked, were fine fighters on occasion when
+it was necessary for the purposes of loot, or of escape from those
+who, like Doria, interfered with their particular method of gaining a
+livelihood; but, on the other hand, they were no fools, they did not
+covet hard knocks and the possibility of defeat from such a one as
+the admiral of the Emperor, when by the exercise of a little ingenuity
+they could keep out of his way. Dragut was not going to fight a general
+action at sea merely to please Doria; in this summer his luck stood to
+him, and he never came across this man, who, with a sombre hatred in
+his heart, was seeking him high and low. If the corsair were bold as a
+lion when occasion offered, he was no less as slippery as an eel when
+he desired to escape; to face twenty-two royal galleys with Doria in
+command was no part of his programme. An occasion might arise when he
+would be forced to action; should this happen Dragut had not forgotten
+his four years in the galley of Jannetin Doria, the nephew of the
+admiral, and next time he intended to fight to win. Just at present the
+Christian admiral was in too great strength for him to do aught but
+keep out of his way, and much to Andrea’s annoyance this was what he
+succeeded in doing.
+
+Doria got information that Dragut was at Monastir, information that was
+perfectly correct; but by this time the corsair knew that not only had
+he raised all Christendom, but that the admiral was on his track. In
+consequence, he slipped out of Monastir, “for,” as it is pithily put by
+Marmol, “our corsair cared not to be shut up in so defenceless a port;
+he had good heels and loved sea-room.”
+
+Dragut did not fear for his new possession, “Africa,” as he knew
+that Doria had not sufficient force to attack so formidable a place;
+therefore, leaving it to its destiny and the valour and conduct
+of his nephew Aisa, on whom he knew that he could rely, “he went,”
+according to the chronicler, “on his old trade making Horrid
+Devastations on the coast of Spain and its islands.”
+
+While Dragut was pursuing his “Horrid Devastations,” Doria was not
+idle, but was ranging the northern coast of Africa in his fruitless
+search; in the course of this he landed at Cape Bona, on which was the
+castle of Calibia, held by the corsairs; these men, who were a portion
+of Dragut’s following, made a most valiant defence; they were, however,
+few in number, and when their captain was killed by the ball from an
+arquebus they surrendered. Encouraged by this success, the Christian
+fleet then stood along the coast to inspect “Africa.” Sailing quite
+close to the shore they came within range of the guns of the garrison,
+who, under the direction of Aisa, were very much on the alert. As the
+admiral’s galley at the head of the line passed the walls of the town,
+she was received with a hot fire, and one large cannonball struck
+the stern of Doria’s ship, doing considerable structural damage, and
+killing five of his men. This occurrence took place in broad daylight
+in full view of all the garrison, who signalled their delight at the
+discomfiture of their foes by the noise of cymbals and atambours, and
+by wild and ferocious yells. Doria, who was in no position to land and
+make reprisals, fell into the greatest paroxysm of fury, and we are
+told that “he swore the destruction of that detested city.”
+
+The season being now advanced, Doria returned home, where he found
+orders awaiting him from Charles that preparation was to be made for
+the capture of “Africa”. While the admiral was in harbour, Dragut,
+finding the seas open to him once more, returned from his “Horrid
+Devastations,” and employed his time profitably in throwing provisions
+and men into the city, which he knew would be beleagured in the
+following year.
+
+During the ensuing winter Doria, in conjunction with the viceroys of
+Naples and Sicily, prepared the expedition which was to accomplish not
+only the capture of “Africa,” but what was, in his opinion, equally
+important, the destruction of Dragut-Reis, Early in the spring of 1550,
+all was in readiness, and the armada of Charles sailed from Palermo
+to Trapani, where it met with the forces of Don Juan de Vega, Viceroy
+of Sicily, those of Don Garcia de Toledo, the son of the Viceroy of
+Naples, and likewise the Maltese squadron. The galleys, accompanied by
+a fleet of transports, set sail early in June, and on the 20th of that
+month landed an army a little to the east of Mehedia or “Africa”.
+
+It must be remembered that the inhabitants of Mehedia were by no means
+enamoured of Dragut-Reis and his piratical followers: King Stork had
+succeeded to King Log, the part of the former monarch being taken by
+that singularly capable and ferocious person, Aisa, whose rule was far
+from being to the liking of the richer and more respectable portion of
+the townsfolk.
+
+When, therefore, Andrea Doria and his captains laid siege to the city,
+they murmured against its defence, desiring ardently to enter into some
+sort of treaty with the besiegers; they had had enough of war, they
+said, and wished to end their days in peace if possible.
+
+Aisa Reis, however, would hear no word of surrender, telling those who
+murmured against the defence that “if he heard a word more of these
+plots he would infallibly sacrifice every mother’s son amongst them,
+and then lay the town in ashes.” Having already had a taste of the
+quality of this redoubtable corsair, and feeling perfectly certain
+that should the occasion arise he would be as good as his word, there
+was no more disaffection among the inhabitants, who had to put up with
+their native place being made a cockpit for Doria and Dragut to fight
+out their quarrel. It is permissible to sympathise very sincerely with
+these unfortunates, who, having been betrayed in the first instance,
+were compelled to stand a siege in the second.
+
+Aisa had a picked force of his uncle’s men, some seventeen hundred
+foot and six hundred horse, all seasoned and formidable veterans,
+inured to warfare by land and sea. On these of course he could rely to
+the death. The common folk of the town were inclined to make common
+cause with the corsairs in resistance to their hereditary enemy the
+Christians; but the magistrates and members of the council, the grave
+and reverend signiors, held so conspicuously aloof that Aisa was
+constrained into forcing them to aid in the defence when he had time
+to attend to the matter. As Dragut was not actually present at the
+siege it falls outside the scope of this chronicle; he was without
+the walls when the besiegers arrived, but all that he could do, that
+he did. With a body of his own men reinforced by a rabble rout of
+Berber tribesmen, he harassed the Christian army; they were, however,
+in far too great numbers for him to make any impression, and after
+several desperate skirmishes he recognised that the day was lost, and
+re-embarking in his galleys sailed away. The town after a desperate and
+prolonged resistance was at last taken by storm; and Doria captured
+Aisa, a Turkish alcaid, and ten thousand prisoners of the baser sort.
+Of these, however, there was scarce one who owed allegiance to Dragut;
+the warriors of this chief neither gave nor accepted quarter, as they
+feared the wrath of the terrible corsair even more than death itself.
+
+Don Juan de Vega put his son Don Alvaro in command of the city and set
+out in search of Dragut with twenty galleys, but the sea leaves no
+traces by which a fugitive can be tracked, and his search proved as
+fruitless as had been that of Doria in the previous year. The rage and
+the disappointment of the admiral were beyond all bounds; what to him
+was the value of the capture of Aisa, of the Turkish alcaid, of the ten
+thousand of the baser sort; nay, what to him was the value of “Africa”
+itself when once again like a mocking spirit Dragut had glided beyond
+the sea horizon to devastate, to plunder, and to slay once more, the
+scourge and the menace of Christendom.
+
+It will be interesting to record briefly the fate of this city which we
+have seen taken and retaken. Don Alvaro de Vega remained as governor
+till the end of July, 1551, when his place was taken by Don Sancho de
+Leyva; at which time there took place one of those curious military
+mutinies so characteristic of the sixteenth century. The soldiers,
+unpaid for months, possibly for years, mutinied, expelled the
+governor and other officers, even the sergeants, from the city, and
+placed themselves under the direction of a stout soldier called Antonio
+de Aponte, to whom they gave the title of “Electo Mayor.”
+
+Don Sancho repaired to Brussels to report matters to the Emperor,
+and during his absence a circumstance which is also singularly
+characteristic of this faithless epoch took place, for the Prior of
+Capua, then general of the French galleys, entered into negotiations
+with the mutineers for the surrender of the city to the French King.
+
+Bluff Antonio de Aponte would have none of this treachery; he held
+the city for the Emperor Charles and only wanted his pay. Eventually
+a mutiny within a mutiny was fomented from without, and with the
+mutineers divided the Emperor regained possession of the city; some of
+the mutineers were hanged, and Aponte, who had been captured by the
+Turks, died at Constantinople.
+
+The Emperor offered “Africa” to the Knights of Malta with a yearly
+allowance of twenty-four thousand ducats; the Knights refused, much to
+the chagrin of Charles, who gave orders for its complete destruction.
+This was accomplished by blowing up with gunpowder the walls, towers,
+and fortifications which Al-Mehedi, after whom the city had been
+named, “had erected with such art and strength, and had his mind so
+fixed upon that work that he used to say, ‘If I thought building these
+fortifications with iron and brass would render them more durable, I
+would certainly do it.’”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+DRAGUT-REIS
+
+
+  How Dragut was blockaded in the Island of Jerbah—How he
+  left Andrea Dona “with the dog to hold”—His return to
+  Constantinople, and how he sailed from thence with a
+  great expedition against the Knights of Malta.
+
+Charles V. had “smoked out the fox,” but his admiral in so doing had
+not succeeded in capturing that remarkably wily animal; for Dragut was
+not only still at liberty, but was burning for revenge on those by
+whom he had been dispossessed. He had lost “his city,” as he called
+“Africa”; he had lost two thousand five hundred men—among them some
+of the fiercest and most experienced of his corsairs; he had lost ten
+thousand slaves, representing a large sum of money, and much wealth
+besides. The corsair, however, was not one of those who merely sit
+down and repine; for him strenuous and continued action was the law
+of his being, and he at once repaired to Constantinople. Here he was
+well known as an adroit and skilful seaman and a most determined enemy
+of the Christians, and, in consequence, was not only certain of a
+welcome, but of substantial help as well, if he could but win over
+the Grand Turk to take the same view of his grievances as he did
+himself. In reality, the corsairs, as we have seen, played the game of
+the Padishah, as a rule, at no expense to that potentate; when they
+were in trouble he was therefore by no means indisposed to render them
+assistance.
+
+Dragut, like all the sea-wolves, was fond of money, fonder still of
+what money could buy; he now hankered after revenge as the sweetest
+morsel that his hoarded ducats could procure for him. That the Sultan
+was well disposed to him he had every reason to think; none the less
+did he spend royally among the venal favourites of the Court in order
+that nothing might be left undone to inflame the ardour of Soliman
+against those whom he considered to be his hereditary foes.
+
+With such skill and address did the corsair manage his suit that he
+prevailed upon the Sultan to address a letter to Charles demanding the
+immediate return of the towns of Susa, Sfax, Monastir, and “Africa.”
+This, of course, meant war; as Charles immediately replied that these
+places were dependencies of the King of Tunis, and that that ruler was
+under his special protection; further that they were his by right of
+conquest; finally that the matter was no concern whatever of the Sultan
+of Constantinople. The stern and imperious Christian Emperor was in no
+mood to brook interference, the more so that he discerned plainly that
+though the demand was that of Soliman, the mover in the affair was none
+other than Dragut. He therefore by way of a rider to his answer to the
+Sultan informed that monarch that these places which he had taken on
+the coast of Africa had been reft by him “from one Dragut, a corsair
+odious to both God and man”; that without in any way departing from
+the treaty which he had made with Soliman “he intended to pursue this
+pirate whithersoever he might go.”
+
+Whether or no this denunciation of Dragut had any influence on the
+Sultan it is impossible to say; he was in the habit of employing
+the corsairs, and apparently cared nothing about their piratical
+reputation, so long as their depredations were confined to Christian
+vessels. Shortly after the receipt of the answer of Charles, however,
+the Sultan conferred upon Dragut the title of Sandjak or governor of
+the island of Santa Maura, thus constituting him a Turkish official.
+
+Once again was Andrea Doria ordered to put to sea to fight against
+neither small nor great save Dragut alone; he was to take him dead or
+alive, but alive for choice, in order that he might be made to answer
+at the bar of Christian justice for all the atrocities committed by
+him both by land and sea. The corsair had returned in the meanwhile
+to Jerbah, an island on the east coast of Tunis much affected by the
+sea-wolves, and which in contemporary histories is known as Jerbah, as
+Los Gelues (by the Spanish writers), as Gelves, and various other names
+which greatly confuse its identity.
+
+Doria put to sea with twenty-two royal galleys before Dragut was aware
+of the fact. The Genoese admiral heard that his prey was at Jerbah;
+he repaired thither without losing a moment, found that he had been
+correctly informed, and anchored at the mouth of the harbour, at a
+place known as La Bocca de Cantara. Dragut was completely hemmed
+in, Doria was in such strength that he could not, reckless as he
+was, attempt to force the passage. But as the hour came the spirit
+of the corsair rose to answer the challenge: it was one thing to get
+Dragut-Reis into a trap, it was quite another to keep him there.
+Accordingly, he assembled all his troops, dragged cannon to the mouth
+of the harbour, and opened so brisk a foe on the Christian ships as to
+compel them to haul out of range. These tactics left Doria unaffected;
+there was but one way out of the harbour, and he felt quite convinced
+that when Dragut had had enough of starvation he would either surrender
+or else fight a hopeless action. The admiral surveyed his anchored
+fleet with a contented mind; his enemy had been delivered into his
+hand, he had nothing to do now but wait for that final triumph of
+appearing before his master the Emperor with the famous corsair as his
+prisoner. He saw a great fort rising before his very eyes at the mouth
+of the harbour, and merely smiled serenely; he sent off to Sicily and
+Naples for reinforcements in order that when the psychological moment
+should arise he might crush the corsair stronghold so thoroughly that
+it should never rise again. In the despatches which he sent he said
+“the fox is trapped”—“which news rejoiced all parts of Christendom, and
+most powerful succours came daily flocking to the seaports from every
+quarter; so eager were the sufferers to revenge themselves on this so
+much dreaded corsair.”
+
+The history of what now happened is given by Don Luys de Marmol
+Caravajal in his “Descripcion general de Affrica,” which was printed
+in Granada, “en casa de Rene Rabat impresor de libros año de 1573,” or
+only some twenty years or so after these occurrences; it is set forth
+in his chapter entitled “Como Andrea Doria fue en buscar de these
+occurrences; it is set forth in his chapter Dragut Arraez.” We have
+also the authority of that eminent historian, M. L’Abbé de Vertot.
+
+Captain Juan Vasquez Coronado journeyed to Naples carrying with him
+letters from Andrea Doria to Don Pedro de Toledo, requesting that the
+Viceroy would send him all the galleys in Naples, carrying as many
+soldiers as possible, pointing out that he had Dragut in a trap, from
+which he could not possibly escape, but that this time he wished to
+make security doubly secure. Letters to the same purport were also sent
+to Don Juan de Vega, the Viceroy of Sicily, and to Marco Centurion at
+the admiral’s own city of Genoa. Doria was leaving nothing to chance
+this time. Meanwhile, great earthworks had been thrown up at the Bocca
+de Cantara at the entrance of the harbour by Dragut, and any ship which
+approached within range was most furiously bombarded. This served
+to amuse Andrea Doria, who, confident that the jaws of the trap had
+closed, kept a sharp look-out for vessels issuing from the harbour, but
+otherwise concerned himself not at all about the entrenchments. Was
+not Naples humming with the note of preparation? Would not the Genoese
+come in their thousands to the summons of their renowned chieftain?
+Could not the Viceroy of Sicily be trusted to work his best to gain the
+favour of his Imperial master?
+
+“Time and I are two” was the favourite expression of King Philip
+II. of Spain; the same idea might have crossed the mind of Doria on
+this memorable occasion. He had only to wait; the longer he waited the
+more secure he would be of success, the more certain would he be of
+the complete undoing of his enemy. But even yet the admiral did not
+know the man to whom he was opposed; in all the years in which he had
+done battle against Dragut, he had never gauged the limitless resource
+and calculated audacity of this lineal successor of Kheyr-ed-Din
+Barbarossa. While the admiral had been sending his despatches, and
+idly watching that which he considered to be the futile construction
+of earthworks on the shore at the Bocca de Cantara, his enemy was
+preparing for him that surprise which was shortly afterwards to make of
+him the laughing-stock of the whole of Europe. Dragut was in a trap,
+and he was quite aware of the fact; by way of the Bocca de Cantara
+escape was impossible, and neither a tame surrender nor complete
+annihilation was by any means to the taste of the pirate leader. Had
+Doria gone in and attacked at once, the fate of the corsair had been
+sealed; the policy of delay adopted by the Christian admiral was his
+salvation.
+
+A man less able, less determined, than Dragut, might well have
+despaired; but he brought to bear on the problem with which he was
+confronted all the subtlety of his nature, all the resourcefulness
+of the born seaman that he was. His mind had been made up from the
+very beginning: the earthworks at the Bocca de Cantara, the movements
+of troops, the furious cannonading, had all been nothing but a blind
+to hide the real design which he had in view. In addition to his
+fighting men he had at his command some two thousand islanders,
+stout Mohammedans to a man, ready and willing to assist him in his
+design of cheating the Christians of their prey. Day and night, with
+ceaseless silent toil, had garrison and islanders been at work on the
+scheme which the leader had devised. From the head of the harbour
+Dragut had caused a road to be made right across the island to the
+sea on the opposite side: on this road he caused planks to be laid,
+bolted to sleepers and then thickly greased. The vessels of the day
+were of course comparatively speaking light, and capable of being
+manhandled, supposing that you had sufficient hands. At dead of night
+Dragut assembled his forces, and before morning every galley, galeasse,
+and brigantine had been dragged across the island and launched in the
+sea on the opposite side. There was then nothing left to do but to
+embark stores, guns, and ammunition and to sail quietly away, and this
+was what happened. Once again Dragut faded away beyond the skyline,
+“leaving Andrea Doria with the dog to hold,” in the quaint language of
+the chronicler of these events, Don Luys de Marmol Caravajal.
+
+Not only did the indefatigable corsair get clear away without any
+suspicion on the part of the admiral, but his first act on gaining the
+open sea was to capture the _Patrona_ galley sent from Sicily by Don Juan
+de Vega to say that reinforcements were on the road. In this ill-fated
+craft was Buguer, the son of Muley Hassan, King of Tunis, who was
+sent as prize to Soliman at Constantinople, where the Sultan caused
+him to be shut up in the “Torre del Mar Negro.” Here he remained
+till he died, as a punishment for that he, a Mussulman, had aided the
+Christians.
+
+Never again was Dragut to be in such sore straits as he was on this
+occasion at the island of Jerbah, when, by sheer wit and cunning, he
+escaped from the trap in which he had been held by Doria. What the
+emotions of the admiral must have been when he found that once again
+he had been fooled, it is not difficult to imagine, as by no possible
+means could the story be hushed up; and, in spite of the annoyance
+of Christendom generally at the escape of Dragut, no one could help
+admiring his extraordinary cleverness, or roaring with laughter at the
+discomfiture of Doria and the viceroys of Naples and Sicily.
+
+Dragut now returned to Constantinople to receive congratulations
+upon his escape, and to take part in a fresh design of stirring up
+the Sultan against the Christians. All who professed this faith were
+naturally obnoxious to the corsair; but his private and personal hatred
+was entirely directed against the Knights of Malta, with whom he had
+been at war all his life. The present preoccupation of the Sultan was
+to regain the towns on the coast of Africa which had been taken by
+the Spaniards; but it was represented to him by Dragut that “until he
+had smoked out this nest of vipers he could do no good anywhere.” The
+Bashaws and the Divan, heavily bribed by the corsair, held the same
+language, until Soliman heard of nothing from morning till night but
+the ill deeds of the Knights of Malta. They were represented to him as
+corsairs who ruined his commerce and defeated his armadas, who let
+slip no opportunity of harrying the Moslem wheresoever he was to be
+found. In this there was more than a grain of truth, as we shall see
+when we come to the next chapter, which will be devoted to a sketch of
+this militant order. Suffice it to say here that the Knights fought for
+what they termed “the Religion” (it was in this manner they designated
+their confederacy), and to harry and enslave the Mussulman, to destroy
+him as a noxious animal wherever he was to be found, was the reason for
+which they existed. It is true that they plundered not for individual
+gain, but many was the rich prize towed into Malta past St. Elmo and
+the ominously named “Punta delle Forche” (the “Point of the Gallows,”
+where all captured pirates were hanged), the proceeds of which went to
+the enrichment of the Order; to buy themselves the wherewithal to fight
+with the Mahommedan again.
+
+The abuse of the Knights fell upon sympathetic ears; in his early days
+Soliman the Magnificent had expelled the Knights from Rhodes; since
+then Charles V. had given them the islands of Malta and Gozo, and the
+town of Tripoli in Barbary as their abiding place; from Malta they
+had never ceased their warfare against the corsairs, and incidentally
+against the Sultan and his subjects. Therefore, in this year 1551,
+Soliman ordained that an expedition should be prepared with the object
+of crushing once and for all these troublers of the peace of Islam.
+The preparations were on so large a scale that very soon it became
+noised abroad in Europe that something really serious was in the wind:
+in Constantinople, however, men kept their own counsel; it was ill
+talking of the affairs of the Padishah, and, further than that, beyond
+Dragut and the proposed leaders of the expedition, the Sultan took
+no one into his confidence. Charles V., well served as he was by his
+spies, was as much in the dark as to the destination of this new armada
+as were humbler folk; in it he recognised the hand of Dragut again,
+and Doria had standing orders to catch that mischievous person if he
+could. At present, however, there was no chance of so desirable a thing
+happening, as Dragut was superintending the fitting out of the new
+expedition at Constantinople.
+
+Anxious and suspicious of the designs of the Turks, Charles ordered a
+concentration of his fleet at Messina.
+
+The Grand Master of the Knights of Malta at this time was a Spaniard,
+one Juan d’Omedes; he was, says de Vertot, “un Grand Maître Espagnol,”
+meaning by this that he was completely under the domination of the
+Emperor and ready at any time to place the galleys of “the Religion”
+under the orders of that monarch. The Knights, like every one else,
+had watched with anxiety the preparation of this great expedition in
+Constantinople, and when the Grand Master proposed to send the galleys
+of the Order to join forces with Doria at Messina, there was great
+dissatisfaction at the Council Board. That which it behoved them to
+do, the members informed the Grand Master, was not to help a great
+potentate like Charles, but to make provision for their own security
+by attending to their fortifications, which were in anything but a
+satisfactory condition. D’Omedes maintained that this expedition was
+destined to serve with the King of France against the Emperor, and
+that Malta was not the objective. He accordingly sent away the galleys
+of “the Religion” under the Chevalier “Iron-Foot,” the General of the
+Galleys, to join the fleet which had its rendezvous at Messina. Hardly
+had he done so when news came from the Levant that the fleet of the
+Grand Turk was at sea heading for Sicily. The fleet was composed of
+one hundred and twelve royal galleys, two great galeasses, and a host
+of brigantines and transport vessels. Sinan-Reis was in command with
+twelve thousand Janissaries, numerous pioneers and engineers, and all
+the necessary appliances for a siege.
+
+The embarkation of so large a number of Janissaries was the measure of
+the serious purpose of the expedition, as the Sultan did not readily
+part with the men of this _corps d’élite_ unless he was in person taking
+the command. It may be as well to explain here exactly what the
+Janissaries were, and it cannot be better done than by an extract from
+the famous historian Prescott:
+
+“The most remarkable of the Turkish institutions, the one which may
+be said to have formed the keystone of the system, was that relating
+to the Christian population of the Empire. Once in five years a
+general conscription was made by means of which all the children of
+Christian parents who had reached the age of seven and gave promise of
+excellence in mind or body were taken from their homes and brought to
+the capital. They were then removed to different quarters and placed
+in seminaries where they might receive such instruction as would fit
+them for the duties of life. Those giving greatest promise of
+strength and endurance were sent to places prepared for them in Asia
+Minor. Here they were subjected to a severe training, to abstinence,
+to privations of every kind, and to the strict discipline which should
+fit them for the profession of a soldier. From this body was formed the
+famous corps of the Janissaries.... Their whole life may be said to
+have been passed in war or in preparation for it. Forbidden to marry,
+they had no families to engage their affections, which, as with the
+monks and friars of Christian countries, were concentrated in their
+own order, whose prosperity was inseparably connected with that of
+the State. Proud of the privileges which distinguished them from the
+rest of the army, they seemed desirous to prove their title to them
+by their thorough discipline and by their promptness to execute the
+most dangerous and difficult services. Clad in their flowing robes, so
+little suited to war, armed with the arquebus and the scimitar—in their
+hands more than a match for the pike or sword of the European—with
+the heron’s plume waving above their head, their dense array might
+ever be seen bearing down in the thickest of the fight; and more than
+once when the fate of the Empire trembled in the balance it was this
+invincible corps which turned the scale, and by their intrepid conduct
+decided the fortune of the day. Gathering fresh reputation with age,
+so long as their discipline remained unimpaired they were a match for
+the best soldiers in Europe. But in time this admirable organisation
+experienced a change. One Sultan allowed them to marry; another to
+bring their sons into the corps; a third opened the ranks to Turks as
+well as Christians; until, forfeiting their peculiar character, the
+Janissaries became confounded with the militia of the Empire. These
+changes occurred in the time of Philip the Second.”
+
+But to resume: just before the sailing of the galleys of “the Religion”
+from Malta there had arrived in that island from France the famous
+Chevalier, the Commandeur de Villegagnon. This great noble told the
+Grand Master to his face that he was neglecting his duty, that the
+expedition of the Grand Turk was bound for Malta and Tripoli: further,
+that he was charged by Anne de Montmorency, Constable and First
+Minister of France, to advise the Grand Master that this armament was
+directed against “the Religion.” The interview between the Grand Master
+and de Villegagnon took place at a chapter of the Grand Crosses of the
+Order; when the Commandeur had finished speaking, he was coldly thanked
+by D’Omedes, who then bowed him out. Turning to the Knights Grand
+Cross he said with a sneer, “Either this Frenchman is the dupe of the
+Constable or he wishes to make us his.” He then proceeded to give at
+length the reasons why Soliman would not direct so huge an expedition
+against “the Religion.” Many of the Knights dissented vehemently from
+his conclusions, but D’Omedes refused to listen to their arguments.
+Even advices which arrived on July 13th, representing that the armada
+was moving southwards devastating the Italian ports, did not move him
+from his obstinate pre-occupation; till on July 16th the arrival of the
+Ottoman fleet put an end to all speculation.
+
+The armada which had sailed from Constantinople was under the command
+of Sinan Basha: but he had explicit orders that he was to take no
+important step without first consulting Dragut, who was nominally his
+lieutenant. It was well for the Knights that on this occasion the
+corsair was not in supreme command; had this been the case the islands
+must have been taken, as no preparations had been made to repulse an
+attack in force, and Juan D’Omedes was a Grand Master who excited
+little enthusiasm either among the Knights or the inhabitants. The
+choice of Sinan was not one which did great credit to the penetration
+of the Sultan. Let us explain. We are all of us conscious at one time
+or another of a desire to express some fact in the fewest possible
+words; to place the transaction or the circumstance which we wish
+to describe in the searchlight of truth in so undeniable a fashion
+that the illumination consequent upon this mental effort of our own
+shall throw up our meaning in immediate relief on the intelligences
+of those whom we address. This attribute is possessed by but few even
+among great writers—indeed, some historic sayings which have come
+down to us have not emanated from the writing fraternity at all, but
+from soldiers, sailors, statesmen, and other busy men of affairs.
+The quality which distinguishes a man of action above all others is
+fearlessness of responsibility; the possession of sufficient greatness
+of soul and of moral fibre to seize upon an opportunity and to make
+the most thereof when an occasion arises which has not been foreseen
+by those in authority over him. But far more often in the history
+of the world has it happened that brave and capable leaders have
+failed for the lack of the indefinable quality that separated their
+sterling merits from that absolute and real supremacy which marks the
+first-class man.
+
+How then is it possible to differentiate, to describe where and in
+what manner this luck occurs?
+
+Fortunately, this has been done for us in seven words by Seignelay, the
+Minister of Marine to Louis Quatorze in 1692. Speaking of Admiral de
+Tourville, who defeated the English and Dutch at the Battle of Beachy
+Head, July 10th, 1690, Seignelay says of him that he was “poltron
+de tête mais pas de coeur.” The judgment was just: de Tourville, as
+recklessly gallant as any French noble of them all, failed to live up
+to his responsibilities two years later at the Battle of La Hogue.
+Mahan says: “The caution in his pursuit of the Allies after Beachy
+Head, though so different in appearance, came from the same trait
+which impelled him two years later to lead his fleet to almost certain
+destruction at La Hogue because he had the King’s order in his pocket.
+He was brave enough to do anything, but not strong enough to bear the
+heaviest burdens.”
+
+We see the application of this truth in the period which we are
+considering; particularly is it borne in upon us in the case of the
+leaders of the Ottoman Turks. Serving as they did a despot of unlimited
+powers, failure in the success of his arms was apt to lead to the
+immediate and violent death of the man in command. If, therefore,
+precise instructions were issued, they were, as a rule, carried out
+to the letter; as in case of defeat an effort could be made to shift
+responsibility on to the shoulders of the Padishah. Failure owing to
+initiative was certain of prompt retribution; success complete and
+absolute would be the only justification for a departure from orders.
+
+Far otherwise was it with the Sea-wolves, who were a law to themselves
+and to themselves alone. Should they care “to place it on the hazard of
+a die to win or lose it all,” there was none to say them nay, there was
+no punishment save that of defeat. This it was that so often conduced
+to their success. Despots as were such men as Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa
+and Dragut, they were none the less dependent on the goodwill of their
+followers. If, therefore, they decided on a desperate enterprise, they
+appealed to the fighting instincts, the cupidity, and the fanaticism
+of these men. Should they succeed in gaining their good will for the
+attempt which they meditated, then all was well with them, and behind
+them was no grim sinister figure whose word was death and whose breath
+was destruction.
+
+Freed from all the trammels which bound the ordinary warrior of the day
+in which they lived, they were able, as we have seen, to go far; for
+the man in whom supreme ability is united to absolute unscrupulousness
+is the most dangerous foe of the human race. The despotism of the
+leaders among the sea-wolves was not theirs by right divine, as men
+considered it to be in the case of the Padishah; none the less in its
+practical application it was but little inferior to that wielded by
+the Sultan. For reasons of policy, the Sea-wolves allied themselves
+to the Grand Turk; for reasons of policy that monarch employed them
+and entrusted them with the conduct of important affairs. The bargain
+was really a good one on both sides; as to the sea-wolves was extended
+the ægis of one of the mightiest empires of the earth; while to
+the Sultan came “veritable men of the sea,” hardened in conflict, as
+fearless of responsibility as of aught else; capable in a sense that
+hardly any man could be capable who had grown up in the atmosphere of
+the court at Constantinople. To Kheyr-ed-Din the Sultan had extended
+his fullest confidence; he had been rewarded by seeing the renowned
+Doria forsake the field of battle at Prevesa, and by the perpetual
+slights and insults put upon his Christian foes by that great corsair.
+To Dragut he had now turned, and, as we have said, when Sinan Basha
+sailed from the Golden Horn he had orders to attempt nothing important
+without the advice of the corsair. It is impossible to say why the
+command-in-chief had not been entrusted to him, as the Sultan had the
+precedent of Kheyr-ed-Din upon which to go. It can only be conjectured
+that Soliman, having discovered how unpopular that appointment had been
+amongst his high officers, did not care to risk the experiment the
+second time; and in consequence employed Sinan. To this officer the
+aphorism of Seignelay applies in its fullest force. He was as brave a
+man as ever drew a sword in the service of his master; he was, however,
+a hesitating and incompetent leader, with one eye ever fixed on that
+distant palace on the shores of the Golden Horn in which dwelt the
+arbiter of his destiny and of all those who sailed beneath the banner
+of the Crescent.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE KNIGHTS OF ST. JOHN
+
+The Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem, afterwards known as the Knights
+of Rhodes, and eventually as the Knights of Malta—A brief sketch of the
+Order, including the relation of how Gozon de Dieu-Donné, subsequently
+Grand Master, slew the great Serpent of Rhodes; also some account of
+Jean Parisot de la Valette, forty-eighth Grand Master, who commanded at
+the Siege of Malta, in which the arms of Soliman the Magnificent were
+defeated after a siege lasting one hundred and thirteen days.
+
+Amongst all those principalities and powers against which Dragut
+contended during the whole of his strenuous existence, there was no
+one among them which he held in so much detestation as the famous
+Knights of Saint John, known in the sixteenth century as the Knights
+of Malta. This militant religious organisation had its origin in
+Jerusalem in peculiar and interesting circumstances. After the death
+of Mahomet, his followers, burning with zeal, put forward the tenets
+of their religion by means of fire and sword; during the years which
+followed the Hegira, 622 A.D., the arms of the Moslems were everywhere
+successful, and amongst other places conquered by them was Palestine.
+So great was the renown acquired by the Emperor Charlemagne that his
+fame passed even into Asia, and Eginard states that the Caliph
+Haroun Raschid permitted the French nation to maintain a house in
+Jerusalem for the reception of pilgrims visiting the holy places, and
+that, further, the Prince permitted the Patriarch of Jerusalem to send
+to the Christian Emperor, on his behalf, the keys of the Holy Sepulchre
+and those of the Church of Calvary, together with a standard which was
+the sign of the power and authority delegated by the Moslem ruler to
+his mighty contemporary. In the middle of the eleventh century Italian
+merchants coming from Amalfi, who had experienced the hard lot of the
+Christian pilgrims in reaching the Holy City, secured from the Caliph
+Moustafa-Billah a concession of land, on which they built a chapel
+known as St. Mary of the Latins, to distinguish it from the Greek
+church already established at Jerusalem, and also constructed a hospice
+in which to receive the pilgrims, whether in sickness or in health,
+known as the Hospice of St. John.
+
+In 1093 the untiring efforts of Peter the Hermit, with the support of
+Pope Urbain II., brought about the first Crusade, and in 1099 we first
+hear of Gerard, the founder of the Order of St. John. Gerard was a
+French monk who, seeing the good work done by the Hospice of St. John,
+had attached himself to it, and had at this time been working in the
+cause of charity, and devoting himself to the pilgrims for many years.
+
+Godfrey de Bouillon, having defeated the Saracens outside the walls
+of Jerusalem, entered that city and visited the Hospice of St. John;
+he there found many of the Crusaders who had been wounded during the
+siege, and who had been carried thither after the taking of the
+place: all of these men were loud in their praises of the loving
+kindness with which they had been received and tended.
+
+Great was the honour and reverence in which these simple monks were
+held ever after by the Crusaders; for was it not common talk that these
+holy men had themselves subsisted on the coarsest and most repulsive
+fare in order that the food in the hospice should be both pure and
+abundant? Fired by this fine example of Christian charity, several
+noble gentlemen who had been tended in the hospice gave up the idea of
+returning to their own countries, and consecrated themselves to the
+Hospice of St. John, and to the service of the pilgrims, the poor, and
+the sick. Among these was Raimond Dupuy.
+
+The great Prince Godfrey de Bouillon fully approved of the steps taken
+by these gentlemen, and for his own part contributed to the upkeep of
+the hospice the seigneurie of Montbirre, with all its dependencies,
+which formed a part of his domain in Brabant. His example was widely
+copied by the Christian princes and great nobles among the Crusaders,
+who enriched the hospice with many lands and seigneuries, both in
+Palestine and in Europe. All these lands and properties were placed
+unreservedly in the hands of the saintly Gerard to do with as he would
+for the advancement of his work. In 1118 Gerard died in extreme old
+age; “he died in the arms of the brothers, almost without sickness,
+falling, as it may be said, like a fruit ripe for eternity.”
+
+The choice of the Hospitallers as his successor was Raimond Dupuy,
+a nobleman of illustrious descent from the Province of Dauphiny, and
+it is he who first held rule under the title of Grand Master. In all
+charity and loving kindness the life of Gerard had been passed, the
+brethren of St. John occupying themselves merely in tending the sick,
+in helping the poor and the pilgrims; but Raimond Dupuy was a soldier
+of the Cross, and he laid before the Order a scheme by which, from
+among the members thereof, a military corps should be formed, vowed
+to a perpetual crusade against the Infidel. This, in full conclave,
+was carried by acclamation, and the most remarkable body of religious
+warriors that the world has ever seen then came existence.
+
+This pact against the Infidel was in the first instance directed
+against the barbarians who swarmed around the Holy City, and the
+Hospitallers, who nearly all had been knights and soldiers of Godfrey
+de Bouillon, joyfully took up their arms again to employ them in the
+defence of this locality which they cherished, and in defence of
+the pilgrims who were robbed, murdered, and maltreated in all the
+surrounding country. In becoming warriors once more, they vowed to turn
+their arms against the Infidel, and against him alone; to neither make
+nor meddle with arms in their hands in any dispute between men of their
+own faith. The composition of the Order as it was arranged by Raimond
+Dupuy caused it to consist of three classes. In the first were placed
+men of high birth and rank who, having been bred to arms, were capable
+of taking command. In the second came priests and chaplains, who,
+besides the ordinary duties attached to their religious profession,
+were obliged, each in his turn, to accompany the fighting men in
+their wars. Those who were neither of noble houses nor belonging to
+the ecclesiastical profession were known as “serving brothers”: they
+were employed indifferently in following the knights into battle or
+in tending the sick in the hospital, and were distinguished by a
+coat-of-arms of a different colour from that worn by the knights.
+
+As the Order prospered amazingly, and as to it repaired numbers of the
+young noblesse from all parts of Europe to enrol themselves under its
+banner, it was accordingly divided into seven “Languages”; those of
+Provence, Auvergne, France, Italy, Arragon, Germany, and England. To
+the Language of Arragon was in later years allotted those of Castile
+and of Portugal. The dress consisted of a black robe, with a mantle
+of the same colour, the whole being called _manteau à bec_, having upon
+the left side thereof a white cross in cloth, with light points. The
+eight-pointed cross, or the Maltese Cross, as it came to be known in
+subsequent centuries, will be seen upon the armour, engraven on the
+breastplate, of all the pictures of the Grand Masters.
+
+In the year 1259 the Pope, Alexander IV., finding that men of noble
+birth objected to be habited as were the “serving brothers,” ordained
+that the knights on a campaign should wear a “sopraveste” of scarlet
+embroidered with the cross in white; further, that should any knight
+abandon the ranks, and fly from the battle, he should be deprived
+of his order and his habit. The form of government was purely
+aristocratic, all authority being vested in the Council, of which
+the Grand Master was the chief, the case of an equal division of
+opinion being provided for by giving to the Grand Master the casting
+vote. There were in the Order certain aged knights who were called
+“Preceptors,” who, under authority delegated to them by the Council,
+administered the estates and funds accruing, and also paid for the hire
+of such soldiers or “seculars” whom the Knights took into their service.
+
+Incidentally, it may be mentioned that the establishment of the
+Knights of St. John led to the foundation of the famous Order of the
+Knights Templars. In 1118 Hugues de Payens, Geoffrey de St. Aldemar,
+and seven other French noblemen, whose hearts were touched by the
+sufferings which the pilgrims underwent in their journey to Jerusalem,
+formed themselves into a society with the object of the protection
+of these inoffensive persons on their transit from the coast inland.
+Hugues de Payens, received in audience by Pope Honoré II., was sent
+by the Pontiff to the Peers of the Council, then assembled at Troyes
+in Champagne; the Council approving of so charitable an enterprise,
+the Order was formed, and Bernard, known as “Saint” Bernard, drew up
+the code of regulations by which it was to be governed. The movement
+spread, and many princes and nobles returned to the Holy Land in the
+train of de Payens and his companions.
+
+So famous did the Order of St. John become, that in 1133 Alfonzo, King
+of Navarre and Arragon, who called himself Emperor of Spain, carried
+his zeal so far as to bequeath to the knights his kingdoms of Navarre
+and Arragon: this, however, was naturally and hotly contested in these
+places, and Raimond Dupuy, who attended a Council to regulate the
+matter, was content to compromise on certain lands and benefits being
+allocated to those whom he represented.
+
+On August 15th, 1310, the knights, under the Grand Master, Fulke de
+Villaret, conquered the Island of Rhodes and established themselves
+there, and from this time onward, while they held the island, were
+known as the Knights of Rhodes. No sooner were the knights firmly
+established in Rhodes and the fortifications placed in a proper
+state of repair, than a tower was built on the highest point of the
+island, of great height, from which a view could be obtained of the
+sea and the surrounding islands, and from which information could be
+signalled as to the movements of any vessels which were observed. It
+was then decided to fortify the small island of Cos or Lango in the
+vicinity, as it contained an excellent harbour; a fortress, planned
+by the Grand Master himself, was erected on the island, a knight was
+left in command, and we are told that under the successors of de
+Villaret—himself twenty-fourth Grand Master—the island, which was very
+fertile, flourished exceedingly, producing much fruit and some most
+excellent wine.
+
+There was reigning in Bithynia, at the time when the knights seized
+upon Rhodes, that Ottoman whose name has come down to us when we speak
+of the Ottoman Empire; it is a somewhat strange coincidence that
+the Christian warriors, sworn foes of the Mussulman, should have so
+established themselves just when the tide of the Mohammedan conquest
+was about to rise and sweep away Byzantium; that they should arrive
+upon the scene just as the curtain was about to rise on the tragedy
+which, in its onward march, was to make of the church of St. Sophia a
+mosque for the worship of the Ottoman Turks.
+
+Ottoman—the descendant of one Soliman, the chief of a nomadic tribe
+of Tartars who had been chased from the Empire of Persia in the year
+1214—was not only a soldier and a conqueror, but also a great and
+beneficent ruler in those regions in which he held sway. Approached
+by those of his co-religionists who had been driven out of Rhodes by
+the Knights, Ottoman embarked an army and attacked the place, assuring
+himself of an easy conquest. In spite, however, of the fortifications
+having been hastily constructed, his troops were defeated with great
+loss, and he was obliged to raise the siege. In this manner did the
+indomitable champions of Christendom begin that long and bloodthirsty
+war between the Cross and the Crescent in the Mediterranean which
+was to endure for nearly another five centuries. GOZON DE DIEU-DONNÉ
+
+[Illustration: SLAYING THE GREAT SERPENT OF RHODES.]
+
+In the long, chequered, and glorious history of the Knights there are
+many strange and semi-miraculous deeds recounted of them in the wars
+and adventures in which they took so prominent a part; the following,
+which is gravely set out by the historians of the time, may be left to
+the judgment of the reader. In 1324 Fulke de Villaret was succeeded in
+the Grand Mastership by Helion de Villeneuve, a knight of exemplary
+piety and a strict disciplinarian. Under his rule the Order regained
+those habits of severe simplicity from which they had been allowed to
+lapse by his predecessor. In 1329 Rhodes was greatly agitated by the
+fact that a crocodile or serpent—as it is indifferently described—had
+taken up its abode in the marshes at the foot of Mount St. Etienne,
+some two miles from the town. This ferocious creature devoured sheep
+and cattle; also several of the inhabitants had lost their lives by
+approaching the neighbourhood in which it dwelt. Several attacks
+were made upon it, but, as there were no firearms, all the missiles
+projected against it rebounded harmlessly from the scales with which it
+was covered. So dangerous had it become, that the Grand Master thought
+it his duty to forbid any of the knights to attempt its destruction;
+an order which was obeyed with a right good will. There was, however,
+a knight of the Language of Provence called Gozon de Dieu-Donné, who
+secretly determined that he would slay the serpent, and he accordingly
+made it his occupation to observe as closely as possible the habits
+of the monster. Having satisfied himself on certain points, he then
+returned to his chateau of Gozon in the province of Languedoc. The
+point which Gozon had wished to determine was in what portion of its
+body was the serpent vulnerable; and he had convinced himself that
+the belly of the creature was unprotected by scales. He accordingly
+modelled in wood as exact a representation of the serpent as he could
+accomplish, colouring it the same as the original; the belly of the
+model was constructed of leather. He then trained some large and
+ferocious hounds, at a certain signal, to dash in under the model
+and fix their teeth in its leathern underpart. For months did the
+ingenious knight persevere with the training of his dogs, himself on
+horseback in full armour cheering them to the assault. At last he
+considered them to be perfect in their parts, and, taking two servants
+and the hounds with him, returned to Rhodes. Avoiding everybody, he
+caused his arms to be carried to a small church in the neighbourhood
+of Mount St. Etienne by his servants. The knight went into the church,
+where he passed some time in prayer, recommending his soul to God in
+the enterprise which he was about to undertake.
+
+He then donned his armour and mounted his horse, ordering his servants,
+if he were killed, to return to France but if he succeeded in
+killing the serpent to come at once to him, or to aid him if he were
+wounded. He then rode off in the direction of the marsh accompanied
+by his hounds. No sooner did the serpent hear the ring of bit and
+stirrup-iron, the trampling of the charger and the baying of the
+hounds, than it issued forth with wide-open slavering jaws and terrible
+burning eyes to slay and to devour. Gozon, recommending his soul to
+his Maker, put spurs to his horse and charged. But his lance shivered
+on the hide of the serpent as though it had struck a stone wall. His
+horse, mad with terror at the sight and the foul odour of the serpent,
+plunged so furiously as to unseat him. He fell to the ground, uttering
+as he did so his call to the hounds; had it not been for these faithful
+auxiliaries he would instantly have been slain, but they rushed in and,
+fastening their teeth in the belly of the serpent, caused it to writhe
+and twist in its anguish. Instantly Gozon was upon his feet again,
+and, watching his opportunity, plunged his sword into the exposed
+vitals of his enemy. Mortally wounded, the serpent flung itself high
+in the air with a convulsive effort, and falling backwards pinned the
+knight to the ground beneath its enormous bulk. The servants, who had
+been the horrified spectators of this terrific conflict, now rushed to
+the assistance of their master, and succeeded in freeing him from his
+unpleasant predicament. Gozon, they thought, was dead, but upon dashing
+some water in his face he opened his eyes, to behold the pleasing
+spectacle of his monstrous enemy lying by his side a corpse.
+
+Naturally elated, he returned to Rhodes, where he became on the instant
+the popular hero; for who could say or do enough for the man who had
+slain the serpent. He was conducted in triumph to the palace of the
+Grand Master by his fellow knights, but here a remarkably unpleasant
+surprise was in store for him. Very austerely did Helion de Villeneuve
+regard the triumphant warrior, and stern and uncompromising was the
+voice in which he asked him how he had dared to contravene the express
+order of his Grand Master by going forth to combat with the serpent?
+Calling a Council immediately the implacable de Villeneuve, in spite of
+all entreaties, deprived Gozon de Dieu-Donné of the habit of a knight.
+“What,” said this just and severe disciplinarian, “is the death of this
+monster, what indeed do the deaths of the islanders matter, compared
+with the maintenance of the discipline of this Order of which I am the
+unworthy chief?”
+
+But Helion de Villeneuve was of too wise and kindly a nature to
+make his decree absolute, and having thus vindicated his authority he
+shortly afterwards released Gozon and made him happy by his praises and
+more material benefits.
+
+The Abbé de Vertot tells us that the learned Bochart argues that the
+Phoenicians gave to this island the name of Gefirath-Rod (from whence
+the name “Rhodes”), or the Isle of the Serpents, and that when the
+Romans were at war with the Carthaginians Attilius Regulus slew a
+monster in the island of Rhodes the skin of which measured one hundred
+feet. Thevenot, in his Travels published in 1637, states that he saw
+the head of Gozon’s serpent still attached to one of the gates of the
+town of Rhodes, and that it was as large as the head of a horse.
+
+Upon the death of Helion de Villeneuve in 1346, a Chapter of the Order
+was held as usual to elect his successor. When it came to the turn of
+the Commander Gozon de Dieu-Donné to speak, he said:
+
+“In entering this conclave I made a solemn vow not to propose any
+knight whom I did not consider to be most worthy of this exalted
+office, and animated by the best intentions for the glory and
+well-being of the Order. After considering carefully the state of
+the Christian world, of the wars which we are perpetually obliged to
+wage against the infidel, the firmness and vigour necessary for the
+maintenance of discipline, I declare that I find no person so capable
+of governing our ‘Religion’ as myself.”
+
+He then proceeded to speak in a purely impersonal tone of the
+magnificent services which he had rendered, not forgetting the
+famous episode of the serpent, and drew their attention to the fact
+that the late Grand Master had constituted him, Gozon, his principal
+lieutenant. He ended: “You have already tried my government, you know
+well that which you may hope to expect. I believe that in all justice I
+shall receive your suffrages.”
+
+Naturally the assemblage was stupefied at hearing a man thus recommend
+himself; on reflection, however, they decided that he had spoken
+no less than the truth, and Gozon de Dieu-Donné, “the hero of the
+serpent,” became twenty-sixth Grand Master of the Order. He died in
+1353, when he was succeeded by Pierre de Cornillan, and upon his tomb
+were graven these words: “Cy Gist le Vainqueur du Dragon.”
+
+In the years 1480 and 1485 under the Grand Master Pierre D’Aubusson,
+Rhodes withstood two great sieges from the Turks. The first of these is
+described at length by the knight Merri Dupuis “temoin oculaire” who
+sets down: “Je, Mary Dupuis gros et rude de sens et de entendement je
+veuille parler et desscrire au plus bref que je pourray et au plus pres
+de la verite selon que je pen voir a lueil.” The description of that of
+1485 is written by another eye-witness, the Commandeur de Bourbon, to
+whom “ma semble bon et condecent a raison declairer premierement les
+causes qui out incite mon poure et petit entendement a faire cest petit
+oeuvre.”
+
+But we have no space to follow these gallant Knights, and it must
+suffice to say that on both occasions, after incredible exertions
+and terrible slaughter on both sides, the attacks of the Turks were
+eventually repulsed.
+
+It was reserved for Soliman the Magnificent to finally vanquish the
+Knights and to expel them from Rhodes; from July 1522 until January
+1523 the Knights under the heroic Villiers de L’Isle Adam maintained an
+all unequal struggle against the vast hosts of the Crescent, which were
+perpetually reinforced. At last, on January 1st, 1523, the Knights,
+by virtue of a treaty with Soliman, which was honourably observed on
+both sides, evacuated the island in which they had been established for
+nearly two hundred and twenty years.
+
+By favour of Charles V. the Knights on October 26th, 1530, took charge
+of the islands of Malta and Gozo, and established themselves therein;
+still under the Grand Mastership of L’Isle Adam, whose sword and helmet
+are still religiously kept in a small church in Vittoriosa, just at the
+back of the Admiral Superintendent’s house in the present dockyard.
+
+The knights fortified the islands and there abode, until in 1565 the
+Ottoman returned once more to the attack.
+
+It may be said that heroism is a relative term, that it has many uses
+and applications all equally truthful. On the side of mere physical
+courage almost every man who took part in that memorable siege of
+Malta in the year 1565 may have been said to have earned the title of
+hero. No man’s foot went back; no man’s courage quailed; no man’s face
+blanched when called upon to face perils so appalling that they meant
+an almost inevitable and speedy death; this was true or Christian
+and Moslem alike. The death-roll on either side was so tremendous as to
+prove this contention up to the hilt. From May 18th to September 8th,
+1565—that is to say, in one hundred and thirteen days—thirty thousand
+Moslems and eight thousand Christians perished—an average of some three
+hundred and thirty-six persons per day. In that blazing torrid heat
+the sufferings of those who survived from day to day must have been
+accentuated beyond bearing by the myriads of unburied corpses by which
+they lived surrounded; and that the contending forces were not swept
+away by pestilence is an extraordinary marvel.
+
+[Illustration: CARRACK IN WHICH THE KNIGHTS ARRIVED AT MALTA, 1530.]
+
+In many, nay, in most campaigns, personal feeling enters but little
+into the contest. Nationality strikes against nationality, army against
+army, or navy against navy; but no burning hatred of his adversary
+animates the breast of the combatant on either side; it may even be
+said that frequently some pity for the vanquished is felt, when all is
+over, by the side which has conquered. At Malta the element of actual
+personal individual hatred was the mainspring by which the combatants
+on both sides were moved; each regarded the other as an infidel, the
+slaying of whom was the sacrifice most acceptable to the God they
+worshipped. “Infidel” was the term which each hurled at the other; to
+destroy the infidel, root and branch, was the act imposed upon those
+whose faith was the one only passport to a blessed eternity, and those
+who fell in the strife, whether Christian or Moslem, felt assured that
+for them the gates of heaven stood wide open.
+
+Great as were those others who perished, faithful to the death as
+were those noble knights who died to a man in the culminating agony
+of St. Elmo, adroit, resourceful, master of himself and others as was
+the famous Dragut, there is one name and one alone that shines like
+a beacon light upon a hill-top when we think of the siege of Malta.
+Jean Parisot de la Valette, whose name is enshrined for ever in that
+noble city which crowns Mount Sceberass at the present day, was the
+forty-eighth Grand Master of the Noble Order of the Knights of Saint
+John of Jerusalem the charter for which, contained in the original Bull
+of Pope Paschal II., dated 1113 (in which the Holy Father took the
+Order under his special protection), may be seen to this day in the
+armoury of the palace at Valetta. At the time when the supreme honour
+was conferred upon him, in the year 1557, he had passed through every
+grade of the Order: as soldier, captain, general, Counsellor, Grand
+Cross: in all of them displaying a valour, a piety, a self-abnegation
+beyond all praise, A man of somewhat austere manner, he exacted from
+others that which he gave himself—a whole-hearted devotion to the Order
+to which he had consecrated his life. Fearing no man in the Council
+Chamber, even as he feared no foe in the field, he ever spoke his
+mind in defence of that which he deemed to be right. Proud, with the
+dignity becoming a man of his ancient lineage, he merged all personal
+haughtiness in the zeal he felt in upholding the rights and privileges
+of that splendid confederation of knights of the best blood in Europe
+over which he had been called upon to preside at the mature age of
+sixty-three. There is no instance in history of any man more absolutely
+single-minded than La Valette; that in which he believed he cherished
+with an ardour almost incredible in these days, and that the sword of
+the Lord had been confided into his hand for the utter extermination
+and extirpation of the Moslem heresy was the leading feature in his
+creed. That he had been advanced to a dignity but little less than
+royal in achieving the Grand Mastership was but as dust in the balance
+to him compared with the opportunities which it gave him to harry his
+life-long foes; and he who had known so well how to obey throughout all
+his youth and manhood was now to prove, in the most emphatic manner,
+that he had learned how to command. In all those terrible hundred
+and thirteen days during which the siege lasted there was none to be
+compared to him. As occasion occurred this man’s soul rose higher and
+ever higher; beseeching, imploring, commanding, by sheer force of
+example did he point out the way to the weaker spirits by whom he was
+surrounded.
+
+To speak of weaker spirits in connection with the siege of Malta seems
+almost an insult; these gallant knights and soldiers were only so in
+comparison with their leader. Twice during the siege of St, Elmo did
+the garrison send to La Valette and represent that the place was no
+longer tenable; but Garcia de Toledo, Viceroy of Sicily for Philip of
+Spain, was writing specious letters instead of sending reinforcements,
+and every moment gained was of importance. Coldly did La Valette remind
+the Knights of their vows to the Order, and when renewed assurances
+came that it was only a matter of a few hours before they should be
+overwhelmed he replied that others could be found to take their places,
+that he, as Grand Master, would come in person to show them how to die.
+A passion of remorse overcame these noble gentlemen, who, thus nerved
+by the indomitable spirit of their chief, died to the last man in the
+tumbled ruins of that charnel-house which had once been a fortress.
+
+La Valette was ready to die; there was no man in all that garrison so
+ready. With pike and sword this veteran of seventy-one years of age
+was ever at the post of the greatest danger, repelling the assaults
+of Janissaries and corsairs, fighting with the spirit of the youngest
+among the Knights in the breaches rent in the walls of Il Borgo. In
+vain did his comrades try to prevent him from this perpetual exposure;
+in vain did they point out that the value of his life outnumbered that
+of an army. He was very gentle with these remonstrances, but quite
+firm. There were plenty as good as he to take his place should he fall,
+he insisted; till that time came it was his duty to inspire all by his
+example, to show to the simplest soldier that he was cared for by his
+Grand Master.
+
+As things went from bad to worse, when Il Borgo became in little better
+case than had St. Elmo before it, La Valette never hesitated, never
+looked back, never ceased to hope that the sluggard Garcia de Toledo
+might send relief; and, if he did not, then would they all perish with
+arms in their hands, as had their brethren across that narrow strip of
+water who had held St. Elmo to the last man. What man or woman can read
+without something of a lump coming in their throat of those noble
+words of the Grand Master in the last few days of the siege when all
+had utterly abandoned hope?
+
+Grimed, emaciated, covered with sweat and blood and dust, did La
+Valette move from post to post exhorting and encouraging his soldiers.
+So few had the gallant company of the Knights become that command was
+necessarily delegated to the under-officers; yet who among them did not
+find fresh courage and renewed strength when that great noble, the head
+of the Order, stood by their sides and spoke thus to them as man to
+man?—
+
+“My brothers, we are all servants of Jesus Christ; and I feel assured
+that if I and all these in command should fall you will still fight on
+for the honour of the Order and the love of our Holy Church.”
+
+We have to think of what it all meant, we have dimly to try and realise
+the burden which was laid upon this man, before we come to a right
+conception, not only of what he endured but the terrible sacrifices
+he was called upon to make. Here was no man of iron lusting for blood
+and greedy of conquest for the sake of the vain applause of men; but
+one full of human love and affection for those among whom he had lived
+all the days of his life. Upon him was laid the charge of upholding
+the honour of the Order, the majesty of the God whom he served. To
+this end he doomed to certain death those brethren of his in St. Elmo,
+his own familiar friends, reminding them that it was their duty so to
+die, while his heart was breaking with the agony of this terrible
+decision, which no weaker man could have given. When his beloved nephew
+was slain, together with another gallant youth, he smiled sadly and
+said that they had only travelled the road which they all had to tread
+in a few days; that he grieved as much for the one as for the other. In
+speaking of this man, it may truly be said that there is no character
+in history more elevated; there is none which shows us the picture of a
+more perfect, gentle, and valiant knight.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+DRAGUT-REIS
+
+
+  How Sinan Basha and Dragut raided the islands of
+  Malta and Cozo and captured the town of Tripoli. How
+  the Knights of Malta captured “the puissant galleon”
+  belonging to the Kustir-Aga and the Odalisques of the
+  harem of the Grand Turk. The despair of the ladies and
+  the advice of the Imaum to Soliman the Magnificent.
+  A great armada is fitted out in Constantinople. The
+  preparations for defence on the part of La Valette and
+  the Knights. The expedition sails from Constantinople and
+  lands in Malta.
+
+Great must have been the consternation of the Knights when the armada,
+commanded by Sinan Basha, appeared off their coasts, and bitter must
+have been the reflections of Juan d’Omedes, the Grand Master, who had
+all along contended that so formidable an expedition could not possibly
+be directed against Malta. The inhabitants of that island were,
+however, not left long in doubt, as Sinan, immediately on his arrival,
+entered the Grand Harbour, or “the Great Port,” as it was called in
+those days. Sinan, in his royal galley, led the way in, contemptuously
+assured of an easy victory over so insignificant a place of arms. He
+had his first rude awakening before he had traversed some quarter of a
+mile of the placid waters of the Great Port. The harbour, as is well
+known, though long, is very narrow, and, on the starboard hand of the
+Turkish galleys as they entered, the Commandeur de Guimeran, a
+Spanish Knight, had ambushed three hundred arquebusiers. As the galley
+of Sinan came abreast of the ambush, the Commandeur gave the order to
+fire. The volley at so close a range had a terrible effect, especially
+among the “chiourme,” or the slaves who rowed the galley, some hundred
+of whom were placed _hors de combat_. Sinan, in a furious rage, ordered
+an immediate disembarkment; but when his men landed and scaled the
+heights of Mount Sceberras (the elevated land on which the city of
+Valetta now stands) there was no one to be found, the Commandeur and
+the men who had formed the ambush having disappeared. Gazing from the
+heights at Il Borgo, the fortress on the opposite side of the harbour
+where the Knights then dwelt, Sinan demanded of Dragut, “If that,”
+pointing to the fortress, “was the place which he had told the Sultan
+could easily be taken?”
+
+Dragut, whom no peril ever daunted, coolly replied:
+
+“Certainly, no eagle ever built his nest on a rock more easy of access.”
+
+A corsair, who had been slave to the Knights, now approached Sinan, and
+told him that he had assisted at the building of the fortress; which,
+he averred, was so strong that if the admiral delayed until he had
+taken it that the winter would be upon them, although it was then only
+the month of July. Sinan, as we have said, was a hesitating commander.
+He had the ever-present fear of the Grand Turk before his eyes, and was
+not inclined for so difficult and dangerous an enterprise as this was
+represented to be. Leaving the fortress in his rear, he marched off
+to the high land in the centre of the island, on which was situated the
+Città Notabile, the capital of Malta, some seven miles distant from
+the sea. On their march through the island the Turks committed their
+usual atrocities, murdering the wretched inhabitants, firing their
+dwellings, destroying their crops, and carrying off their women. Had
+the siege of Notabile been pressed, the city must have fallen; but
+Sinan declared to Dragut that the principal object of the expedition
+was the reduction of Tripoli, and, in consequence, he had not the time
+to devote to its reduction. Dragut, furious at this temporising policy,
+urged an immediate assault, and, while the contention was waxing
+sharp between the two leaders, a letter was brought to Sinan which
+had been captured in a Sicilian galley. It was from the “Receiver” of
+the Order, who dwelt at Messina, to the Grand Master, informing him
+that he had expressly sent this ship to inform him that Andrea Doria
+had just returned from Spain and was hastening with a large fleet to
+attack the Turks. The letter was a ruse on the part of the “Receiver,”
+and contained not a particle of truth. It was, however, quite enough
+for Sinan, who immediately called a council of war and imparted this
+alarming news to its members. The council, after the invariable fashion
+of such bodies, decided to take the safest and easiest course: the
+name of the terrible Andrea was one of evil omen to the Ottomans, and,
+as one man, they voted for prosecuting their voyage to Tripoli before
+the Genoese seaman should put in an appearance. In vain was the fury
+of Dragut, who had counted on a full revenge on his ancient enemies
+the Knights. The armada sailed to the adjacent island of Gozo, which
+was thoroughly sacked with every refinement of cruelty. Every house
+on the island was burned, and six thousand of its inhabitants carried
+off to slavery. One incident is deserving of record. In Gozo dwelt a
+certain Sicilian with his wife and two daughters: sooner than that they
+should fall into the hands of the Turks this man stabbed his wife and
+daughters and then threw himself, sword in hand, into the ranks of his
+enemies, where he slew two of them, wounded several others, and was
+then hacked to pieces. The fleet then proceeded to Tripoli, which was
+taken almost without opposition, as it was defended by a mere handful
+of the Knights and some utterly unreliable Calabrian infantry, who
+had never before seen a shot fired: these men very soon mutinied and
+refused to fight any longer. Dragut became the autocrat of Tripoli, as
+his great predecessor Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa had been of Algiers: from
+hence, in the years that were to come before his death, he carried on
+his sleepless and unending warfare with his Christian foes, on whom he
+was destined to inflict another terrible defeat when they attacked this
+stronghold which he had made his own.
+
+Claude de la Sangle dying on August 18th, 1557, Jean Parisot de la
+Valette was chosen Grand Master of the Knights of Malta in his stead
+on August 21st of the same year. He was, as we have said before, in
+succession, soldier, captain, councillor, general, and Grand Cross; he
+was as wise in council as he was terrible in battle; he was as much
+esteemed by his brethren as he was feared by the infidel. Under his
+governorship “the Religion” regained the ancient authority which it
+had once possessed, especially in some of the German Provinces and in
+the Republic of Venice. So great was the influence of La Valette that
+he succeeded in making the “Languages” (or confederations of Knights)
+of Germany and Venice pay their “responsions,” which had been allowed
+to get into arrear. These “responsions” were a tax levied on the
+“Languages “ exclusively for the purpose of combatting the infidel,
+and La Valette brought all the firmness of his high character to bear,
+in order to induce these Knights to do what, he reminded them, was
+their simple and obvious duty. Fired by the highest conception of the
+office he had been called upon to execute, La Valette allowed none
+of those under his command to be slack in their performance of their
+duties. In him dwelt the real old crusading spirit. He saw life with
+the single eye, for that which was paramount was the utter destruction
+of the infidel. There are many men who have a high conception of duty;
+there are but few who can inspire those with whom they are brought
+in contact. Of these latter was Jean Parisot de la Valette; in him
+the pure flame of religious enthusiasm burnt with so clear a light as
+to act as an illuminant for the paths of others. In him dwelt that
+rare quality of lifting others almost to that plane on which he dwelt
+himself, of making men nobler and better almost in spite of themselves.
+So it was that, when La Valette stooped to remind others of his brother
+Knights that they owed money to the Order, that money was paid at once.
+
+Having thus restored order to the finances, the Grand Master turned his
+attention to the state of affairs (as he had received them from his
+predecessor) connected with the territorial possessions of the Knights.
+For long years now the fortress of Tripoli had been in the hands of the
+renowned Dragut, who was the scourge and the terror of the Christians.
+The corsair dwelt in his stronghold in insolent defiance of the
+Knights, whose property it once had been. Years before he had wrested
+it from them by the strong hand: what, then, more necessary in the
+eyes of such an one as La Valette than to expel this audacious pirate?
+The Grand Master invited the co-operation of Juan la Cerda (a Spanish
+Grandee, Duke of Medina-Celi, and Viceroy of Sicily for the King of
+Spain) in this enterprise. The Viceroy joyfully acceded to the request,
+and informed his master. Philip II. approved the project, and sent
+orders to the Duke of Sesse, Governor of Milan, to the Duke of Alcala,
+Governor of Naples, and to John Andrea Doria, General of the Galleys,
+to join forces and to repair to Sicily, placing themselves under the
+orders of the Duke of Medina-Celi, who was expressly charged to take
+no action save by the advice of the Grand Master. The expedition
+assembled, the Duke took it to Malta, where it wintered, and in the
+spring it sailed and attacked Tripoli.
+
+They found this fortress, however, in a very different state from that
+which they expected. Dragut, says De Vertot, “avoit faire terasser les
+murailles de cette place.” Bastions had been constructed, and every
+advantage taken for defence which was permitted by the terrain, or
+that the art of fortification admitted at this epoch. The castle, which
+was not advantageously placed, was, notwithstanding, put in a state of
+defence by an enormous expenditure of money. Great towers, in which
+were mounted many big guns, defended the entrance to the port, which
+had become the headquarters of the vessels owned by Dragut, and also of
+those corsairs who sailed their craft under the crescent flag of the
+Sultan of Constantinople. It was against such a fortress as this that
+the Duke of Medina-Celi went up: we have no space to deal here with the
+details of this attack, which ended in the hopeless and irremediable
+defeat of the Christian forces. The Duke was an incompetent commander;
+he was opposed to one of the greatest leaders of the age—an expert
+in almost every branch of the science of war, in command of a large
+body of the fiercest fighters of the day, who ever feared the wrath of
+Dragut more than the swords of the enemy.
+
+La Valette, though he mourned over the repulse of the Christian
+forces from Tripoli, did not on that account allow his pursuit of
+the infidel to grow faint; the galleys of “the Religion” were always
+at sea, and both the corsairs and the Ottoman Turks were perpetually
+losing valuable ships and costly merchandise. Under the General of
+the Galleys, the Commandeur Gozon de Melac, and that celebrated
+chevalier, the Commandeur de Romegas, the sea forces of the Knights
+were everywhere in evidence. Into the hands of the Christians fell the
+Penon de Velez, situated on the northern coast of Africa opposite to
+Malaga—a fortress much frequented by the corsairs; the Goletta at
+Tunis was also taken, and the pirates became so much alarmed that they
+demanded succour from Constantinople. They represented to Soliman that,
+at this rate, the whole of Northern Africa would soon be in the hands
+of the Christians to the total exclusion of the true believer.
+
+Soliman listened to their complaints and promised that soon he would
+send forth an armament which should put an end to the misfortunes from
+which they were suffering. Once again preparations were begun in the
+arsenals of Constantinople, and while these were in progress an event
+took place which had an important bearing on the situation. Just after
+the taking of the Penon de Velez seven galleys of “the Religion,”
+under the command of the chevaliers de Giou and De Romegas, which were
+cruising in the neighbourhood of Zante and Cephalonia, fell in with
+“a puissant galleon” filled with the richest merchandise of the East,
+armed with “twenty great cannons of bronze,” and a number of smaller
+guns, under the command of the Reis Bairan-Ogli, having on board
+“excellent officers of artillery,” as well as two hundred Janissaries
+for her defence. This great ship was the property of Kustir-Aga, the
+chief Eunuch of the Seraglio of the Sultan, and many of the ladies of
+the harem were interested in a pecuniary sense in the safe arrival of
+this vessel at Constantinople. The galleys of “the Religion” attacked,
+and, after a most obstinate resistance, in which one hundred and twenty
+of the Christians and an even larger number of the Turks were killed,
+the galleon was captured.
+
+If there had been an outcry in Constantinople before this occurrence
+it was all as nothing to that which now arose. Kustir-Aga and the
+Odalisques of the Harem prostrated themselves at the feet of Soliman
+the Magnificent, and with streaming eyes, dishevelled hair, and frantic
+gestures, demanded the instant despatch of an expedition to utterly
+exterminate these barbarian corsairs, the Knights of Malta, who had
+thus injured them and lacerated their tenderest susceptibilities.
+The Grand Turk, autocrat as he was, had no peace day or night; he
+was surrounded by wailing women and sullen officials, all of whom
+had lost heavily by the capture of the puissant galleon. The Imaum,
+or preacher in the principal mosque, called upon the Sultan in his
+discourse to fall upon the audacious infidel and smite him hip and
+thigh. He reminded the Padishah that, in the dungeons of the Knights,
+true believers were languishing; that on the rowers’ benches of the
+galleys of “the Religion” Moslems were being flogged like dogs. In
+a furious peroration he concluded: “It is only thy invincible sword
+which can shatter the chains of these unfortunates, whose cries are
+rising to heaven and afflicting the ears of the Prophet of God: the
+son is demanding his father, the wife her husband and her children.
+All, therefore, wait upon thee, upon thy justice, and thy power, for
+vengeance upon their cruel and implacable enemies.”
+
+Contrary to all precedent, which enjoins the most perfect silence in
+the mosque, these bold utterances were received with something more
+than murmurs of applause: never in all his long and glorious reign had
+the great and magnificent despot heard so plainly the voice of his
+people. Apart, however, from eunuchs, women, and Mullahs, Soliman had
+long been importuned by Dragut to take the course which was now being
+urged upon him with so much insistence. There was at this time no
+warrior in all his _entourage_ for whose opinion the Sultan had the same
+respect as he had for that of the ruler of Tripoli. Dragut had more
+than a tincture of learning: he was first of all an incomparable leader
+of men and an entirely competent seaman. He was also a scientific
+artillerist, and was learned in the technique of the fortification of
+his time. Added to this he was—albeit by no means so cruel as most of
+his contemporaries—one of those men before whom all trembled: as we
+have seen in the case of the corsairs who defended “Africa,” “they
+feared the wrath of Dragut more than death itself.”
+
+It was this renowned leader who warned Soliman against the Knights; he
+pointed out that they were far more dangerous now than they had been
+in 1523, the year of their expulsion from Rhodes. When established
+there they were, so to speak, surrounded by the Turkish Empire; in
+Malta, on the contrary, they were easily succoured from Sicily, which
+belonged to Spain, another implacable enemy of the Moslem; that Malta
+lay right on the route which all the ships of the Sultan must take on
+passage from the East to Constantinople; and in consequence the Order
+was a standing and perpetual menace to the trade of the Empire. All
+this was so undeniably true that so shrewd a man and so competent a
+ruler as Soliman could not fail to be impressed by the soundness of the
+reasoning. Besides all this, he knew quite well that now he could
+not hold back, had it been even against his inclination—which was by
+no means the case; for there had arisen one of those storms of popular
+opinion—all the more formidable because of their infrequency—before
+which even the most hardened of despots must bend. Accordingly the
+Sultan called a conference of his fighting men, which was held on
+horseback in the open-air. The inclination of the Sultan being known,
+most of the generals, like good courtiers, voted for immediate war
+with the Knights. At this conference was present that Ali Basha, or
+Occhiali, or Uluchali, as he was indifferently called, of whom we shall
+have more to say later on. Upon this occasion he was present as the
+representative of Dragut, and urged, on behalf of his master, that the
+time was not yet ripe for an attack on Malta. First, he contended, it
+was necessary to recapture the Goletta and the Peñon de Velez, and to
+defeat the Moors of Tunis, who were feudatories of the Spanish king and
+avowed enemies of the Ottoman Empire. Ali was supported by one Mahomet,
+an old warrior who had grown white in the service of the Sultan, who
+strongly opposed the contemplated campaign on the ground that the
+Knights would in all probability have the full strength of Europe at
+their backs.
+
+Numbers, however, added to the personal inclination of the Sultan,
+carried the day. The die was cast, the memorable expedition was decided
+upon, and all the Sultan’s vast Empire soon rang with the note of
+preparation. The Capitan Basha, Piali, was in command of the fleet, and
+the direction of the land forces was confided to Mustafa, an old
+officer sixty-five years of age, a severe disciplinarian, and of a
+sanguinary and cruel disposition to any of his enemies who had the
+misfortune to fall into his hands.
+
+Once again did Europe lose itself in speculation: against whom, all
+men were asking, was this new expedition to be directed? Spain feared
+for her African possessions, as the Goletta was the key to the kingdom
+of Tunis, while the Peñon de Velez was one of the bulwarks of Algeria.
+In consequence Don Garcia de Toledo passed over from Sicily to confer
+with the Grand Master of the Knights. Garcia de Toledo was by no means
+a favourable specimen of the illustrious race from which he sprang,
+and was a complete antithesis to La Valette; he was to prove himself
+in the terrible days that were to come to be sluggish, incompetent, a
+ruler who could not rule, a person for ever letting “I dare not wait
+upon I would.” Just as long as Spain considered this new expedition
+was directed against herself considerable activity was shown; when the
+attack developed and it was seen that the objective of the Turks was
+Malta, the procrastinating Spanish king and his incompetent viceroy
+allowed matters so to drift that, had any other man than La Valette
+been in command at Malta, the fall of that island had been inevitable.
+
+We have seen how Juan d’Omedes had dealt with a previous crisis
+in the affairs of the Order; very different was it in the opening
+months of the year 1565. La Valette was well served by his spies in
+Constantinople, and the Grand Master was under no illusions from the
+very first as to what the destination of the army of the Sultan would
+be. He recognised that against the small islands of Malta and Gozo
+all the strength of the mightiest Empire in the world was about to be
+directed, and with serene confidence set about the task of preparation.
+His first care was to send out “a general citation” to those Knights
+living in their own homes in different countries in Europe, commanding
+them to repair at once to Malta and take part in the defence of that
+Order to which they had vowed to consecrate their lives. The agents
+of the Order in Italy succeeded in raising two thousand infantry, and
+the Viceroy of Sicily sent over two companies of Spanish infantry
+which he had promised. All the galleys of “the Religion” were called
+in from distant service and were set to work importing ammunition,
+stores, provisions, and all requisites for the withstanding of a
+siege. As the galleys passed backwards and forwards to Sicily, in each
+returning vessel came noble gentlemen of every country in Europe, in
+answer to the summons of their Grand Master. They were received with
+the tenderest affection by him and by those others already assembled;
+never in all its long and glorious history had the Order assembled in
+circumstances more grave; never in its history, either in the past
+or in the future, did it quit itself with so supreme a heroism as in
+those days of 1565 which were yet to come. In Malta the orderly bustle
+of preparation went on ceaselessly; the Italian and Spanish troops
+and the inhabitants of the island, for the most part hardy mariners
+well accustomed to the ceaseless _guerre de course_ of the Knights, were
+formed into companies, officered by the members of the Order, and
+assigned to different posts.
+
+Meanwhile the Grand Master caused copies of the letters which he had
+received from Constantinople to be sent to all the great princes of
+Europe; showing them the straits to which the Order was shortly to be
+reduced and imploring of them to send timely succour. But it was not
+upon outside aid that La Valette counted overmuch; he was preparing
+to confront the Turks with such forces as he had at his own disposal;
+content, if necessary, to leave the issue in the hands of the God in
+whom he trusted. As the chevaliers came flocking to the standard of
+St. John he received them, we are told, “as a kind father receives
+his beloved children, having provided in advance for their food and
+lodging.” He personally entered into the most minute details of his
+charge; he reviewed his infantry, he instructed his artillery, he
+planned sites for hospitals, he sketched out new fortifications, and
+then went among the humblest of his followers and wielded the pick and
+shovel in the burning sun. Everywhere his cheering presence was felt,
+his equable and serene temperament diffused confidence and hope.
+
+All things being thus in train he assembled his brethren and addressed
+them in the following terms:
+
+“A formidable army, composed of audacious barbarians, is descending
+on this island; these persons, my brothers, are the enemies of Jesus
+Christ. To-day it is a question of the defence of our faith as to
+whether the book of the Evangelist is to be superseded by that of the
+Koran? God on this occasion demands of us our lives, already vowed
+to His service. Happy will those be who first consummate this
+sacrifice. But that we may indeed be worthy to render it come, my dear
+brothers, to the foot of the altar, where we may renew our vows. Let
+each one rely on the blood of the Saviour of men and in the faithful
+practice of the sacraments; in them we shall find so generous a
+contempt for death that we shall indeed be rendered invincible.”
+
+The Knights then, headed by the Grand Master, took themselves in
+procession to the church. Here they confessed and received the
+sacrament. “They went out from thence as men who had received a new
+birth.” The Knights, we are then told, tenderly embraced one another
+in all solemnity; vowing to shed the last drop of their blood in
+defence of their religion and its holy altars. It was in this lofty
+frame of mind that the Knights of Malta awaited the coming of their
+hereditary foe. Into the hearts and minds of these gallant gentlemen
+of the best blood in the world the Grand Master had instilled some
+leaven of the greatness by which he himself was inspired. When belief
+is so wholehearted as it was in the case of La Valette; when it is
+allied to a genius for war, and a supreme gift for the inspiration of
+others, then that man and the force which he commands are as near to
+invincibility as it is permitted to fallible human beings to attain.
+There were two things in which the Knights were supremely fortunate on
+this occasion: the first was that they had La Valette as Grand Master,
+the second that Dragut was not in supreme command of the Turks, and
+that the siege had opened before he arrived upon the scene. In this
+expedition, as in previous ones, the Turkish commanders had orders to
+attempt nothing really important without the advice of Dragut. They
+found themselves without him when they arrived and made an initial
+mistake. With La Valette in command there was no room for blundering;
+the ultimate result of their blunder was the defeat which they
+sustained.
+
+Grand Master, Knight, and noble, soldier, peasant, and mariner, strove
+valiantly with the task of putting the island into a state of defence,
+and when at last the long-expected armada of their foes rose above that
+distant blue horizon in the north all had been done that skill and
+experience could dictate.
+
+It was upon May 18th in the year 1565 that the Turkish fleet arrived
+at Malta. It was composed of one hundred and fifty-nine galleys
+and vessels propelled by oars: on board of these was an army for
+disembarkation of thirty thousand men, composed of Janissaries and
+Spahis, the very pick and flower of the Turkish army. Soliman the
+Magnificent was leaving as little to chance as was possible on this
+occasion; he well knew the temper of the Knights, and that this
+expedition had before it a task which would try both the army and its
+leaders to the very utmost of their strength. Behind the main body of
+the fleet came a host of vessels, charged with provisions, the horses
+of the Spahis, the siege-train of the artillery, all the innumerable
+appliances and engines of war which were in use at that day. The
+initial mistake on the part of the Turks was in embarking cavalry for a
+siege; they knew, or they should have known, of the extreme smallness
+of the island which they were about to attack, and that they were by
+no means likely to be met with armies in the field owing to the
+enormous preponderance of numbers which they had assured to themselves.
+
+Piali, as we have said, was in command of the fleet, and Mustafa of
+the army; the corsairs did not arrive on the scene till some days
+afterwards.
+
+The Turks landed some men who encountered the Chevalier La Riviere
+and some Maltese troops, with whom they had some lively skirmishes.
+Unfortunately, in one of these the Chevalier was captured, put to
+the torture, and eventually beheaded for having wilfully misled
+the Turks. A council of war was held by Piali, Mustafa, and their
+principal officers, to deliberate on the best manner of prosecuting
+the enterprise on which they were engaged. The admiral, wishing to
+conform strictly with the instructions of Soliman, voted to delay all
+initiative until the arrival of the famous corsair. Mustafa, however,
+held a different opinion: the unfortunate Chevalier La Riviere had,
+before his death, informed the Turkish general that large and powerful
+succours were expected daily from Sicily. Secretly disquieted by this
+news, which he had at the time affected to disbelieve, Mustafa now
+urged immediate action. His opinion was that, in the first instance,
+they had better attack the castle of St. Elmo. It was a small and
+insignificant fort which at best would only delay them some five or
+six days; when this had fallen they could proceed to the more serious
+business of taking Il Borgo, the principal fortress on the island in
+which the Grand Master and most of the Knights were established. By the
+time St. Elmo had been taken they might reasonably expect that Dragut
+and his corsairs would have arrived, and, with these seasonable
+reinforcements, proceed to the really formidable portion of their
+task. In their decisions both admiral and general were wrong; to delay
+attack, once the troops were landed, was a counsel of pusillanimity
+hardly to be expected of Piali, but showing at the same time how
+he dreaded above all else departing one iota from the instructions
+which he had received. To attack the castle of St. Elmo first was a
+military mistake, because it could be—and was during the whole of the
+siege—reinforced from its larger sister Il Borgo.
+
+The discourse of Mustafa prevailed in the council of war, and the siege
+of St. Elmo was decided upon and immediately begun.
+
+[Illustration: JEAN PARISOT DE LA VALETTE, GRAND MASTER OF THE KNIGHTS
+OF MALTA, AT THE SIEGE OF THAT ISLAND BY THE TURKS IN 1565.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE SIEGE OF MALTA
+
+
+  The siege of Malta by the Turks; The capture of the
+  fortress of St. Elmo; The death of Dragut-Reis
+
+There was an entire disregard of human life among the leaders of the
+Ottoman Turks at this time which is almost incredible; to attain their
+end in war they sacrificed thousands upon thousands of men with an
+absolutely callous indifference. In no chapter of the bloodstained
+history of their Empire was this trait more in evidence than it was
+at the siege of Malta. There was, however, a reason for this, which
+developed itself more and more as the ceaseless assaults on the
+positions of the Knights went on. From a military point of view, all
+the operations which took place were those of the siege of a fortress;
+as when at length St. Elmo fell the Turks turned their attention to
+the fortress of Il Borgo. The time-honoured method of the attack on
+a fortress, of approaching it by sap and mine, was here almost an
+impossibility, as the island of Malta is composed of solid rock through
+which it was practically impossible to drive trenches. It is true that
+the rock is of an exceptionally soft nature, easily cut through with
+proper tools; but you cannot cut through rock, no matter how soft
+it may be, when your operations are opposed at every step by a brave
+and vigilant enemy. Mustafa and the council of war had, as we have
+said, decided to begin operations by the siege of the fortress of St.
+Elmo. This place had been built from the designs of the Prior of Capua,
+an officer of the Order, and was situated at the extreme end of the
+promontory of Mount Sceberass, which juts out between the Great Port
+and the harbour of Marsa Muzetto. The fort was in a commanding position
+and dominated the entrance to the two principal harbours in the island.
+It was admirably adapted for repulsing an attack from the sea; but,
+owing to the proximity of other points of land upon which artillery
+could be mounted, was easily capable of attack by such an enemy as that
+by which it was now assailed.
+
+The principal preoccupation of the militant Prior of Capua had been to
+make it formidable on the side facing the sea; perhaps the designer
+had never contemplated the possibility that the day might dawn when
+it would be attacked from the landward side! However this may have
+been, Mustafa decided that it could and should be carried on this, its
+weakest face, and made his preparations accordingly.
+
+As far as it was possible to open trenches this was done, at the most
+prodigal expenditure of the lives of the pioneers. Where the rock
+proved absolutely impossible of manipulation redoubts were constructed
+of massive beams on which thick planks were bolted, the whole covered
+with wet earth which had to be collected with incredible toil from the
+country at the back. Disembarking their siege-guns, and utilising
+the cattle of the islanders for transporting them, the great cannon
+of the Turks were dragged up the slopes of the Mount and got into
+position; and by the 24th of May fire was opened on St. Elmo with ten
+guns which threw balls weighing eighty pounds. Besides these there were
+two culverins which threw balls of sixty pounds, and a huge basilisk,
+the projectile from which weighed no less than one hundred and sixty
+pounds. A terrible fire was opened against the walls of the fort, and
+so destructive did it immediately become that the Bailli of Negropont,
+the Knight in command, very soon became aware that his trust must be in
+the stout hearts and strong arms of his garrison; as the walls by which
+they were surrounded were hourly crumbling into nothingness.
+
+Regarding the matter from this point of view, he sent at once to the
+Grand Master by the Chevalier La Cerda demanding succour; this officer,
+“rendered eloquent by fear,” exaggerated the peril to which the fort
+was exposed and stated that it could not possibly hold out for more
+than another eight days.
+
+“What losses have you had?” demanded the Grand Master.
+
+“Sire,” replied La Cerda, “the fort may be compared to a sick man in
+his extremity, in the last stage of weakness, unable to sustain himself
+except by perpetual cordials and remedies.”
+
+“Then I myself will be your physician,” said the Grand Master with
+contempt, “and I will bring others with me. If that cannot cure you of
+fear it will, at all events, prevent the infidels from seizing upon the
+fort.”
+
+There was no real hope in the mind of La Valette that St. Elmo could
+be saved from the enemy. The place was too weak, and none knew this
+fact better than the man to whom all the defences of the island were
+as familiar as the hilt of his own good sword; but, though he secretly
+deplored the necessity, he felt that if Malta were to be preserved it
+could only be done by delaying until succour should come from outside;
+every day, nay, every hour, was of importance, and he was prepared to
+sacrifice St. Elmo and the lives of its entire garrison to attain his
+end. He did not, however—to continue the simile of La Cerda—prescribe
+for others a medicine which he himself was not prepared to take, and
+when he said that he would go to the fort of St. Elmo it was no mere
+figure of speech. The council of the Knights, however, would not hear
+of the Grand Master thus sacrificing himself; well did these noble
+gentlemen know that there was none among them like unto him, that his
+name and his influence were worth an army in themselves. The outcry was
+so loud that La Valette had to yield; which he did the more readily
+when he saw the splendid emulation among his brethren to cross over
+to the beleaguered and crumbling fortress which promised nothing but
+the grave to those who should pass within the circle of fire by which
+it was now surrounded. To the Chevaliers Gonzales de Medran and de la
+Motte was conceded the proud privilege for which all the Knights were
+clamouring; and, accompanied by the tears and the prayers of their
+brethren, they passed to that place where, if death were certain,
+honour at least was immortal. Truly the heart warms somewhat to the
+days of chivalry when one reads of what was done at the siege of
+Malta. The motto of _Noblesse oblige_ was no dead letter in the sixteenth
+century. By this time the whole of Europe was awake to the peril
+of the Order, and, galloping for dear life across Europe, came the
+Knights, anxious and willing to share in the danger. For most of these
+gentlemen Sicily was the goal at which they aimed; arrived there they
+flung themselves into any boat or shallop which they could hire, and,
+heedless of the risk of capture by the Turkish fleet, totally ignorant
+of what was passing in Malta save that the infidel was at her gates,
+they passed across the channel which separates the two islands and
+joined their fellows at Il Borgo.
+
+Greatly heartened by the reinforcements brought to them by de Medran
+and de la Motte, the garrison of St. Elmo made a sortie, surprised the
+Turks in their entrenchments, and, under cover of the guns of the fort,
+succeeded in destroying nearly all the works which the enemy had so
+painfully built up. The Turks, however, when they had recovered from
+the surprise, were in such large numbers as to be able to rally and
+drive the Christians from the vantage points which they had gained;
+and to oblige them once again to retire into the fort. From this time
+onward there was never a day in which the garrison and the besiegers
+were not hand to hand in the trenches.
+
+Just after the first reinforcements had been thrown into St. Elmo there
+arrived on the scene Ali, the Lieutenant of Dragut. This corsair came
+from Alexandria with six galleys, on board of which were nine hundred
+men, reinforcements for the Turkish army. A few days after this the
+famous Dragut himself appeared, with thirteen galleys and two galleots,
+on board of which were sixteen hundred men.
+
+What must not have been the despairing feelings with which the
+defenders viewed the arrival of this augmentation to the swarming
+ranks of their foes! From afar they noted the vessels and knew, while
+Philip of Spain and Garzia de Toledo still procrastinated, that now
+was added to the number of their enemies the most famous captain who
+served the autocrat of the Eastern world. Very naturally the arrival
+of Dragut was hailed with acclamation by the Turks: every gun in that
+vast armada spoke in salute, every trumpet blared, every drum rolled
+to welcome the man honoured of the Padishah, notorious throughout the
+whole world of Europe for his implacable enmity to the Knights. The
+first preoccupation of the corsair was to inform himself as to the
+conduct of the operations. These, when disclosed to him, by no means
+met with his approval. This real leader immediately made it clear to
+Piali and Mustafa that which they should have done. In the first place
+they should have made themselves masters of the castle of Gozo, and
+then captured the Città Notabile. By doing this the supplies to the
+town and fortress of Il Borgo would have been cut off: besides—and
+more important than aught else—they would in this manner have closed
+the road to those succours expected by the Christians. Piali, who had
+desired from the first to undertake nothing without the advice of
+Dragut, now said that the siege of St. Elmo was not so far advanced
+after all, and, if the Basha of Tripoli should so direct, it could
+be raised at once. To this, however, Dragut would by no means consent.
+
+“That would have been well enough,” he said, “if the affair had not
+gone so far; but, after the opening of the trenches and several days
+of attack, it is not possible to raise the siege without sullying the
+honour of the Sultan and discouraging the valour of the soldiers.”
+
+It cannot be denied that, in acting as he did, the corsair displayed
+a self-restraint and a loyalty to the Sultan hardly to be expected in
+the circumstances. The jealousy which so often obtains among rival
+commanders was singularly in evidence in the forces of the Padishah:
+Dragut had good cause to be dissatisfied with the dispositions which
+had been made, and yet, for the reasons which we have quoted, he
+allowed them to proceed. Before the Basha had left Tripoli he had been
+engaged in communications with Muley Hamid, the then King of Tunis, who
+was feudatory of Spain. Anxious as was the corsair to aid in attacking
+his implacable enemies, the Knights, he could not afford to leave his
+own flank unguarded in Africa. He succeeded, however, in arriving at an
+understanding with the King of Tunis, and, further than this, he had
+assured himself, by means of his spies, that the succours which were
+to be sent from Sicily by the Spanish King could not possibly arrive
+for another two months. It was the negotiations which he was obliged to
+undertake with Muley Hamid which had caused his late arrival. As far
+as it is possible to judge, it was this circumstance, which (added
+to their own incomparable valour) turned the scale in favour of the
+Knights.
+
+Among all those brave men at Malta, on both sides, in this flaming
+month of June 1565, there were none who excelled the Basha of Tripoli.
+“No one had ever seen a more intrepid general officer,” says de Vertot.
+“He passed entire days in the trenches and at the batteries. Among his
+different talents none understood better than did he the direction
+and conduct of artillery, which was his special _métier_. By his orders
+on June 1st a second battery was constructed closer to the fort and
+parallel to the one already in existence, in order that an absolutely
+continuous fire might be maintained. He mounted four guns on the
+opposite side of Marsa Muzetto Harbour on a projecting point of land,
+from which a further enfilading fire smote the doomed fortress on the
+flank: this point has been known ever since as the Point Dragut.”
+
+A ravelin in advance of the fortress on the land side was scourged
+without ceasing by the arquebus fire of the Janissaries. One evening,
+as the return fire had slackened and all seemed quiet within this work,
+some Turkish engineers stole forth from the trenches to reconnoitre.
+Approaching the cavalier, all was still as death; the bold sappers
+pushed on as far as the ditch by which the work was surrounded,
+creeping on hands and knees. They let themselves down noiselessly into
+the ditch, and then, one standing on the shoulders of another, peeped
+in upon their Christian foes. Whether or no the sentry had been slain
+by a stray shot, or whether he too slept, can never be known; but
+the cavalier was unguarded; all within it slept the sleep of men
+utterly exhausted. The sappers crept back to their trenches, fetched
+scaling-ladders, swept like a flood over the rim of the cavalier, and
+put to death every man whom they found. Profiting by their advantage,
+the Turks dashed over the bridge connecting the cavalier with the fort;
+here, however, they were met by Sergeant-Major Guerare and a handful
+of soldiers aroused by him. These men were instantly succoured by the
+Chevaliers de Vercoyran and de Medran, who were immediately followed
+by the Bailli of Negropont and several other Knights. An obstinate
+hand-to-hand combat now ensued; fresh Turks came up to the attack, but
+were mown down in swathes by an enfilading fire from two cannons which
+the defenders of the fort managed to bring to bear upon them. More
+pioneers arrived from the trenches, carrying planks and sacks filled
+with wool. These men tried to effect a permanent lodgment, but the fire
+was too hot on the Christian side, and men fell in hundreds. Nothing
+daunted, the Turks reared their scaling-ladders against the sides of
+the fortress itself, and attempted to scale the walls; but for this
+the ladders were too short, and the assailants were hurled back into
+the ditch. This attack, in which the Turkish arms were rewarded by the
+capture of the ravelin behind the cavalier, is said to have cost them
+the lives of three thousand men. It lasted from daybreak until midday.
+
+On the side of the Christians twenty Knights and one hundred soldiers
+were slain; but worst of all, from their point of view, the ravelin
+remained in the hands of their enemies. The chevalier Abel de
+Bridiers de la Gardampe having received a ball through his body, some
+of his comrades ran to place him under cover. “Count me no longer among
+the living,” said the Knight. “You will be better employed in defending
+the rest of our brethren.” He then, unassisted, dragged himself to the
+foot of the altar in the chapel, where his dead body was discovered
+when all was over.
+
+So far communication remained established between St. Elmo and
+their comrades in Il Borgo on the opposite side of the harbour;
+in consequence the wounded were removed and their places taken by
+one hundred fresh men under the Chevalier Vagnon. To the Bailli of
+Negropont and the Commandeur Broglio, La Valette sent a message to
+return to Il Borgo. These gallant and aged veterans, both of whom
+were wounded, whose faces were scorched by the sun and blackened with
+powder, whose bodies were well-nigh worn out with perpetual vigil and
+hand-to-hand fighting, refused stoutly to quit their post, which now
+was naught but a dreadful shambles filled with corpses mangled out of
+recognition and heads and limbs which had been torn and hacked from
+their bodies.
+
+Dragut now proposed to erect batteries on the same side of the Great
+Port as that on which Il Borgo was situated; on the point now known as
+Ricasoli, but which was then and for centuries afterwards known as the
+Punta Delle Forche (or Point of the Gallows, because it was here that
+all pirates was executed; and their bodies, swinging in chains, were
+the first objects that met the eye on entering the Great Port). In this
+he was overruled by Piali, who declared that he had not sufficient
+men to spare, and the Knights of II Borgo would soon render the battery
+untenable even if they should succeed in erecting it, which the Turkish
+admiral now considered extremely doubtful. The siege of St. Elmo, which
+Mustafa had said would last at the outside for five or six days, had
+now been in progress for four weeks; and, although the fort was in a
+ruinous condition, nothing seemed capable of daunting those invincible
+warriors by which it was held.
+
+The position in St. Elmo now was that the Turks still held on to the
+ravelin which they had captured; this they had built up to such a
+height that they could look over the parapet of the fortress and shoot
+down with arquebus fire any one whom they could see. Meanwhile the
+Turkish sappers delved night and day in their endeavour to undermine
+the parapet, which, if blown up, would give them free access to the
+interior of the fort; while another party, by use of the yards of
+galleys and huge planks of wood, busied themselves in constructing a
+bridge to connect the ravelin with the parapet. Lamirande, one of the
+most active of the defenders of the fort, viewed these preparations
+without undue alarm, as he was aware that, by the nature of the
+ground, it would be almost impossible to excavate sufficiently under
+the parapet to place an effective mine. As, however, the sapping was
+causing the parapet to incline outwards, and it was possible that
+it might almost at any moment fall over into the ditch, he caused a
+second parapet to be erected inside the first and artillery to be
+mounted thereon. Having done this he caused a false sortie to be
+made on the following night, and when the Turks rushed to the attack
+he, accompanied by a party of sappers, sallied out into the ditch and
+burned the bridge which had been made. The Turks, returning after their
+fruitless assault, found their bridge destroyed, but with untiring
+activity set to work and constructed it afresh. Dragging cannon to the
+very edge of the ravelin, they, on the very next evening, revenged
+themselves by also making a false attack: they swarmed into the ditch,
+and, placing their scaling-ladders against the walls, pretended that an
+escalade was to be attempted. The garrison, deceived, appeared on the
+parapet in large numbers, when a murderous fire at point-blank range
+was opened upon them from the ravelin. So great was the execution done
+on this occasion that the garrison lost more men than had hitherto been
+the case in the most determined attacks which they had sustained.
+
+It now seemed as if indeed the end had come, that the garrison had done
+all that was in the power of mortal man and nothing was left for them
+but to retire while there was yet time. Accordingly choice was made of
+the chevalier Median to represent the desperate extremities to which
+they were reduced to La Valette. It was well known that for none among
+the Knights had the Grand Master more respect than he had for Medran,
+one of the bravest and most chivalrous of them all. He, at least, could
+never be suspected of cowardice, feebleness, at a desire to desert his
+post. This gallant Knight crossed the harbour on his dolorous errand
+and was received by his chief: to him he represented the state of
+affairs as it has here been set down, assuring him that at best the
+fort could but hold out for a few days longer.
+
+A chapter of the Knights Grand Cross was immediately held and the
+most part of them were of opinion that the time had come to abandon a
+hopeless position. But this decision did not meet with the approval
+of the Grand Master. No one was more sensible than he of the peril to
+which their brethren were exposed; at the same time, he contended, that
+there were occasions on which it was necessary to sacrifice a certain
+number for the good of the whole Order. He had certain information
+that, if St. Elmo were abandoned, the Viceroy of Sicily would hazard
+nothing for the relief of the island; that upon the arrival of succours
+depended the existence of their ancient and honourable confederacy:
+therefore, at no matter what cost, they were bound to hold out as long
+as possible. So dominant was the personality of the Grand Master that,
+in a short time, he had won over the votes of the chapter and Medran
+was ordered to return to St. Elmo and deliver to the garrison a message
+that the siege must take its course.
+
+Medran accordingly returned and reported to his comrades the result
+of his embassy. Several of the older Knights received the command
+with due submission, but among those who were younger there were
+murmurings. These men deemed the answer to their appeal hard and cruel;
+they could see no object in the loss of their lives, which they well
+knew would all be sacrificed in the next assault. They accordingly,
+to the number of fifty-three, wrote a letter to the Grand Master,
+demanding permission to abandon St. Elmo and retire to Il Borgo. If
+their request were denied they announced their design to sally forth,
+sword in hand, and perish in the ranks of the enemy. The Commandeur de
+Cornet was the bearer of this letter, which was received by the Grand
+Master with sorrow and indignation. To reassure them, he sent three
+commissioners to inspect the place. This was done, and one of them, a
+Knight of Greek descent named Constantine Castriot, reported that the
+fort could still hold out a while longer. When he announced this at St.
+Elmo the recalcitrant Knights were so furious with him that the Baili
+of Negropont had to sound “the alarm” to prevent a disgraceful fracas.
+The commissioners returned to Il Borgo. After hearing their report La
+Valette wrote a letter to those by whom he had been memorialised to the
+following effect:
+
+“Return to the convent, my brothers; you will there be in greater
+security; and on our part we shall feel a greater sense of security in
+the conservation of so important a place, on which depends the safety
+of the island and the honour of our Order.”
+
+Never were men so taken aback as were the Knights in St. Elmo when
+they received this response; here it was intimated to them that that
+which they refused to do on account of the danger thereof was to be
+undertaken by others. This was no more than a fact, as La Valette
+was besieged with applications from, not only the Knights, but also
+the simple soldiers of the garrison, to be allowed to pass over to
+St. Elmo and die if necessary to the last man. It was, therefore,
+with prayers and tears that the Knights besought the Grand Master to
+allow them to remain. At first La Valette was adamant. He preferred,
+he said, the rawest militia which was prepared to obey his orders, to
+Knights who knew not their duty. In the end, however, he yielded, and
+in the fortress of St. Elmo, that crushed and ruined charnel-house,
+its defences gaping wide, its every corner exposed night and day to a
+sweeping murderous fire, there remained a host of men sadly torn and
+battered, but animated by such a spirit that nothing the Turks could
+devise made upon it the least impression. These great and gallant
+gentlemen had had their moment of weakness; they had been heartened to
+the right conception of their duty by the noble veteran who was their
+chief. To him had they turned at last, as his obedient children who had
+had their moment of rebellion in a trial as hard as was ever undergone
+by man. And now, as the inevitable end drew near, it was as if they
+would imitate the Roman gladiator with that terrible chorus of his:
+“Ave Cæsar morituri te salutant.”
+
+All day and every day did the garrison fight, snatching such repose
+as was possible when their pertinacious enemies, worn out by fatigue
+and the terrible heat, could no longer be led to the attack against
+those whom they now firmly believed to be in league with Shaitan
+himself; “For how else,” demanded Janissary and Spahi alike, “could
+infidels like these make head against those chosen of the Prophet like
+ourselves.”
+
+At this time the garrison took into use a device attributed to the
+Grand Master himself. This consisted in hoops of wood which were first
+thoroughly soaked in alcohol and then boiled in oil; they were then
+tightly bound with cotton or wool, also soaked in inflammable liquids
+mixed with saltpetre and gunpowder. Once these fiendish contrivances
+were set alight nothing availed to put them out, and they were feared
+as was naught else by the Turks during the remainder of the time they
+were in Malta. They were particularly deadly against the Turks, and at
+times two or more soldiers mounting the breach would be caught in one
+of these fiery circles, and the unfortunate wretches would be burnt
+alive. Even the Janissaries refused to advance at times when these
+fireworks were being flung down upon their flowing garments.
+
+On June 16th another attack was made on the fortress, and, incredible
+as it may seem, it was repulsed with such awful slaughter that at last
+the Turks would not face the swords of the garrison. Alter this the
+enemy succeeded in drawing so close a cordon round the place that no
+more succours could reach it, and the end was but a matter of time.
+The day before it came Dragut, who, with his usual intrepidity, was
+standing in the midst of a hot fire, was struck on the side of the
+head by a stone dislodged from a wall by a cannon-ball. At the moment
+when this happened he was holding a council of war in the trenches
+with Piali, a Sanjak, and the principal Turkish engineer. The same
+shot which wounded Dragut killed the Sanjak on the spot. Piali caused
+a cloak to be thrown over the body of the corsair in order that
+his state should not be observed by the soldiers, and as soon as
+possible had him removed to his tent, where he lay unconscious till the
+following day.
+
+The council on which the corsair had been engaged when he received his
+mortal wound had for its object the complete isolation of St. Elmo from
+Il Borgo; his dispositions were completed and his orders given to the
+engineer just before he was struck.
+
+The agony of St. Elmo was drawing to an end; completely hemmed in by
+the latest dispositions of Dragut, the fortress was at its last gasp;
+a brave Maltese swimmer managed to slip through the cordon, swim the
+harbour, and deliver to the Grand Master a letter from the Bailli of
+Negropont. The Grand Master made one last effort to throw succours and
+reinforcements into the place, but these were beaten off with terrible
+slaughter: nothing now remained but to await the inevitable tragedy.
+
+[Illustration: DEATH OF DRAGUT AT THE SIEGE OF MALTA.]
+
+On the night of June 22nd the defenders of St. Elmo, having now lost
+all hope of being supported, made ready for death. Into them La Valette
+had breathed his own heroic spirit, and none among them counselled
+or dreamed of surrender. The Order to which they had given their
+allegiance now demanded of them the last sacrifice which it was in
+their power to make, and this was offered in the manner most fitting to
+its tenets. These exhausted, war-worn, battle-scarred warriors repaired
+to the chapel, where they confessed, and made ready by partaking
+together of the sacrament, “and, having thus surrendered their souls
+to God, each retired to his post to die on the bed of honour with
+arms in his hand.” Those among the Knights who were too severely
+wounded or too ill to stand caused chairs to be carried to the breach
+in which they seated themselves and awaited the assault. For four hours
+did these indomitable men withstand the might of a host innumerable:
+at the conclusion of this period there remained alive but sixty of the
+garrison. Mustafa ceased the assault for a few moments only to replace
+the storming party by fresh troops, and then the end came. Almost
+the last to fall were the Chevalier Lamirande and the veteran Bailli
+of Negropont, and when the crescent banner was planted on the walls
+there remained alive not one of those defenders who had held the fort.
+Several of Dragut’s officers ran to his tent and announced the taking
+of St. Elmo. The great captain was in his last extremity and unable to
+speak, “He, however, manifested his joy by several signs, and, raising
+his eyes to heaven as if in thankfulness for its mercies, immediately
+expired: a captain of rare valour and even abundantly more humane than
+are ordinarily these corsairs.”
+
+The Basha Piali, on entering the fort and observing with what miserable
+resources it had so long been held exclaimed, as he looked across the
+harbour to Il Borgo:
+
+“What will not the parent do to us, when so small a son has cost us the
+lives of our bravest soldiers?”
+
+There is no record of what that cruel savage, Mustafa, said on this
+occasion; his deeds, however, spoke eloquently. He caused the bodies of
+the Knights to be decapitated and nailed to wooden crosses, while
+across their corpses were slashed a cross in derision of the religion
+of his foes. The bodies were then cast into the harbour, and were
+washed up at the foot of Il Borgo. Instantly the Grand Master ordered
+the decapitation of all the Turkish prisoners, and their heads were
+fired from cannon into the camp of Mustafa.
+
+With the remainder of the siege, which was yet to last till September
+18th, we have no concern in this book. It is only necessary to say that
+the men of Il Borgo were worthy to stand in the same category with the
+defenders of St. Elmo, which is equivalent to stating that in them also
+was discovered the last limit of heroism. The Grand Master survived
+the siege, his monument is the noble city of “Valetta” built on Mount
+Sceberras. The Turks abandoned the siege and returned to Constantinople
+on the arrival of some insignificant reinforcements from Sicily. So
+terrible had been the resistance of the Knights that no heart was left
+in their armada. Of Dragut there remains but little to be said: he
+was perhaps the best educated of the corsairs and less cruel than was
+usually their habit. Although not so renowned as his more celebrated
+master, Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, this is, perhaps, because his career
+was cut short at the siege of Malta at a comparatively early age.
+Although he never attained the rank of Admiralissimo to the Grand Turk,
+that potentate, as we have seen, placed in him the greatest confidence,
+and relied largely on his judgment, especially when sea-affairs were in
+question. Like the Barbarossas before him, he rose from nothing to the
+height to which he eventually attained by sheer force of intellect
+and character. In the stormy times in which his lot was cast he never
+faltered in his onward way, never repined, never looked back, sustained
+as he was by a consciousness of his own capability to rule the wild
+spirits by whom he lived surrounded. So it is that, whatever other
+opinion we may hold of Dragut, we cannot deny that in this captain of
+the Sea-wolves were blended rare qualities, which caused him to shine
+as a capable administrator, a fine seaman, but above all as a supreme
+leader of men. Dragut died with arms in his hands fighting those whom
+he considered to be his bitterest enemies. He did not live to see the
+repulse of Piali and Mustapha, and it is to be presumed that he died
+assured in his own mind that victory would rest with the Moslem host.
+For such a man as this no death could have been more welcome.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+ALI BASHA
+
+
+  Ali, the Basha of Algiers, succeeds to Dragut—He conquers
+  the Kingdom of Tunis, captures four galleys from the
+  Knights of Malta, joins Piali Basha in his raidings
+  preliminary to the battle of Lepanto—The gathering of the
+  Christian hosts and the arrival of Don John of Austria in
+  the Mediterranean to take command.
+
+“Now I have heard several mariners and captains of the sea, nay, even
+Knights of Malta, debate among themselves this question, as to which
+was the greater and better seaman, Dragut or Occhiali? And some held
+for one and some for the other; those who held for Occhiali declaring
+that he had held greater and more honourable charges than Dragut,
+because he commanded as General and Admiral for the Grand Turk and that
+_il fit belle action_ at the battle of Lepanto.” Pierre de Bourdeille,
+the Seigneur de Brantôme, from whom we make the above quotation, was
+himself present at the siege of Malta and, besides this, as is well
+known, gossiped in his own inimitable way concerning men and women
+of his time, from corsairs to courtesans. When such contemporary
+authorities as those mentioned could not agree it is quite certain
+that we of the twentieth century cannot decide on the rival claims to
+distinction between the Bashaw of Tripoli and his follower Occhiali,
+as he was known to the Christians, or Ali Basha, as he was called
+by the Turks. Ali Basha has a title to fame in the fact that he is
+mentioned by Cervantes in his _Don Quijote de la Mancha_ under the name
+of “Uchali” in chapter xxxix., “Donde el cautivo cuenta su vida y
+sucesos.” The captive is supposed to have been no less a person than
+the famous Cervantes himself, and he briefly describes how Uchali
+became “Rey de Argel,” or King of Algiers.
+
+Ali was a Christian, having been born at a miserable little village in
+Calabria called Licastelli. Nothing whatever is known of his birth and
+parentage, and he does not appear even to have possessed a Christian
+name, although born in a Christian land. He followed from his earliest
+youth the calling of a mariner; “he was from infancy inured to salt
+water,” says Joseph Morgan, in his _Compleat History of Algiers_, and he
+was, as a mere boy, captured by Ali Ahamed, Admiral of Algiers, and was
+chained to the starboard-bow oar in the galley of that officer. He was
+thus very early in life “inured” to suffering, and must have possessed
+a constitution of iron to withstand thus, in boyhood, the hardships of
+the life of a galley-slave, which as a rule broke down the endurance of
+strong men in a very few years. Morgan presents us with a description
+of him at this period which in these more squeamish days can certainly
+not be set down in its entirety: suffice it to say that he suffered
+all his days from what is known as “scald-head,” and that personal
+filthiness was one of his principal characteristics.
+
+For some years Ali remained at the heart-breaking toil of the
+rower’s bench: cut off from home, which to him meant nothing, devoid
+of kinsfolk, alone—miserably alone in a world which, so far, had given
+him naught but the chain and the whip—it is not a matter for surprise
+that he became a Mussulman, thus freeing himself from slavery. From the
+time that he took this step his fortunes mended rapidly in that strange
+medley of savagery and bloodshed in which his lot was cast.
+
+Alert, strong, capable, and vigorous, he became in early manhood chief
+boatswain in the galley in which his apprenticeship had been passed—a
+position which enabled him to accumulate a small store of ducats,
+with which he bought a share in a brigantine. Here he soon acquired
+sufficient wealth to become captain and owner of a galley, in which
+he soon gained the reputation of being one of the boldest corsairs on
+the Barbary coast. Having in some sort made a name for himself, his
+next step was to seek for a patron who could make use of his valour,
+address, and capability for command. His choice was soon made, as
+who in all the Mediterranean, in his early days, held such a name as
+Dragut? He accordingly entered the service of the Basha of Tripoli,
+and, under his command, became well known to the officers of the Grand
+Turk, particularly to the Admiral, Piali Basha, to whom he was able to
+render some important services.
+
+There is no object to be gained in lingering over the earlier years of
+this notable corsair, as we should thus only be repeating what has been
+said about Dragut, whose lieutenant and trusted follower he became.
+He accompanied his master to the siege of Malta, and when Dragut was
+slain the Capitan-Basha, Piali, named him as successor to his chief
+as Viceroy of Tripoli. Ali sailed from Malta to Tripoli, taking with
+him the remains of Dragut, to be buried as that chieftain had directed.
+When he arrived on the Barbary coast he made himself master of the
+slaves and treasure which had been left behind by Dragut; shortly
+after this he was confirmed in his Vice-royalty of Tripoli by the
+Grand Turk; thenceforward increasing, both his wealth and the terror
+in which his name was held, by continual raids upon the Christians,
+more particularly on the coasts of Sicily, Calabria, and Naples. It is
+curious to observe the sort of spite which all the renegadoes seem to
+have harboured against the countries in which they were born.
+
+In March 1568, owing to the fall of Mohammed Basha, the Vice-royalty of
+Algiers became vacant, and, through the good offices of his old friend
+Piali, Ali became Governor. He thus returned to occupy a position of
+literally sovereign power to the city which he had first entered as a
+galley-slave.
+
+That he was no negligent Governor and that he took an entirely
+intelligent view of his functions, is proved by an occurrence which
+took place in this same year in Spain. The Moriscoes in the Kingdom
+of Granada revolted against their Spanish Governor, by whom they
+were sorely oppressed. They sent messages to Ali at Algiers, begging
+for succour against their persecutor. But the Basha would send no
+expedition; he permitted all and sundry to go as volunteers, but gave
+out publicly that “it more concerned him to defend well his own State
+than to interfere in the affairs of others.” He even went farther
+than this, and when a number of Moriscoes, who were settled at
+Algiers, embarked a quantity of arms for transportation to the coast
+of Andalusia, he put an embargo on the vessels and would not allow
+them to sail, saying “he would never suffer the exportation of what
+was so necessary for the defence of his own dominions.” At last, after
+much importunity, he consented “that all such as had two of a sort—as
+muskets, swords, or other weapons—might, if they thought fit, send over
+one of them, provided they did it gratis and purely for the cause’
+sake; but he would never allow any of them to strip themselves of their
+arms for lucre.”
+
+Ali, being now firmly established at Algiers, took up arms against the
+neighbouring State of Tunis. For long years now the King of Tunis had
+been protected by the Spaniards—a nation whom the Sea-wolves always
+held in singular abhorrence as the most bigoted of the Christian
+Powers, and who held in thrall many of their co-religionists. Hamid,
+son of Hassan, who now ruled in Tunis, had reduced that unfortunate
+State to anarchy bordering on rebellion, and the whole country, torn
+by internal feud, was ready to rise against him. The Goletta was in
+the hands of the Spaniards; Carouan, an inland town, had set up a king
+of its own, while the maritime towns passed from the domination of the
+Sea-wolves to that of the Christians, and from the Christians back to
+the Sea-wolves, according to which party happened to be the stronger
+for the time being.
+
+El Maestro Fray Diego de Haedo, “Abad de Fromesta de la Orden del
+Patriarca San Benito” and “natural del Valle de Carranca,” whose
+_Topografia e Historia de Argel_ (or Algiers) was printed in Valladolid
+in the year 1612, gives an account of Hamid at this time in which he
+describes that monarch as an “unpopular tyrant who sadly persecuted his
+vassals and the friends of his father; who could by no means suffer his
+tyrannies and those of his ministers, the scum of the earth (“hombres
+baxos”), to whom he had given the principal offices of the kingdom.
+Accordingly, since the time that Ali had become Basha of Algiers,
+letters had been written to him importuning him to come to Tunis that
+he might possess himself of that city and kingdom.”
+
+There were three principal conspirators—the Alcaid Bengabara, General
+of the Cavalry, the Alcaid Botaybo, and the Alcaid Alcadaar. Ali,
+however, was too shrewd a man to move until he had satisfied himself by
+reports from his own adherents; he, therefore, awaited the result of
+investigations made by spies from Algiers. At last, in the beginning of
+the year 1569, when the offers from the Alcaids had been three times
+renewed and the Basha was assured that the people in Tunis were sincere
+in their offer to him of the sovereignty of the kingdom—which they
+begged him to conquer and hold in the name of the Ottoman Empire—the
+ex-galley-slave no longer hesitated. He left Algiers in the month
+of October, leaving that city in charge of one Mami Corso, a fellow
+renegado. Unlike Dragut, who would have gone by sea, he set out by
+land with some five thousand corsairs and renegadoes. On the way he
+was reinforced by some six thousand cavalry of the wild tribes of the
+hinterland, then as ever ready to join in a fray with promise of
+booty: doubly ready in this case, as it was to harass so unpopular a
+tyrant as Hamid. Passing through Constantine and Bona, he continued
+to march towards Tunis, his following augmenting as he proceeded, and
+adding to his forces ten light field-guns. Arriving at Beja, a town
+which Haedo describes as being but two short days’ march from Tunis,
+he came upon a fortress, recently erected by Hamid, mounting fourteen
+brass cannon. Here he halted, whereupon Hamid sallied out to give him
+battle at the head of some three thousand troops, horse and foot. The
+engagement had scarcely begun when the three Alcaids, who had been in
+communication with Ali, deserted with all their following. Hamid fled
+to Tunis, expecting to find shelter there, but he was hotly pursued by
+the corsairs, who followed him up to Al-Burdon, where his summer palace
+was situated. Hamid, finding that his people were everywhere in revolt,
+fled to the Goletta, carrying with him a quantity of money, jewels,
+and portable valuables, and placed himself under the protection of the
+Spanish garrison—not, however, without the loss of the major portion of
+his baggage, plundered from him by certain Moors in the course of his
+flight.
+
+Like Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, Ali was now lord of Algiers and Tunis,
+and as he was, for a corsair, a man of wide views, he treated his new
+subjects with consideration. He made, however, one curious mistake not
+to have been expected from one so politic: he demanded tribute from
+the tribes of the hinterland. In those days, particularly in Northern
+Africa, men paid tribute to an overlord because he was stronger than
+they; because retribution followed swiftly and suddenly upon refusal.
+To order tribute to be paid without being ready to strike was merely
+to expose the man making the demand to derision. Particularly was this
+the case with the fierce land-pirates of the desert, whose habit it was
+to exact and not to pay tribute. To Ali the Sheiks replied that “if he
+wanted tribute from them he must demand it lance in hand in the field,
+for there and nowhere else were they accustomed to pay: that their coin
+was steel lance-heads and not golden aspers.” After this, says Morgan,
+“the Basha thought it well to dissemble.”
+
+Ali, being in no position to wage war in the desert against these
+people, had to swallow the insult and to turn his attention to
+regulating the internal affairs of his newly acquired kingdom. This he
+succeeded in doing sufficiently by the month of June in the following
+year to enable him to leave Tunis in the hands of one Rabadan, a
+Sardinian renegado, and to start himself for Constantinople. His reason
+for doing this was the old one of attempting to consolidate his power
+in Northern Africa by appealing to the Sultan for help. As long as the
+Goletta remained in the hands of the Spaniards no corsair could feel
+himself secure in either Tunis or Algiers. The object of Ali was to beg
+from the Grand Turk men and ships to assist him to chase the Spaniards
+out of Africa.
+
+The month of June 1570, in consequence, saw Ali once more at sea in his
+“Admiral galley,” steering northwards to the Golden Horn. Carrying with
+them a favourable breeze from the south-east, the galleys spread
+their huge lateen sails, and the straining rowers had rest awhile. The
+squadron consisted of twenty-four galleys. Off Cape Passaro, in Sicily,
+a small vessel was captured which gave information that five galleys of
+the Knights of Malta were at anchor at Licata, a small harbour in the
+neighbourhood, and that they were on the point of sailing for Malta.
+The decision of Ali was taken on the instant: were he to go in and
+attack them with the overwhelming force at his command the crews might
+escape to the shore; even the Knights of Malta could hardly be expected
+to fight twenty-four galleys with five. He was anxious to capture the
+ships, but above all to capture those by whom they were manned: to have
+the satisfactory revenge of seeing the proud Knights stripped naked and
+chained to the benches of his own fleet.
+
+The hot Mediterranean sun poured down out of a cloudless sky as the
+Sea-wolves made their offing; out of sight of land they lay, but right
+in the course which the galleys of the Christians were bound to take.
+The great yards, with their lateen sails, were got down on deck, and,
+oar in hand, the Moslems awaited their prey. Presently the Maltese
+galleys were discovered coming leisurely along, under oars and sails,
+and then—when it was too late—the Knights discovered the snare into
+which they had fallen. There was but scant time for preparation or
+deliberation, and who shall blame four out of the five if they decided
+to try to escape? for it was escape or annihilation.
+
+But there was one which did not fly, “Una galera hizo cara a los
+Turcos” (One single galley turned her bows towards the Turks), says
+that faithful chronicler Haedo. She was named the _Santa Ana_, but the
+name of her heroic commander has not come down to us. Even as Grenfell
+“at Flores in the Azores,” stood upon the deck of the little _Revenge_ on
+that memorable August day in 1591, when “he chose to die rather than to
+dishonour himself, his country, and her Majesty’s ship,” so also did
+this Knight of Malta bear down on the twenty-four that were his foes.
+
+When Don John of Austria, being at the time young and inexperienced in
+warfare on the sea, wrote to the Marquis of Villafranca, General of the
+Galleys of Sicily, requesting advice on the subject of galley attacking
+galley, that officer replied to him, “Never fire your arquebus at the
+foe until you are so close at hand that his blood will leap into your
+face at the discharge.” If we bear in mind such an instruction as this
+it will help us to picture that close-packed sanguinary conflict upon
+which the Mediterranean sun looked down on this day. Eight to one, all
+that could find room to get alongside of the _Santa Ana_, fought with the
+Knight and his followers. The issue was, of course, never in doubt for
+a moment. “Muertos y cansados” (Dead and deadbeat), says Haedo, the
+caballeros and soldados of the Christian ship could at length hold out
+no longer. The Sea-wolves were victorious, the proud banner of Saint
+John was lowered; but never in all its history had it been more nobly
+upheld, and the galley _Santa Ana_, commanded by that unknown member
+of the great Christian military hierarchy of the sixteenth century,
+may well stand in the roll of fame alongside of the _Revenge_, the
+_Vengeur_, and the _Victory_.
+
+The _Capitana_, or “Admiral’s galley,” of the Knights, being hotly
+pursued, ran ashore with one of her consorts at Licata: the crews
+landed, but were pursued and overtaken. One galley escaped altogether,
+but four out of the five were taken. So notable a victory as this over
+the Knights caused so much rejoicing in the fleet of the Sea-wolves
+that Ali determined to celebrate it by a triumphal return to Algiers
+instead of proceeding directly to Constantinople. Accordingly, the
+ships’ heads were turned south once more, and upon July 20th, 1570,
+the fleet arrived in the African port, “on sus galeras todas llenas de
+muchas banderas”—with galleys gaily beflagged.
+
+[Illustration: A GALLEY OF THE KNIGHTS OF MALTA.]
+
+The procession entered the harbour in three divisions of eight galleys:
+and towing behind each division was one of the captured galleys of
+the Knights. In memory of his prowess Ali ordered that the shields
+and bucklers taken from the Maltese galleys, which bore upon them
+emblazoned the white cross of “the Religion,” should be hung up in the
+great arched gate of the Marina. Also there was placed here the image
+of Saint John the Baptist, taken from the _Capitana_ galley, “all of
+which remain,” says Haedo, “until this day” (_i.e._ 1612), except the
+image of Saint John, which in the reign of Hassan Basha, a Venetian
+renegado, was taken down and burned at the instance of the Morabutos,
+“los letrados de los Moros” (the learned among the Moors). It is an
+instructive commentary on the fear and respect in which the Knights of
+Malta were held that such a man as Ali should have considered it a
+triumph worth the celebrating when he defeated five of their vessels
+with twenty-four of his own.
+
+The next occurrence in the life of Ali was one of those to which the
+Sea-wolves were subjected from time to time, and which do not seem to
+have caused them much trouble or anxiety. This was a mutiny of the
+Janissaries in Algiers, who very reasonably objected to being left
+without their pay. A mutiny of the Janissaries, however, was somewhat
+a serious matter, as they were accustomed to the enjoyment of many
+privileges, and were, as we have said elsewhere, a picked corps who had
+it in their power even to coerce the Sultan himself upon occasions.
+
+Those of them who were in Algiers demanded “Who was this corsair who
+dared to keep the picked men of the army of the Grand Turk waiting for
+their pay, as if they were no better than his slaves?” Such a thing as
+a mutiny was, in the days of which we speak, a matter for which any
+prudent corsair had to be prepared. Ali was in no means discomposed,
+and, as the crisis had become acute on shore, he went to sea, where
+he was under no obligation to pay his men, who paid themselves at the
+expense of their enemies. He put to sea with twenty galleys, and,
+shortly after leaving Algiers, he met with a galley from the Levant,
+from which he received information that a powerful armada was preparing
+in Constantinople for an expedition against the Christians. He steered
+for Coron in the Morea, where he was almost immediately joined by the
+Ottoman fleet, the commander of which force was overjoyed to find so
+formidable a reinforcement under so renowned a captain as Ali.
+
+Soliman the Magnificent had died in 1566, and had been succeeded by his
+son, Selim; this prince, bred in the Seraglio, was weak and licentious,
+given to that strong drink forbidden by the Prophet to an extent which
+caused him to be nicknamed by the Spaniards as “el ebrio,” or “el
+bebedor.”
+
+This was a state of affairs which boded ill for the Turkish Empire,
+and Selim II. had been educated in a very different manner from that
+which had hitherto been the custom. Speaking of this, Gibbon says,
+“Instead of the slothful luxury of the Seraglio, the heirs of royalty
+were educated in the council and the field. From early youth they were
+entrusted by their fathers with the command of provinces and of armies;
+and this manly institution, which was often productive of civil war,
+must have essentially contributed to the discipline and vigour of the
+monarchy.”
+
+Drunkard and weakling as he was, Selim had his ambitions. He wished to
+signalise his reign by some great conquest, such as had added lustre to
+the rule of his father; and in consequence he laid claim to the island
+of Cyprus, then belonging to Venice, The Venetians, having strengthened
+the fortifications of the island and fitted out their navy, sought
+alliances in Europe to curb the pretensions of the Porte. In this
+they found support, instant and generous, from the Pope Pius V. Of
+this great ecclesiastic Prescott says: “He was one of those Pontiffs
+who seemed to have been called forth by the exigencies of the time to
+uphold the pillars of Catholicism as they were yet trembling under
+the assaults of Luther.”
+
+The Pope, Philip II. of Spain, and Venice formed what was known as the
+“Holy League,” and, having formed it, immediately began to quarrel
+among themselves as to what its functions were to be. The Venetians
+wished all its efforts to be directed to safeguarding Cyprus, while
+Philip and his viceroys were anxious to attack the Sea-wolves on
+the coast of Africa in their strongholds. After much squabbling,
+an agreement was come to. The principal items of this were, that
+the Pope should pay one-sixth of the expenses, Venice two-sixths,
+and Spain three-sixths; that each party should appoint its own
+Commander-in-Chief, and that Don John of Austria should be in supreme
+command of the whole forces assembled. The contracting parties were to
+furnish 200 galleys, 100 transports, 50,000 foot, 4,500 horse, and the
+requisite artillery and stores.
+
+While the Christians were negotiating and talking, the Turks were
+acting. It was in May that the Pope caused the treaty to be publicly
+read in full consistory; in April the Turkish fleet had got to sea and
+committed terrible ravages in the Adriatic, laying waste to Venetian
+territory.
+
+While ships and men were gathering, and while the fleet which it was to
+be his fortune to defeat was pursuing its career in the Mediterranean,
+Don John of Austria left Madrid for the south on June 6th, 1571. When
+he arrived at Barcelona he made a pilgrimage to the Hermitage of Our
+Lady of Montserrat, where his father Charles V. had confessed and
+received the sacrament before he sailed on his voyage to the Barbary
+coast in his expedition against Barbarossa. From Barcelona he sailed
+with thirty galleys to Genoa, where he arrived on the 25th, and was
+lodged in the palace of Andrea Doria. In August he arrived by water at
+Naples.
+
+By this time all Europe was aflame with excitement: warriors of noble
+birth were flocking to serve under the standard of the brother of the
+King of Spain, who was regarded as the very mirror of chivalry. The
+following description of Don John, at Naples, is from the pen of that
+great historian Prescott:
+
+“Arrangements had been made in that city for his reception on a more
+magnificent scale than any he had witnessed on his journey. Granvelle,
+who had lately been raised to the post of Viceroy, came forth at the
+head of a long and brilliant procession to welcome his royal guest. The
+houses which lined the streets were hung with richly tinted tapestries
+and gaily festooned with flowers. The windows and verandahs were graced
+with the beauty and fashion of the pleasure-loving capital, and many
+a dark eye sparkled as it gazed upon the fine form and features of
+the youthful hero, who at the age of twenty-four had come to Italy to
+assume the baton of command and lead the crusade against the Moslems.
+His splendid dress of white velvet and cloth of gold set off his
+graceful person to advantage. A crimson scarf floated loosely over his
+breast, and his snow-white plumes drooping from his cap mingled with
+the yellow curls that fell in profusion over his shoulders. It was
+a picture which the Italian maiden might love to look on. It was
+certainly not the picture of the warrior sheathed in the iron panoply
+of war. But the young Prince, in his general aspect, might be relieved
+from the charge of effeminacy by his truly chivalrous bearing and the
+dauntless spirit which beamed from his clear blue eyes. In his own
+lineaments he seemed to combine all that was comely in the lineaments
+of his race.”
+
+At Naples Don John found a fleet at anchor under the command of Don
+Alvaro de Bazan, first marquis of Santa Cruz, of whom much was to be
+heard in the future in his capacity as Admiral of Castile. Here also he
+received from the hands of Cardinal Granvelle a consecrated banner sent
+to him by the Pope at a solemn ceremony in the church of the Franciscan
+Convent of Santa Chiara. On August 25th he left Naples and proceeded to
+Messina, where he landed under a triumphal arch of colossal dimensions,
+embossed with rich plates of silver and curiously sculptured with
+emblematical bas-reliefs. The royal galley in which the hero embarked
+was built at Barcelona: she was fitted with the greatest luxury, and
+was remarkable for her strength and speed; her stern was profusely
+decorated with emblems and devices drawn from history; no such warship
+had ever been seen in the world before.
+
+Cayetano Rosell, in his _Historia del combate naval de Lepanto_, says
+that the number of vessels, great and small, in the Christian armada
+was over 300, of which 200 were galleys, the ordinary warships of the
+time. He goes on to say:
+
+“In this spacious harbour [Messina] there were collected the
+squadrons of the League; the people who managed the oars and sails
+and the innumerable combatants making an immense number when added
+together. Since the days of Imperial Rome, never had been seen in these
+seas so imposing a spectacle, never had there been collected so many
+ships moving towards a single end dominated by a single will. Never
+was there a spectacle more gratifying in the eyes of justice, nor of
+greater incentive to men to fight for the cause of religion.”
+
+The Spanish fleet comprised 90 royal galleys, 24 nefs, and 50 fregatas
+and brigantines “los mejores que en tiempo alguno se habrian visto”
+(the finest that ever were seen at any time), as they were described by
+Don John. The Pope sent 12 galleys and 6 fregatas, under the command of
+Mark Antony Colonna. The Pope had also made a grant of the “Crusada”
+and “Excusada,” and other ecclesiastical revenues which he drew from
+Spain, to the King of that country, to meet expenses.
+
+Venice appointed Sebastian Veniero to the command of her fleet, which
+consisted of 106 galleys, 6 galeasses of enormous bulk and clumsy
+construction carrying each 40 guns, 2 nefs, and 20 fregatas. These
+vessels were, however, so miserably manned and equipped that Don
+John had to send on board Spaniards and Genoese to complete their
+complements. In a manuscript of the Bibliothèque du Roi (Number 10088)
+is an account of the battle of Lepanto by Commandeur de Romegas. He
+gives the number of the Turkish fleet at 333 ships, of which 230 were
+galleys, the rest galeasses and smaller craft. The total which he gives
+for the Christian fleet is 271. Ali Basha was in supreme command of
+the Turkish forces, “a man of an intrepid spirit, who had given many
+proofs of a humane and generous mature—qualities more rare among the
+Turks, perhaps among all nations, than mere physical courage.” With
+Ali was the Basha of Algiers, that other Ali, the corsair, who since
+his arrival at Coron had done more than his share of the fighting,
+marauding, and devastating which were the preliminaries to the battle
+of Lepanto. In this historic conflict he was to show once again how,
+on the face of the waters, the Sea-wolves were supreme; as it was he
+and his corsairs, out of the whole of the Moslem host, who acquitted
+themselves with the greatest credit on that day so fatal to the arms of
+the Ottoman Turk.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+LEPANTO
+
+
+  How Ali Basha fought at the battle of Lepanto: his
+  subsequent career—Conclusion.
+
+Lepanto, the last battle of first-class importance in which the
+Sea-wolves bore a leading part, is memorable in many ways. It is one
+of the most sanguinary which was ever fought, the element of personal
+hatred between the combatants, to which we have alluded more than
+once, being singularly in evidence on this occasion. As we have said,
+this campaign was brought about at the initiative of the Venetians,
+and an incident which occurred not long before the battle exacerbated
+the feelings with which the Turks were regarded by the Christians
+to the point of madness. The city of Famagusta, in Cyprus, had been
+captured by that Mustafa of whom we heard so much at the siege of
+Malta. The Venetian defenders made an honourable capitulation, but
+when the four principal Venetian captains were brought before Mustafa,
+that general caused three of them to be beheaded on the spot; the
+fourth, a noble and gallant gentleman who had been responsible for the
+magnificent defence of the city entrusted to his charge, he caused to
+be flayed alive in the market-square. He then had the skin stuffed
+with straw, and, with this ghastly trophy nailed to the prow of his
+galley, returned in triumph to Constantinople. Bragadino, the defender
+of Famagusta, did not die in vain; his terrible fate excited such a
+passion of anger in the whole of the armada of Don John that each
+individual of which it was composed felt that the sacrifice of his
+own life would be but a small thing if it only led to the destruction
+of such fiends as those against whom they were arrayed.
+
+[Illustration: DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA.]
+
+Lepanto was a magnificent triumph for the arms of Christendom, and
+taught a much-needed lesson to Europe that the Ottoman Turk was not
+invincible upon the sea; it was not, however, an interesting battle
+from the point of view of the student of war and its combinations. Of
+all the high officers in command on that memorable day there was only
+one who displayed real generalship and a proper appreciation of the
+tactical necessities of the situation; that officer was Ali Basha,
+the leader of the Sea-wolves. The account of the battle is somewhat
+obscured by the fact that on the side of the Moslems the name of the
+Ottoman Commander-in-Chief was also “Ali”; in order to avoid confusion
+in this narration, we shall allude to the Basha of Algiers by the name
+given to him by the Christians, “Occhiali.”
+
+It was on Sunday, October 7th, 1571, that the Christian fleet weighed
+anchor from Cephalonia and stood southwards along the Albanian coast,
+which is here fringed with rocky islets. The right wing was commanded
+by John Andrea Doria, the left wing by the Provéditeur Barbarigo, the
+centre, or “battle,” as it was called, by Don John in person, who
+had on the one side of him Mark Antony Colonna, the General of the
+Galleys of the Pope, and on the other that fiery veteran Sebastian
+Veniero, the commander of the Venetians. Here also were stationed the
+Prince of Parma, nephew to Don John, Admiral of Savoy; Duke Urbino,
+Admiral of Genoa; the Admiral of Naples, and the Commandeur of Castile.
+The reserve, under the command of the Marquis of Santa Cruz, consisted
+of thirty-five galleys. Immediately in rear of the _Real_, or royal
+galley of Don John, was that of the Grand Commander Requesens. The
+number of seamen, soldiers, officers, and galley-slaves in the fleet
+amounted to over eighty thousand persons; twenty-nine thousand infantry
+had been embarked, of which number nineteen thousand were Spaniards.
+Opposed to the Christians on this day was a Turkish fleet which had
+on board no less than one hundred and twenty thousand men embarked in
+two hundred and fifty galleys, without counting an innumerable host of
+smaller vessels.
+
+[Illustration: SEBASTIAN VENIERO.
+
+Inset, portraits of Don John and Pope Pius V. Heroic statue of Don John
+dominating Christian and Turkish Fleets. The breath of the Almighty
+destroying the Turkish fleet at Lepanto.]
+
+The authorities on whose accounts of the battle this description is
+based are Prescott, the famous historian; P. Daru, a member of the
+Académie Française, who wrote an exhaustive _Histoire de Venise_ and Don
+Cayetano Rosell, member of the Spanish Academy, who is responsible for
+an exposition of the subject, known as _Historia del combate naval de
+Lepanto_. From a comparison of the works of these eminent men one fact
+emerges with great clearness, which is that the battle of Lepanto was
+an indiscriminate mêlée which was decided by some of the most desperate
+fighting ever recorded, but which depended hardly at all upon the
+tactical abilities of the men in chief command. It is true that we are
+told Don John issued written instructions to the commander of each
+ship, but we are left in the dark as to what these instructions were,
+while at the same time we discover that in his line of battle, which in
+the first instance appears to have been that of “single line ahead,”
+the galleys of all nationalities were inextricably mixed up; making it
+thereby impossible for the Papal, Spanish, and Venetian commanders to
+deal, as they should have done, exclusively with their own men. On the
+other hand, Occhiali kept together the squadron of the Sea-wolves; he
+outgeneralled and had all but defeated John Andrea Doria, when the end
+came and he was obliged to retreat.
+
+We are, however, anticipating. Don John passed down his own line in a
+light “fregata” giving a few words of exhortation and advice to each
+ship under his command. If the bastard brother of the King of Spain did
+not exhibit any large measure of ability as a leader on this occasion,
+he was perhaps none the less the right man in the right place, as
+he had about him so winning a way, he was so striking and gallant a
+figure, that the hearts of all under his command went out to him. The
+seamen and soldiers of the great armada greeted him with enthusiastic
+shouts of delight as he bade them remember in whose cause it was that
+they fought. The last of the Knights-errant must have made a brave show
+as he passed down that line four miles in length, the sun shining on
+his damascened armour, and his yellow curls streaming out from beneath
+his helmet.
+
+Soon after sunrise the Turkish fleet was descried sailing towards the
+Christians, in such apparently overwhelming force that several of the
+Spanish commanders represented to Don John that it would be imprudent
+to risk a battle. To his honour be it recorded that he replied he had
+come out to fight the Turks and that the time for talk was now over. He
+then hoisted all his banners, and the executive signal for the combat
+to begin was given by displaying at his mainmast head the sacred banner
+blessed by the Pope. As this standard floated out upon the breeze there
+went up a great shout in unison from all that were under the command of
+Don John. The scene of the combat was that area of the Ionian Sea which
+is enclosed on the east by the coasts of Albania and Morea and on the
+west by the islands of Ithaca and Cephalonia, Just to the northward, at
+the entrance to the Gulf of Arta, sixteen hundred years before had been
+fought the battle of Actium between Antony and Octavius; the same spot
+had witnessed, in 1538, the memorable battle of Prevesa between Andrea
+Doria and Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa.
+
+From the point of view of the seaman, who is naturally anxious
+to discover the dispositions of their fleets made by the rival
+Commanders-in-Chief, Lepanto is an almost hopeless puzzle. As far as
+can be gathered, however, it was that the two armadas approached one
+another in what is known as “line ahead,” each ship being immediately
+astern of its next ahead in one long continuous line; and that,
+when they got within striking distance, these lines turned so that
+they formed “line abreast,” when each ship, having turned at right
+angles, simultaneously the line advances abreast, the ships forming
+it being broadside to broadside.
+
+When the Turks discovered the allies they were issuing from between the
+islets and the shore. Seeing John Andrea Doria moving to the right,
+they judged that he was executing a turning movement with the object
+of escaping to the northwards, from whence he had come; they were, at
+the time, unable to see the rest of the fleet, which was hidden by the
+land. With sound tactical judgment they accordingly advanced to attack
+the allies before they should have time to issue from the strait. They
+were, however, too far off to accomplish this, and, by the time they
+arrived within striking distance, the Christian fleet had cleared the
+strait and was ready for them, “drawn up for battle,” says Monsieur
+Daru, which is somewhat vague in describing the disposition of a fleet.
+What is certain, however, is that in advance of the galleys of Don
+John were six great galeasses, which were armed with guns of immensely
+superior power to anything which could be mounted in galleys. As the
+Turks advanced to the attack these vessels opened fire, and did so much
+execution that Ali, the Turkish Commander-in-Chief, ordered his line to
+open out and thus avoid their fire. Whatever formation the fleet was
+in at the time—which was, as far as we can gather, “line abreast”—this
+opening-out process, to avoid the galeasses, threw it into hopeless
+confusion. The Turkish right wing, which was hugging the coast, and
+was the first to come into action, passed on in an endeavour to turn
+the left wing of the allies. While this manoeuvre was in progress
+Ali, the Capitan-Basha of the Turks, arrived in his vessel opposite
+to the royal galley of Don John. At the masthead of the galley of the
+Capitan-Bashaw floated the sacred standard of the Ottomans. This, the
+ancient banner of the Caliphs, was covered with texts from the Koran,
+and had upon it the name of Allah emblazoned no less than twenty-eight
+thousand nine hundred times in letters of gold. “It was,” says
+Prescott, “the banner of the Sultan, having passed from father to son
+since the foundation of the dynasty, and was never seen in the field
+unless the Grand Seigneur or his lieutenant was there in person.” Ali,
+the Commander-in-Chief, a favourite of the Sultan, had been entrusted
+with this most precious of all the possessions of the Padishah, as an
+incentive to him and all under his command to fight their hardest to
+do honour to the Prophet, and to prevent this symbol of their religion
+from falling into the hands of the Christian. Ali, like Don John, was
+young, and burning to distinguish himself; accordingly, as soon as the
+ships of the two leaders came opposite to each other neither regarded
+any enemy save his rival Commander-in-Chief. Ali drove his great galley
+straight on board of the vessel of Don John, and a most obstinate
+conflict ensued. Veniero and Colonna hastened to the assistance of
+their chief, who was sore beset.
+
+The combat now became general, and, as has been said, was for the most
+part nothing but a melee, in which each ship sought out the nearest
+of her foes and closed with her. For some time the fight went hard
+with Don John; time and again the galley of the Moslem leader was
+boarded, but on each occasion the Spaniards were hurled back upon
+their own decks. Loredano and Malipier, two Venetian captains, fell
+upon seven Turkish galleys which were hastening to reinforce the attack
+on Don John, and sank one of them. They then fought with such fury and
+resolution with the six that remained that, although both captains were
+killed, it was conceded that they had saved their general, entirely
+altered the complexion of the battle in their neighbourhood, and
+facilitated the capture of the Turkish admiral. The determined conduct
+of the two Venetians allowed the Spanish division to close in on the
+Turkish flagship, which, after an heroic resistance, was captured,
+principally because there were practically none left alive to fight.
+The head of Ali was struck off by a Spanish soldier, the banner of
+the Moslems was replaced by the flag of the Cross, the head of Ali
+on a pike being exhibited in derision above it. The conquerors seem
+to have seen no incongruity in this performance. The lowering of the
+sacred standard of the Capitan-Basha had a disheartening effect upon
+the Turks; they knew by this that their Commander-in-Chief was dead
+and his ship captured, the result being that the resistance of the
+Ottomans began to weaken. Then thirty galleys took to flight from the
+neighbourhood of the Christian flagship; so hotly were they pursued
+that they ran on shore, the crews swimming or wading to the beach and
+making off inland.
+
+On the right of the Christian line things had not been going so
+propitiously for them. Here Occhiali had managed, by his apparently
+persistent attempts to outflank John Andrea Doria, to decoy that
+commander away from his supports and from the main body of the
+Christians. This tactical manoeuvre of the corsair was successful;
+having drawn off some fifteen of the Christian galleys, he suddenly
+flung the whole of his greatly superior force into the gap and
+surrounded them. These galleys were Spanish, Venetian, and Maltese,
+and, although they offered a most vigorous resistance, they were mostly
+destroyed or captured. Doria, in spite of all his efforts, was on this
+day both outgeneralled and outfought: the Sea-wolves, under their
+grim leader, manoeuvring for position, obtaining it, and then falling
+like a thunderbolt on the foe. They were all brave men at Lepanto on
+this memorable October day; but few there were like the corsair king,
+in whom a heart of fire was kept in check by a brain of ice, who,
+during the whole combat, never gave away a chance, or failed to swoop
+like an eagle from his eyry when the blunders of his enemy gave him
+the opportunity for which he watched. It was the old story of “the
+veritable man of the sea” pitted against gallant soldiers fighting on
+an unfamiliar element. And yet it was against the best seaman on the
+Christian side that Occhiali pitted himself on this stricken field;
+and none can deny that with him rested such honour as was gained by
+the Turks on this day, the day which broke up for ever the idea of the
+invincibility of the Ottomans on the water. It needs not to say, to
+those who have read the story of the siege of Malta, how the Knights
+comported themselves in the battle; and yet Occhiali captured the
+_Capitana_, or principal galley of the Order, He was towing her out of
+action, a prize, when the Marquis of Santa Cruz bore down upon him with
+the reserve. By this time the battle was lost; the Moslems were in full
+retreat.
+
+The corsair recognised that he could do no more: sullenly he cast
+off the tow, and, forming up some thirty of his galleys, still in a
+condition to navigate, stood boldly through the centre of where the
+battle had once raged, and escaped. The _Capitana_ of Malta had been
+taken; and to the Sultan did Occhiali present the great standard of
+Saint John, as an earnest of his achievement.
+
+Bernardino de Escalente, in his work _Diálogos del arte militar_, printed
+in Seville in 1583, says that the Captain Ojeda, of the galley _Guzmana_,
+recaptured the _Capitana_ of Malta; and that, in recognition thereof,
+“the Religion” pensioned him for life. Ojeda, it is to be presumed, was
+under the orders of the Marquis of Santa Cruz during the battle.
+
+There remains one incident connected with the battle of Lepanto which
+must be told. In the _Marquesa_ galley, in the division of Doria, was
+lying in his bed sick of a fever a young man twenty-four years of age;
+a Spaniard of Alcala de Henares, “de padres hidalgos y honrados,” we
+are told, although these parents were poor. When this young man heard
+that a battle was imminent he rose from his bed and demanded of his
+captain, Francisco San Pedro, that he should be placed in the post of
+the greatest danger. The captain, and others, his friends, counselled
+him to remain in his bed. “Señores,” replied the young man, “what would
+be said of Miguel de Cervantes should he take this advice? On every
+occasion up to this day on which his enemies have offered battle to his
+Majesty I have served like a good soldier; and today I intend to do so
+in spite of this sickness and fever.” He was given command of twelve
+soldiers in a shallop, and all day was to be seen where the combat
+raged most fiercely. He received two wounds in the chest and another
+which cost him the loss of his left hand. To those to whom he proudly
+displayed them in after-years he was accustomed to say, “wounds in the
+face or the chest are like stars which guide one through honour to the
+skies.” Of him the chronicler says: “He continued the rest of his life
+with honourable memory of this wonderful occurrence, and, although he
+lost the use of his left hand, it added to the glory of his right.” How
+glorious was that right hand is known to all readers of _El Ingenioso
+Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha_.
+
+The losses at the battle of Lepanto are something so prodigious that
+imagination boggles at them. It is said that the Christians lost five
+thousand men and the Turks no less than thirty thousand. Enormous as
+these numbers are, they represent probably a very conservative estimate
+of the loss. The Turks lost two hundred vessels, and when we recollect
+the number of men embarked on board of the sixteenth-century galleys we
+can see that the numbers are by no means exaggerated, especially as no
+quarter was given on either side. When the Captain Ojeda recaptured the
+battered wreck which had been the _Capitana_ of Malta, we are told that
+on board of her were three hundred dead Turks; if this were the cost of
+the capture of one galley we need not be surprised at the total.
+
+With the results to Europe of this amazing battle we have nothing to
+do in this book. That which it demonstrated, as far as the Sea-wolves
+were concerned, was that they still remained the most competent
+seamen and sea-fighters in the Mediterranean, and that the legend
+of the invincibility of the Ottomans at sea rested on what had been
+accomplished during a long period of years by these insatiable pirates
+and magnificent warriors.
+
+That which the fighting Pontiff, Pius V., said when he heard of the
+victory is in character with everything which history has told us of
+this remarkable occupant of the chair of Saint Peter. It was short but
+very much to the point, consisting of the one sentence, “Fuit homo
+misus a Deo cui nomen erat Joannes.”
+
+In a collection of epitaphs printed in Colonia in 1623 (and edited by
+one Franciscus Swertius) is one in Spanish by an anonymous author on
+Don John of Austria. In this, which takes the form of question and
+answer, it is asked of him “who with so much real glory lies so humbly
+’neath this stone,” what it is that Spain can do for him, what temple
+or what statue can she raise to his honour. To this the hero is made
+to reply that “My temple is found in my works, my statue has been my
+fame.” This is not only a pretty conceit, but it is very substantially
+true when we think of the place in history which this man attained.
+
+It remains to speak of the future career of Ali Basha after his
+experiences at Lepanto. He now returned to Constantinople, where he
+found that the bitter complaints of the Janissaries concerning their
+lack of pay had preceded him; this must have been annoying, as by this
+time so insignificant a circumstance had probably escaped his memory.
+His old friend and patron Piali Basha was still in power; the Basha
+used his influence, and the corsair laid at the feet of the Sultan the
+great Standard of Saint John captured by him from the Knights—which
+was the only trophy which came to Constantinople from that disastrous
+battle; and in consequence we are told that “instead of reprimands he
+was loaded with caresses and applauses.”
+
+There was in Ali the same dauntless quality of never knowing when
+he was beaten which had distinguished Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa. His
+exploits at Lepanto had secured him the high favour of the Sultan,
+which he used in a manner most grateful to that sovereign by
+approaching him with a request that he might be allowed to fit out
+another fleet to revenge himself on the Christians. The Sultan acceded
+to his request, and such diligence did he use that in June 1572, only
+eight months after the crushing defeat of the Turks, Ali took the sea
+with two hundred and fifty galleys besides smaller vessels. So powerful
+had he now become that Selim nominated him as his Admiralissimo,
+allowing him also to retain the Bashalic of Algiers. With his new fleet
+he sought out the allies once more, finding them at anchor in a port in
+the Morea. He lay outside the harbour defying them to come out, which
+they refused to do—“but they parted without bloody noses”—is Morgan’s
+comment. Haedo attributes this inertia on the part of the allies to
+dissension among their leaders; but, however that may have been, Ali
+gained almost as much favour with the Sultan as if he had defeated them
+in a pitched battle. “But these are the judgments of God and things
+ordered by His divine providence and infinite wisdom,” says Haedo. The
+connection is somewhat hard to establish.
+
+In 1573 the Bashalic of Algiers passed into the hands of Arab Ahmed,
+and in this same year Don John of Austria recaptured Tunis from the
+Turks. Ali, with a fleet of two hundred and fifty galleys and forty
+smaller vessels, recaptured it again in a siege lasting forty days,
+and once more returned to Constantinople in triumph with thousands
+of Spanish captives. He was yet to live some years to harass the
+Christians, against whom he ever displayed a most inveterate rancour.
+In 1576 he set out from Constantinople with sixty galleys and ravaged
+the Calabrian coast, where he had been born. In 1578, the Janissaries
+of Algiers having assassinated Arab Ahmed the Basha, he was sent to
+chastise them, which he did with a heavy hand.
+
+Ali was never married, and left no descendants; in the later years
+of his life he built himself a sumptuous palace some five miles from
+Constantinople, and no man in all the realm save the Sultan himself
+was so great a man as the Calabrian renegado, the unknown waif from
+Southern Italy who possessed neither name nor kindred. He was tall and
+robust in stature, but all his life suffered from “scald-head”; for a
+definition of which ailment we may refer the curious to the dictionary.
+He possessed, for a chieftain and a fighting man, the disadvantage
+of a voice so hoarse as to be inaudible at a few paces distant.
+In default of offspring he maintained at his charges five hundred
+corsairs, whom he called his children. He died in the year 1580, and
+with him what has been called the “Grand Period of the Moslem Corsairs”
+in this book may be said to have come to an end.
+
+By the men whose deeds have been here chronicled the pirate States of
+Northern Africa were established; and, as we have seen, they maintained
+an unceasing warfare against all that was mightiest in Christendom,
+aided and abetted by the Sultans of Constantinople. In the sixteenth
+century the Sea-wolves had this at least to recommend them, that they
+feared neither King nor Kaiser, albeit these great ones of the earth
+were bent on their destruction. Villains as they were, they were none
+the less men to be feared, men in whom dwelt wonderful capabilities
+of leadership. Such, however, was not the case with those by whom
+they were succeeded; and the great and civilised nations of the world
+tolerated for centuries in their midst a race of savage barbarians
+whose abominable insolence and fiendish cruelty were only equalled
+by their material weakness and military impotence. Algiers, Tunis,
+and Tripoli became recognised States, and the Great Powers degraded
+themselves by actually accrediting diplomatic agents to the “Courts” of
+these people.
+
+“The Algerines are robbers, and I am their chief,” was the remark made
+by the Dey of Algiers to the English Consul in 1641, and the man spoke
+the plain unvarnished truth. Yet at this time the Algerines had no more
+than sixty-five ships, and no organisation which could have held out
+for twenty-four hours against such attacks as had been successfully
+resisted on many occasions in the previous century.
+
+On April 10th, 1682 (O.S.), “Articles of peace and commerce between the
+most serene and mighty Prince Charles II., by the Grace of God King of
+Great Britain, etc., and the most illustrious (_sic_) Lord, the Bashaw,
+Dey, and Aga, Governor of the famous city of Algiers in Barbary,”
+were concluded by “Arthur Herbert, Esquire, Admiral of His Majesty’s
+Fleet.” It need hardly be said that such a treaty as this was not worth
+the paper on which it was written; that the barbarians by whom it was
+signed were as ignorant as they were unprincipled, and that the only
+argument which they understood at that, or any other time, was that of
+the right of the strongest.
+
+When we of the present day read of the deeds of the corsairs we are
+filled with horror, we fail to understand how such things could have
+been tolerated, we seek for some explanation. When we hear of a
+“League of Christian Princes,” and find that all its members could
+accomplish was to turn their arms the one against the other, we are
+even still more puzzled. What was it, then, that lay at the root of
+this problem? The answer would appear to be in the ethical standpoint
+of the sixteenth century. We are so accustomed in the present day to
+hear of the rights of man that we are apt to forget that, in the time
+of Barbarossa, of Dragut, of Charles V., and the Medicean Popes such a
+thing did not exist, and the only rights possessed by the common man
+were those vouchsafed to him by his sovereign lord. We have also
+to take another factor into consideration, which is that what we call
+“humanity” simply did not exist, the result being that the raids of
+the Sea-wolves were not judged by the great ones of the earth from the
+standpoint of the amount of suffering which they inflicted, but in what
+manner these proceedings affected the wealth and power of the lord of
+the territory which had been despoiled. So differently was society
+constituted in those days that the very victims acquiesced more or less
+meekly in their fate, each one unconsciously voicing that most pathetic
+saying of the Russian peasant that “God is high and the Czar is far
+away.”
+
+The fact of the intolerable lot of the common man in these times helps
+us to understand one thing which otherwise would be an insoluble
+problem: which was, why did Christian soldiers so often become
+renegadoes and fight for the corsairs under the banner of those who
+were the fiercest and most irreconcilable foes of themselves and their
+kindred? The life of the common soldier or sailor did not offer many
+advantages; it was generally a short and anything but a merry one, and
+the thing by which it was most profoundly affected was capture by the
+corsairs.
+
+When this happened he became either a “gallerian,” rowing out his
+heart on the benches of the Moslem galleys, or he festered in some
+noisome dungeon in Algiers, Oran, or Tlemcen. For him, however, there
+was always one avenue of escape open: he had but to acknowledge that
+Mahomet was the Prophet of God and the prison doors would fly open,
+or the shackles be knocked off the chain which bound him to the hell of
+the rower’s bench. Many of the Christian captives had really nothing
+to bind them to the faith of their fathers—neither home nor lands,
+wealth nor kindred, and they were doubtless dazzled by the amazing
+success which accompanied the arms of the leaders of the pirates. Is
+it wonderful, then, that such men in such an age should grasp at the
+chance of freedom and throw in their lot with their captors?
+
+It was treachery, it was apostasy, and no amount of sophistry can
+prove it to have been otherwise; but the man who would sit in judgment
+in the present day must try to figure to himself what the life of
+a galley-slave meant—a life so horrible and so terrible that it is
+impossible, in the interest of decency, to set down a tithe of what it
+really was.
+
+We who in the present day sit in judgment upon the virtues and vices of
+a bygone age can, in the ordered security of our modern civilisation,
+see many things which were hidden from our forefathers, even as in
+another three hundred years our descendants will be able to point the
+finger of scorn at the mistakes which we are now committing. We have
+seen how it was that the pirate States arose; we have seen also how, in
+future generations, they were allowed to abide. We cannot, in common
+honesty, echo the words already quoted of the historian that “these
+are the judgments of God, and things ordered by His divine providence
+and infinite wisdom,” neither can we acquit the heirs of the ages for
+that slackness which prevented them from doing their duty; we have,
+however, to ask ourselves this question, that, had it fallen to our
+own lot to deal with the problem of the extermination of the pirates,
+should we have done better?
+
+One word in conclusion. That which they did has been set down here; the
+record, however, is not complete, as many of their acts of cruelty,
+lust, and oppression are not fitted for publication in the present day.
+It has been said, with truth, that no man is much better or much worse
+than in the age in which he lives; and to hold the scales evenly—if one
+were tempted to shock contemporary opinion by too literal a transcript
+of all that was done by the corsairs—it would also be necessary to cite
+the reprisals of their Christian antagonists. It has seemed better to
+leave such things unchronicled: to present, with as much fidelity as
+possible, the public lives and acts of these troublers of the peace of
+the sixteenth century. Looking back, as we do, over three hundred and
+fifty years, and judging as fairly as is possible, it would seem that
+there is little which can be said in their favour.
+
+But we may at least concede that, no matter how infamous were the
+Barbarossas, Dragut, and Ali, they proved that in them dwelt one rare
+and supreme quality, which, in all the ages, has covered a multitude of
+sins. At a time when every one was a warrior and the whole world was
+an armed camp, men sought great captains in whose following to serve.
+Among the Moslems of Northern Africa, in ordered succession, there rose
+to the surface “veritable men of the sea,” in the wake of whose galleys
+ravened the Sea-wolves. When we consider how undisciplined and how
+stupidly violent these pirates were by nature, and how they were welded
+into a homogeneous whole by those of whom we speak, we are forced to
+the conclusion that seldom, in all the ages, have abler captains arisen
+to take fortune at the flood, to dominate the minds and the bodies of
+a vast host, to prove that they were, in deed and in truth, supreme as
+leaders of men.
+
+
+
+
+AUTHORITIES CONSULTED
+
+Sailing Ships and their Story. E. Keble Chatterton.
+
+Barbary Corsairs: Story of the Nations. Stanley Lane Poole.
+
+Compleat History of the Present Seat of War in Africa between Spaniards
+and Algerines. 1632. Joseph Morgan.
+
+History of Philip II. William Hickling Prescott.
+
+History of Charles V. Robertson.
+
+Histoire de Barberousse. Richer.
+
+Vie des plus célèbres marins. Richer.
+
+Histoire de Barberousse. Sander Rang et Ferdinand Denis.
+
+Doria et Barberousse. Les derniers jours de la Marine aux Rames.
+Admiral Jurien de la Gravière.
+
+Histoire de Barbarie et ses corsaires. Pierre d’An. Paris, 1637.
+
+Histoire d’Alger. Laugier de Tassy.
+
+Messire Pierre de Bourdeille Seigneur de Brantôme. Vie des hommes
+illustres et grands capitaines etrangers de son temps. 1594.
+
+Histoires de les Chevaliers de Malte. Mons l’Abbé de Vertot. Paris,
+1726.
+
+Histoire de Venise. P. Daru.
+
+Topografia e Historia general de Argel El Señor Don Diego de Haedo.
+
+Reverendissimo Arcobispo de Palermo. Presidente y Capitan-General del
+Reyno de Sicilia por el Rey Felipe Segundo. Nuestro señor. Valladolid,
+1612.
+
+Descripcion general de Africa. Don Luys de Marmol Caravajal. Granada,
+1573.
+
+Historia de Carlos Quinto. El Maestro Don Fray Prudencio de Sandoval,
+Obispo de Pampluna. 1612.
+
+El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha. Cervantes.
+
+Arte de Navegar. Martin Cortes.
+
+Diálogos del arte militar. Bernardino de Escalante. Seville, 1583.
+
+Historia del combate naval de Lepanto. Cayetano Rosell.
+
+Epitaphia joco-seria. Francisco Swertius. 1623.
+
+La Guerra dei pirati e la marina Pontifica dal 1500 al 1560. Padre
+Alberto Guglielmotti.
+
+Storia della sacra religione et illustrissima milizia de San Giovanii
+Gerosolimitano. Jacopo Bosio.
+
+Lo Assedio di Malta, 18 Maggio-8, Settembre, 1565. Conte Carlo,
+Sanminiatelli, Zabarella, Colonello.
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF THE KINGS OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, SPAIN, SULTANS OF TURKEY, POPES
+OF ROME, AND GRAND MASTERS OF MALTA, BETWEEN THE DATES 1492–1580, THE
+PERIOD COVERED IN THIS BOOK.
+
+       ENGLAND                FRANCE
+
+  Henry VII., 1485–1509. Charles VIII.,1483–98.
+  Henry VIII., 1509–47.  Louis XII., 1498–1515.
+  Edward VI., 1547–53.   Francis I., 1515–47.
+  Mary, 1553–58.         Henry II., 1547–59.
+  Elizabeth, 1558–1603.  Francis II., 1559–60.
+                         Charles IX., 1560–74.
+                         Henry III., 1574–89.
+
+
+SPAIN
+
+Granada, taken by Ferdinand and Isabella, the sovereigns of Aragon
+and Castile (“Los Reyes Catolicos”) in 1492. Their daughter, Joanna,
+married Philip, son of the Emperor Maximilian of Germany. Ferdinand
+died 1516, and was succeeded by Charles V., son of Philip and Joanna,
+as King of Spain, in 1517. On the death of his grandfather Maximilian,
+in 1519, Charles was elected Emperor of Germany. He resigned all his
+dignities and retired to the monastery of Yuste in 1555, and was
+succeeded by his son, Philip II. Charles died 1558. Philip II., who
+married as his first wife Mary Tudor, of England, reigned from 1555
+till 1598.
+
+
+SULTANS OF TURKEY
+
+Bajazet II., 1481–1512; Selim the Cruel, 1512–20; Soliman the
+Magnificent, 1520–66; Selim II., known to the Spaniards as “el bebedor”
+(the drunkard), 1566–74; Murad III., 1574–95.
+
+
+POPES OF ROME
+
+Pius III., 1503; Julius II., 1503; Leo X., 1513; Hadrian VI., 1522;
+Clement VII., 1523; Paul III., 1534; Julius III., 1550; Marcellus II.,
+1555; Paul IV., 1555; Pius IV., 1559; Pius V., 1566; Gregory XIII.,
+1572; Sixtus V., 1585.
+
+
+GRAND MASTERS OF THE KNIGHTS OF MALTA
+
+Pierre d’Aubusson, 1476–1503; Emeri d’Amboise, 1503–13; Fabrice
+Carette, 1513–21; Villiers de L’Isle Adam, 1521–36; Juan d’Omedes,
+1536–53; Claude de la Sangle, 1553–57; Jean Parisot de la Valette,
+1557–68; Pierre Dumont, 1568–72; Jean Levesque de la Cassière, 1572–82.
+
+
+
+
+DISTANCES IN SEA MILES ON THE COAST OF NORTHERN AFRICA
+
+  Gibraltar to Oran                            225’
+  Oran to Tenes                                110’
+  Tenes to Shershell                            41’
+  Shershell to Algiers                          40’
+  Algiers to Bona                              104’
+  Bona to Jigelli                               30’
+  Jigelli to Bizerta                           205’
+  Bizerta to Tunis                              55’
+  Tunis to Susa                                120’
+  Susa to Sfax                                  86’
+  Sfax to Jerbah, otherwise known as Los Gelues 54’
+  Jerbah to Tripoli                            130’
+  Gibraltar to Algiers                         410’
+  Algiers to Tunis                             391’
+  Algiers to Tenes                              91’
+  Tunis to Malta                               232’
+  Malta to Tripoli in Barbary                  200’
+  Tripoli to Cape Serrano                      350’
+  Jerbah to Malta                              210’
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+  Abdahar, 141.
+  Abu-Abd-Allah-Mahomed, 40.
+  Actium, battle of, 189, 199, 366.
+  Adam, Prince Philippe Villiers L’Isle, Grand Master of the Knights
+    of St. John, 42, 124, 299.
+  Adorno, Antony, 103.
+  Adriatic, coasts of the, 182.
+  Adrumentum, 251.
+  “Africa,” town of, position and fortifications, 251,
+      attacked and taken by Dragut, 257–259;
+      besieged by Andrea Doria, 265;
+      captured, 267;
+      mutiny, 268;
+      blown up, 268.
+  Ahmed, Arab, Basha of Algiers, 375,
+      assassinated, 375.
+  Albania, coast of, 363, 366.
+  Al-Burdon, 350.
+  Alcadaar, Alcaid, 349.
+  Alcala, Duke of, 311.
+  Alcala de Henares, 371.
+  Alcaudite, Count of, his defence of Marzaquivir, 10.
+  Aldemar, St., Geoffrey de, 291.
+  Aleppo, 120, 125.
+  Alexander IV., Pope, 290.
+  Alexander VI., Pope, 99.
+  Alexander VII., Pope, initiates the “Alliance of Christian Princes,” 38.
+  Alexandria, 49.
+  “Alexandria, The Young Moor of,” defeated, 177,
+      released, 178.
+  Alfonso, King of Navarre and Aragon, 291.
+  Alghieri, Bay of, 235.
+  Algiers, 2,
+      attacks on, 30, 88;
+      captured, 62, 64;
+      Moorish refugees at, 63;
+      appeal for help, 66;
+      surrenders, 89;
+      mutiny of Janissaries, 355;
+      treaty with King Charles II., 377.
+  Ali Ahamed, Admiral of Algiers, 345.
+  Ali, at the siege of Malta, 328.
+  Ali Basha, or Occhiali or Uluchali, 6, 14, 22,
+      present at the conference held by Soliman, 316;
+      his birthplace, 345;
+      endures the life of a galley-slave, 345;
+      becomes a Mussulman, 346;
+      enters the service of Dragut, 346;
+      at the siege of Malta, 346;
+      appointed Viceroy of Tripoli, 347;
+      Governor of Algiers, 347;
+      view of his duties,347;
+      offered the sovereignty of Tunis, 349;
+      expedition against Hamid, 349;
+      captures Tunis, 350, 375;
+      captures galleys of the Knights, 352–355;
+      at the battle of Lepanto, 363,368–371;
+      his banner, 368;
+      captures the _Capitana_, 370;
+      withdraws and escapes, 371;
+      returns to Constantinople, 373, 375;
+      nominated Admiralissimo, 374;
+      his palace, 375;
+      ailment of “scald-head,” 375;
+      death, 376.
+  Ali Basha, in command of the Turkish forces, 361,
+      at the battle of Lepanto, 367;
+      beheaded, 369.
+  Ali-Chabelli defeated, 180.
+  Al-Mehedi, his fortifications of “Africa” blown up, 268.
+  Amalfi, 287.
+  Ambracian Gulf, 189.
+  Amburac, Ibrahim, his plot with Dragut, 253, 256.
+  Ampasta, Rio de, 83.
+  An, Rev. Frere Pierre d’, on the dangers from the corsairs of
+      Barbary, 20–22, 27.
+  Andalusia, 4, 15.
+  Andior, 246.
+  Andrade, Captain Diego de, 73.
+  Andros, island of, 187.
+  Angelo, Michel, 139.
+  Aponte, Antonio de, “Electo Mayor” of “Africa,” 268.
+  Aragon, Alfonso d’, 235.
+  Aragon, Ferdinand of, acquires Granada, 29,
+      attempts to recover Naples, 99.
+  Arba, Francisco d’, 210, 217.
+  Archipelago, islands of the, 182,
+      raid on, 187.
+  Arta, Gulf of, 189, 191, 195, 366.
+  Aubusson Pierre D’, Grand Master of the Knights of St. John, 37, 38,
+    39, 298.
+  Augustus Caesar, at the battle of Actium, 189, 199.
+  Austria, Don John of, 23, 230,
+      in command of the forces of the “Holy League,” 357;
+      at Barcelona, 357;
+      reception at Naples, 358;
+      dress, 358;
+      appearance, 359, 365;
+      at Messina, 359;
+      his fleet, 364;
+      instructions, 365;
+      at the battle of Lepanto, 366–371;
+      recaptures Tunis, 375.
+
+  Baetio, 141.
+  Bairan-Ogli, the Reis, in command of the “puissant galleon,” 313.
+  Balearic Islands, 32, 66.
+  Barbarigo, Provéditeur, at the battle of Lepanto, 363.
+  Barbarossa, Hassan, left in charge of Algiers, 312.
+  Barbarossa, Khoyr-ed-Din, 6, 14, 17, 22, 108,
+      King of the Sea, 24;
+      his birth, 43;
+      title, 45, 51;
+      joins his brother at the island of Jerba, 50;
+      attacks _The Galley of Naples_, 51–54;
+      his wealth, 56;
+      captures Jigelli, 56–58;
+      his embassy to Soliman, 60, 76;
+      character, 67, 75, 114–116, 127, 219;
+      treatment of Hassan, 85–87;
+      defeated by Venalcadi, 87;
+      his allies, 88;
+      fight against Venalcadi, 88;
+      assisted by Spanish captives, 89;
+      captures Algiers, 89;
+      lays siege to the fortress of Navarro, 92–95;
+      his plunder of the Christians, 108;
+      requested to take the command of the Ottoman fleet, 111;
+      voyage to Constantinople, 112–117;
+      his captures, 113, 133;
+      cruelty, 115, 133, 220;
+      entry into Constantinople, 117;
+      gifts to Soliman, 118;
+      reception, 120;
+      at Aleppo, 125;
+      appointed head of the fleet, 127;
+      his age, 127, 190;
+      appearance, 127;
+      speech to the Sultan, 128–130;
+      raids on the coast of Italy, 133–137;
+      sacks Reggio, 133;
+      captures 11,000 Christian slaves, 133;
+      his attempt to capture Julia Gonzaga, 134–136;
+      enters Tunis 138;
+      massacre of the inhabitants, 141;
+      his fame, 142;
+      appeal for help against the Christian hosts, 146;
+      preparations for defence, 152;
+      joined by the tribesmen, 153;
+      defeated, 158;
+      flight, 159;
+      sufferings of his army, 163;
+      at Bona, 164;
+      embarks, 165;
+      retires to Algiers, 168;
+      return of his men, 169;
+      captures the castle of Minorca, 172;
+      recalled to Constantinople, 173, 178, 182;
+      ravages, 182;
+      number of slaves, 182;
+      sets sail, 185;
+      his innovation in the manning of galleys, 185–187;
+      raid on the islands of the Archipelago, 187;
+      his age, 190;
+      hesitates to fight, 193;
+      anchored in the Gulf of Arta, 194–207;
+      at the battle of Prevesa, 208–216;
+      withdraws from the battle, 213, 215, 217;
+      his death, 220, 250;
+      ransoms Dragut, 248.
+  Barbarossa, Uruj, 7, 74,
+      his birth, 43;
+      character, 44;
+      first attempt at piracy, 45;
+      taken prisoner, 46;
+      escapes, 47, 48;
+      presented with a ship, 48;
+      winters at Alexandria, 49;
+      at the island of Jerba, 50;
+      joined by his brother, 50;
+      treaty with the Sultan of Tunis, 51;
+      attackes _The Galley of Naples_, 51–54;
+      wounded, 54;
+      attacks on Bougie, 55, 58;
+      loses an arm, 55;
+      appeal from the Algerines, 66;
+      treatment of Kara-Hassan, 66;
+      besieges Navarre’s Tower, 67;
+      slaughters the Berbers, 68–70;
+      defeats Don Diego, 71;
+      marches on Tlemcen, 72;
+      blockaded, 73;
+      killed, 73.
+  Barbary, coast of, 236.
+  Barbary, corsairs of, their character, 21.
+  Barbezieux, his attempt to seize Andrea Doria, 104.
+  Barcelona, 148, 357.
+  Bazan, Don Alvaro de, General of the Galleys of Spain,
+    at Barcelona, 149,
+      Admiral of Castile, 359.
+  Beachy Head, battle of, 283.
+  Beja, 350.
+  Bengabara, Alcaid, 349.
+  Berber tribes, their character, 57,
+      number, 57;
+      conspiracy against Uruj Barbarossa, 68;
+      slaughtered, 69.
+  Bergerac, Jean Marteille de, on the treatment of slaves on board the
+    galleys, 224.
+  Bianco, Cape, 189.
+  Biba, island of, 113.
+  Bizerta, 2, 40,
+      captured, 41;
+      massacre of, 141.
+  Boabdil el Chico, yields up Granada, 29.
+  Bona, 153, 164, 350,
+      Cape, 264.
+  Bonifacio, Straits of, 113, 136.
+  Borgo, Il, fortress, siege of, 32, 324, 342.
+  Bosworth, battle of, 215.
+  Botaybo, Alcaid, 349.
+  Bougaroni, Cape, 56.
+  Bougie, 2, 153,
+      attacks on, 55, 58.
+  Bouillon, Godfrey de, defeats the Saracens, 287.
+  Bourdeille, Pierre de, 242, 344.
+  Bragadino, his defence of Famagusta, 362,
+      killed, 362.
+  Brigantines, 18, 151, 240.
+  Broglio, Commandeur, at the siege of Malta, 333.
+  Byzacena, 40.
+  Byzantine, Empire, fall of the, 33.
+
+  Cabri, 246.
+  Cachidiablo, 88, 90.
+  Cadiz, 4.
+  Cadolin, defeated, 100.
+  Cagliari, Bay of, 152, 236.
+  Calabria, 345.
+  Calibia, castle of, surrender, 264.
+  Canale, Girolame, his victory over the Moslems, 177.
+  Candia, 187.
+  Cañete, Marquis de, Viceroy and Captain General of Navarre, 147.
+  Cantara, La Bocca de, 272, 274.
+  Capello, Vicenzo, his age, 190,
+      in command of the Venetian fleet, 191, 215;
+      at Corfu, 191.
+  _Capitana_, the, captured, 354, 370,
+      retaken, 371.
+  Capua, Prior of, his designs for the building of St. Elmo fortress, 325.
+  Caracosa, Marie, 98.
+  Caramania, coast of, 35, 37, 45, 48.
+  Caravajal, Don Luys de Marmol, his “Descripcion general de Affrica,” 272.
+  Caravels, 231.
+  Carouan, 348.
+  Castel Rosso, Isle of, 47.
+  Castile, Isabella of, 29.
+  Castriot, Constantine, his report on the condition of St. Elmo, 337.
+  Centurion, Adan, fails to attack Barbarossa, 165.
+  Cephalonia, 313, 363, 366.
+  Cervantes, Miguel de, his mention of Ali Basha, 345,
+      at the battle of Lepanto, 371;
+      his wounds, 372.
+  Charabulac, 242.
+  Charlemagne, Emperor, his renown, 286.
+  Charles II., King of England, his treaty with Algiers, 377.
+  Charles V., Emperor, 14, 79,
+      history of, 43;
+      determines to crush the corsairs, 80;
+      total fleet and army, 81,191;
+      caught in a storm, 82;
+      his wrath on the fall of Navarro, 97;
+      acquisitions, 98;
+      suzerain of Genoa, 101;
+      joined by Andrea Doria, 105;
+      his trust in him, 107;
+      preparations for his attack on Barbarossa, 143;
+      at Barcelona, 148;
+      joined by his allies, 148–150;
+      reviews the armada, 150;
+      embarks in the _Galera Capitana_, 150;
+      attack on the fortress of La Goletta, 156;
+      defeats Barbarossa, 159;
+      letter to the potentates, 163;
+      evacuates Tunis, 166;
+      his mistaken policy, 167;
+      at Corfu, 191;
+      orders the destruction of Dragut, 245, 261;
+      orders the capture of “Africa,” 265;
+      denunciation of Dragut, 271;
+      concentrates his fleet at Messina, 278.
+  “Christian Princes, Alliance of,” formed, 38,
+      artillery, 39;
+      seize Naples, 40.
+  Christian slaves, number of, captured, 133.
+  Città Notabile, 308.
+  Civita Lavinia, 140.
+  Coeva, Andrea, 98.
+  Colonna, Camille, taken prisoner, 101.
+  Colonna, Mark Antony, in command of the Papal fleet, 360, 364.
+  Colonna, Vespasian, 134.
+  Columbus, his caravels, 231.
+  Comares, Marquis de, 80.
+  Condalmiero, Alessandro, Captain of the _Galleon of Venice_, 192, 194,
+      attacked by the Moslems, 209–213;
+      his victory, 213.
+  Constantine, 350.
+  Constantinople, fall of, 33,
+      entry of Barbarossa into, 117.
+  Còrdoba, Don Martin de, his defence of Oran, 10.
+  Còrdoba, Gonsalvo de, the “Great Captain,” 39,
+      war against Roverejo, 99;
+      besieges the fortress of Rocca Guillelma, 99.
+  Còrdoba, Mosque at, 64.
+  Corfu, siege of, 179.
+  Cornet, Commandeur de, 337.
+  Cornillan, Pierre de, appointed Grand Master of the Knights
+    of St. John, 298.
+  Coron, 355.
+  Coronado, Capt. Juan Vasquez, 273.
+  Corsairs, Moslem, their iron and rigid discipline, 7.
+      _See_ Moslem
+  Corsica, coast of, 246.
+  Corso, Mami, left in charge of Algiers, 349.
+  Cos, or Lango, island of, fortifications of, 292.
+  Curtogali, at Bizerta, 40,
+      his depredations, 41;
+      attempt to carry off the Pope, 41, 140;
+      Governor of Rhodes, 42.
+  Cyprus, island of, 34, 356.
+
+  Daoud Pasha, Admiral, defeats Grimani, 38.
+  Dardanelles, 116,
+      fortification of the, 34.
+  Daru, P., _Histoire de Venise_, 364, 367.
+  Delizuff, joins forces with Barbarossa, 112,
+      killed, 113.
+  Diou-Donnè, Gozon de, his mode of killing a serpent, 294–296,
+      praises of his services, 297;
+      appointed Grand Master of the Knights of St. John, 298;
+      his death, 298.
+  Doria Andrea, 6, 22, 108,
+      his birth, 98;
+      parents, 98;
+      sent to Rome, 98;
+      at the court of Urbino, 99;
+      in the service of the King of Aragon, 99;
+      joins Roverejo, 99;
+      takes service with Lodovico Sforza, 100;
+      appointed General of the Galleys, 100;
+      captures the Fort of the Lantern, 100;
+      defeats Cadolin, 100;
+      appointed Captain-General of the Galleys of France, 101;
+      the treatment of Francis I., 102, 104;
+      letter to him, 103;
+      joins Charles V., 105;
+      honours received from Genoa, 105;
+      Admiralissimo of the Navy, 107, 151;
+      defeats the Turks at Patras, 109;
+      at Barcelona, 148;
+      captures Bona, 166;
+      pursuit of Barbarossa, 166;
+      defeats Ali-Chabelli, 180;
+      wounded, 180;
+      appearance, 180;
+      age, 190;
+      his fleet, 192;
+      anchors outside the Gulf of Arta, 194–207;
+      at Sessola, 207;
+      tactics at the battle of Prevesa, 214;
+      sails away, 216;
+      ordered to capture Dragut, 261, 271;
+      his pursuit of him, 262–264;
+      expedition against “Africa,” 265;
+      blockades Dragut at Jerbah, 271–275;
+      allows him to escape, 275.
+  Doria, David, 99.
+  Doria, Dominique, 98.
+  Doria, Franco, 192.
+  Doria, Jannetin, captures Dragut, 245–247.
+  Doria, John, 165.
+  Doria, John Andrea, at the battle of Lepanto, 363, 367, 370.
+  Doria, Philippin, defeats Moncada, 101.
+  Dragut-Reis, 10, 14, 22,
+      his birth and parents, 242;
+      career, 242;
+      offers his services to Barbarossa, 243;
+      in command of twelve galleys, 243;
+      his destruction ordered, 245, 261;
+      captured by Jannetin Doria, 245–247;
+      employed as a galley slave, 248;
+      ransomed, 248;
+      increase of power, 250;
+      his desire to capture “Africa,” 251;
+      plot with Ibrahim Amburac, 253;
+      preparations for the attack, 254–256;
+      wounded, 257;
+      attack on the city, 257–259;
+      pursued by Andrea Doria, 262–264, 271;
+      his “Horrid Devastations,” 264;
+      in the siege of “Africa,” 265;
+      escapes, 267;
+      at Constantinople, 269, 276;
+      denounced by Charles V., 270;
+      appointed Sandjak, or governor, of the island of Santa Maura, 271;
+      blockaded at Jerban, 271–275;
+      mode of escape, 275;
+      hatred of the Knights of Malta, 276, 286;
+      autocrat of Tripoli, 309;
+      characteristics, 315;
+      at the siege of Malta, 329–339;
+      mortally wounded, 339;
+      death, 341.
+  Dupuy, Raimond, joins the Hospice of St. John, 288,
+      appointed Grand Master, 289;
+      forms a military corps, 289.
+
+  Eginard, 286.
+  Egypt, Soldan of, his treatment of the Knights of Saint John, 34,
+      besieges Rhodes, 36.
+  Elmo, St., siege of, 6, 301–305, 323–341,
+      appeal of the garrison to abandon the fortress, 335–337;
+      their use of fireworks, 339;
+      fall, 341.
+  Escalente, Bernardino de, his “Diálogos del arte militar,” 371.
+  Esquemelin, John, his literary labours, 1.
+  Etienne, St., Mount, 294.
+  Eutemi, Selim, besieges Algiers, 65,
+      assassinated, 68.
+  Exmouth, Lord, bombards Algiers,30.
+
+  Famagusta, captured, 362.
+  Ferdinand V., King of Spain, joins the “Alliance of Christian
+    Princes,” 38,
+      his death, 65.
+  _Florence_, the, 236.
+  Floreta, M. de., 144.
+  Forfait, on the speed of the galley, 234.
+  Francis I., 14,
+      appoints Andrea Doria Captain of his fleet, 101;
+      attempts to levy a fine, 102;
+      treatment of him, 102;
+      fortifies Savona, 103;
+      letter from Andrea Doria, 103;
+      attempts to take him prisoner, 104;
+      refuses to join in the war against Barbarossa, 144;
+      treachery, 144.
+  Fundi, 134,
+      sacked by the corsairs, 136.
+
+  Galeasse, the, 18,
+      description of a, 233.
+  _Galera Capitana_, 150,
+      number of flags and banners on board, 151.
+  _Galleon of Venice_, 192, 194, 208,
+      attacked by the Moslems, 209–213;
+      victory, 213.
+  Galley, 2, 18,
+      sufferings of the rower, 19, 221;
+      innovation in the manning, 185;
+      mobility, 222;
+      length, 222;
+      number of men on board, 223;
+      treatment of the slaves, 223–229, 379;
+      size, 229;
+      mode of opening fire, 230;
+      speed, 234;
+      obsolete, 236.
+  _Galley of Naples, The_, attacked by the brothers Barbarossa, 51–54.
+  Gardampe, Chevalier Abel de Bridiers de la, killed at the siege
+    of Malta, 333.
+  Gelves, 271.
+  Genoa, 32,
+      arrangement with the Grand Turk, 34;
+      confers honours on Andrea Doria, 105.
+  Gerard, the founder of the Order of St. John, 287,
+      death, 288.
+  Gibraltar, Straits of, 15.
+  Giou, Chevalier de, 313.
+  Goialatta, 246.
+  Goletta, La, 348,
+      attack on the fortress, 156;
+      fall, 157;
+      captured, 313.
+  Gomez, Alvar, left in charge of Bona, 166.
+  Gonzaga, Hernando de, his advice at the battle of Prevesa, 198.
+  Gonzaga, Julia, attempt to capture her, 134–136,
+      escape, 136.
+  Gozo, island of, Knights of St. John at, 277, 299,
+      sacked, 309.
+  Granada, fall of, 4, 8, 22,
+      expulsion of the Moors from, 8, 29;
+      revolt in, 347.
+  Grandenico, Count, 178.
+  Granvelle, Cardinal, 7, 359.
+  Gravière, Admiral Jurien de la, 17, 54, 127, 214,
+      his description of a Galeasse, 233.
+  _Great Harry_, 232.
+  Grimani, Antonio, the Venetian Admiral, defeated at Zonchio, 38.
+  Grimani, Marco, in command of the Papal contingent, 191, 214,
+      at Corfu, 191;
+      raid on Arta, 191.
+  Guasto, Marquis de, taken prisoner, 101,
+      his suggestion to Andrea Doria, 104;
+      in command of the army, 156.
+  Guerare, Sergeant-Major, at the siege of Malta, 332.
+  Guglielmotti, Alberto, his work “La Guerra dei Pirati,” 39, 41, 180.
+  Guimeran, Commandeur de, success of his ambush, 307.
+  _Guzmana_, the galley, 371.
+
+  Hadj-Hossein, his embassy to Selim I., 76–78.
+  Haedo, Don Fray Diego de, his History of Algiers, 96, 348, 353, 374.
+  Hamid, King of Tunis, character of his rule, 348,
+      conspiracy against, 349;
+      flight, 350.
+  Hassan Ali, 53,
+      ravages towns and villages, 83;
+      repulsed by Spaniards, 84;
+      flogged and imprisoned, 86;
+      released, 87;
+      attacks Barbarossa, 87.
+  Hassem, his attack on Oran, 10,
+      retreat, 10.
+  Henry II., 34.
+  Henry VII., 215.
+  Henry VIII., 14.
+  Herbert, Arthur, concludes a treaty with Algiers, 377.
+  Himeral, Basha, 114, 125.
+  Hogue, La, battle of, 283.
+  Honoré II., Pope, 291.
+  Horusco, Pero Lopez de, 166.
+  Hunyadi, John, 14.
+  Hyères, island of, 234.
+
+  Ibrahim, Grand Vizier to Soliman, 9,
+      his mission to Aleppo, 120;
+      advice, 123;
+      impressions of Barbarossa, 126;
+      return from Aleppo, 132;
+      his relations with Soliman, 173;
+      murdered, 176.
+  Innocent VIII., Pope, 98.
+  Ionian Islands, 179.
+  Ionian Sea, 49.
+  Ithaca, island of, 366.
+  Iviza, 82.
+
+  Janissaries, their character as soldiers, 8,
+      institution, 279;
+      system of training, 280;
+      mutiny in Algiers, 355.
+  Jerbale, 2, 50, 153, 251.
+  Jerusalem, Hospice of St. John at, 287.
+  Jigelli, 2, 56,
+      siege of, 57.
+  John of Jerusalem, St., Knights of, 18. _See_ Knights
+  Judeo, El, 88.
+
+  Kara-Hassan, takes possession of Shershell, 66,
+      beheaded, 67.
+  Khorkud, Governor of Caramania, 48.
+  Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, or Knights of Malta,
+    their bigotry, 18,
+      take refuge at Limasol, 34;
+      characteristics, 35, 36;
+      fortifications of Rhodes, 35;
+      faith, 36;
+      repulse the Turks, 37;
+      expelled from Rhodes, 42, 277;
+      forced to retreat to Malta, 42, 277, 292;
+      their use of galleys, 229;
+      fight for their “Religion,” 277;
+      warfare against the corsairs, 277;
+      history of the Order, 286–291;
+      founded at Jerusalem, 287;
+      Grand Masters, 289–298, 301;
+      crusade against the Infidel, 289;
+      composition of the Order, 289;
+      languages, 290;
+      dress, 290;
+      form of government, 291;
+      in the siege of Malta, 300, 324–342;
+      number of deaths, 300;
+      capture fortresses, 312;
+      capture the “puissant galleon,” 313;
+      at Licata, 352;
+      their galleys captured by Ali Basha, 352–355.
+  Knights Templars, foundation of the Order, 291,
+      code of regulations, 291.
+  Kustir-Aga, chief Eunuch of the Seraglio, 313.
+
+  Lamirande, Chevalier, at the siege of Malta, 334,
+      killed, 341.
+  _Lancaster_, the cruiser, 231.
+  Lanciani, extract from “The Golden Age of the Renaissance,” 139.
+  Lantern, Fort of the, captured, 100.
+  Lautrec, Marshal de, 104.
+  Leo X., Pope, 41,
+      attempt on his life, 140;
+      flight to Rome, 141.
+  Lepanto, battle of, 6, 23, 362–372;
+      number of killed and wounded, 372.
+  Lerici, 104.
+  Leyva, Antonio de, 143.
+  Leyva, Don Sancho de, Governor of “Africa,” 267.
+  Liazzo, 246.
+  Licastelli, 345.
+  Licata, 352.
+  Limasol, 34.
+  Loredano, Jacques, 34.
+  Loredano, Captain, at the battle of Lepanto, 369.
+  Los Gelues, 112, 271.
+  Louis XII., 100,
+      joins the “Alliance of Christian Princes,” 38.
+
+  Magliana, Castle of, 140.
+  Mahan, Rear-Admiral, his books on “Sea Power,” 14.
+  Mahomedi, banished from Constantinople, 43,
+      his sons, 43.
+  Mahomet, result of his death, 286.
+  Mahomet II., Caliph, captures Constantinople, 33,
+      fortifies the Dardanelles, 34;
+      defeated Rhodes, 38;
+      death, 38.
+  Majorca, 172.
+  Malipier, Captain, at the battle of Lepanto, 369.
+  Malta, siege of, 6, 22, 299–305, 324–342,
+      number of deaths, 300;
+      position, 315;
+      expedition against, 316;
+      preparations for the siege, 318–321.
+  Malta, Knights of, _see_ Knights
+  _Marquesa_, the galley, 371.
+  Marsa Muzetto harbour, 325, 331.
+  Marsaquivir, attack on, 10.
+  Maura, Santa, island of, 207, 271.
+  Mecca, 4.
+  Medina-Celi, Juan la Cerda, Duke of, expedition against Tripoli, 311.
+  Medran, Chevalier Gonzales de, at the siege of St. Elmo, 327, 332, 335.
+  Mehedia, 251.
+  Melac, Commandeur Gozon de, 312.
+  Mendoza, Bernard de, in command of La Goletta, 166.
+  Mendoza, Don Luis Hurtado de, 143.
+  Messina, 180, 278, 359.
+  Minorca, 172.
+  Mitylene, island of, 43.
+  Monastir, 2, 250.
+  Moncada, Don Hugo de, Viceroy of Sicily, 80,
+      escapes to Iviza, 82;
+      defeated and slain, 101.
+  Mondejar, Marquis de, 143.
+  Monferrato, Monastery of Nuestra Señora de, pilgrimages to, 150, 357.
+  Monte Cristo island, 113.
+  Montmorency, Anne de, 281.
+  Monuc, the eunuch, 206.
+  Moors, their characteristics, 4,
+      expulsion from Granada, 8, 29;
+      their condition in Algiers, 63.
+  Morea, the, 355, 366.
+  Morgan, Sir Henry, his capture of Panama, 24.
+  Morgan, J., his _Compleat History of Algiers_, 243, 250, 345.
+  Moriscoes, their persecutions, 5,
+      revolt in Granada, 347.
+  Mosca, Lodovico del, 39.
+  Moslem corsairs, their cupidity, 3,
+      driven out of Spain, 4, 29;
+      characteristics, 4, 67, 241;
+      fanaticism, 5, 17;
+      supremacy on the sea, 8;
+      frequent defeats, 10;
+      tyranny, 11;
+      ships, 18;
+      booty, 24;
+      cruel methods, 24, 32;
+      retrogression, 239;
+      mode of commencing their careers, 240;
+      conquer Palestine, 286;
+      at the siege of Malta, 300;
+      number of deaths, 300.
+  Motte, Chevalier de la, at the siege of St. Elmo, 327.
+  Mourad-Reis, 201.
+  Moustafa-Billah, Caliph, 287.
+  Muley Hamid, negotiations with, 330.
+  Muley Hassan, King of Tunis, 130, 137,
+      restored to his kingdom, 161;
+      terms of his vassalage, 162.
+  Mustafa, in command of the land forces against Malta, 316, 322,
+      captures Famagusta, 362.
+
+  Naples, seized, 40,
+      invasion of, 90;
+      reception of Don John of Austria at, 358.
+  Navarro, Count Pedro de, seizes the town of Bougie, 55,
+      captures Algiers, 62, 64;
+      his Tower, 64.
+  Navarro’s Tower, siege of, 65, 67, 91–95,
+      captured, 95;
+      pulled down, 97.
+  Nef, the, 18, 232.
+  Negropont, Bailli of, at the siege of Malta, 326, 332, 333,
+      killed, 341.
+  Nunez, Martin, his embassy to the Pope, 163.
+
+  Occhiali. _See_ Ali Basha.
+  Ojeda, Captain, rescues the _Capitana_ at the battle of Lepanto, 371.
+  Omedes, Juan d’, Grand Master of the Knights of St. John, 278,
+      warned of the approach of the corsairs, 281;
+      refuses to take alarm, 281, 306.
+  Oneglia, 98.
+  Oran, 2, 73,
+      attack on, 10.
+  Oristano, Gulf of, 236.
+  Osmanli, their warlike achievements on land, 15.
+  Ottoman, 292,
+      his siege of Rhodes, 293.
+  _Our Lady of the Conception_, 45.
+
+  Palamos, Bay of, 236.
+  Palermo, 265.
+  Palestine, conquered by Moslems, 286.
+  Palma, 172.
+  Panama, capture of, 24.
+  Pantellaria, island of, 236.
+  Pantera, Captain Pantero, “L’ Armata Navale,” 225.
+  Parma, Prince of, at the battle of Lepanto, 364.
+  Paschal II., Pope, 301.
+  Passaro, Cape, 352.
+  Patras, Turks defeated at, 109.
+  _Patrona_ galley, capture of, 275.
+  Paul III., his scheme of defence for Rome, 139.
+  Paxo, island of, 180.
+  Payens, Hugues de, founds the Order of the Knights Templars, 291.
+  Pedro, Francisco San, 371.
+  Penne, Barras de la, on the treatment of men on board the galleys, 223.
+  Peter the Hermit, 287.
+  Philip II., King of Spain, 274, 311,
+      forms the “Holy League,” 357;
+      his fleet, 360.
+  Piali, Admiral, 10,
+      in command of the fleet against Malta, 316, 322.
+  Pierre, St., Isle of, 235.
+  Pius V., Pope, 356, 373,
+      forms the “Holy League,” 357.
+  Portugal, Don Juan, King of, his armada at Barcelona, 148.
+  Portugal, Prince Luis of, at Barcelona, 148, 150.
+  Prescott, William Hickling, 4,
+      his description of the Janissaries, 279;
+      of Don John of Austria, 358;
+      of the battle of Lepanto, 364, 368.
+  Press-gang, methods of the, 226.
+  Prevesa, battle of, 6, 22, 108, 189, 190, 194–218, 366.
+  Punta delle Forche, 277, 333.
+
+  Rabadan, Celebi, 92, 112.
+  Rabadan, left in charge of Tunis, 351.
+  Raschid, 130, 137.
+  Raschid, Caliph Haroun, 287.
+  Ravenstein, Count Philip of, 39.
+  _Real_, the, 364.
+  Reggio, 32,
+      sack of, 133.
+  Reis, Aisa-, left in charge of “Africa,” 261, 264,
+      his defence, 266;
+      captured, 267.
+  Reis, Dragut-, _See_ Dragut
+  Requesens, Don Luiz de, disaster to his fleet, 234.
+  _Revenge_, the, 354.
+  Rhodes, island of, 242,
+      seized by the Knights of St. John, 35, 292;
+      besieged, 36, 293;
+      serpent at, 294–296;
+      derivation of the name, 297.
+  Ribera, Don Perisan de, 80.
+  Ricasoli, 333.
+  Richard II, 215.
+  Rio, Juan del, taken captive, 71.
+  Rivière, Chevalier La, 322.
+  Robeira, Captain, repulses the corsairs, 84.
+  Rocca Guillelma, fortress of, besieged, 99.
+  Rodas, Capitan de, 111.
+  Roderick the Goth, conquered by the Osmanli, 15, 29.
+  Rome, fortifications of, 139.
+  Romegas, Commandeur de, 312, 313,
+      his account of the battle of Lepanto, 360.
+  Rosell, Don Cayetano, his _Historia del combate naval de Lepanto_,
+    359, 364.
+  Roverejo, Juan, war with Cordoba, 99.
+  Roxalana, Sultana, her influence over Soliman, 174,
+      characteristics, 174;
+      jealousy, 174;
+      murders Ibrahim, 176.
+
+  Salaerrez, 88.
+  Saleh-Reis, 187.
+  Salerno, Gulf of, 101.
+  Sallee, the rovers, 237.
+  Sandoval, El Maestro Don Fray Prudencio de, his history of Charles V.,
+    43, 70, 71, 108, 142, 144, 150, 155.
+  Sangle, Claude de la, his death, 309.
+  Sangullo, Antonio de, 139.
+  _Santa Ana_, bravery of the, 353.
+  Santa Cruz, Marquis of, at the battle of Lepanto, 364,
+      rescues the _Capitana_, 371.
+  _Santa Maria_, the flagship of Columbus, 231.
+  Sardinia, 136.
+  Satalie, Gulf of, 47.
+  Savona, fortification of, 103.
+  Sceberass, Mount, 301, 307, 325, 342.
+  Scutari, 38.
+  Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean,
+      take refuge in Northern Africa, 1;
+      their deeds of terror, 2;
+      cupidity, 3;
+      fanaticism, 5, 17;
+      autocratic rule, 7, 25;
+      equality, 7;
+      aptitude for the sea, 8;
+      defeats, 10;
+      nefarious doings, 15;
+      characteristics of their leaders, 16, 25, 284, 376;
+      ships, 18;
+      character of the men, 26;
+      leagues against, 29;
+      relations with the Turks, 33.
+  Seignelay, his criticism of Admiral de Tourville, 283.
+  Selim I., Sultan of Turkey. _See_ Soliman
+  Selim II., Sultan of Turkey, 356,
+      his character, 356;
+      lays claim to the island of Cyprus, 356.
+  Serpent, method of killing, 294–296.
+  Sesse, Duke of, 311.
+  Sessola, islet of, 207.
+  Sfax, 2, 250.
+  Sforza, Lodovico, Duke of Milan, 100.
+  Shershell, 2, 66.
+  Shott-el-Jerid, 153.
+  Sinan-Reis, in command of La Goletta fortress, 156,
+      at the battle of Prevesa, 197;
+      in command of the Janissaries, 279, 281;
+      character as a leader, 285, 307;
+      his expedition against Malta, 306;
+      sacks the island of Gozo, 309;
+      captures Tripoli, 309.
+  Skiathos, 187.
+  Skios island, 187.
+  Slaves, on board galleys, their treatment, 223–229,
+      mutiny at Lepanto, 228.
+  Smyrna, Basha of, 48.
+  Soliman the Magnificent, Sultan of Turkey, 9, 14, 109,
+      expels the Knights of St. John from Rhodes, 42, 277, 299;
+      embassy from Barbarossa, 60, 76;
+      sends reinforcements, 61;
+      recalls his ships, 61;
+      his conquest of the Mamelukes, 77;
+      invites the cooperation of Barbarossa, 110;
+      appoints him commander of his fleet, 111, 117, 127;
+      receives gifts from him, 118;
+      his reception of him, 120;
+      relations with Ibrahim, 173;
+      under the influence of Roxalana, 174;
+      declares war against Venice, 179;
+      defeated, 179;
+      preparations for campaigns, 183, 277, 316;
+      his demands from Charles V., 270;
+      loss of his “puissant galleon,” 313;
+      lamentations of his people, 314;
+      holds a conference, 316;
+      expedition against Malta, 316;
+      his death, 356.
+  Spaniards, under Moorish rule, 30,
+      expedition against the Barbarossas, 62;
+      repulse Hassan, 84;
+      captives, assist in the capture of Algiers, 89;
+      restored to liberty, 89.
+  Spartivento, Cape, 136.
+  Spezzia, Gulf of, 104.
+  Susa, 2, 250.
+  Swertius, Franciscus, his collection of epitaphs, 373.
+
+  Tabas, 88.
+  Taranto, 32.
+  Tarik, 15, 29.
+  Tenes, 2,
+      fall of, 72.
+  Thevenot, his Travels, 297.
+  Tiber, the, 139.
+  Tineo, Garzia de, kills Uruj Barbarossa, 73.
+  Tlemcen, 2.
+  Tlemcen, Sultan of, his flight to Fez, 72.
+  Toledo, Don Garcia de, 230;
+      in the expedition against Dragut, 265;
+      his character as a ruler, 317.
+  Toledo, Don Pedro de, 273.
+  Tours, Viscomte de, sent to Genoa, 102.
+  Tourville, Admiral de, criticism on, 283.
+  Traparni, 265.
+  Tripoli, 2, 153,
+      defence of, 10;
+      capture, 309;
+      fortifications, 311;
+      expedition against, 311.
+  Trivulce, Theodore, 104.
+  Tunis, 2,
+      captured by the corsairs, 137, 375;
+      massacre in, 141, 159;
+      fortifications repaired, 146;
+      rebellion in, 348;
+      appeal to Ali Basha, 349;
+      flight of Hamid, 350.
+  Tunis, Sultan of, his treaties with the Barbarossas, 51, 61,
+      repudiates treaty, 59.
+  Turks, their character as soldiers, 8, 124,
+      relations with the Sea-wolves, 33;
+      attack on Rhodes, 37;
+      defeated at Patras, 109.
+  Tuscany, Duke of, 235.
+
+  Urbain II., Pope, 287.
+  Urbino, Duke of, 99,
+      at the battle of Lepanto, 364.
+
+  Vagnor, Chevalier, 333.
+  Valentia, ravaged by corsairs, 83.
+  Valetta, position of, 307, 342.
+  Valette, Jean Parisot de la, Grand Master of the Knights of St. John,
+    6, 248;
+      his characteristics, 301, 309;
+      creed, 302;
+      personal example in the siege of Malta, 302–305;
+      his high conception of duty, 310;
+      expedition against Tripoli, 311;
+      repulsed, 312;
+      summons help, 318;
+      preparations for the siege, 318–321;
+      address to his brethren, 319;
+      at the siege of Malta, 324–328;
+      reinforcements, 328.
+  Vargas, Martin de, in command of the fortress of Navarro, 91,
+      besieged, 91–95;
+      wounded and taken prisoner, 95;
+      beheaded, 96.
+  Vasto, Marquis de, 143.
+  Vega, Don Alvaro, in command of “Africa,” 267.
+  Vega, Don Juan de, Viceroy of Sicily, 273,
+      in the expedition against Dragut, 265.
+  Velez, Peñon de, captured, 312.
+  Venalcadi, 73,
+      escapes, 86;
+      attacks Barbarossa, 87;
+      fight, 88;
+      beheaded, 88.
+  _Vengeur_, the, 354.
+  Venice, 32,
+      treaty of commerce concluded, 34;
+      relations with Soliman, 179;
+      war declared, 179;
+      “Holy League” formed, 357.
+  Veniero, Sebastian in command of the Venetian fleet, 360, 364.
+  Vera, Don Diego de, sent to capture Algiers, 70,
+      defeated, 71.
+  Vercoyran, Chevalier de, at the siege of Malta, 332.
+  Vertot, M. L’Abbé de, 273, 297, 311.
+  _Victory_, the, 354.
+  Villaret, Fulke de, Grand Master of the Knights of St. John, 35,
+      seizes Rhodes, 35, 292.
+  Villegagnon, Commandeur de, his interview with the Grand Master, 281.
+  Villeneuve, Helion de, Grand Master of the Knights of St. John, 293,
+      character of his rule, 293;
+      death, 297.
+  Vittoriosa, 299.
+  Volo, Gulf of, 187.
+
+  Ximenes, Fray Francisco, Cardinal Bishop of Toledo, 70.
+  Yamboli, 216.
+  Yonis Bey, sent to Venice, 178.
+
+  Zante, island of, 114, 313.
+  Zara, port of, 227.
+  Zay, Basha, 114, 125.
+  Zonchio, battle of, 38.
+
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+Project Gutenberg's Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean, by E. Hamilton Currey
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean
+
+Author: E. Hamilton Currey
+
+Release Date: October 10, 2004 [EBook #13689]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SEA-WOLVES OF THE MEDITERRANEAN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Robert Connal and the Online Distributed Proofreading
+Team, from images generously provided by the Million Books Project.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+SEA-WOLVES OF THE MEDITERRANEAN
+
+
+
+[Illustration: KHEYR-ED-DIN BARBAROSSA--CORSAIR, ADMIRAL, AND KING.]
+
+
+
+SEA-WOLVES OF THE MEDITERRANEAN
+
+
+THE GRAND PERIOD OF THE MOSLEM CORSAIRS
+
+
+
+
+BY COMMANDER E. HAMILTON CURREY, R.N.
+
+
+WITH PORTRAITS AND ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+  "Ships be but boards, sailors but men:
+  There be land rats and water rats, land thieves and water thieves,
+  I mean pirates."
+
+  _Merchant of Venice_.
+
+
+LONDON
+
+JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W
+
+1910
+
+
+
+
+TO THAT GRACIOUS LADY TO WHOSE COUNSEL AND ENCOURAGEMENT I OWE SO MUCH MORE
+THAN ANY ONE--SAVE I--CAN IMAGINE...
+
+TO MY WIFE
+
+I DEDICATE THIS BOOK
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+When the ship is ready for launching there comes a moment of tense
+excitement before the dogshores are knocked away and she slides down the
+ways. In the case of a ship this excitement is shared by many thousands,
+who have assembled to acclaim the birth of a perfected product of the
+industry of man; the emotion is shared by all those who are present. It is
+very different when a book has been completed. The launching has been
+arranged for and completed by expert hands; she like the ship gathers way
+and slides forth into an ocean: but, unlike the ship which is certain to
+float, the waters may close over and engulf her, or perchance she may be
+towed back to that haven of obscurity from which she emerged, to rust there
+in silence and neglect. There is excitement in the breast of one man
+alone--to wit, the author. If his book possesses one supreme qualification
+she will escape the fate mentioned, and this qualification is--interest. As
+the weeks lengthened into months, and these multiplied themselves to the
+tale of something like twenty-four, the conviction was strengthened that
+that which had so profoundly interested the writer, would not be altogether
+indifferent to others. For some inscrutable reason the deeds of sea-robbers
+have always possessed a fascination denied to those of their more numerous
+brethren of the land; and in the case of the Sea-wolves of the sixteenth
+century we are dealing with the very aristocrats of the profession.
+Circumstances over which they had no control flung the Moslem population of
+Southern Spain on to the shores of Northern Africa: to revenge themselves
+upon the Christian foe by whom this expropriation had been accomplished was
+natural to a warrior race; and those who heretofore had been land-folk pure
+and simple took to piracy as a means of livelihood. It is of the deeds of
+these men that this book treats; of their marvellous triumphs, of their
+apparently hopeless defeats, of the manner in which they audaciously
+maintained themselves against the principalities and the powers of
+Christendom always hungering for their destruction.
+
+The quality which Napoleon is said to have ascribed to the British
+Infantry, "of never knowing when they were beaten," seems to have also
+characterised the Sea-wolves; as witness the marvellous recuperation of
+Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa when expelled from Tunis by Charles V.; and the
+escape of Dragut from the island of Jerba when apparently hopelessly
+trapped by the Genoese admiral, Andrea Doria. All through their history the
+leaders of the Sea-wolves show the resourcefulness of the real seamen that
+they had become by force of circumstances, and it was they who in the age
+in which they dwelt showed what sea power really meant. Sailing through the
+Mediterranean on my way to Malta in the spring of this year, as the good
+ship fared onwards I passed in succession all those lurking-places from
+which the Moslem Corsairs were wont to burst out upon their prey. Truly it
+seemed as if
+
+  "The spirits of their fathers might start from every wave,"
+
+and in imagination one pictured the rush of the pirate galley, with its
+naked slaves straining at the oar of their taskmasters, its fierce,
+reckless, beturbaned crew clustered on the "rambades" at the bow and stern.
+It might be that they would capture some hapless "round-ship," a
+merchantman lumbering slowly along the coast; or again they might meet with
+a galley of the terrible Knights of St. John or of the ever-redoubtable
+Doria. In either case the Sea-wolves were equal to their fortune, to
+plunder or to fight in the name of Allah and his prophet.
+
+That which differentiated the Sea-wolves from other pirates was the
+combination which they effected among themselves; the manner in which these
+lawless men could subordinate themselves to the will of one whom they
+recognised as a great leader. To obtain such recognition was no easy
+matter, and the manner in which this was done, by those who rose by sheer
+force of character to the summit of this remarkable hierarchy, has here
+been set forth.
+
+E. HAMILTON CURREY.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY                                                 1
+
+CHAPTER I
+THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS                                  13
+
+CHAPTER II
+THE COMING OF THE CORSAIRS                                  28
+
+CHAPTER III
+URUJ BARBAROSSA                                             43
+
+CHAPTER IV
+THE DEATH OF URUJ BARBAROSSA                                59
+
+CHAPTER V
+KHEYR-ED-DIN BARBAROSSA                                     75
+
+CHAPTER VI
+THE TAKING OF THE PE�ON D'ALGER; ANDREA DORIA               91
+
+CHAPTER VII
+THE APOTHEOSIS OF THE CORSAIR KING                         107
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+THE RAID ON THE COAST OF ITALY; JULIA GONZAGA              123
+
+CHAPTER IX
+BARCELONA, MAY 1535; THE GATHERING OF THE
+CHRISTIAN HOSTS                                            139
+
+CHAPTER X
+THE FALL OF TUNIS AND THE FLIGHT OF BARBAROSSA             155
+
+CHAPTER XI
+ROXALANA AND THE MURDER OF IBRAHIM                         172
+
+CHAPTER XII
+THE PREVESA CAMPAIGN; THE GATHERING OF THE
+  FLEETS                                                   189
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+THE BATTLE OF PREVESA                                      205
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+THE NAVY OF OARS. THE GALLEY, THE GALEASSE,
+  AND THE NEF                                              221
+
+CHAPTER XV
+DRAGUT-REIS                                                238
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+DRAGUT-REIS                                                254
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+DRAGUT-REIS                                                269
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+THE KNIGHTS OF ST. JOHN                                    286
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+DRAGUT-REIS                                                306
+
+CHAPTER XX
+THE SIEGE OF MALTA                                         324
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+ALI BASHA                                                  344
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+LEPANTO                                                    362
+
+AUTHORITIES CONSULTED                                      383
+
+LIST OF THE KINGS OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, SPAIN,
+  SULTANS OF TURKEY, POPES OF ROME, AND GRAND
+  MASTERS OF MALTA FROM 1492 TO 1580                       385
+
+DISTANCES IN SEA MILES ON THE COAST OF NORTHERN
+  AFRICA                                                   387
+
+INDEX                                                      389
+
+
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+I wish to record my cordial recognition of the kindness shown to me at
+Malta by Mr. Salvino Sant Manduca. The picture of the carrack opposite to
+page 300 was a gift from him. The galley of the Knights of Malta is a
+reproduction of a picture hanging in his house. I should also like to thank
+him for the time and trouble which he took on my behalf during my stay at
+Malta, and the keen interest he displayed in my subject.
+
+R. HAMILTON CURREY.
+
+
+KHEYR-ED-DIN BARBAROSSA--CORSAIR, ADMIRAL, AND KING      _Frontispiece_
+
+                                                            FACING PAGE
+
+URUJ AND KHEYR-ED-DIN BARBAROSSA                                     44
+
+ANDREA DORIA, PRINCE OF ONEOLIA, ADMIRAL TO CHARLES V.               92
+
+SOLIMAN THE MAGNIFICENT                                             110
+
+THE EMPEROR CHARLES V                                               150
+
+MULEY HASSAN KING OF TUNIS                                          162
+
+GALEASSE UNDER SAIL                                                 194
+
+GALLEY UNDER OARS                                                   222
+
+BRIGANTINE CHASING FELUCCA                                          236
+
+GOZON DE DIEU-DONN� SLAYING THE GREAT SERPENT OF RHODES             294
+
+CARRACK IN WHICH THE KNIGHTS ARRIVED AT MALTA, 1530                 300
+
+JEAN PARISOT DE LA VALETTE, GRAND MASTER OF THE KNIGHTS
+  OF MALTA, AT THE SIEGE OF THAT ISLAND BY THE TURKS
+  IN 1565                                                           324
+
+DEATH OF DRAGUT AT THE SIEGE OF MALTA                               340
+
+A GALLEY OF THE KNIGHTS OF MALTA                                    354
+
+DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA                                                 362
+
+SEBASTIAN VENIERO                                                   364
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY
+
+In all the ages of which we have any record there have been men who gained
+a living by that practice of robbery on the high seas which we know by the
+name of Piracy. Perhaps the pirates best known to the English-speaking
+world are the buccaneers of the Spanish Main, who flourished exceedingly in
+the seventeenth century, and of whom many chronicles exist: principally
+owing to the labours of that John Esquemelin, a pirate of a literary turn
+of mind, who added the crime of authorship to the ill deeds of a sea-rover.
+The Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean in the preceding century did not raise
+up a chronicler from among themselves: for not much tincture of learning
+seems to have distinguished these desperate fighters and accomplished
+seamen, descendants of those Spanish Moslems who had, during the Middle
+Ages, lived in a land in which learning and culture had been held in the
+highest estimation. Driven from their homes, their civilisation crushed,
+their religion banned in that portion of Southern Spain in which they had
+dwelt for over seven centuries, cast upon the shores of Northern Africa,
+these men took to the sea and became the scourge of the Mediterranean. That
+which they did, the deeds which they accomplished, the terror which they
+inspired, the ruin and havoc which they wrought, have been set forth in the
+pages of this book.
+
+It was the age of the galley, the oar-propelled vessel which moved
+independently of the wind in the fine-weather months of the great inland
+sea. Therefore to the dwellers on the coast the Sea-wolves were a perpetual
+menace; as, when booty was unobtainable at sea, they raided the towns and
+villages of their Christian foes. During all the period here dealt with no
+man's life, no woman's honour, was safe from these pirates within the area
+of their nefarious activities. They held the Mediterranean in fee, they
+levied toll on all who came within reach of their galleys and their
+scimitars. Places unknown to the geography of the sixteenth century became
+notorious in their day, and Christian wives and mothers learned to tremble
+at the very names of Algiers and Tunis. From these places the rovers issued
+to capture, to destroy, and to enslave: in Oran and Tlemcen, in Tenes,
+Shershell, Bougie, Jigelli, Bizerta, Sfax, Susa, Monastir, Jerbah, and
+Tripoli they lurked ready for the raid and the foray. At one time all
+Northern Africa would thrill to the triumph of the Moslem arms, at another
+there would go up the wail of the utterly defeated; but in spite of
+alternations of fortune the Sea-wolves abode in the localities of their
+choice, and ended in establishing those pirate States which troubled the
+peace of the Mediterranean practically until the introduction of steam.
+
+The whole record of the sixteenth century is one of blood and fire, of
+torture and massacre, of "punic faith" and shameless treason; the deeds of
+the sea-rovers, appalling as they were, frequently found a counterpart in
+the battles, the sieges, and the sacking of towns which took place
+perpetually on the continent of Europe.
+
+There was so much history made at this period, the stage of world politics
+was occupied by so many great, striking, and dazzling personalities, that
+the Sea-wolves and all they accomplished were to a great extent
+overshadowed by happenings which the chroniclers of the time considered to
+be of greater importance. In this no doubt they were right in the main;
+but, in spite of this opinion which they held, we find that time and again
+the main stream of events is ruffled by the prows of the pirate galleys.
+Such men as the Barbarossas, as Dragut, and Ali Basha could only have been
+suppressed and exterminated had the whole might of Christendom been turned
+against them, for they held in their hands two weapons, the keenest and
+most powerful with which to attain the objects which they had in view.
+
+The first and more powerful of these was the appeal in a rough and warlike
+age to the cupidity of mankind. "Those who are content to follow us," they
+said in effect, "are certain to enrich themselves if they are men stout of
+heart and strong of hand. All around us lie rich and prosperous lands; we
+have but to organise ourselves, and to take anything that we wish for; we
+can, if we like, gather a rich harvest at comparatively small trouble."
+Such counsels as these did not fall on deaf ears. Driven from the land of
+plenty--from glorious Andalusia with its fruitful soil, its magnificent
+cities, its vines and olives, its fruit and grain, its noble rivers and
+wide-spreading _vegas_--the Spanish Moslem of the day of the Sea-wolves was
+an outcast and a beggar, ripe for adventure and burning for revenge on
+those by whom he had been expropriated.
+
+Great historians like William Hickling Prescott tell us that, in the course
+of the seven centuries of the Moslem domination in Spain, the Moors had
+become soft and effeminate, that "the canker of peace" had sapped, if it
+had not destroyed, the virile qualities of the race, that luxury and
+learning had dried up at their source those primitive virtues of courage
+and hardihood which had been the leading characteristics of those stark
+fighters who had borne the banner of the Prophet from Mecca even to Cadiz.
+Tom by faction, by strife among themselves, they had succumbed to the arms
+of the Northern chivalry; by its warriors they had been driven out, never
+to return.
+
+When this was accomplished, when the curtain fell on the final scene of the
+tragedy, and the Moors, after the fall of Granada, were driven across the
+sea into Africa, there came to pass a most remarkable change in those who
+had been expropriated. The learning, the culture, the civilisation, by
+which they had been so long distinguished, seemed to drop away from them,
+cast away like a worn-out garment for which men have no further use. In
+place of all these things there came a complete and desperate valour, a
+bitter and headstrong fanaticism.
+
+It was one of the attributes of the Moslem civilisation in Spain, and one
+of the most enlightened thereof, that religious toleration flourished in
+its midst. Jew and Christian were allowed to worship at the altars of their
+fathers, no man hindering or saying them nay; one rule, and one alone, had
+to be preserved: none must blaspheme against Mahomet, the Prophet of God,
+as he was considered to be by the Moslems. The penalty for infraction of
+this rule was death; otherwise, complete liberty of conscience was
+accorded.
+
+We have spoken of the two weapons held by the leaders of the Sea-wolves.
+The first, as we have, said, was cupidity; the second was fanaticism, the
+deadly religious hatred engendered, not only by the wholesale expropriation
+of the Moslem population, but also by the persecution to which the
+Moriscoes--as those Moslems were known who remained in Spain--were
+subjected by their Christian masters. It requires little imagination to see
+how these two weapons of avarice and intolerance could be made to serve the
+purpose of those dominant spirits who rose to the summit of the piratical
+hierarchy. Not only did they dazzle the imaginations of those who followed
+in their train by promises of wealth uncounted, but they added to this the
+specious argument that, in slaying and robbing the Christian wheresoever he
+was to be found, the faithful Moslem was performing the service of God and
+the act most grateful to his holy Prophet.
+
+Could any rule of life be at the same time more simple and more attractive
+to the beggared Mohammedan cast on the sterile shores of Northern Africa to
+starve?
+
+With the main stream of history, to which we have before referred, we have
+no concern in this book. He who would embark thereon must sail a powerful
+vessel which must carry many guns. Also for the conduct of this vessel many
+qualities are necessary: a commanding intellect, acute perceptions,
+indefatigable industry, complete leisure, are among those things necessary
+to the pilot. These must be supplemented by a genius for research, a
+knowledge of ancient and modern languages, and an unerring faculty for
+separating the few precious grains of wheat from those mountains of chaff
+which he will have to sift with the utmost care. There are, however,
+subsidiary rivulets which feed the onward flow of events, and of such is
+the story of the Sea-wolves of the Mediterranean. On these the adventurous
+mariner can sail his little cockboat, discreetly retiring before he becomes
+involved and engulfed in the main stream. That he cannot altogether avoid
+it is shown by the fact that the men who are here chronicled took part in
+events of first-class importance in the age in which they lived.
+Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa fought the battle of Prevesa against his lifelong
+antagonist, Andrea Doria. Dragut was killed at the siege of Malta, at the
+moment almost of the fall of the castle of St. Elmo; had he lived it is
+more than probable that Jean Parisot de la Valette and his heroic garrison
+would have been defeated instead of being victorious. Ali Basha was the one
+Moslem commander who increased his reputation at the battle of Lepanto,
+because, as was usual in all maritime conflicts of the time, the corsairs,
+who had the habit of the sea, were more than a match for soldiers embarked
+to fight on an unfamiliar element.
+
+We shall speak, later on, of the autocratic rule of these leaders who
+possessed so absolute a domination over the men by whom they were followed.
+The fact of this absolute supremacy on the part of the chiefs is very
+curious, as theoretically in the confederacy of the Sea-wolves all were
+equal; we are, in fact, confronted with pure democracy, where every man was
+at liberty to do what seemed best in his own eyes. He was a free agent,
+none coercing him or desiring him to place himself under discipline or
+command. This, be it observed, was the theory. As a matter of fact the
+corsairs, who were extraordinarily successful in their abominable trade,
+abode beneath an iron and rigid discipline. This was enforced by the lash,
+as we shall see later on when it is related how Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa
+flogged one Hassan, a captain who, he considered, had failed in his duty:
+or by the actual penalty of death, which Uruj Barbarossa inflicted on one
+who had dared to act independently of his authority.
+
+The theory of equality obtained among the Mediterranean pirates; but the
+Barbarossas, Dragut, and Ali believed that, in practice, the less
+interference there was with their designs by those, whom Cardinal Granvelle
+denominated in a letter to Philip II. as "that mischievous animal the
+people," the better it would be for all concerned. The conception held of
+rights and duties of "the mischievous animal" by these militant persons
+was, that it should behave as did those others recorded of the Roman
+centurion in Holy Writ: if it did not, and difficulties arose, the leaders
+were not troubled with an undue tenderness either towards the individual or
+the theory. Of this we shall see examples as we go on.
+
+This period has been called "The Grand Period of the Moslem Corsairs"
+because it was in something less than a century, from the year of the
+expulsion of the Moors from Granada in 1492 to the death of Ali Basha in
+1580, that the Sea-wolves were at the height of their power, that the
+piratical States of the Mediterranean were in the making. That subsequently
+they gave great cause of trouble to Christendom is written in characters of
+blood and fire throughout the history of the succeeding centuries; but the
+real interest in the careers of these men resides in the fact that they
+established, by their extraordinary aptitude for sea-adventure, the
+permanent place which was held by their descendants. Time and again in the
+sixteenth century the effort was made to destroy them root and branch: they
+were defeated, driven out of their strongholds on shore, crushed apparently
+for ever. But nothing short of actual extermination could have been
+successful in this; as, no matter how severe had been the set-back, there
+was always left a nucleus of the pirates which in a short time grew again
+into a formidable force. The Ottoman Turk, magnificent fighter as he was on
+land, seemed to lose his great qualities when the venue was changed from
+the land to the sea. The Janissaries, that picked corps trained as few
+soldiers were trained even in that age of iron, who never recoiled before
+the foe but who fought only to conquer or die, seem to have failed when
+embarked for sea-service. That which the hard teaching of experience alone
+could show--that the man who fights best upon the sea is he who has the
+habit of the sea--was at this time not generally recognised, and this it
+was that rendered the corsairs so supreme on the element which they had
+made their own. Some among the great ones of the earth there were who
+appreciated this fact, who, like that great statesman Ibrahim, Grand Vizier
+to Soliman the Magnificent, recognised what it was to lay their hands upon
+"a veritable man of the sea"; but the rule was to embark men from the shore
+and to entrust to them the duty of fighting naval actions.
+
+When "the Grand Period" came to an end, as it did about the date already
+indicated, the corsairs had become a permanent institution; they remained
+established at Algiers, Tunis, and other ports on the littoral of Northern
+Africa as a recognised evil. Pirates they remained to the end of the
+chapter, the scourge of the tideless sea; but no longer did they array
+themselves in line of battle against the mightiest potentates of the earth
+allied for their complete destruction. It was the men of the sea who set up
+this empire; it was they who defied Charles V., a whole succession of
+Popes, Andrea Doria and his descendants, the might of Spain, Venice, Genoa,
+Catalonia, and France. It was they who taught the so-called civilised world
+of the age in which they lived that sea-power can only be met and checked
+by those who dispose of navies manned by seamen; that against it the master
+of the mightiest legions of the land is powerless.
+
+This contention is by no means invalidated by the fact that frequently the
+corsairs were defeated by land forces embarked on board ship. Thus when
+Dragut was defending Tripoli against an expedition sent against him in 1559
+by the combined forces of Spain, Tuscany, Rome, Naples, Sicily, and Genoa,
+of one hundred sail which embarked fourteen thousand troops, he was
+relieved by Piali, the Admiral of Soliman the Magnificent, who came to his
+assistance with eighty-six galleys, each of which had on board one hundred
+Janissaries, and who gained so striking a victory over the Christians that
+the Turkish Admiral returned to Constantinople with no less than four
+thousand prisoners. But in this case, as in so many others, the actual
+hostilities took place on shore, where the troops had the opportunity of
+displaying their sterling qualities.
+
+There is very little doubt that critics will point out that the corsairs
+were by no means universally successful; that, as in the case of the attack
+by Hassem, the ruler of Algiers in 1563, on Oran and Marzaquivir (a small
+port in the immediate vicinity of Oran), in the end the Moslems were badly
+beaten. This undoubtedly was the case, and there is no desire to magnify
+the deeds of the Sea-wolves or to minimise the heroic defence of
+Marzaquivir by the Count of Alcaudete, or that of Oran by his brother, Don
+Martin de C�rdoba, At the last moment of their wonderful defence they were
+relieved by a fleet sent by the King of Spain, and Hassem had to abandon
+his artillery, ammunition, and stores and beat a hasty retreat to the place
+from whence he had come.
+
+There was nothing remarkable in the fact that the corsairs were frequently
+defeated; what is really strange is that they should have achieved so great
+a success--success vouched for by the concrete instance that they
+established those sinister dynasties on the coast of Northern Africa which
+were the outcome of their piratical activities.
+
+In speaking of them, historians of later date than that at which they
+flourished are apt to hold them somewhat cheaply, to dismiss them as mere
+barbarians of no particular importance in the scheme of mundane affairs; as
+men who caused a certain amount of trouble to civilisation by their inroads
+and their plunderings. That which is certain is that they were for
+centuries a standing shame and disgrace to the whole of Christendom.
+
+To those who may perhaps be called the pioneers--that is to say, the men
+treated of in this book--a certain amount of sympathy and understanding may
+be conceded; for they had been driven from the land which had been theirs,
+it was their countrymen and their co-religionists who were being ground to
+powder beneath the fanatical cruelty of the Spanish Inquisition. That which
+they did was doubtless abominable, but it cannot be contended that they had
+not received the strongest provocation both from the material and the
+religious points of view.
+
+Once the "Grand Period" was passed, that period in which such men as the
+Barbarossas, Dragut, and Ali flourished, the chronicle of the Moslem States
+founded by them sinks to the degraded level of sheer robbery and murder; of
+a history of a tyranny established within one hundred miles of the shores
+of Europe, and of great kings and princes bargaining with piratical
+ruffians who held in thrall thousands upon thousands of their subjects. How
+it came about that the Christian States tolerated such an abuse is one of
+those mysteries which can never be explained; and if subsequent centuries
+displayed a greater refinement of manners, a more apt appreciation of all
+that is softer and kindlier in the human relationships of nation towards
+nation and of people towards people, they have not perhaps so much to plume
+themselves upon as had their rude forefathers of the sixteenth century,
+who, seeing the evil and feeling the effects thereof, did their best to
+extirpate those by whom this evil was caused.
+
+The question may be asked, how can it be that the lives and actions of such
+men as these are worth chronicling? It is because, not only that they
+modified profoundly the course of history in the age in which they lived,
+but also because that, hidden deep down, somewhere, in these men stained by
+a thousand crimes, ruthless, lustful, bloodthirsty, cruel as the grave, was
+the germ of true greatness, some dim spark of the divine fire of genius.
+Contending against principalities and powers, they held their own; in the
+welter of anarchy in which they lived they proved that there existed no
+finer fighting men, which alone give them some claim to consideration; but
+that which is most interesting to watch is the absolute domination obtained
+by the leaders over their followers. There is no other record of pirates
+who commanded on so large a scale; there is none which shows men such as
+these bargaining on equal terms with the great ones of the earth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS
+
+There is, in the deeds of men of action, an interest which is never aroused
+by those persons of brains and capacity by whom the world is really ruled.
+The statesman in his cabinet is the god within the machine; it is he who
+directs the acts of nations, it is he who moves the fleets and armies as if
+they were pieces on the chess-board; to him, as a rule, is the man of
+action subordinate, obeying his behests. Rule and governance are his, power
+both in the abstract and the concrete. Seldom in the history of the world
+do we come across the men who are at one and the same time statesmen and
+soldiers, who, taking their destiny in their own hands, work it out to the
+appointed end thereof. But, as we stray in the by-paths of history, we meet
+with some who, in their day, have influenced not only the age in which they
+lived themselves, but also the destinies of generations yet unborn. It
+would seem incredible that mere pirates, such as the Moslem corsairs of the
+Mediterranean, could be included in this category, and yet, as their story
+is unfolded, we shall see how the Sea-wolves rose from the humblest
+beginnings to trouble the peace of Europe, to found for themselves
+dynasties which endured.
+
+Uruj Barbarossa, Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, Dragut Reis, and Occhiali, or All
+Basha, were men who, in the sixteenth century, did much to change the
+conditions of the times in which they lived: it was the time of the
+Renaissance in Europe, a period of splendour in all the arts and sciences.
+These men added nothing to the knowledge of the civilised world as it then
+existed, save and except in one particular, which was, as Kheyr-ed-Din
+explained to Soliman the Magnificent on a certain memorable occasion, that
+he who rules on the sea will rule on the land also. In the present day,
+when all the nations and languages sit at the feet of Captain (now
+Rear-Admiral) Mahan, and acclaim his "Sea Power" series of books, it is
+interesting to find that he was anticipated in the most practical fashion
+possible by a corsair of the sixteenth century.
+
+This period was one in which great men abounded. The Emperor Charles V.,
+Francis I. of France, and Henry VIII. of England, were on the thrones of
+their respective countries; in Hungary was John Hunyadi, at Constantinople
+Soliman the Magnificent held rule, while in Rome the "fatal house of
+Medici" were the successors of Saint Peter. War was a commonplace state of
+the times, but until the Crescent began to sweep the seas it had its
+manifestation in the perpetual quarrels of the nations of Christendom,
+which represented, as a rule, the insatiable ambitions of its rulers. But
+now new men forced themselves to the front, a new power arose which was
+very imperfectly understood, and which practically held the sea at its
+mercy. Gone were the halcyon days of peaceful trade which had been pursued
+for generations by Venetian and Genoese, by Spaniard and Frenchman; gone
+also, apparently never to return, was all sense of security for the
+wretched dwellers on the littoral of the Mediterranean, who lived in daily,
+and particularly in nightly, dread of the falcon swoop of the pirate
+galleys.
+
+It is amusing to read the old chroniclers, sticklers as they were for "the
+dignity of history," continually having to turn aside from the main stream
+of their narrative of emperors, popes, and kings to descend to the level of
+the Sea-wolves, and to be constrained to set down the nefarious doings of
+these rovers of the sea. Bell, book, and candle were invoked against them
+in vain, and mighty monarchs had to meet them in the stricken field not
+merely once or twice--to their utter undoing and discomfiture--but many
+times, while victory inclined first to one side and then to the other.
+
+The Osmanli had ever been warriors since the times of the Prophet, of
+Abu-Bekr, of Othman, and of Ali; but so far their warlike achievements had
+been always on land, their only sea experience being confined to the
+crossing of the Straits of Gibraltar, when in the eighth century, under
+Tarik, they had swarmed into Andalusia, conquered Roderick the Goth, and
+set up that Moslem domination in Southern Spain which lasted until 1492,
+just before the events set forth in this book took place. Piracy in all
+ages is a thing in which a curious shuddering interest has been taken, and
+the deeds of the outlaws of the sea have never lacked chroniclers. There is
+for this a reason apart from the record of robbery and murder, which is the
+commonplace of piratical deeds: it resides in the perennial interest which
+men take in individual achievement, in the spectacle of absolute and
+complete domination by one man over the lives and the fortunes of others.
+This intense form of individualism is nowhere so well exhibited as in the
+story of piratical enterprise, where a band of men, outside of the law and
+divorced from all human kind by the atrocity of their deeds, has had to be
+welded into one homogeneous mass for the purpose of preying upon the world
+at large. Therefore he who would hold rule among such outlaws must himself
+be a man of no common description, for in him must be that quality which
+calls for instantaneous obedience among those with whom he is associated;
+behind him is no constituted authority, discipline is personal, enforced by
+the leader, and by him alone. Beneath him are men of the rudest and
+roughest description, slaves to their lusts and their passions, prone to
+mutiny, suspicious, and--worst of all--stupid.
+
+It is with these constituent elements that the piratical leader had to
+deal, trusting to the strength of his own arm, the subtlety of his own
+unassisted brain. Some among these leaders have risen to eminence in their
+evil lives, most of them have been the captains of single ships preying on
+commerce in an indiscriminate manner; but this was not the case with the
+Sea-wolves of the Mediterranean, Primarily sea-robbers they were of course,
+but as time and opportunity developed their characters they rose to meet
+occasion, to take fortune at the flood, in a manner that, had they been
+pursuing any other career, would most certainly have caused them to rise to
+eminence. Into the fierce and blood-stained turmoil of their lives there
+entered something unknown to any other pirates: this was religious
+fanaticism--a fanaticism so engrained in character, a belief held to with
+such passionate tenacity, that men stained with every conceivable crime
+held that their passage to Paradise was absolutely secure because of the
+faith which they professed. Tradition, sentiment, discipline, were summed
+up in one trite formula; but though we, at this distance of time, may hold
+it somewhat in derision, it was a vital force in the days of Soliman the
+Magnificent; and there was an added zest to robbery and murder in the fact
+that the pirates, as good Mohammedans, were obeying the behests of the
+Prophet every time that they cut a Christian throat, plundered a Christian
+argosy, or carried off shrieking women into a captivity far worse than
+death.
+
+That a pirate should be a warrior goes without saying, that a pirate should
+be a statesman is a thing almost incredible; but those who will read the
+story of the life of Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa will be forced to admit that
+here, at least, was a pirate who achieved the apparently impossible.
+Admiral Jurien de la Gravi�re has remarked that the Moslem corsairs of the
+sixteenth century were great men, even when measured by the standard of
+Henry VIII., of Charles V., of Soliman the Magnificent, of Ibrahim, his
+Grand Vizier, or of Andrea Doria, greatest among contemporary Christian
+mariners. To the seaman, of course, there is much that is fascinating in
+the deeds of his forerunners, and the ships of the corsairs had in them
+something distinctive in that they were propelled by oars, and were in
+consequence, to a certain extent, independent of the weather. Like the
+sailors of all ages, to the Sea-wolves gales and storms of all sorts and
+descriptions were abhorrent; and in consequence they had a well-marked
+piracy season, which, as we shall see, covered the spring and summer, while
+they carefully avoided the inclement months of autumn and winter.
+
+In a later chapter an attempt has been made to place before the reader
+pictures of the galley, the galeasse, and the nef, which were the names
+attached to the ships then in use; the name brigantine, far from having the
+significance attached to it by the sailor of the present day, seems to have
+been a generic term to denote any craft not included in the names already
+given.
+
+Although the sixteenth century had outgrown the principle of the general
+massacre of the enemy by the victors, still chivalry to the fallen foe was
+far to seek, as all persons captured at sea were, no matter what their rank
+and status, immediately stripped and chained to the rowers' bench, where
+they remained until ransom, good fortune, or a kindly death, for which
+these unfortunates were wont to pray, should come to their release. To a
+large extent this savagery may be traced to the religious rancour which
+animated the combatants on both sides, as the fanaticism of the Moslem, of
+which we have already spoken, was fully matched on the side of the
+Christians by the bigotry of the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem,
+otherwise known as the Knights of Malta, who were vowed to the
+extermination of what they, on their side, called "the infidel." It was an
+age of iron, when men neither gave nor expected grace for the misfortunes
+which might befall them in the warrior life which they led. It was
+distinguished by many gallant feats of arms on both sides, but pity formed
+no part of the equipment of the fighting man bent on the death or capture
+of his enemy. Honestly and sincerely each side believed that they were
+doing the service of the Almighty in destroying the other party root and
+branch. The amount of human misery and suffering caused by the rise and
+progress of the Moslem corsairs was absolutely incalculable; the slavery of
+the rower in the galley in the time of which we speak was an agony so
+dreadful that in these days it is a thing which seems altogether
+incredible, a nightmare of horror almost impossible even to imagine.
+
+The life of the "gallerian" was so hard that his sufferings in many cases
+were mercifully ended in death in a very short time, as none save those of
+iron constitution could stand the strain imposed by the desperate toil and
+wretched food. Yet there are cases on record of men who had worked at the
+oar for actual decades, so unconquerable in their strength that even such a
+life as this had not the power to break them down.
+
+To the peaceful mariner who wished merely to trade, to the individual whose
+business called him overseas, this epoch must have been one of terror
+unspeakable. The ordinary perils of the deep were quite enough to keep
+timid folk at home in those days of clumsy, ill-found sailing ships, which
+could by no means work to windward, and did not sail remarkably well even
+with the most favouring breezes; when to this we add that every ship which
+started on a voyage in the Mediterranean had before her the chance of being
+captured by the corsairs, it was no wonder that he whose business led him
+oversea should make his last will and testament and bid a fond farewell to
+all his relatives.
+
+There is a record in the M�moires of the Rev. Fr�re Pierre d'An, Bachelier
+en Th�ologie de la Facult� de Paris, etc., who wrote in a most heartfelt
+manner concerning the danger of the sea and the perils to be expected from
+the Barbary corsairs. He says, date 1637:
+
+  "An ancient writer, considering how little assurance can ordinarily be
+  placed in the sea, and how hazardous it is to expose oneself and one's
+  goods to its mercy, has remarked, with much reason, that it is
+  infinitely preferable to be poor on shore than to be rich at sea. In
+  which saying he mocks indeed at those ambitious, avaricious, and
+  mercenary men who, in order to gain false glory and the things of this
+  world, expose themselves rashly to the manifest perils which are most of
+  the time the inevitable lot of the seaman. This same consideration
+  causes him also to utter these remarkable words: that he repents himself
+  of but one thing, and that is ever to have travelled by sea when it was
+  possible to have done so by land. And, to say truth, he has good reason
+  to speak as he does, because it is impossible for the most hardy
+  navigators not to tremble with fear when it is represented before their
+  eyes that they must combat with the winds, the waves, and the foam every
+  time that they adventure upon the deep.
+
+  "Because it is indisputable that this is the very Theatre of the storms,
+  and the place in the world most capable of all sorts of violence and
+  tragic adventure. This, however, does not prevent those who covet the
+  perishable goods of this world from straying upon the sea, even in
+  unknown and untraversed regions, without ceasing and without rest.
+
+  "If, however, they abandon the ocean for a time, it is but to return to
+  it again to seek once more war with their ships, in order unjustly to
+  make themselves masters of the bodies and of the riches of others.
+
+  "Of such it may be remarked to-day are, in all the maritime coasts, the
+  implacable Corsairs of Barbary. For, however great may be the dangers of
+  which we have just spoken, and no matter now many examples they may see
+  of the fury and inconstancy of Neptune, they cease not their irritating
+  performances, kindling warfare in all the coasts of the Christian
+  nations. It is there that they exercise their infamous piracies, and
+  there also that they glory in the most shameful of all commerce--the
+  trade of the brigand.
+
+  "Which in all towns that are well policed have always met with a swift
+  and just retribution, because the law is ordained against those who
+  maintain such practices.
+
+  "But such does not happen among these pirates.
+
+  "On the contrary, it may truthfully be said that, while in towns in
+  which good persons dwell good actions receive the palms and the crown,
+  it is among the Corsairs but to the wicked to whom are given recompense
+  and praise.
+
+  "In effect the most determined among them--I mean the most unworthy
+  robbers who are best versed in all the infamies of their trade and most
+  accustomed to the practice of violence--are those who are covered with
+  honours, and who pass in the estimation of their fellows for men of
+  heart and courage.
+
+  "Indeed experience has taught all Christian merchants that the infidels
+  of the coast of Barbary are all brigands.
+
+  "Among these those of Algiers carry off the prize for riches, for ships,
+  for strength, and for villainy."
+
+The bachelor in theology is somewhat sweeping in his criticisms, and his
+meaning is, perhaps, somewhat clearer than his grammar. One thing, however,
+is perfectly plain, that, in the opinion of the reverend brother, those who
+go to sea are to be divided into two categories, rogues and fools, with a
+strong preponderance of the worse Element of the two.
+
+Of the corsairs dealt with in this record of their deeds the two
+Barbarossas were the sons of a Mohammedan father and a Christian mother.
+Dragut Reis was a pure Mohammedan, and Ali Basha was a pure-blooded
+Italian. All these men, as will be seen, raised themselves to eminence in
+the profession of piracy; in each and every separate case starting at the
+very bottom rung of the ladder and rising, by sheer stress of valour and
+character, to the very top. Each in turn became Admiralissimo to the Grand
+Turk at Constantinople. Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa commanded the Ottoman fleet
+at the great battle of Prevesa, at which he met with his life-long
+competitor at sea, the famous Genoese Admiral, Andrea Doria. Dragut Reis
+was killed at the siege of Malta in 1565, and Ali Basha was the only Moslem
+commander who increased his reputation at the battle of Lepanto in 1571,
+when Don John of Austria shattered the power of the Moslem at sea for the
+time being.
+
+Although the "renegado" was very much in evidence in the vessels of the
+Moslem corsairs, still of course the bulk of the fighting men, by which the
+galleys were manned, were Mohammedans, the descendants of the warriors who
+had swept through Northern Africa like a living flame in the early days of
+the Mohammedan conquest.
+
+Cut adrift from the homes which had been theirs for over seven
+centuries--as we shall see in the next chapter--there was nothing left for
+the erstwhile dwellers in Andalusia but to gain their living by the strong
+hand. The harvest of the sea was the one which they garnered--a harvest of
+the goods of their mortal enemies strung out in lines of hapless
+merchant-vessels throughout the length and breadth of the tideless sea.
+
+It booted not that the great Powers of Europe sent expedition after
+expedition against them; these they fought to the death with varying
+fortune, ready, when the storm had passed over their heads, to start once
+more on the only career which promised them the chance of acquiring riches.
+Their whole history is a study of warfare, waged as a rule on the petty
+scale, but rising at times, as in the cases already mentioned, into events
+of first-class historical importance.
+
+The deeds of the buccaneers of the next century in the Spanish Main sink
+into comparative insignificance when compared with what was accomplished by
+such a man as Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, who was known, and rightly known, by
+his contemporaries, and for many generations of Moslem seamen yet to come,
+as "the King of the Sea." The capture of Panama by Sir Henry Morgan in
+January 1671 was possibly as remarkable a feat of arms as was ever
+accomplished, but it cannot rank in its importance to civilised mankind on
+the same plane as those memorable battles in the Mediterranean of which
+mention has been made as having been fought by the Moslem corsairs.
+
+Fighting for their own hand, the booty reaped by these men was incredible
+in its richness. Sea-power was theirs, and they took the fullest advantage
+of this fact, fearing none save the great community of the Knights of Saint
+John of Jerusalem, which, vowed to the destruction of the infidel, neither
+gave nor accepted quarter.
+
+We have said that the real interest in the lives of the corsairs arose from
+the fact that it was personal ascendancy, and that alone, which counted in
+the piratical hierarchy. Against Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa plots arose again
+and again, only to be defeated by the address of the man against whom they
+were directed.
+
+It was one of the cruellest of ages, and rough cruelty was the principal
+means adopted to ensure success; sheer terror was the weapon of the leader.
+Thus when one Hassan, a subordinate of Kheyr-ed-Din, failed to take a
+Spanish ship because she made too stout a resistance, his chief caused him
+to be soundly flogged and then thrown into prison. Such methods naturally
+raised up hosts of enemies in the wake of the piratical commanders, ready
+at any time to do them a mortal injury, and it is little short of
+miraculous that they should throughout a long period of years have been
+able not only to maintain, but to increase, their supremacy over the wild
+spirits of which their following was composed. It was, however, the golden
+age of autocracy, when men surrendered their judgment to some great leader,
+content to follow where he led, to endorse his policy at the cost of their
+lives.
+
+It is the autocrat who is made by the circumstances of his life who
+ultimately becomes supreme. The leaders among the corsairs were tried by
+every test of prosperity and of adverse fortune; they emerged from the ruck
+in the first instance because it was in them to display a more desperate
+valour than did their contemporaries, and it was only when they emerged
+triumphant from this, the first test, that they could begin to impose their
+will upon others. It was then that their real trials began, as the
+undisciplined are ever prone to suspicion, much given to murmuring against
+a leader who is not perpetually successful.
+
+As a rule, however, there were but few to criticise, as the office of
+critic was one fraught with far too much danger to be alluring. In
+maintaining their authority the leaders stopped at nothing, and the heads
+of the recalcitrant were apt to part with amazing suddenness from their
+bodies if they repined overmuch. The Moslem leader was, it is true, merely
+_primus inter pares_, and was distinguished by no outward symbol of the
+power which he possessed; but life and death lay in his hands, and life was
+cheap indeed.
+
+We have spoken hitherto of the leaders, but what of the men of which their
+following was composed? Rough, rude, and reckless, these latter lived but
+to fight and to plunder; to them any other life would have seemed
+impossible, and indeed this was practically the fact. In the communities in
+which they lived the adult male had no other means of gaining a livelihood.
+Since their expulsion from their ancient homes no ordered and peaceful
+method of existence had been possible for them. In the surroundings in
+which their forefathers had lived the arts of peace had been carried on in
+a civilisation to which there had been none comparable in the world as it
+then existed; on all this the Moslem had now to turn his back, and to earn
+a precarious living by the strong hand. War, sanguinary and incessant, was
+henceforward to be his lot, and it must be said that he turned to this
+ancient avocation with a zest which left but little to be desired from the
+point of view of those by whom he was led. In the new life of bloodshed and
+adventure he seemed to delight. Like the free-lance in all ages, he seems
+to have squandered his booty as soon as it was acquired, and then to sea
+once more, to face the desperate hazard of an encounter with the knights,
+to raid defenceless villages, to lie _perdu_ behind some convenient cape,
+dashing out from thence to plunder the argosy of the merchantman.
+Intolerable conditions of heat and cold he endured, he suffered from
+wounds, from fever, from hunger and thirst, from hope deferred, from
+voyages when no plunder came his way.
+
+His reward was the joy of the fight, the delight of the ambush skilfully
+laid, to see the decks of the enemy a dreadful shambles, with the Crescent
+of the Prophet above the detested emblem of the Cross. Then the return to
+Algiers laden with spoil: to tow behind him some luckless Christian ship,
+while aboard his own war-worn galley the drums beat and the trumpets
+sounded, and the banners floated free to the stainless Mediterranean sky.
+Then the procession of the captives through the crowded streets laden with
+what a short time before had been their own property--a mournful _cort�ge_
+of men doomed to an everlasting slavery and of women destined for the
+harems of the Bashas.
+
+Thus was his life lived, and when death came it came as a rule from the
+slash of a sabre or the ball from an arquebus or a bombard; and then what
+matter, for had not Hassan Ali or Selim fallen in strife against the
+enemies of his faith, and did not the portals of heaven open wide to
+receive the man who had lost his life testifying to the fact that there was
+but one God, and that Mahomet was the Prophet of God?
+
+True in substance and in fact is that which was said by the Fr�re Pierre
+d'An that "it is indisputable that the sea is the Theatre of the storms and
+the place in the world most capable of all sorts of violence and tragic
+adventure." Those who "coveted the goods of others straying on the sea,"
+called by the reverend brother "the implacable, corsairs of Barbary," were
+to make life intolerable on that element for centuries to come, and if the
+Crescent did not supersede the banner of the Cross in the blue waters of
+the Mediterranean Sea, it remained as a portent and a dread symbol of human
+misery and unutterable suffering.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+THE COMING OF THE CORSAIRS
+
+The rise and progress of the Moslem corsairs of the Mediterranean is a most
+curious and interesting historical fact. The causes which led to results so
+deplorable to commerce, civilisation, and Christianity are set forth in
+this chapter in order that some idea may be formed of the state of affairs
+in that region at the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the
+sixteenth centuries, and also that the reflex action of the great triumph
+of the Christian armies in Spain may be more fully understood.
+
+The maritime Christian States of the Mediterranean at this epoch were at
+the height of their power and prosperity, but were faced by the might of
+the Ottoman Empire, against which they waged perpetual warfare. Bitter and
+unceasing was the strife prosecuted by the Cross against the Crescent, and
+by the Crescent against the Cross; and riding, like eagles on the storm
+came the corsairs in their swift galleys ready to strike down the luckless
+argosy of the merchantman wheresoever she was to be met. But this was not
+all, as the shore as well as the sea yielded up to them its tribute in the
+shape of slaves and booty, and Christian mothers trembling in the
+insecurity of their homes would hush their wailing children with the terror
+of the names of Barbarossa, of Dragut, or of Ali Basha.
+
+Popes and emperors, kings and princes, found themselves compelled to form
+leagues against these Sea-wolves who devoured the substance of their
+subjects, and great expeditions were fitted out to fight with and destroy
+the corsairs. Had Christendom been united no doubt the object would have
+been attained; but, as will be seen at the end of this chapter, an
+"Alliance of Christian Princes against the Turks"--which generic term
+included the corsairs--was not always used in the manner best calculated to
+injure those common enemies.
+
+When in 1492 Granada was yielded up to "Los Reyes Catolicos," Ferdinand of
+Aragon, and Isabella of Castile, by that luckless monarch known as Boabdil
+el Chico (or "the little"), the last remnant of the power of the Moors in
+Spain had gone never to return. On that small hill on the way to the coast
+still known as "el ultimo suspiro del Moro" (the last sigh of the Moor),
+Boabdil, as he looked for the last time on his lost capital of Granada, is
+said to have burst into tears. His fierce mother Ayesha had, however, no
+sympathy for her fallen son: "Thou doest well to weep like a woman for that
+which thou daredst not defend as a man," was her biting--and totally
+unjust--comment, and the cavalcade pursued its miserable journey to the
+coast, from whence it embarked for the kingdom of Fez.
+
+Great was the jubilation in Christendom; for more than seven centuries the
+followers of the Prophet had dwelt in the land from which Tarik had
+expelled Roderick the Goth in the eighth century. There they had dwelt and
+held up a lamp of learning and comparative civilisation which shone
+brightly through the miasmatic mists of cruelty and bloodshed in the Middle
+Ages, and none can question that, under Moorish rule in Spain in those
+centuries, the arts of peace had flourished, and that science, agriculture,
+art, and learning had found generous and discriminating patronage in the
+courts of C�rdoba and Granada.
+
+And now all was over the iron chivalry of the North had broken in pieces
+the Paynim hosts. They were expelled for ever from Christian soil, or else
+were forced to live in a state of degrading servitude, sore oppressed by an
+alien rule, in the land which their forbears had won and kept by the sword.
+
+There was jubilation, as has been said, in Christendom, but the knights and
+nobles who flocked from all parts of Europe to join the standard of the
+Catholic monarchs had no prevision of the consequences, no idea of the
+legacy that they were leaving to their descendants.
+
+It is of this legacy that we have to speak, and there has been none more
+terrible, none fraught with more awful suffering for the human race. The
+broken hosts of the Moslem chivalry became the corsairs of the
+Mediterranean: ruthless pirates freed from all restraint of human pity,
+living only to inflict the maximum of suffering upon their Christian foes,
+who, having sown the wind at the taking of Granada, reaped in the coming
+centuries a whirlwind of blood and agony which continued down to the
+bombardment of Algiers by Lord Exmouth in 1816, and even later than that
+date.
+
+Warriors to a man, the hosts of Boabdil crossed the Straits of Gibraltar
+into Africa; warriors but now broken men, from whom had been reft not only
+their lands and houses but even the chance of remaining in their native
+country. Religious toleration had been the rule of the Moslem States in
+Spain. In the name of religion they had been expropriated; therefore
+toleration was slain, and to exalt the Crescent above the Cross became the
+duty of every fighting Mohammedan. Into all the ports and harbours of the
+North African littoral the Moslems intruded themselves, their one
+preoccupation to revenge themselves upon the Christians, of no matter what
+race or nationality. There was at this date but small opposition from the
+rulers of the Pagan States who held in their weak and inefficient hands
+such strong places of arms as Algiers and Tunis.
+
+Very soon the Moslems acquired the habit of the sea, and very soon the
+Christian States discovered how different was the Mohammedan dwelling at
+peace in Andalusia, or at worst fighting with his co-religionists, to the
+desperate corsairs created by their own act who now ravaged the shores of
+the tideless sea.
+
+In the years succeeding to the conquest of Granada the corsairs became the
+scourge of the Mediterranean. France, Spain, Genoa, Venice, were all at
+odds with them; as the trading vessels, which had hitherto passed to and
+fro unmolested, were now captured, haled into North African ports, their
+cargoes sold, and their hapless crews forced to labour, naked and chained
+to the benches of the pirate galleys, until death came and mercifully put
+an end to their sufferings.
+
+From Reggio to Genoa, from Venice to Taranto, the cry of rage and fear went
+up; it was re-echoed from the coasts of France and of the Balearic Islands,
+while Southern Spain seethed with disaffection, and the Moriscoes, as those
+Moors who remained in the country were known, were ever on the lookout to
+assist their bold brethren, the rovers of the sea. Christendom was
+completely bewildered: hitherto the relations between the nations and the
+Kings of Tunis, Tlemcen, Fez, and others of the North African potentates,
+had been of the most agreeable description. Both parties had denounced
+piracy, and had as far as in them lay done all in their power to discourage
+this form of robbery. But now all was changed, and, as has been said in the
+previous chapter, a situation arose analogous to that of the Spaniards in
+the West Indies a century and a half later when Morgan and the buccaneers
+were at the height of their maleficent prowess. The situation was
+analogous, but whereas Morgan, Scott, L'Ollonais, and others terrorised
+only such forces as Spain possessed in far-distant colonies, the corsairs
+were a terror to all the great nations of the world.
+
+Granada fell, as has been said, in 1492 amid the rejoicings of the
+Christian States; but it had been well for Christendom as a whole if the
+Caliphs of C�rdova and Granada had never been defeated, and they and their
+subjects driven from their homes: to form the nucleus of those piratical
+States which existed from this date until well into the nineteenth century,
+as the scourge and the terror of all those who, during those ages, desired
+to "pass upon the seas on their lawful occasions." The capture of Granada
+was separated from the fall of the Byzantine Empire by a period of
+thirty-nine years, as it was in the year 1453 that Constantinople was
+captured by the Caliph Mahomet II. Byzantium fell, and perhaps nothing in
+the records of that Empire became it so well as that last tremendous
+struggle; and when on May 29th, 1453, the Ottoman legions were victorious,
+the body of the last Emperor of Byzantium was found beneath a mountain of
+the slain only recognisable by his purple mantle sewn with golden bees. The
+Cross which Constantine the Great had planted on the walls 1125 years
+before was replaced by the Crescent, and the Christian Cathedral became
+that Mosque of St. Sophia which still endures.
+
+From the earliest days of the Moslem corsairs of the Mediterranean they
+were in close communication with their co-religionists of the Ottoman
+Empire; and this for a very good reason, which was that the Turk had not
+the habit of the sea, but was essentially a land warrior, and, as the story
+of the Sea-wolves progresses, we shall see how in a sense the Grand Turk
+and the pirates became interdependent in the ceaseless wars which were
+waged in the epoch of which we treat.
+
+The fall of Constantinople resounded throughout Christendom as though it
+had been the crack of doom, and all men held their breath wondering what
+next might portend. So stunned were the maritime States that they took no
+action, letting "I dare not wait upon I would." Their indecision was fatal.
+Had the Venetians, the Genoese, and the Catalans at this juncture formed an
+alliance, they might have chased the Turks from off the face of the waters;
+but to mutual jealousy and indecision was added fear--fear of this new and
+mighty power which had arisen and had swept away one of the landmarks of
+Europe. So it fell out that Genoa entered into an arrangement with the
+Grand Turk, and Venice concluded a treaty of commerce on April 18th, 1454.
+It was the Caliph Mahomet who first fortified the Dardanelles, where he
+mounted thirty heavy guns before which Jacques Loredano, the Venetian
+admiral, recoiled, reporting to the Republic that henceforward none could
+pass the Straits. We have, however, nothing to do with the Grand Turk in
+these pages, save, and except in so far, as he had an effect on the lives
+of the corsairs. This effect will develop itself as we proceed.
+
+There is one body of men, however, concerning whom it may be as well to
+treat of briefly in this place, as the lives which they led and the deeds
+which they performed were inextricably entangled with those of the
+corsairs. These men were the members of that association first known as the
+Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem, later as the Knights of Malta. Between
+them and the corsairs it was war to the death; and not only with these
+robbers, but also with any ship which sailed beneath the insignia of the
+Crescent.
+
+In 1291 the Soldan of Egypt chased the Knights Hospitallers, as they were
+also known, from the soil of the Holy Land; Philip IV. of France welcomed
+them in the island of Cyprus, and gave them the town of Limasol as an
+asylum. This for the time the knights were bound to accept, but they were
+impatient of charity, resentful of tutelage, proud and independent.
+Considering their own order as the greatest and most stable bulwark of the
+Christian faith, they bowed before neither King nor Kaiser; and the only
+boon they asked of great potentates, when allied temporarily with them in
+their eternal warfare, was that on all occasions theirs should be the post
+of the greatest danger.
+
+This, indeed, they did not ask as a favour, but claimed as a right. It is
+easily understood that such desperate warriors, who fought only to conquer
+or die, were allies sought for eagerly by all professing the same faith.
+
+Fulke de Villaret, Grand Master of the order in 1310, seized upon Rhodes,
+which, though nominally belonging to Greece, was at this time a refuge for
+bad characters of all nationalities. This island was in the most
+advantageous position, as it commanded the sea-route from Constantinople to
+Egypt and the ports of Asia Minor, and was also in close proximity to the
+coast of Caramania, from whence the order could draw the necessary timber
+for the building of their galleys and incidentally their motive power--in
+the shape of slaves--for the oars by which they were propelled.
+
+The knights fortified the island until it was practically unassailable in
+that age. In the meanwhile their navy grew so rapidly that, in 1436, they
+were actually in a position to fight the Turks in line of battle. To Rhodes
+came the younger sons of noble families from every nation in Europe, all
+aflame with ardour to fight for "the religion"; and the great nobles
+themselves did not disdain to take service in so chivalrous an order.
+
+Their former enemy, the Soldan of Egypt, made a descent on the island in
+1440, and in 1444 besieged the place in form; but he was beaten off, after
+forty-two days' ceaseless fighting, with great slaughter.
+
+"Soldier and sailor too" were the bold Knights of Saint John; for them no
+toil was too arduous, no danger too great. In heat and cold, in storm and
+tempest, they plied their trade of war, their holy crusade to extirpate the
+infidel from off the face of the waters. They looked for no material
+reward, and riches and honours they contemptuously rejected. Strong in
+their marvellous faith that on their shoulders rested the propagation of
+Christianity in these latter days, they swept the seas with a calm
+assumption of victory which caused it to be half assured before the fight
+began. And when the battle was joined, where could be found such paladins
+as these men who claimed it as an inalienable right to head the hurricane
+rush of the boarders from the decks of their galleys, to be ever the
+leaders when the forlorn hope should mount the breach? Life for the
+knights of this order was looked at literally with a single purpose--the
+advancement of Christianity and the downfall of that pestilent heresy which
+proclaimed that Mahomet was the prophet of God. Against all who bowed the
+knee in the mosques of the false prophet their lives were vowed, and it is
+but the barest justice to them to record that on the altar of this their
+faith these were ungrudgingly poured forth.
+
+Naturally reprisals were the order of the day. Equally fanatical was he who
+held to the Moslem faith; in consequence many were the attempts to stamp
+out, once and for all, the prime enemies of the Ottoman Empire. In 1480 a
+Turkish fleet of one hundred and forty ships issued from the Dardanelles,
+an army awaited it on the coast of Caramania which was rapidly embarked,
+and on May 23rd the fleet anchored a few miles from the town of Rhodes.
+Here, then, was a trial of strength in which the Hospitallers delighted.
+After repeated attacks in detail, on July 28th a grand assault was made
+which the Turks considered would be absolutely decisive: it was decisive,
+but not in the fashion which they anticipated.
+
+The standard of the Janissaries already floated on the first curtain of the
+rampart when Pierre D'Aubusson rallied the knights for one last desperate
+effort. "Shall it be said in days to come that 'the Religion' recoiled
+before a horde of Moslem savages; that the banner of Saint John was soiled
+by their infamous touch? But this is no time for talk. Ye have swords,
+Messires; use them!"
+
+Thus the Grand Master; and then the knights, in their battered armour and
+with their hacked and dinted swords, flung themselves once more upon the
+foe. The Janissaries closed in around them; but these fine troops were not
+what they had been two months before, and the close contact with the
+Hospitallers, which had endured sixty-five days, had been to them a lesson
+fraught with disaster: they had already lost six thousand men, and their
+adversaries were still absolutely undismayed. His helmet gone, his banner
+held aloft over his head, Pierre D'Aubusson was ever in the thickest of the
+fray unconquered, unconquerable; and pressing close behind him came the
+knights, each jealous for the glory of his "Auberge." French, Venetian,
+Catalan, Genoese German, none can tell who fought best that day; but the
+Janissaries were beaten, and three thousand of their corpses cumbered the
+ditch into which they were hurled by their foes; there were besides fifteen
+thousand wounded in the Turkish camp.
+
+The heart was out of that great army which had embarked to the sound of
+trumpets and the blessings of the Mullahs but ten weeks before, and they
+sailed away a beaten force. Mahomet II. swore to avenge his defeat, but his
+days were numbered, and he died at Scutari on May 3rd, 1481, at the age of
+fifty-two, and in the thirteenth year of his reign.
+
+In the year 1499 Daoud Pasha, Admiralissimo to Bajazet, the successor to
+Mahomet II., defeated Antonio Grimani the Venetian admiral in that combat
+known to the Republic as "La deplorabile battaglia del Zonchio." The
+populace of Venice demanded that Grimani should be instantly beheaded, but
+he not only escaped their vengeance but lived to be nominated as Doge
+on June 6th, 1521, at the age of eighty-seven: certainly a curious record
+for an unsuccessful admiral of that date.
+
+In 1500 was formed the "Alliance of Christian Princes" at the initiative of
+the Borgia Pope Alexander VII. Louis XII., King of France, and Ferdinand V.
+of Spain announced their adherence to this effort against the Turk, and
+Pierre D'Aubusson, the veteran Grand Master of the Knights of Saint John,
+was nominated as Captain-General of the Christian armies. For the purposes
+of this war the admiral of the Papal galleys in the Mediterranean, Lodovico
+del Mosca, purchased from Ferdinand, King of Naples, all his artillery, of
+which a description is given by the Padre Alberto Guglielmotti, a Dominican
+friar, author of a work entitled, "La Guerra dei Pirati e la Marina
+Pontifica dal 1500 al 1560 A.D." "There were thirty-six great bombards,
+with eighty carts pertaining to them; some drawn by horses, some drawn by
+buffaloes harnessed singly, or two, four, or even six together; two waggons
+laden with arquebuses for ships' boats; nine with about forty smaller
+bombards (_bombardelles_) placed three, four, or even six on each waggon;
+twelve with ordinary pieces of artillery; as many more for the service of
+twelve big guns; thirty-seven carts of iron balls; three with gunpowder;
+and finally five laden with nitre, darts, and bullets. Splendid artillery
+of most excellent workmanship and great power escorted by two thousand men
+under arms, without mentioning the companies who marched before and after
+each waggon."
+
+The French king had prepared a fleet and army under Count Philip of
+Ravenstein; the Spaniards were under the command of Gonsalvo de C�rdoba,
+the "Great Captain." The history of the "Alliance of Christian Princes" is
+illustrative of the methods of those potentates at that time. After one or
+two unimportant skirmishes with the Turks, in which no great harm was done
+on either side, the French and Spaniards joined together, and seized the
+Kingdom of Naples: the prudent king of this territory, having sold his
+artillery to Lodovico del Mosca, did not await the coming of his Christian
+brethren.
+
+In the territory known to the Romans as Byzacena, which stretched from
+Algiers to the confines of Tripoli, there was reigning at this period one
+Abu-Abd-Allah-Mahomed, a Berber Moslem of the dynasty of Hafsit. Between
+this dignitary and Genoa a treaty of commerce had been arranged and signed.
+But treaties on the shores of the Mediterranean were capable of very
+elastic interpretation; they never reckoned with the corsairs, and these
+latter were in the habit of intruding themselves everywhere, and upsetting
+the most carefully laid plans. Curtogali, a corsair who had collected a
+great following, was now a power with which to reckon, and high in the
+favour of the Grand Turk at Constantinople. This robber presented himself
+at Bizerta--one of the ports of Abd-Allah-Mahomed--with a squadron of
+thirty ships, and demanded hospitality. As Curtogali disposed of thirty
+ships and some six thousand fighting men it would probably have been
+impossible for Abd-Allah to have refused his request in any case; but he
+was far from wishing to do so, as, by a convenient interpretation of the
+Koran, the pirate had to deliver up one-fifth part of all the booty which
+he reft from the Christians to the ruler of the country in whose harbours
+he sheltered. There was no place so convenient for the purposes of the
+pirate as Bizerta: from here he could strike at Sicily, at the Balearic
+Islands, at Rome, Naples, Tuscany, and Liguria, while at the same time he
+held the trade slowly sailing along the North African littoral at his
+mercy. Great were the depredations of Curtogali, and even Pope Leo X.
+trembled on his throne, while Genoa, Venice, and Sicily seethed with
+impotent fury.
+
+In the meanwhile who so happy as Abu-Abd-Allah-Mahomed? We cannot do better
+than to take the description of his position from the pages of the good
+Padre Alberto Guglielmotti. The Franciscan says: "He [that is, Abd-Allah]
+desired peace with all and prosperity for his own interests. Friendly to
+the merchants in their commerce; friendly to the corsairs in their spoils.
+Let all hold by the law: the former contentedly paying customs dues, the
+latter cheerfully handing over a fifth part of their robberies, and
+Abd-Allah--their common friend--would ever continue at peace with them all.
+Outside his ports the merchants and the pirates might fall by the ears if
+they would: that was no reason for him to trouble his head. On the
+contrary, he would joyfully await them on their return either with customs
+dues or tribute of the fifth as the case might be."
+
+However well this state of affairs may have suited Abd-Allah, the Genoese
+held that the situation was far from satisfactory. In consequence they sent
+an army against Curtogali, and on August 4th, 1516, they captured Bizerta,
+set free a number of Christian captives, and plundered the town. But they
+did not capture Curtogali, who, only five weeks after, made a daring
+attempt to carry off the Pope in person from the sea-shore in the
+neighbourhood of Rome. Curtogali ended his days as the Governor of Rhodes,
+from which the Knights of Saint John were finally expelled by Soliman the
+Magnificent on December 22nd, 1522. This was the greatest blow which the
+fraternity ever received. On December 24th the Turks made a triumphal entry
+into the town, and it was said that "Sultan Soliman was not insensible to
+the sorrowful position of his vanquished enemies, and when he saw the
+Christian Commander, Prince Philippe Villiers L'Isle Adam, he remarked: 'It
+weighs upon me somewhat that I should be coming hither to chase this aged
+Christian warrior from his house.'" At the beginning of the following year
+the knights left the island, never to return. On the day of this desolate
+embarcation the herald blew upon his trumpet the "Salute and Farewell" and
+the identical instrument upon which this call was sounded is still
+preserved in the armoury at Malta, to which barren island the knights were
+forced to retreat.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+URUJ BARBAROSSA
+
+In the year 1457 an obscure Roumelian or Albanian renegado named Mahomedi
+was banished from Constantinople by the Grand Turk; he established himself
+in the island of Mitylene and there married a Christian widow named
+Catalina, by whom he had two sons, Uruj and Khizr. The father had been a
+sailor and both sons adopted the same profession. It is from the pages of
+El Maestro Don Fray Prudencio de Sandoval that we glean these bare facts
+concerning the birth and parentage of these men who, in after-years, became
+known to all the dwellers on the shores of the Mediterranean as the
+"Barbarossas," from their red beards. Sandoval, Bishop of Pampluna,
+published in the year 1614 his monumental history of the Emperor Charles
+V., and through his splendid volumes the deeds of the Moslem corsairs run
+like the scarlet thread which is twisted through a Government rope. It is
+evident that the fact of having to deal with such rascals annoys the good
+Bishop not a little, as his severe and caustic comments frequently display.
+There was incident and accident enough in the life of the famous "Carlos
+Quinto" without the historian having to turn aside to chronicle the deeds
+of the pirates; but their exploits were so daring, the consequences thereof
+were so far-reaching, that the ominous crimson thread had to be woven into
+any narrative of the times in despite of the annoyance of the man by whom
+the rope was twisted.
+
+Of Mahomedi we possess no record save the remark concerning him to the
+effect that "el qual fue gran marinero": in what way he displayed his gifts
+as a seaman we are not told. We have remarked before on the curious fact of
+how the "renegado," or Christian turned Mohammedan, became the most
+implacable foe of his former co-religionists. We see in the case of the two
+Barbarossas that they had no drop of Moslem blood in them, as both parents
+came from Christian stock: and yet no greater scourges ever afflicted the
+people from whom both their father and mother originally sprang than did
+Uruj and Khizr Barbarossa.
+
+[Illustration: URUJ AND KHEYR-ED-DIN BARBAROSSA.]
+
+The characters of the two brothers were widely different. The elder was no
+doubt a "first-class fighting man," a fine seaman, a born partisan leader;
+but here his qualities came to an end. Rough, cruel, imperious, brutal, he
+imposed himself upon those who became his followers; but in him were to be
+found none of the statesmanlike qualities which distinguished his far
+greater younger brother. His was the absolutely finite intellect of the
+tactician as opposed to the strategist, who, seeing his objective, was
+capable of dealing with circumstances as they immediately arose; but,
+partly no doubt from defective education, but principally from the lack of
+intellectual appreciation of the problems of the time in which he lived,
+could never rise to the heights which were scaled by Khizr, better known by
+the title conferred upon him later on by the Grand Turk as "Kheyr-ed-Din,"
+or "The Protector of Religion."
+
+The sons of Mahomed, that "gran marinero," naturally took to the sea, and
+as a young man Uruj became possessed of a ship--how we do not know, and it
+were better perhaps not to inquire. In this small craft he repaired to the
+coast of Caramania to make war upon the Christians; or, in other words, to
+begin an independent piratical career. Uruj in these days was young and
+inexperienced, or he would not have chosen this locality for his first
+venture, as this coast was in close proximity to the island of Rhodes, from
+whence the great galleys of the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem set
+forth to exterminate the enemies of their faith.
+
+So it came about that Uruj, sailing out in his little ship from under the
+shadow of a wooded point, came in full sight of _Our Lady of the
+Conception_. There was nothing for it but immediate flight, and Uruj put
+his helm up and scudded before the breeze; but the great galley
+"goose-winged" her two mighty lateen sails, and turned in pursuit. The ship
+which carried Uruj and his fortunes was both fast and handy, and for a time
+she held her own; but it was only for a time, as those on board _Our Lady
+of the Conception_, finding that they were not gaining on the chase, put
+forth their oars and soon changed the aspect of affairs. The galley of the
+knights carried twenty-seven oars a-side, and each of these oars was manned
+by nine Moslem slaves. The sea was smooth and favourable for rowing, and
+soon the ravening pursuit closed in on the doomed corsair. As the interval
+between chaser and chased became less and less, those on board the pirate
+ship could see for themselves the fate which was awaiting them, as on the
+central gang-plank, which separated the rowers' benches, the boatswain and
+his mates were unmercifully flogging the bare backs of the straining
+oarsmen to urge them to greater exertions. He who was captured at sea in
+those days was set to row until he died, and the calculating mercy which
+causes a man to feed and treat his beast well in order that it may do the
+better work was not to be relied upon here, as life was cheap and slaves
+were plentiful. Very soon the beak of the galley overhung the stern of the
+little ship. Escape was impossible, to fight would have meant the massacre
+of all on board; the choice was instant submission or a watery grave. Uruj
+lowered his sail, and he and his little company were ironed and flung into
+the depths of the galley until such time as they should be wanted to take
+their turn at the oars. In this ignominious fashion ended his first attempt
+at independent piracy.
+
+But a storm was brewing, and a heavy sea got up. The sails of the galley
+were lowered, her beak was put head-on to the wind, and she made for the
+shore. In this noisome confinement Uruj could hear above the crash of the
+seas and the whistling of the wind the shrieks of the hapless slaves as the
+whips of their taskmasters bit through skin and flesh: the galley-slave
+rowed stark naked chained to his bench. This was to be his fate, and he was
+well aware of the fact.
+
+At last, after nightfall, the galley anchored under the Isle of Castel
+Rosso, at the entrance of the Gulf of Satalie. It still blew hard, but, in
+the comparative peace of the anchorage, sounds hitherto hidden by the war
+of the elements now made themselves manifest. There were the snores of the
+sleepers, the clank of the leg-chains as the wretched slaves shifted their
+positions in the attempt to gain an easier place on the bench, there was
+also the sound of men carousing with loud laughter in the stern of the
+vessel; but above them all rose the hollow groaning as of one in mortal
+agony. This proceeded from a slave who was quite close to Uruj. There came
+a spell in the laughter and loud voices in the stern, and presently an
+imperious voice spoke: "That noise disturbs me; see that it ceases at
+once." An obsequious answer came from out of the prevailing darkness: "It
+shall cease at once, Excellency." Then came men with lanterns, who
+unshackled the wretch who groaned and--flung him overboard.
+
+The night grew worse, the wind backed, and the galley began to drag her
+anchors. The slaves were roused, and the oars got ready to shift her from
+her dangerous position on what had now become a lee-shore. Uruj had managed
+to slip his shackles, a defective bolt having given him his liberty; for
+him it was now or never, and he was a bold swimmer. He had seen enough and
+heard enough of _Our Lady of the Conception_, and, as the great oars
+plunged once more into the sea, the corsair, preferring the mercy of the
+elements to that of the knights, slipped over the side unobserved and swam
+for the shore. He reached dry land by a miracle, and from Satalie he found
+his way to Egypt, where he took service as a mariner in a ship of the
+Soldan of Egypt which was bound for the coast of Caramania, from which
+province the Egyptians, as well as the knights, drew the timber which they
+required for shipbuilding. But again this neighbourhood proved disastrous
+to Uruj, as the ship in which he sailed was attacked by a Christian galley,
+and he once more had to save himself by swimming on shore. There was no
+lack of incident in the life of a corsair of the sixteenth century.
+
+This time he presented himself to Khorkud, the Governor of Caramania,
+brother to Sultan Selim, the Grand Turk. The Governor, recognising him as
+an intrepid mariner, ordered the Basha of Smyrna to furnish him with a ship
+fitted for that _guerre de course,_ which he desired to pursue against the
+Christians. The value of the corsair as an auxiliary was beginning to be
+recognised among the high Turkish officials. For the complaisance of
+Khorkud there were two reasons: in the first place, he was acting in the
+interests of his brother in sending to sea any really capable man to make
+head against his enemies, and the fact that Uruj was a pirate pure and
+simple did not weigh for a feather in the balance; in the second place, it
+was a decidedly good mercantile speculation as he ordered his inferior, the
+Basha of Egypt, to bear the expense of fitting out the necessary
+ship--which came to some 5,000 ducats--and doubtless received a handsome
+percentage on all captures from his grateful prot�g�.
+
+This latter, as may easily be imagined, had had quite enough of the
+Caramanian coast, which had turned out a veritable nest of hornets; also,
+he had no desire at present to cultivate the further acquaintance of the
+knights, and therefore put the whole width of the Ionian Sea between
+himself and them, and succeeded in taking several rich prizes. He avoided
+Mitylene and returned to Egypt, wintering at Alexandria. It may here be
+remarked that the corsairs, as a rule, regarded the winter as a close
+season, as in those early days the mariner did not, if he could avoid it,
+risk his ship by sailing her at this period of storm and tempest. In
+consequence there was nothing to tempt the pirates to range the seas during
+these months, and if they had had a successful summer and autumn, as they
+generally did, they could well afford to lay up and await the coming of
+spring.
+
+But when storm and rain gave way to the smooth waters and balmy breezes,
+the Sea-wolves were certain of their prey, as the whole length and breadth
+of the tideless sea was sure to be filled with the ships of the detested
+Christians trafficking in every direction. In the ethics of the Moslem all
+ships which sailed under the banner of the Cross, no matter to what nation
+they belonged, were fair game, even supposing that her insignia were the
+Crescent--well, supposing the spot to be sufficiently remote, dead men tell
+no tales, and the pirates were to be trusted to see to it that none
+escaped.
+
+But, however this might have been, it is quite certain that no qualms of
+conscience troubled Uruj concerning those others: Genoese, Neapolitans,
+Catalans, Andalusians, French, or the dwellers of the Balearic Islands,
+were all fish sent by a bountiful Providence to be enclosed in his net, and
+he seized upon them without distinction. When in the full tide of his
+success there was but one thing which preoccupied the mind of the corsair,
+which was to find a ready market for his spoils and a convenient place in
+which to rid himself of an embarrassing number of captives. This, however,
+did not present an insuperable difficulty, as we have already seen in the
+case of Curtogali, and a similar arrangement was carried out by Uruj
+Barbarossa and his brother.
+
+Uruj now established himself at the island of Jerba, on the east coast of
+Tunis, which formed an admirable base from which to "work" the
+Mediterranean from the piratical point of view. Jerba had originally been
+conquered and occupied by the Spaniards in 1431, but the occupation had
+been allowed to lapse, and the island was lying derelict when the
+Barbarossas made it their headquarters. Here Uruj was joined by his younger
+brother Khizr, destined to become so much the more famous of the two; he
+had already made himself some reputation in piratical circles, and now
+brought his cool judgment and wise counsel to the assistance of that fiery
+fighting man his elder brother. The first question to be decided was that
+which we have already mentioned, namely, the disposal of spoil from
+prospective captures, and with this end in view the corsairs approached the
+Sultan of Tunis. This potentate made a gracious response to their
+overtures, and wished them all success in their enterprises. He promised
+them succour and support on the same terms which Curtogali had obtained,
+namely, one-fifth of all the spoil landed in his dominions.
+
+The price to be paid was a stiff one, and was so regarded by the active
+partners in this arrangement; they were, however, young and unknown, and
+had not the least intention of holding to their bargain when more
+favourable circumstances presented themselves. Now they held fair speech
+with the puppet princes of North Africa; the day was to come when they
+should chase them from their insecure thrones. It was at this time, shortly
+after the treaty with the Sultan of Tunis was concluded, that the younger
+Barbarossa received from the Grand Turk the glorious name of Kheyr-ed-Din,
+or "The Protector of Religion." It was a somewhat remarkable title for a
+pirate, but perhaps its bestower was slightly deficient in a sense of
+humour.
+
+Sailing from Tunis in the spring of the year 1512, the brothers, with three
+galleys, fell in with _The Galley of Naples_, an enormous nef with a crew
+of three hundred. They instantly attacked, but were repulsed, night falling
+without either side having gained an advantage. This audacious proceeding
+illustrates the hardihood of the Moslem corsairs at this time. They were
+amply strong enough to range the Mediterranean and to capture, with no risk
+to themselves, the weak and unprotected argosies plying their trade in this
+sea; but this was not the method of the Barbarossas. Villains they may have
+been according to modern standards, pirates they were unquestionably; but
+they were grim, hard-bitten, fighting men, who shrank from no dangers in
+the pursuit of their prey, who reckoned that the humiliation and defeat of
+their Christian antagonists was as sweet a morsel as the booty reft from
+their hands. All night the three Moslem galleys and the great nef lay
+becalmed awaiting the conflict which was to come with the break of day; and
+it is easy to imagine that there was not much quiet sleep on board of
+either the Moslem or the Christian ships, for both on the one side and the
+other the issues loomed large. The corsairs had, so far, made no such
+important capture as this, which, could it be accomplished, would add
+enormously to their prestige, in addition to such spoils as they might
+acquire; but the combatants were fairly evenly matched in the matter of
+numbers, and the fight was one to a finish. The advantage on the side of
+the corsairs lay in the fact of their being three to one, and their being
+thus enabled to attack in three separate places at the same time. Terrible
+must have been that night of waiting for the unfortunates on board _The
+Galley of Naples_; there was no escape, and on board of her among her
+passengers were many women, whose fate was too terrible to contemplate
+should the day go against them. The first assault had been beaten off, it
+is true, but the struggle had been hard and bitter; would they be equally
+successful when the assault was renewed?
+
+Even such a night as this, however, comes at last to an end, and the
+prospect of action must have been welcomed by the men on both sides; of the
+women with so horrible a fate impending one can hardly bear to think. The
+ghostly fingers of the dawn touched the grey sea with a wan yellow light,
+outlining the nef and the slender, wicked-looking galleys with their banks
+of oars; over the surface of the deep a slight mist hovered, as though some
+kindly spirit of the sea would hide, if such a thing were possible, the
+deeds which were to come. The three galleys lay close together, and Uruj
+and his brother held a few last words of counsel.
+
+"It is agreed, then," said the elder; "you, my brother, attack the
+starboard side and I on the port side, while Hassan Ali [indicating the
+captain of the third galley] will await the time when we are fully engaged,
+and will then board over the stern."
+
+"It is agreed," answered Kheyr-ed-Din, and Hassan Ali.
+
+As the strong sun of a perfect May morning in the Mediterranean leapt above
+the horizon, Uruj loosed his hounds upon their prey; the oars of the
+galleys churned the clear blue waters into foam, and the air was filled
+with the yells of the corsairs. "Allah! Allah!" and "Barbarossa!
+Barbarossa!" they cried. It was a war-cry that was destined to re-echo over
+many a conflict, both by land and sea, in the years that were to come.
+
+In a simultaneous, and as we have seen a concerted attack, the beaks of the
+galleys crushed into the broadsides of _The Galley of Naples_, and, ever
+foremost in the fray, Uruj and Kheyr-ed-Din were the first two men to
+board. Then, when men were hand to hand and foot to foot, when Moslem
+scimitar rang on Christian sabre, and the air was filled with the oaths and
+shouts of the combatants, the third remaining pirate craft grappled _The
+Galley of Naples_ by the stern, and a tide of fresh, unwounded men burst
+into the fray. This was the end; the Christians were both outnumbered and
+outfought, for among them were many who were not by profession warriors,
+whereas no man found a footing among the Sea-wolves, or was taken to sea as
+a fighting man, unless he had approved himself to the satisfaction of his
+captain that he was a valiant man of his hands. We have no record or list
+of the dead and wounded in this battle, but among the latter was Uruj, who
+was severely hurt. Not so Kheyr-ed-Din, who escaped scatheless and took
+command now that his brother was incapacitated. The dead were flung
+overboard with scant ceremony, and the wounded patched up as best might be,
+and then _The Galley of Naples_ was taken in tow, and the corsairs returned
+in triumph to Tunis. Faithful to their treaty, so far, they laid one-fifth
+of their spoils at the feet of the Sultan.
+
+A great procession was formed of Christian captives marching two and two.
+Four young Christian girls were mounted on mules, and two ladies of noble
+birth followed on Arab horses sumptuously caparisoned. These unfortunates
+were destined for the harems of their captors. The Sultan was greatly
+pleased at the spectacle, and as the mournful procession defiled before him
+cried out, "See how heaven recompenses the brave!" Jurien de la Gravi�re
+remarks: "Such was the fortune of war in the sixteenth century. A man
+leaving Naples to go to Spain might end his days in a Moorish bagnio and
+see his wife and daughters fall a prey to miscreants of the worse
+description."
+
+It was not till the following spring that Uruj was fit once more to pursue
+his chosen calling, so severe had been his wounds; but once he was whole
+and sound again he put to sea accompanied by Kheyr-ed-Din, and this time he
+had conceived a singularly bold and desperate enterprise. Two years before
+the famous Spanish captain, Pedro de Navarro, had seized upon the coast
+town of Bougie, and had unfortunately left it in the hands of a totally
+insufficient garrison. This departure from the sound rules of warfare had
+already been punished as it deserved, as the garrison was perpetually
+harassed and annoyed by the surrounding Arab tribes. The idea of Uruj was
+to seize upon Bougie by a _coup de main_. The corsair, however, was a far
+finer fighter than he was a strategist, and was possessed of a most
+impatient temper. All went well to begin with, as he managed to intercept
+and to capture a convoy of Spanish ships sent to revictual the place, and
+had he been content to wait he might have counted with certainty on
+reducing the garrison by starvation, as it depended on this very convoy for
+its supplies. In vain the wary and cool-headed Kheyr-ed-Din counselled
+prudence and delay, but these words were not to be found in the vocabulary
+of his elder brother. "What had to be done," he replied, "had better be
+done at once," and at the head of only fifty men landed and assaulted the
+still uncompleted ramparts of Bougie.
+
+But if Uruj were rash and headstrong, so was not the commander of the
+Spanish garrison, who, massing his men for the repulse of the assault,
+waited till the last moment, and then received them with a volley of
+arquebuses, which laid many of them low, and so badly wounded their leader
+that he had to have his arm amputated on the spot: it says much for his
+constitution that he survived the operation.
+
+For the time being the brothers had had enough of shore enterprises, and
+confined themselves strictly to their piratical business at sea, which
+prospered so exceedingly that they became exceedingly rich and their fame
+and power increased day by day. As time went on and the wealth of the
+brothers and partners increased, there entered into the calculating brain
+of Kheyr-ed-Din the idea that the payment of one-fifth share to the Sultan
+of Tunis was but money thrown away. Twenty per cent, was eating into the
+profits of the firm in an unwarrantable manner, he considered, and now that
+the active partners therein had established so good a business connection,
+they were quite strong enough to dispense with a sleeping partner. Times
+had changed for the better, and Kheyr-ed-Din was anxious to take full
+advantage of the fact; if possible he determined to seize upon and hold
+some port, in which, not only would they be exempt from tribute, but also
+in which he and his brother Uruj should be the supreme arbiters of the fate
+of all by whom it might be frequented.
+
+Of Bougie and its stout Spanish garrison the brothers had had quite enough
+for the present: they sought, in consequence, for some harbour which
+presented equal advantages of situation, and their choice fell upon
+Jigelli, then belonging to the Genoese, who occupied a strong castle in
+this place.
+
+Jigelli lies well outside the confines of the kingdom of Tunis, about
+equi-distant from Bougie and Cape Bougaroni, some forty miles from each. It
+would appear that on this occasion it was the younger of the two brothers
+who took charge of the enterprise, and there were no slap--dash,
+unconsidered methods employed. By this time the fame of the Barbarossas had
+gone abroad from Valencia to Constantinople, from Rome to the foot--hills
+of the Atlas Mountains, and, to circumvent the Genoese garrison of Jigelli,
+Kheyr-ed-Din called to his aid the savage Berber tribes of the hinterland
+of this part of Northern Africa.
+
+Turbulent, rash, unstable as water, were these primitive dwellers of the
+desert; but they were fighters and raiders to a man, and ready for any
+desperate encounter if only it held out the promise of loot: they were as
+veritably the pirates of the land as were the Barbarossas pirates of the
+sea.
+
+Small chance, indeed, had the five hundred Genoese soldiers by which
+Jigelli was garrisoned when attacked from the sea by the Barbarossas and by
+land by an innumerable horde of Berbers who were reckoned to be as many as
+20,000. Invested by land and sea, the garrison did all that it was possible
+for men to do. Provisions and water ran short, ammunition was failing, the
+ring of their enemies was encircling them day by day closer and ever
+closer. From the land nothing could be expected but an augmentation of
+their foes, and day by day the commander of the garrison strained his eyes
+seaward to watch if haply the proud Republic, to which he and his men
+belonged, would send succour, or the redoubtable Knights of Saint John
+would come to his aid.
+
+But the days lengthened into weeks, and the soldiers were gradually
+becoming worn out by the perpetual strain imposed upon them. There was one
+chance left, and one alone, which was to cut their way out through the
+besieging lines. Massacre to a man was their fate in any case, and thus it
+was that the commander, whose name has not come down to us, mustered his
+men for the last supreme effort. At dead of night the garrison, having
+destroyed as far as possible all that might be of use to the enemy, sallied
+out to their doom. They fought as men fight who know that the end has come;
+but valour could not avail against the numbers arrayed on the side of the
+enemy, and they were wiped off the face of the earth. The tribes looted the
+castle of everything portable, and then retired from whence they had come.
+For this Kheyr-ed-Din cared nothing; they were welcome to the poor
+possessions of some hundreds of half-starved Italian soldiers--let them
+take the shell, for him remained the kernel in the shape of a strong place
+of arms.
+
+Hardly, however, had the brothers succeeded in this enterprise when that
+tireless fighter Uruj again attempted the capture of Bougie; but his second
+attempt was even more disastrous than his first, and he lost half his
+flotilla. Then he asked for succour from Tunis; but the Sultan, much
+offended at the idea of the brothers setting up in a piratical business in
+which he was no longer a sleeping partner, angrily refused.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+THE DEATH OF URUJ BARBAROSSA
+
+The events recorded in the last chapter bring us down to the end of the
+year 1515, and while every endeavour has been made to present affairs in
+chronological sequence, it must be remembered that the dates of piratical
+expeditions are often impossible to obtain: the wrath of the chroniclers at
+the nefarious deeds of the corsairs greatly exceeding their desire for a
+meticulous accuracy in the matter of the exact time of their occurrence.
+Uruj, as has been seen, had by his headstrong folly once again placed his
+brother and himself in a decidedly awkward situation. By the losses which
+he had incurred in his second ill-advised attempt on Bougie he had so
+weakened the piratical confederation that the countenance of some potentate
+had again become necessary for their continued existence, and the Sultan of
+Tunis had now repudiated all connection with these ingrates.
+
+But, if craft and subtlety were not to be found in Uruj there was one who
+never failed to exhibit these qualities when they became necessary, and
+Kheyr-ed-Din once more came to the front. The Russian peasantry have a
+saying that "God is high and the Czar is far away." In the sixteenth
+century the Grand Turk was in every sense "far away" from the struggling
+corsairs on the littoral of Northern Africa, and was a sovereign of such
+great and mysterious might that any man with a less fine instinct into the
+psychology of the times in which he lived than Kheyr-ed-Din would have
+hesitated long and anxiously before addressing him directly; would probably
+in the end not have done so at all. But desperate diseases require
+desperate remedies, and the politic corsair well knew that even the moral
+support of such an one as the Sultan of Constantinople was worth more than
+even material aid from a Sultan of Tunis.
+
+Consequently, greatly daring, he sent an embassy to the Sublime Porte with
+one of his most trusted captains at its head to lay the homage of the
+corsairs at the feet of Selim I. Very naturally these ambassadors did not
+go empty-handed, but took with them rich presents and numerous slaves.
+Selim was much pleased at the attention, coming as it did from such a
+distance--we have to remember that the coast of North Africa was an immense
+journey from Constantinople in those days--and the insight of Kheyr-ed-Din
+was triumphantly vindicated. Not only did the Sultan send a gracious reply
+in return, but--what was far more to the purpose--he sent a reinforcement
+of fourteen vessels to the corsairs bidding them to go on and prosper in
+their efforts to spread the true faith among the Christian heretics.
+
+There is nothing more curious in the history of the corsairs than the
+perpetual ups and downs of their lives. Thus in the present instance the
+ill-advised attack of Uruj on Bougie had reduced them to terrible straits;
+immediately afterwards the action of the Grand Turk once more set them upon
+their feet and enabled them to pursue an unchecked career of devastation.
+Aided by the reinforcements sent by Selim, their depredations assumed ever
+larger proportions, and, had they continued to receive this assistance, the
+course of history itself might have been changed. Ground to powder beneath
+the iron heel of their ruthless conquerors, the Moriscoes of Southern Spain
+were ever waiting the chance to rise and shake off the yoke by which they
+were so sore oppressed; from far and near reports were coming to hand of
+the continued successes of the corsairs, and all Andalusia seethed with
+passionate hope that the day of deliverance was at hand.
+
+But, alas for the vanity of human wishes! in the opening months of the year
+1516 Selim recalled his ships and the chance was gone, never again to
+arise.
+
+It may have been that "the sorrowful sighing of the captives" never reached
+the ears of the successor of Othman in his palace on the shores of the
+Golden Horn; in any case, the Sultan was preparing for the conquest of
+Egypt, and in consequence recalled the ships which he had lent to assist
+the corsairs. The Moriscoes were thus left without hope, but so far as the
+corsairs were concerned they were enabled to strike another bargain with
+the Sultan of Tunis. This monarch had now got over his fit of the sulks,
+and discovered that customs dues from the peaceful trading mariners,
+although desirable enough, were not by any means so lucrative a form of
+revenue as was the one-fifth share of the booty of the pirates. Uruj and
+Kheyr-ed-Din for their part, although they had captured Jigelli, were
+totally unable to hold it: the capture had indeed been principally due to
+the assistance which they had received from the Berber tribesmen, but these
+nomads had disappeared into the deserts from whence they came, once the
+looting of the town and fortress had been completed.
+
+The corsair had to be armed at all points, in the moral as well as the
+material sense, as he was the enemy of all men, and all were vowed to his
+destruction. Every cruise which he took raised up against him fresh hatred
+and a more bitter animus, and we must remember that it was not only men
+individually, but Principalities and Powers that were arrayed in line of
+battle for his destruction. At the present juncture Spain was specially
+hostile, for not only had her possession of Bougie been twice attacked by
+the Sea-wolves, but a valuable convoy had been captured. An expedition, in
+consequence, was sent by the Spaniards against the Barbarossas, but this
+effort did not result in much damage being done to the offenders. The
+Spaniards destroyed four piratical vessels which had been abandoned by
+their crews at Bizerta, and pushed a strong reconnaissance into the Bay of
+Tunis itself. Here shots were exchanged between the Spanish fleet and the
+forts--under which Kheyr-ed-Din had drawn up his ships--and the Spaniards
+then abandoned the enterprise and returned from whence they had come.
+
+In the year 1510 the Spaniard, Count Pedro Navarre, had seized upon
+Algiers, which town was at this time one of the principal refuges of the
+Moorish fugitives, who had been driven from Granada, from C�rdoba, and from
+Southern Spain generally by Ferdinand and Isabella eighteen years
+previously. To say that the condition of these people was desperate is to
+speak but the bare truth, for what could exceed the misery of the situation
+in which they were left after the successful incursion of their Christian
+foes? What we are apt to lose sight of in the light of present-day
+circumstances is the fact that these Spanish Moors were a most highly
+civilised people, far more so indeed than their Christian contemporaries;
+that they had been driven with fire and sword from the land in which they
+and their forefathers had dwelt for over seven centuries, and that they now
+had been cast out literally to starve on the inhospitable shores of
+Northern Africa. So it came about that the common people exchanged the life
+of the peaceful and prosperous artisan or husbandman for that of the
+hand-to-mouth pirate, and the case of knight and noble among them was no
+better--perhaps rather worse--than the meanest among those who had been
+expropriated.
+
+Those who know the region in which these unhappy folk lived are aware of
+the material monuments which still exist and testify to the glorious past;
+and, seeing what they have seen, it is no great stretch of the imagination
+to picture to themselves the comfort, the elegance, and the luxury with
+which the inhabitants of Granada and C�rdoba lived surrounded. Over there,
+away across some few leagues of shining blue water, were the ruined homes
+of which many of the banished people still possessed the keys, awaiting the
+day when Allah and the Prophet should vouchsafe to them that return which
+they so naturally and ardently desired. To this day the key of the great
+Mosque at Cordoba is preserved at Rabat as a sacred relic of former dignity
+and power--a symbol to the Moslem of his perpetual banishment. If Cordoba
+with its mosque--still one of the wonders of the world, with its eleven
+hundred marble columns--were the principal shrine and holy of holies to
+these people, there were in addition hundreds of other temples of their
+faith now for ever desecrated in their eyes by the misfortune which had
+placed them in Christian hands. In Andalusia were the dishonoured graves of
+their kinsfolk, and, last and worst of all, in this land still dwelt
+thousands upon thousands of their co-religionists held in a degrading
+bondage by their implacable enemies.
+
+The capture of Algiers by Count Pedro Navarro was a crowning misfortune for
+the exiles, and when this commander seized upon the place he extracted from
+the inhabitants an oath of fidelity to the Spanish crown; he further
+erected a strong tower to overawe the town, and to keep its turbulent
+inhabitants in order. But such an oath as this, extracted at the point of
+the sword, was writ in water; it meant, of course, the suppression of
+piracy, and it also meant the starvation of most of those persons who dwelt
+in the vicinity. How the Moslem population existed for the six years after
+the incursion of Navarro is a mystery; but they probably moved their
+galleys, of which they possessed some twenty, further along the coast out
+of the range of the guns from Navarro's Tower, and secure from the
+observation of those who held it for the Spanish king.
+
+In the year in which Selim descended upon Egypt the King of Spain,
+Ferdinand V., died, and grave troubles immediately broke out in Spain. This
+was an opportunity too good to be missed, as no reinforcements could
+possibly be expected for the garrison in Algiers as long as these
+disturbances lasted, and the Algerines took counsel together as to the best
+means of driving out their enemies. It is a commentary on the detestation
+in which they held the Spaniards that they should have allied themselves
+for this purpose with the savages of the hinterland. This, however, was
+what they did. As in the case of Jigelli, these people could always be
+relied upon to go anywhere in search of booty, and one Selim Eutemi entered
+the town at the head of his tribe. But sheer, stark, savage valour could
+make no impression on Navarro's Tower and the ordnance that was mounted on
+its walls. The result was a stalemate, as the Spaniards could by no manner
+of means get out, and neither could their enemies, who swarmed innumerable
+in the town and the surrounding country, get in. In time, of course, they
+might hope to bring the garrison to surrender by starvation; but time
+pressed, and no man knew when the troubles in Spain might be adjusted and
+help come to the beleaguered. In the meanwhile Selim Eutemi and his men,
+who had been taught some rude lessons in the power of firearms, kept out of
+range of the cannon, while the Algerines held yet another council of war,
+the result of which was that they decided to ask help from Uruj and
+Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, and to them they appealed. By this time their fame
+was known to all men, and they could supply that which was lacking--namely
+ships, artillery, a first-class fighting force, and last, and best of all,
+the moral support which would stiffen and put heart into the motley horde
+which at present surged around the gates of the fortress of Navarro.
+
+The Algerines did not appeal in vain, and an instant promise of succour was
+forthcoming. Kheyr--ed--Din was away at sea, but Uruj, that indomitable
+fighter, started at once. From whence we are not told, but he must have
+been somewhere in the neighbourhood, as he and his men marched along the
+shore; while, keeping pace with them, came a fleet of eighteen galleys and
+three barques laden with stores.
+
+But before proceeding to the assistance of the Algerines Uruj had a
+personal matter to which to attend, and he wished to combine pleasure with
+serious business. One of his old companions had seceded from his command
+and had established himself at Shershell, where he lived the life of an
+independent corsair within easy striking distance of the Balearic Islands
+and the coast of Spain, his following composed of a horde of those broken
+men of whom mention has been made. Shershell was an unfortified town, and
+surrendered unconditionally upon the arrival of Uruj and his army.
+Kara-Hassan, for such was the name of this independent corsair, came out to
+greet his old-time chief; he was met with violent reproaches, and the
+altercation ended by Uruj having him beheaded on the spot. It was ill to
+quarrel with the Barbarossas.
+
+Freed from this rival, the Mitylene corsair had now uncontested supremacy
+on the coast, a supremacy none was likely to contest in the future, as he
+brooked no opposition, and had come to consider that independent piracy in
+the Mediterranean was in some sort an infringement of the rights of himself
+and his brother. One of the most salient peculiarities of the corsairs at
+this time was the apparent recklessness with which they assailed others who
+were participants in their nefarious business. Self-interest and policy
+would seem, to the observer in the present day, to have dictated quite a
+different course of action; but we shall see, when we come to deal with the
+life-history of Kheyr-ed-Din, that this infinitely wiser and more
+intellectual man apparently allowed himself to be swayed by gusts of
+passion, in which he savagely maltreated those with whom he was associated,
+and from whom dangerous hostility was certainly to be feared if they
+escaped with their lives. At this distance of time it is impossible to
+gauge the motives by which men such as these were actuated, more
+particularly in the case of Kheyr-ed-Din, whose character was a blend of
+the deepest subtlety and calculated ferocity.
+
+Having settled with Kara-Hassan, Uruj continued his march along the coast.
+Arrived at Algiers, he opened in form a siege of Navarro's Tower; but,
+being unable to make any impression on its defences, he abandoned the siege
+after twenty days' fruitless fighting, during which he lost a number of men
+in his assaults. Baffled and furious, he turned on the Berber chieftain,
+the luckless Selim Eutemi, and caused him to be assassinated, regarding him
+as being responsible for the failure. The Spanish chroniclers relate, with
+some wealth of detail, how Uruj personally fell upon Selim Eutemi, when
+that chieftain was in his bath, and strangled him with his own hands.
+However this may have been, the Spanish records of the deeds of the
+corsairs cannot well be taken _au pied de la lettre_; there is no doubt
+that Selim was murdered, and from that time the Berbers recognised that he
+who had come to help was now remaining to plunder. Uruj now established
+himself in the town, and set to work making raids into the adjoining
+country, carrying off sheep, cattle, and slaves. For the Berbers this was a
+true awakening. He who now oppressed them had come in the guise of a
+champion to assist them in the sack and plunder of Navarro's Tower; they
+had exchanged King Log, who dwelt securely locked up, for a King Stork of
+the most active description. Although we cannot sympathise with such
+people, it is quite possible to understand their very natural annoyance at
+the turn which things had taken, and it does not surprise us (in this age
+of "punic faith") that a conspiracy was set on foot between the dwellers of
+the hinterland and the Spaniards of the fortress.
+
+Uruj was informed of all that was going on through his own spies, and,
+although he kept his finger on the pulse of the conspiracy, he acted as
+though the tribesmen were still his very faithful friends and allies. The
+corsair was more patient than his wont. In this affair he wished for ample
+proof of delinquency, and also for a vengeance adequate to the occasion
+when he should discover all the guilty parties; and so some weeks went by
+while the plot was maturing, apparently, from the point of view of the
+conspirators, to a successful conclusion. But Uruj had bided his time with
+a subtlety and _finesse_ which would have done credit to Kheyr-ed-Din
+himself,
+
+It was the custom of the corsair and his chief adherents to attend the
+principal mosque on Fridays; and therefore, when the conspirators were
+cordially invited to attend on the following Friday, and, after the service
+was over, to attend Uruj to his dwelling and there confer with him, they
+went, nothing doubting, to their deaths. As the discourse of the Mullah
+came to an end a crash resounded throughout the building: six stalwart
+swordsmen had flung the great gates of the mosque together, and barred all
+exit. Excepting the conspirators, twenty-two in number, the remainder of
+the edifice was filled with the galley's crews of the corsair, men who, had
+he given the order, would have cheerfully set alight to the sacred building
+itself and roasted the Mullahs themselves in the flames.
+
+To the corsairs, after they were seated in the mosque, the word had been
+passed that the Berber tribesmen had meditated this treachery against them,
+which, had it succeeded, would have meant the death or enslavement of them
+all. It was therefore a trap of a singularly deadly description into which
+the countrymen of Selim Eutemi walked on this Friday morning.
+
+The doors being closed, the conspirators were one by one dragged before
+Uruj, who, bitterly reproaching them, gave order for their instant death.
+They were haled out through rows of jeering pirates, and beheaded in the
+street immediately in front of the principal entrance of the mosque. When
+the slaughter of the twenty--two was accomplished Uruj strode from the
+mosque over the weltering corpses of the traitors amid the plaudits of his
+own men, ever ready to acclaim deeds of blood and cruelty. After this there
+were no more plots against the corsair in Algiers. News of all these
+desperate doings in Algiers had by this time filtered across into Spain,
+and El Maestro Don Fray Prudencio de Sandoval recounts how, when the
+tidings came to Fray Francisco Ximenes, the Cardinal Archbishop of Toledo,
+that that prelate, much scandalised that the might of Imperial Spain should
+be flouted by a mere pirate, sent Don Diego de Vera with some fifteen
+thousand men to recapture the town, and relieve the beleaguered garrison in
+the tower. This was in the month of September 1516.
+
+Don Diego landed "en el dia de San Hieronymo," and threw up entrenchments
+within gunshot of the town. Great things were expected of this expedition,
+as Sandoval notes that in 1513 Don Diego de Vera, in the war against the
+French, had gained the approval of Count Pedro Navarro ("avia bien aprovado
+con el Conde Pedro Navarro"), and it was not expected that a mere pirate
+rabble would ever make head against the Spanish troops. De Vera opened fire
+on the walls of the town from his entrenchments, but hardly had he done so
+when Uruj, leading his corsairs, which formed the spearhead to an
+innumerable army of Berbers and Arabs, made a sortie.
+
+  "Upon them one day did Barbarossa make an onslaught, and when he saw
+  that the Spanish soldiers were ill commanded, he flung his forces upon
+  them with loud cries. And so great was the fear inspired by Barbarossa
+  that they were routed almost without loss to the Moors; and with much
+  ease did these latter slay three thousand men and capture four hundred
+  on the day of San Hieronymo in this year."
+
+  ("Salio un dia � el Barbarossa y como vio los soldados Espa�oles
+  desmandados di� en ellos con gran gritos. Y fue tan grande el miedo que
+  vieron que Barbarossa los desbarat� casi sin da�o y con mucho facilidad
+  mato tres mil hombres y cautivo quatro cientos dia de San Hieronymo
+  deste a�o.")
+
+This quotation is given in full to set out the amazing fact that in this
+battle over three thousand were killed while only four hundred were
+captured, which shows that it must have been in the nature of an
+indiscriminate massacre; the only captive of any note was the captain, Juan
+del Rio. Diego de Vera had had enough of the corsairs, and sailed away with
+the remainder of his force. Of what became of him or of them there is no
+record, but he must have been a singularly incompetent commander when he
+could not make head against a rabble of pirates and Moors with the army at
+his disposition. Sandoval does not attempt to minimise the defeat, which,
+of course, would have been impossible; he contents himself with the
+following delightfully quaint reflection: "But many, many times Homer nods;
+this disaster must have come upon us for our sins, upon which it is most
+important that we should always think and meditate."
+
+Who so triumphant now as Uruj Barbarossa? It is true that the fortress of
+Pedro Navarro still remained in the hands of its splendid and undaunted
+garrison, and was destined so to remain for some years to come; but they
+were impotent for harm, and the conqueror of Don Diego now turned his arms
+in another direction. Kheyr-ed-Din was at Jigelli when he heard of the
+victory gained by his brother, and sailed at once with six ships to his
+support. The town of Tenes fell into the hands of the brothers, with an
+immense booty, and then Uruj marched on Tlemcen. The Sultan of Tlemcen, the
+last of the royal race of the Beni-Zian, did not await the coming of the
+corsair. All through the northern coasts of Africa the name of Barbarossa
+was a synonym of terror; the sad fate of Selim Eutemi, of Kara-Hassan, of
+the twenty-two conspirators of the mosque, had been noised abroad, and the
+superstitious tribesmen firmly believed that these red-bearded corsairs
+were the accomplices of Shaitan, even if they did not represent him
+themselves in their own persons. Who were these men, they asked one another
+tremblingly, who feared neither God nor devil, and who caused even the
+redoubtable Spaniards to fly before them like the leaves in front of an
+autumn gale?
+
+When men begin to talk and to think like this there is not much fight left
+in them, and so it came about that, after the most feeble of resistances,
+the Sultan of Tlemcen fled to Fez. Thus, almost without striking a blow,
+Uruj found himself master of a province from which the Spaniards were
+accustomed to draw the necessary provisions for the upkeep of the garrison
+of Oran. But Tlemcen is but some seventy miles from Oran, and Oran is so
+close to Spain as to be easily reinforced; in consequence Uruj was soon
+blockaded by the Spaniards, and remained so for seven months. But no
+blockade could keep Uruj Barbarossa for long within stone walls; sortie
+after sortie did the gallant corsair lead against the foe, and it was in
+one of these that he characteristically came by his death. Ever rash and
+impetuous, he allowed himself to be drawn too far away from possible
+shelter or support; and, as there was something dramatic in the whole life
+of this man, so also was there in the manner of his death. They had him
+trapped at last, this grim Sea-wolf, and he stood at bay in a stone corral
+used for the herding of goats.
+
+  As the wolves in winter circle round the leaguer on the heath,
+  So the greedy foe glared upward panting still for blood and death.
+
+By his side was his faithful lieutenant Venalcadi. In a breathless m�l�e
+Christian sword and Moslem sabre clashed and rang. His turban gone, his
+great curved scimitar red to the hilt, the undaunted corsair fought his
+last fight as became the terror of his name. Almost had he succeeded in
+breaking through the ring of his foes when Garzia de Tineo, _alferez_ (or
+lieutenant) to Captain Diego de Andrade, wounded him severely with a pike.
+Uruj stumbled, was struck on the head with another weapon; he reeled and
+fell. The fight was over, and one of the Barbarossas bit the dust. Garzia
+de Tineo leaped upon the fallen man and cut off his head. It is recorded
+that Garzia de Tineo was wounded in the finger by Uruj in the course of the
+combat, and that for the rest of his life he proudly exhibited the scar as
+a sign that it was none other than he who had killed the famous corsair.
+
+Uruj Barbarossa was undoubtedly a remarkable man. At a time when the
+Mediterranean swarmed with warriors none was more feared, none was more
+redoubtable than he. By sheer valour and tenacity he had fought his way to
+the front, and the son of the obscure renegado of Mitylene died a king. It
+is true that his sovereignty was precarious, that it was maintained at the
+edge of the sword; none the less, in that welter of anarchy in which he
+lived he had forced himself to the summit, and, pirate, sea-wolf, and
+robber as he was, we cannot withhold from him a meed of the most hearty
+admiration.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+KHEYR-ED-DIN BARBAROSSA
+
+Uruj had arrogated to himself the title of King of Tlemcen, but with his
+death this shadowy sovereignty came to an end, and the Spaniards seized
+upon the province. This, however, did not avail them much, as the Sultan of
+Fez sent against them an innumerable army, and they in their turn were
+dispossessed. It was in the year 1518 that Uruj fell beneath the pike of
+Garzia de Tineo, and now the first place in the piratical hierarchy was
+taken by Kheyr-ed-Din. In this man the genius of the statesman lay hidden
+beneath the outward semblance of the bold and ruthless pirate; ever
+foremost in the fight, strong to endure, swift to smite, he had by now long
+passed his novitiate, had established an empire over the minds of men which
+was to endure until the end of his unusually prolonged life. With a brain
+of ice and a heart of fire, he looked out, serene and calm, upon the
+turbulent times in which he lived, a monstrous egotist desiring nothing but
+his own advancement, all his faculties bent upon securing more wealth and
+yet more power.
+
+He played a lone hand, for he brooked even less than did his truculent
+brother any approach to an equality with himself among the men who followed
+in his train. Absolute supremacy was his in the life which he lived, but
+none knew better than he upon what an unstable basis his power rested. He
+now called himself the King of Algiers, but still that lean, sun-dried
+garrison held with desperate tenacity to the tower of the redoubtable
+Navarro, and any moment a fresh Spanish relieving force might be upon him
+and chase him forth even as Uruj had been chased from Tlemcen. He saw that
+he must consolidate his power, must for the present, at any rate, have some
+force at his back which would provide that material and moral backing which
+was essential to his schemes. Once before he had successfully approached
+the Grand Turk, the Padishah, the head of the Mohammedan religion, and from
+him he had received that which he had asked; on this former occasion,
+however, he had not been in the same position as he now occupied.
+
+The corsair must have meditated long and anxiously on the best way in which
+to approach the autocrat of Constantinople; in the end he probably hit upon
+the best solution of the problem by again sending an ambassador with
+precise instructions as to the manner in which he was to act. For this
+important service his choice fell upon one of his captains, Hadj-Hossein by
+name, and to him he imparted all that he was to say, and--what was almost
+as important--what he was not to say.
+
+The duty of the ambassador was to magnify the importance of his master, but
+to do so in such a manner that the Padishah was not to imagine that a rival
+to his own greatness had arisen at Algiers. Selim was at this time in
+Egypt, where he had just completed the conquest of the Mamelukes, and
+thither did Hadj-Hossein repair. He laid at the feet of the conqueror the
+respectful homage of the King of Algiers, who, he assured Selim, desired
+nothing better than to become the vassal of the Commander of the Faithful.
+Also, he informed him, that in the name of Selim public prayer was offered
+in the mosques on Fridays, that his image and superscription were struck on
+the coins, that in every manner possible recognition was made of the fact
+that he, and he alone, was the chosen of God upon earth. This manner of
+stating the situation was both delicate and politic. A less wise man than
+Kheyr-ed-Din might have assumed a note of equality from one Moslem
+potentate to another, but the corsair was perfectly conscious of his
+limitations--he knew exactly how the Grand Turk could be useful to him, and
+he was not going to mar his chance by the display of an untimely arrogance.
+
+Hadj-Hossein proved himself to be a tactful and successful ambassador. The
+Sultan accepted the homage offered, and made many inquiries concerning the
+war prosecuted by Hossein's master against the enemies of the true faith in
+the distant region of Algiers. His queries were all answered with deep
+submission and the most subtle of flattery, much of which latter was no
+doubt a perfectly honest expression of opinion. As to the average
+Mohammedan of this period the Padishah was a being set apart by Heaven to
+fulfil the decrees of the Prophet.
+
+The ambassador, when he rejoined his master, must have been a proud man, as
+so well had he fulfilled his mission that he carried back with him to
+Algiers not only a gracious message, but the insignia of the Sanjak,
+Scimitar Horse and Tambour, conferred upon that loyal Moslem Kheyred-Din
+Barbarossa, who, in the words of the Padishah, "abandoning a sterile
+independence, sought in all the bloody hazards of his life nought but the
+glory of God and His Prophet" To us this hyperbole, addressed to a pirate,
+seems merely ridiculous, but in those days of fanaticism the beliefs of
+men, both Christians and Moslems, are something which it is impossible for
+us to realise. On either side the way of salvation was the path of
+conquest, and the man who was heretic to the faith which you professed was
+rightly served if you could cut him and his off from among the
+congregation.
+
+It was well for the corsair to make as many friends as possible, as among
+his enemies he counted all the kings of Christendom; and, looking back on
+his career, it seems but little short of a miracle that he was not crushed
+out of existence, not once but a hundred times. But, as has been said
+already, the root of true statesmanship was in Kheyr-ed-Din. He watched
+with eager eye the quarrels of the great kings on the continent of Europe;
+he saw his life-long rival at sea, the greatest of all Christian mariners,
+Andrea Doria, the Genoese admiral, transfer his allegiance from the French
+King Francis I. to the Emperor Charles V. He noted and took full advantage
+of the perpetual squabbles between the Genoese and Venetian Republics, and
+all the time was in touch with the Sea-wolves, who swarmed on the coasts of
+Africa, and lurked in every creek and harbour of the Ionian Sea. "In all
+the bloody hazards of his life," to quote once again the words of the Grand
+Turk, "he could, in the end, depend more or less on the corsairs, whether
+they ostensibly sailed beneath his banner or whether they did not, as when
+danger threatened what name was so potent as that of Barbarossa, which his
+followers asserted to be worth ten thousand men, when shouted on the day of
+battle!"
+
+That which is most extraordinary in the life of Kheyr-ed-Din is the
+perpetual danger and stress in which it was lived. Time and again the heavy
+menacing clouds gathered around his head; strenuous and unceasing were the
+efforts made by his enemies to destroy his power, to capture the person of
+this militant robber who flung an insolent defiance to the whole of
+Christendom. The storms gathered and broke with various effects, which
+sometimes sent the corsair flying for his life a hunted fugitive, as others
+saw him once more victorious. But no reverses had the power to damp his
+ardour, or to render him less eager to arise, like some ill-omened phoenix,
+from the ashes of defeat: to vex the souls of those who held themselves to
+be the greatest men on earth.
+
+It was shortly after the death of his brother Uruj that the storm arose
+which bade fair to sweep, not only Kheyr-ed-Din but all the corsairs of the
+North African coast, clean out of their strongholds, for the Emperor
+Charles V., at this time young, eager, and enthusiastic, gave orders for
+their destruction. These robbers troubled the peace of Europe; they did
+more than this, they insulted the Majesty of the Emperor, and Charles
+regarded their perpetual incursions in the light of an affront to his
+personal dignity. The divinity which hedged such a monarch as the grandson
+of "Los Reyes Cath�licos," Ferdinand and Isabella, was a very real thing,
+and, if offended, was likely to find concrete expression in the most
+vigorous form. Charles, much annoyed at the necessity for chastising a band
+of robbers, determined that he would make an end of them once and for all.
+To Don Hugo de Moncada, the Viceroy of Sicily, to Don Perisan de Ribera at
+Bougie, to the Marquis de Comares at Oran, orders were sent to prepare
+their forces for an attack on Algiers.
+
+There was no lack of good-will on the part of the Christian princes,
+nobles, and governors. The Spanish veterans in Sicily were rusting for want
+of employment, the levies on the African littoral welcomed anything in the
+way of war as a distraction from the deadly monotony of their lives. The
+soldier in these days who rested too long upon his arms became in time
+practically useless for the purpose for which he existed; but such rulers
+as Charles V. gave their fighting men but small cause of complaint in the
+matter of want of employment. The Pope sent his blessing and a contingent,
+and, to show how serious was the purpose of the Emperor, who took the
+command in person, let us set forth the total of the expedition which was
+to utterly destroy and root out the corsairs and their leader:
+
+FLEET.
+
+  Galleys of the Pope               4
+    "     of Malta                  4
+    "     of Sicily                 4
+    "     of Antony Doria           6
+    "     of Naples                 5
+    "     of Monaco                 2
+    "     of Marquis of Terra Nova  2
+    "     of Vicome de Cigala       2
+    "     of Fernando de Gonzaga    7
+    "     of Spain                 15
+    "     of Andrea Doria          14
+
+  Total Galleys                    65
+  Add Transports                  451
+                                  ---
+  Total Fleet                     516
+
+SAILING-SHIP TRANSPORT.
+
+  The Frigate of Malta               1
+  Division of Spezzia              100
+    "      of Fernando Gonzaga     150
+    "      of Spain                200
+
+  Total Transports                 451
+
+
+We now come to the military side of the expedition, which consisted of:
+
+  The Household of the Emperor     200
+  Noblesse                         150
+  Knights of Malta                 150
+  Servants                         400
+  German Corps                   6,000
+  Italians                       5,000
+  Spanish from Naples and Sicily 6,000
+  Soldiers from Spain              400
+  Adventurers                    3,000
+  Italian Cavalry                1,000
+  Spanish Cavalry from Sicily      400
+  Light Cavalry                    700
+                                ------
+  Total Army                    23,900
+                                ======
+
+We next come to the Armament of the Fleet:
+
+  Soldiers of the Galleys (50 in each)            3,250
+  Galley Slaves (average 70 in each)              4,500
+    "      "    The Frigate of Malta                 80
+  540 sailing ships of all sorts, mostly
+        small (at an average of 10 each)          4,500
+                                                  -----
+  Total _Personnel_ of the Fleet                 12,330
+  Add Army                                       28,900
+                                                 ------
+  Total _Personnel_ of the Expedition.      36,230 men.
+                                                 ======
+
+It was late autumn when the expedition at last set sail, and the imperious
+temper of Charles was such that he refused to be governed by the advice of
+the seasoned mariners, such as Andrea and Antony Doria, and others who
+dreaded the effect of the gales which the armada was likely to encounter on
+the coast of Africa. The Emperor was not to be gainsaid, and the fleet set
+sail. They arrived, says Sandoval, "en el dia de San Hieronymo," Saint
+Bartholomew's day; and there then arose such a storm as the Mediterranean
+seldom sees. Some of the army had landed, some were still afloat, the
+corsairs accounted for the luckless soldiers ashore, the elements destroyed
+many left in the ships: 26 ships and 4,000 men were lost.
+
+Bitterly mortified, Charles, who had personally displayed valour and
+conduct of unusual distinction in this disastrous expedition, returned to
+Europe to turn his attention to his everlasting quarrels with the King of
+France. Meanwhile Don Hugo de Moncada had escaped with a remnant of his
+forces to Iviza, in the Balearics, where he wintered, and where his men
+mutinied because he was unable to pay them.
+
+As there was depression almost amounting to despair in the camps of
+Christendom, so was there concurrently the widest rejoicing in the tents
+and on board of the galleys which flew the Moslem flag. What mattered it
+that it was the elements which had saved Kheyr-ed-Din from annihilation?
+was it not a cause the more for jubilation, as had not the Prophet of God
+himself come to the assistance of those who were upholding his holy
+standard? Were not his favours made manifest in that he had sent, to lead
+his votaries to victory, such an one as Kbeyr-ed-Din Barbarossa?
+
+Pope and Emperor, King, Duke, and Viceroy had tried conclusions with the
+pirates, and their fleet and army had melted away as the mists melt in the
+hot sunshine on the Mediterranean; truly were the descendants of the
+dispossessed Moors of C�doba and Granada taking a terrible revenge on
+those by whom they had been expropriated.
+
+Barbarossa was never one to let the grass grow under his feet; he had the
+Christians on the run, and he intended to take full advantage of this
+pleasing circumstance. Accordingly he despatched a trusted lieutenant, one
+Hassan, with instructions to harass the coast of Valentia, to ravage with
+fire and sword all those unfortunate towns and villages which he could
+reach. This corsair entered the Rio de Ampasta and destroyed all before
+him, the inhabitants fleeing as the news was carried by escaped fugitives
+and by the red glare of the villages flaming to heaven in the night.
+Satiated with blood, laden with spoil, and burdened with many wretched
+captives, Hassan put to sea once more in triumph.
+
+It may here be mentioned how terrible was the damage wrought by the
+piratical fraternity in the Mediterranean, and the manner in which it has
+been brought to light in somewhat remarkable fashion quite recently. Since
+the French occupation of Tunis it was charged against them that they had
+taken away from the natives of the country those fertile lands which lay
+upon the shores of the sea, and had given them to French subjects. The
+facts of the case were that for centuries these lands had been entirely out
+of cultivation, the reason being that, until the complete suppression of
+piracy in the Mediterranean took place, none dared to dwell within raiding
+distance of the sea for fear of being carried off into slavery.
+
+But to return to Hassan. That warrior, having cleared the Spanish coast,
+got separated from three of his consorts during the night. The next day, at
+dawn, he sighted a Spanish sailing-vessel, which he thought to make an easy
+prize. The wind was light, and the galleys--that is to say, the one on
+which Hassan was aboard and his remaining consort--were soon churning up
+the waters in pursuit as fast as their oars could carry them. Hassan
+reckoned on an easy capture, as he made certain she was but a peaceful
+trader with some score or so of throats to cut. He was, however, badly out
+of his reckoning, as on board of her was a veteran company of Spanish
+infantry, stark fighters to a man, who feared no odds, and who were
+skilfully commanded by Captain Robeira, grown grey in the Moorish wars.
+With bloodcurdling yells the galleys swept alongside with the fighting men
+massed on the high poops and forecastles of their vessels. Behind the high
+bulwarks of the "round ship" (as the sailing craft of the day were
+denominated to distinguish them from the long ships, or galleys) crouched
+the Spaniards, their muskets in their hands. Captain Robeira had them
+perfectly in hand, and not a piece was discharged until the beaks of the
+galleys crashed into her sides.
+
+Robeira then gave the order to fire, and at the short range into packed
+masses of men the volley did terrible execution. Completely surprised, the
+corsairs attempted to board, but were repulsed and driven back with more
+slaughter. His men becoming demoralised, Hassan withdrew amidst the
+ferocious taunts of the Spaniards, who had escaped almost unscathed. Sore
+and angry, the corsairs continued their voyage for another three days, at
+the expiration of which they arrived at Algiers. Hassan, who had acquired
+quite a considerable booty, expected a warm reception; this he received,
+but hardly in the way that he expected. He told his tale to Kheyr-ed-Din,
+which that commander received in frowning silence; when he had finished the
+storm burst.
+
+"O miserable coward! dost thou dare to stand in my presence and to confess
+that thou hast been whipped like a dog by those sons of burnt fathers, the
+Spaniards?"
+
+The miserable Hassan attempted to justify himself by reference to the booty
+which he had obtained and the number of captives with which he had
+returned; but this, far from assuaging the wrath of Barbarossa, only made
+it worse.
+
+"Dastard and slave! thou boastest that, thou hast destroyed defenceless
+villages and brought back many captives, but that shall avail thee nothing.
+No profit shalt thou derive from that. Let the captives be brought before
+me."
+
+This was done, and to the horror even of those hardened men of blood who
+followed in the train of Barbarossa, they were all executed. Even this
+wholesale massacre did not assuage the wrath of the corsair. Standing and
+surveying the weltering shambles which tainted the air, he pulled
+ferociously at his red beard, and commanded that they should whip Hassan
+till the blood ran; when this was done thoroughly and to the satisfaction
+of the despot, he gave orders that he should be chained and thrust into the
+prison of the fortress.
+
+Terror stalked abroad in Algiers. No man knew when his turn might come
+after this awful example of what it meant to incur the wrath of Barbarossa.
+The corsair gave orders for the execution of Venalcadi, who, it will be
+remembered, was with Uruj when that warrior came by his death; but
+Venalcadi was popular among the pirates, and they connived at his escape.
+
+For so cool and politic a man as Kheyr-ed-Din this outburst is wholly
+inexplicable. Judged by our standards, the flogging of Hassan was not only
+brutal but silly, as raising up to himself enemies of the most bitter
+description in the midst of his own followers; and yet cruelty was so
+engrained in this man that he never forewent his revenge. It is a standing
+miracle that he escaped assassination in the age in which he lived, and the
+only explanation would appear to be that men were too much afraid of him to
+make the attempt.
+
+The immediate result of the flogging of Hassan and the attempted murder of
+Venalcadi was that the latter collected a following and made war upon
+Kheyr-ed-Din, who, with incredible folly, then released Hassan, and sent
+him with five hundred men to fight against Venalcadi. The result was what
+might have been anticipated: Hassan joined forces with Venalcadi, and
+together they attacked the tyrant and drove him out of his stronghold.
+
+Kheyr-ed-Din had the one supreme merit of never knowing when he was beaten.
+Driven from the shore, there was for him always the sea to which to retire;
+so on this occasion he embarked his family and such of his riches as were
+portable, and took to the sea once more. "Yendo a buscar nuevos asientos y
+nuevos amigos" (seeking a new home and new friends), says Sandoval.
+
+It was well for the corsairs that the Christians had selected the previous
+year for their attack, as, had they fallen upon them when Barbarossa was no
+longer in power at Algiers and the pirates were fighting among themselves,
+the latter would have been wiped out of existence. It was ill fighting with
+Kheyr-ed-Din, whether you professed the religion of Christ or that of
+Mahomet, and this the revolting corsairs were very soon to discover.
+Barbarossa sailed away from Algiers a hunted fugitive, only to return again
+as a conqueror.
+
+Eastward the dispossessed ruler of Algiers took his course, and very soon
+discovered that which he sought--allies to assist him against the revolted
+Venalcadi and the recalcitrant Hassan. Lurking in the neighbourhood of
+Bizerta, he discovered El Judeo (the Jew), Cachidiablo (Hunt the Devil),
+Salaerrez, Tabas, and other corsairs, who collectively composed a
+formidable force. These were all old acquaintances and some old followers
+of Kheyr-ed-Din, and to them did he relate the piteous tale of the
+cowardice of Venalcadi, whom he accused of having deserted his brother Uruj
+in his direst necessity, thereby causing his death; the abominable conduct
+of Hassan, who had turned and bitten the hand that fed him. With tears in
+his eyes did this accomplished actor reluctantly reveal the base
+ingratitude of which he had been the recipient; so much did he contrive to
+work upon the feelings of his auditors that they one and all vowed to stand
+by him, and to replace him as ruler of Algiers, from which he had been
+thrust by men whose shameful treachery was only equalled by their
+ingratitude.
+
+Forty sail in strength, they set out to avenge the wrongs of the gentle and
+long-suffering Kheyr-ed-Din, that master of craft in every sense of the
+word. Reaching Algiers, they disembarked artillery and stores and began an
+attack in form; but Venalcadi, whose forces were equal, in fact slightly
+superior, to those of his antagonists, made a sally, and battle was joined
+in the open. A most sanguinary combat ensued, in which the forces of
+Kheyr-ed-Din were decidedly worsted. For a considerable period his fate
+hung in the balance. Then occurred one of those singular and remarkable
+things only possible in such an age of anarchy and bloodshed. Barbarossa
+had in his train sixty Spanish soldiers captured by him from the force of
+Don Hugo de Moncada. Well did the corsair know their value: there were no
+finer fighting men in all the Christian armies. Hastily summoning them, he
+promised them their freedom if they would now throw in their lot with him
+and assist in the downfall of Venalcadi.
+
+The offer was no sooner made than accepted, and the Spanish veterans, fresh
+and unwearied, threw themselves into the heart of the fray. Shoulder to
+shoulder and blade to blade in their disciplined valour, they broke through
+all opposition; they fought for liberty as well as life, to exchange the
+noisome confinement of the piratical galley for the free air of their homes
+and their country. Soon the soldiers of Venalcadi turned and fled back to
+the city; the day was once again with Kheyr-ed-Din. For four days longer
+did Algiers hold out, and then a traitor betrayed Venalcadi into the hands
+of his enemies. Instantly his head was struck off, placed on a pole, and
+paraded in full sight of the garrison, who were promised their lives on
+condition of surrender.
+
+The city opened its gates once more, and Barbarossa entered in triumph. The
+corsair was as good as his word to his Spanish captives, and restored to
+them their liberty. He went even further, and was liberal in his _largesse_
+to those who had fought so well for him. If he can be credited with such an
+emotion as gratitude, he must have felt it for Moncada's stout infantrymen,
+as, had it not been for them, it would have been his head and not that of
+Venalcadi which would have decorated the pole. The Spaniards departed to
+their own country--that is to say, such of them as desired to do so; but
+one Hamet, a Biscayan, declared that life was so intolerable for a common
+man such as he in his own country that he desired to throw in his lot with
+Barbarossa. Thirty-nine others followed his example, abjuring the Christian
+faith and becoming renegadoes.
+
+Those of the garrison left alive were glad enough to return once more to
+their allegiance to their former master. The episode of the mutiny of
+Venalcadi and Hassan was a lesson not only to them: the fame of it spread
+far and wide throughout the Mediterranean. Who now could be found to combat
+Barbarossa? and all along the coasts of the tideless sea echo shudderingly
+answered--Who?
+
+With the new accession to his strength Kheyred-Din had no difficulty in
+making himself master of Tunis, and he sent Cachidiablo with seventeen
+galleys to harry once more the coast of Spain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+THE TAKING OF THE PE�ON D'ALGER; ANDREA DORIA
+
+Although Kheyr-ed-Din had made himself master of Algiers, there still
+remained the fortress of Pedro Navarro in the hands of the Spaniards. This
+strong place of arms had now been in their practically undisputed
+occupation for twenty years; from out of its loopholed walls and
+castellated battlements the undaunted garrison had looked forth while the
+tide of war both by land and sea had swept by. They had been unmolested so
+far, but now their day was to come.
+
+In command of the Pe�on d'Alger, as it was called by the Spaniards, was a
+valiant and veteran cavalier, by name Martin de Vargas. For twenty years,
+as we have said, the gold-and-crimson banner of Spain had floated from its
+crenulated bastions; since the days of Pedro Navarro it had held its own
+against all comers. It must have been with a sinking heart that Martin de
+Vargas and his brave garrison beheld the town fall once again into the
+hands of Kheyr-ed-Din; they knew, as by this time did all the Mediterranean
+and the dwellers on the coasts thereof, the implacable enmity of the
+corsair to the Christians, and how short a shrift would be theirs should
+they fall into his hands.
+
+On his side Kheyr-ed-Din looked with longing eyes on this remnant of the
+power of Spain in Africa. Could he but dislodge Martin de Vargas, he had
+the whole of Northern Africa practically at his disposal; Algiers would
+then be really his, to fortify for all time against the inroads of his
+foes. He was master by land and sea, the time was propitious; the corsair
+decided that the hour had come. He had seen the repulse of his brother
+Uruj, none knew better than did he the temper of the men by whom the Pe�on
+was held, or the valiance and the unswerving fidelity of that caballero of
+Spain, Martin de Vargas. He tried to induce that officer to surrender to
+him, offering every inducement to the Spanish commander to come to terms.
+He was met with a haughty refusal, couched in the most contemptuous
+language. He tried the most blood-curdling threats, which were no empty
+menaces, as his adversary well knew: these were received in silence.
+
+One more embassy he tried, and to this he received the following answer:
+
+  "I spring from the race of the De Vargas, but my house has never made it
+  a practice to boast of the glory of their long descent: they professed
+  merely to imitate the heroism of their ancestors. Spurred forward by
+  this worthy desire, I await with calmness all your efforts, and will
+  prove to you, with arms in my hands, that I am faithful to my God, my
+  country, and my king."
+
+[Illustration: ANDREA DORIA, PRINCE OF ONEGLEA, ADMIRAL TO CHARLES V.]
+
+Barbarossa summoned to his palace his kinsman and trusted adherent Celebi
+Rabadan, and they mutually decided that there was nothing they could do
+save take up arms against this most insolent and uncompromising warrior. In
+the meanwhile they would try what craft would do; and accordingly two young
+Moors were introduced into the Pe�on, under the pretext that they had seen
+the error of their ways and were anxious to embrace the Christian religion.
+Martin de Vargas, like all Spanish caballeros, was an ardent proselytiser,
+and he ordered the two young men to be taken into his own house and
+instructed by the chaplain of the garrison. The next day was Easter Day,
+and the two young Moors, while the entire garrison were at Mass, signalled
+to their co-religionists a prearranged sign indicating that now was the
+time to attack. Unfortunately for them, a woman in the employment of De
+Vargas saw them, and they were immediately hanged from the battlements in
+full view of Barbarossa. That potentate was filled with fury at what he
+considered an insult to the Mohammedan religion, and again consulted with
+Celebi as to the feasibility of another assault. It was true, he said, that
+his messengers had been hanged, but they had made the prearranged signal.
+Still, the walls were hardly sufficiently breached, he thought, and his own
+men were singularly disheartened by the ill success of their previous
+efforts. Did Celebi Rabadan think another attempt desirable?
+
+That person was in a quandary, because he could not gather what it was that
+Barbarossa wished him to say. He knew that if he recommended an assault,
+and that it proved once again unsuccessful, that the full fury of the
+tyrant would fall upon his head; at the same time he was almost equally
+afraid to broach the idea which had been prevalent in Algiers for some time
+that Martin de Vargas must assuredly be in league with Shaitan, or he could
+never have held out in the way that he had done. In consequence he
+temporised and hesitated, while Barbarossa pulled at his famous red beard
+and regarded him with scowling brows.
+
+The situation was saved for Celebi Rabadan by an accident. There swam off
+to the ship a traitor from the Spanish garrison, and this man informed them
+that his whilom comrades were positively at their last gasp, ammunition all
+but exhausted, and the food-supply barely sufficient to last another two
+days.
+
+"To such an end come those who deny the Prophet of God," exclaimed
+Barbarossa, and gave orders that this news be communicated to all his men,
+who were to prepare for the final assault on the morrow. He further offered
+a reward for the capture of Martin de Vargas alive.
+
+On May 16th, 1530, the corsairs once again advanced to the assault. By this
+time the walls had been battered until a practicable breach had been
+formed, and over this swarmed thirteen hundred of the starkest fighters of
+the Mediterranean, In the breach, bareheaded, his armour hacked and dinted,
+stood the undaunted chieftain of the Spaniards: over his head floated that
+proud banner which had never cast its shadow on a worthier knight of Spain.
+The garrison, worn to a shadow by their hardships and their hunger, most of
+them wounded, and all of them sore spent, were in no case to resist this,
+the most formidable attack to which they had been subjected. It was all
+over in a very short time, and a dreadful massacre ensued.
+
+Martin de Vargas, though sorely wounded, was taken alive and conducted to
+the presence of Barbarossa. Wounded, shaken, bruised, his fortress in the
+hands of his enemy, the dying shrieks of his murdered garrison still
+ringing in his ears, the amazing spirit of the man was still utterly
+unsubdued. "It is to the treason of a ruffian that you owe your triumph,"
+he said to his captor, "and not to your valour: had I received the smallest
+relief I could still have repulsed and kept you at bay. You have my maimed
+and mutilated body in your possession, and I hope that you are satisfied.
+But my body is accustomed to pain, and I therefore defy you and your
+dastardly cruelty."
+
+To do Barbarossa justice he admired the undaunted spirit of his prisoner,
+and he replied:
+
+"Fear nothing, De Vargas, I will do all in my power to ease your hurts if
+you will do that which I ask of you."
+
+De Vargas replied:
+
+"As an earnest of your faith, I demand the punishment of the traitor
+through whose information you were enabled to take the citadel."
+
+Barbarossa ordered the soldier to be brought before them, and, having
+nearly flogged him to death, had him beheaded. He then presented the head
+to De Vargas, saying:
+
+"You observe my complaisance. I now ask you to embrace the Mohammedan
+faith; then I will overwhelm you with benefits and honours, and make you
+the Captain-General of my guards."
+
+De Vargas looked at him in indignation and replied:
+
+"Dost thou believe that I, who but now demanded the just punishment of a
+man who had forsworn himself, could stoop to such an act of baseness as
+this? Keep your ill-gotten riches; confer your dignities on others; insult
+not thus a caballero of Spain."
+
+There was a breathless pause. None had ever used such language to
+Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa and lived to tell the tale. Nor was it to be so in
+this case.
+
+"You and yours have caused me too much trouble," he answered indifferently.
+He made a sign to the executioner who had beheaded the soldier, and the
+next moment the head of De Vargas was swept from his body.
+
+The gallant Spaniard, it is to be hoped, came by his end in the way just
+narrated; but the chroniclers disagree among themselves, and "El Se�or Don
+Diego de Haedo, Arcobispo de Palermo y Capitan General del Reyno de Sicilia
+por El Rey Felipe nuestro se�or," states that Barbarossa kept De Vargas in
+confinement for three months and then had him beaten to death. One can only
+sincerely hope that the first account is the true one; but Haedo was nearer
+to the time of the occurrence, and, as he wrote in the reign of Philip II.,
+is more likely to have known the facts. But however this may have been,
+there was an end for all time of Spanish domination on the north coast of
+Africa, and from this we may date the permanent establishment of those
+piratical States in that part of the world.
+
+The star of Kheyr-ed-Din was once more in the ascendant. Not only had he
+crushed out the incipient mutiny of Venalcadi and taken his life, but he
+had consolidated his power by the taking of the Pe�on d'Alger. He
+celebrated this occasion in the most practical manner possible: a stop was
+put to the indiscriminate massacre of the garrison, and five hundred of the
+Spaniards were captured alive; it was their dreary fate to pull down
+entirely the tower of Pedro Navarro, which they had defended so gallantly
+and to utilise the material in making a causeway from the Pe�on to the
+shore. Barbarossa was determined that on no future occasion should his
+enemies have the chance of dominating his town of Algiers. He was now a
+sovereign in fact and in deed, regarding even so mighty a monarch as
+Charles V. with comparative equanimity. Terrible was the wrath of the
+latter when the news of the fall of the Pe�on, the massacre of the
+garrison, and the death of his trusty servant De Vargas, was brought to
+him. The Sea-wolves seemed to exist but to exasperate him, and this latest
+news came just at one of the most prosperous epochs of his career.
+
+The titles of "Carlos Quinto," as recorded by Sandoval, read like the roll
+of some mighty drum. Nor were these titles mere vain and empty boastings,
+as was so often the case at that time among the minor rulers of the earth.
+On February 22nd, 1580, just before the fall of the Pe�on, he had placed on
+his own head the iron crown of Lombardy; his viceroys ruled in Naples and
+Sicily, his dukes and feudatories in Florence and Ferrara, in Mantua and in
+Milan; there was no more Italy. All these recent acquisitions had been
+rendered possible by the defection of Andrea Doria, the Genoese seaman,
+from Francis I. of France to the side of the Emperor. From henceforward it
+was against this modern C�sar that Barbarossa had to contend; the monarch
+under whose banner swarmed the terrible Schwartz-Reiters of Germany, for
+whose honour marched the incomparable infantry of Spain, for whom the
+fleets of the gallant Genoese sailed in battle-array under the orders of
+the greatest admiral of the day, Andrea Doria. All these disciplined
+legions of Christendom were arrayed against the corsair king; banded
+together for the destruction of that daring pirate whose flag floated in
+insolent triumph above the white walls of Algiers.
+
+As from this time onwards we shall hear much concerning Andrea Doria, it is
+fitting that some account should here be given of this great patriot, great
+soldier, and still greater seaman. Andrea Doria, of the family of the
+Princes of Oneglia, of Genoa, was born at Oneglia on November 30th, 1468,
+and was the son of Andrea Coeva and Marie Caracosa, both of the family of
+Doria. At the death of his mother the young Andrea, then nineteen years of
+age, was sent to Rome, where his kinsman Dominique Doria, of the elder
+branch of the family, was captain of the Papal Guard of Pope Innocent VIII.
+Here he rose rapidly: owing to his extraordinary address in all military
+exercises, he was marked out for preferment, and would probably have
+succeeded his kinsman as grand officer, had it not been for the death of
+Innocent VIII. The successor to Innocent, Alexander VI., was not favourable
+to the claims of the Dorias; so young Andrea, acting on the advice of
+Dominique, repaired to the court of Duke Urbino, then regarded as the best
+school for young nobles desirous of following a military career. After some
+time spent at the court of Urbino, Dominique counselled that Andrea should
+enter some other service, as there was no glory to be obtained under a
+prince who was never at war. Accordingly Andrea passed into the service of
+the King of Aragon, who, having invaded Naples, was giving plenty of
+employment to all would-be warriors.
+
+In the record of his early days we find that in the year 1495 he made a
+journey to Jerusalem to visit the holy places, and that he then returned to
+Italy, where Ferdinand of Aragon was attempting to recover the kingdom of
+Naples. "The Great Captain," Gonsalvo de Cordoba, was warring against
+Doria's kinsman, Juan Roverejo; this commander had rendered a great service
+to the Dorias by rescuing David Doria from imprisonment at Ancona, and
+Andrea decided to throw in his lot with him. He accordingly armed
+twenty-five cavaliers at his own expense, and joined Roverejo, who put him
+in charge of the fortress of Rocca Guillelma. In this place Andrea was
+besieged by Gonsalvo de Cordoba, the first warrior of the age; here he
+displayed such extraordinary ability in defence that, on the occasion of a
+truce, Gonsalvo urged upon Andrea to join the Spaniards. Andrea made answer
+that honour bound him to Roverejo, but, could he be released from his
+arrangement with him, he might then consider the proposition of "The Great
+Captain." Roverejo refused, but, as Charles VIII. immediately afterwards
+evacuated Italy, Andrea was free to follow his own inclinations, and took
+service with Lodovico Sforza, Duke of Milan.
+
+From this time onward until 1503 Andrea was constantly employed in war, and
+made for himself such a reputation that in this year the Republic of Genoa
+requested him to take command of their navy. This offer he refused, as he
+said that he knew nothing about the sea. They pressed him, saying that to a
+man of his genius nothing was impossible, and in the end he gave a somewhat
+reluctant consent. He soon proved his competence in his new sphere of
+activity, as his first act was to capture the Fort of the Lantern, in the
+neighbourhood of Genoa, which was then held by the French for Louis XII.
+The Republic confirmed his appointment as General of the Galleys with many
+compliments, and he put to sea and captured three of the war-galleys of the
+corsairs, also two Turkish ships laden with valuable merchandise. He fitted
+out the galleys for his own service, sold the merchantmen, and made an
+immense sum of money.
+
+His next act was to defeat the corsair, Cadolin, who had eight galleys to
+Doria's six; these he added to his own fleet, which now consisted of
+fourteen vessels, he having begun with three. As Cadolin was one of the
+most famous corsairs of the day, this capture made an immense sensation,
+and all men, Moslems as well as Christians, were asking one another, "Who
+was this Doria?"
+
+They had their answer, as time passed, in the career of this astonishing
+warrior, who in his time played so many parts, who served under so many
+flags, and yet who remained consistently a patriot all the time. As this is
+not a history of Doria, we have no space to trace out his life step by step
+as it was lived; suffice it to say that, disapproving of the government of
+his native Republic under the family of the Adorno, Andrea offered his
+sword and his fleet to the King of France, Francis I. His offer was
+received with joy, and he was made Captain-General of the Galleys of
+France. In his new capacity he sailed for the coast of Provence, which was
+being devastated by the fleet of Charles V. He sank several of the Spanish
+vessels, captured others, and secured sufficient booty to pay his soldiers
+and sailors--a fact most welcome to Francis, who was in desperate straits
+for money.
+
+Eventually, however, a dispute arose between Francis and Doria, which was
+to have disastrous effects for the King. At this time Charles V. was
+suzerain of Genoa, which was held for him by the Adorno. Philippin Doria,
+nephew of the admiral, met at sea with Hugo de Moncada outside the Gulf of
+Salerno; a battle ensued, in which Philippin was victorious and Moncada was
+slain. Amongst others who were captured was the Marquis de Guasto and
+Camille Colonna; these high officers, together with three of the captured
+galleys, were sent by Philippin to his uncle at Genoa.
+
+In the meantime some malcontents reached the Court of France and complained
+to the King that Andrea Doria had not captured Sicily, which they averred
+he could easily have done. These men were backed up by a certain number of
+the courtiers, who were bitterly jealous of the fame of Doria and the
+esteem in which he had been held by Francis. The monarch, easily swayed by
+any determined and persistent attack, decided to levy a fine on the
+inhabitants of Genoa as a punishment for the supineness of their
+countryman, who was his Captain-General of the Galleys; his argument being
+that they must pay him for the plunder Doria had missed by not taking
+Sicily when he should have done so.
+
+This was worse than a crime--it was blunder of the very first magnitude,
+and such a blunder as could only have been made by a very stupid as well as
+a very arrogant man. Doria by this time was a warrior of European
+celebrity, and one to whom even kings used the language of persuasion; to
+attempt to browbeat him was to court disaster.
+
+Francis sent the Vicomte de Tours to Genoa to levy the fine, but the
+Vicomte did not prosper on his mission. Outside of Genoa he was met by the
+outraged admiral on horseback at the head of some fifty Genoese nobles and
+a numerous company of foot-soldiers. De Tours reported that the name and
+authority of the King of France was held in derision by the fierce old
+admiral, who so alarmed the envoy himself that he thought it prudent to
+retire to Florence, from whence he wrote a long letter to his master
+complaining of his reception by Doria.
+
+This attempt to levy a fine on Genoa was not, however, the only deadly blow
+which the King of France was aiming at her. The children of Francis were at
+this time in Madrid, as hostages for the good behaviour of their father,
+and that monarch was in treaty secretly with Charles to restore Italy to
+the _status quo ante bellum_, which would have had the effect of handing
+over Genoa to Antony Adorno. He also began the fortification of Savona, in
+order that from there he might be in a position to strike at the
+Genoese--from a military point of view, if necessary--but in any event to
+cripple the trade of that city. Andrea Doria, as soon as he became aware of
+this latter action on the part of Francis, was thoroughly roused, and wrote
+him the letter quoted below, which illustrates the fact that he was quite
+aware of his own great importance in Europe. It was not a time in which men
+held such language as did Doria on this occasion unless they were very sure
+of themselves and their followers.
+
+  "GREAT PRINCE,
+
+  "It is an ill use of power to reverse order in human affairs. Genoa has
+  always been the capital of Liguria, and posterity will see with
+  astonishment that your Majesty has deprived it of this advantage with no
+  plausible pretext. The Genoese are well aware how inimical to their
+  interests are your projects with regard to Savona. They beg of you that
+  these may be abandoned, and that you will not sacrifice the general good
+  to the views of a few courtiers. I take the liberty to add my prayers to
+  theirs, and to ask of you this grace as the price of the services I have
+  rendered to France. Should your Majesty have been put to
+  expense, I shall join to my request the sum of forty thousand gold
+  crowns.
+
+    "With the humble duty of Andrea Doria,
+      Captain-General of the Galleys of France."
+
+Theodore Trivulce, who held Savona for the King of France, was roundly told
+by Doria that "the people of Genoa would never suffer the taking of Savona
+by the King of France, as it had from time immemorial belonged to them,"
+and added, "for myself I will sacrifice the friendship of the King in the
+interests of my fatherland."
+
+The last straw came, however, when the Marshal de Lautrec demanded from
+Andrea the prisoners taken by Philippin Doria at Salerno. To this Doria
+returned a curt negative, whereupon Francis sent one Barbezieux to
+supersede Doria and to seize upon the person of the veteran admiral. But
+that seaman, now sixty years of age, was not to be taken by any king or
+soldier. He moved his twelve galleys from Genoa to Lerici, on the east
+coast of the Gulf of Spezzia, and when Barbezieux arrived he sarcastically
+told him to take the galleys. Barbezieux had no better fortune than his
+predecessor, the Vicomte de Tours, and retired discomfited and boiling over
+with rage to report matters to the King.
+
+It has been said that among the prisoners of Philippin Doria was the
+Marquis de Guasto. This nobleman had been an interested spectator of the
+quarrel, and now approached Doria suggesting that he should throw in his
+lot with Charles. The admiral, who all through had been acting in the
+interests of his native country, seeing its ruin approaching from the
+ambitions of Francis, consented, and wrote to his nephew Philippin telling
+him of his decision, and his reasons for that which he proposed to do.
+Philippin therefore rejoined his uncle at Lerici with his eight galleys.
+The negotiations were short, sharp, and decisive, and were conducted
+through the medium of De Guasto. Charles offered the admiral sixty thousand
+ducats a year; this was accepted. The only other stipulation made by the
+Emperor was natural enough, which was that all the Spanish galley-slaves in
+the fleet of Andrea should be released and their places taken by men of
+other nationalities. This was of course conceded, and the transaction was
+complete. Henceforward the most formidable force at sea on the Christian
+side was at the disposal of the Spanish King.
+
+This transference took place in the year 1528, and it was in the same year
+that the citizens of Genoa, in recognition of the unexampled services of
+the admiral to the State, elected him perpetual Doge.
+
+This honour Doria declined, declaring that it was more glorious to have
+deserved than to possess the honour, and that he considered he could be of
+more use to his fellow citizens by gaining for them the protection of great
+princes than by remaining as chief judge in his own country.
+
+The Senate of Genoa, astonished by his noble modesty, hailed him as the
+father and liberator of his country, ordered that a statue of him should be
+erected in the public square, that in the same place a palace should be
+built for him at the public expense, and that it should be called Plaza
+Doria; further, that he and his posterity should be for ever exempted from
+taxation, and that a device should be engraved on a plate of copper and
+attached to the walls of the palace, where it could be seen of all men,
+announcing to posterity the services that this great man had rendered to
+his fellow citizens, to be for ever a memorial of their gratitude.
+
+The chronicler of these events draws a parallel between Doria and
+Themistocles, who, when discontented with the Athenians, passed into Persia
+and offered his services to Xerxes, to the great joy of that monarch, who
+cried aloud, "I have Themistocles, I have Themistocles."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+THE APOTHEOSIS OF THE CORSAIR KING
+
+If Charles V. made no such outward manifestation of his joy as did the
+Persian monarch, he possibly was no less pleased than Xerxes; this he
+showed by his acts, and the value that he attached to the services of Doria
+was instanced in the directions which he gave. He ordered the Governors of
+all his possessions in Italy to do nothing without first consulting the
+admiral; to lend him prompt aid, whether he demanded it in his own name or
+in that of the Republic of Genoa. He made him Admiralissimo of his navy,
+with power to act as he liked without even consulting him, as his Emperor.
+It will be seen that Charles had in him sufficient greatness to trust
+whole-heartedly when he trusted at all; the faith which he reposed in the
+Genoese seaman was amply justified by events, and no action of his during
+the whole of his singularly dramatic reign was ever to result so entirely
+to his profit. When in after-life Charles had received from the Pope the
+Imperial Crown, and when, on his return, he put into Aigues-Mortes in
+Doria's galley, he there met with Francis, who, in a burst to confidence,
+advised the C�sar never to part with his admiral.
+
+On that stage, which was the blue waters of the tideless sea, we shall,
+from this time forward, watch the fortunes of those two great sea-captains,
+Andrea Doria and Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa. With them the ebb and flow of
+conquest and defeat alternated. Great as was the one, it cannot be said
+that he was greater than the other; but when the supreme arbitrament was
+within the grasp of both, as it was at the naval battle of Prevesa, neither
+the Christian admiral nor the Moslem corsair would reach out his hand and
+grasp the nettle of his fate. Hesitation at this moment, when, in the
+fulness of time, the rivals stood face to face with arms in their hands,
+was the last thing that would have been expected of such dauntless
+warriors, such born leaders of men! and the battle of Prevesa presents a
+psychological problem of the most baffling and perplexing description. We
+are, however, anticipating events which will fall into their proper
+sequence as we proceed.
+
+Kheyr-ed-Din, now firmly established in Algiers, devoted his energies to
+the undoing of his Christian foes by the systematic plunder of their
+merchant-vessels. At this period he, personally, seems to have remained
+ashore, and sent his young and aspiring captains to sea to increase his
+wealth by plunder, his consequence by the hordes of slaves which they swept
+into the awful bagnios of Algiers; and Sandoval, that quaint and delightful
+historian, is moved to indignation and complains with much acrimony of "las
+malas obras que este corsario hizo a la Christiandad" (the evil deeds done
+to Christianity by this corsair). These were on so considerable a scale at
+this time that he had to devote to them far more space than he considered
+consonant with the dignity of history.
+
+But if all were going on well on the coast of Africa for the Crescent, such
+was far from being the case in the northern waters of the Mediterranean;
+for Andrea Doria, serving His Most Catholic Majesty at sea, had defeated
+the Turks at Patras and again in the Dardanelles, which unpleasant fact
+caused no little annoyance to Soliman the Magnificent. On land the Sultan
+was sweeping all before him; at sea this pestilent Genoese was dragging
+into servitude all the best mariners who sailed beneath the banner of the
+Prophet. There was wrath and there was fear at Constantinople, and the
+captains of the galleys which sailed from the Golden Horn felt that their
+heads and their bodies might at any moment part company--the Grand Turk was
+in an ill humour, which might at any moment call for the appeasement of
+sacrifice; so it was that men trembled.
+
+It was at this time, in 1533, that Soliman bethought himself of
+Kheyr-ed-Din. There was no better seaman, there was no fiercer fighter,
+there was no man whose name was so renowned throughout the length and
+breadth of the Mediterranean, than was that of the corsair king who was
+vassal to the Sublime Porte. Soliman was confronted with a new, and, to
+him, an almost mysterious thing, for the onward conquering step of the
+Moslem hosts was being checked by that sea-power so little understanded of
+the Turk, and the imperious will of the Sultan seemed powerless to prevent
+the disasters conjured from the deep.
+
+[Illustration: SOLIMAN THE MAGNIFICENT.]
+
+Soliman the Magnificent, who was not inaptly described by this title, for
+he was successful as both warrior and statesman, meditated both long and
+anxiously on the new development of affairs before he made up his mind to
+the step of calling to his assistance the corsair king. But he possessed
+that truest attribute of greatness in a ruler, the faculty of discerning
+the right man for any particular post. Brave and reckless fighters he
+possessed in super-abundance, but somehow--somehow--none of these fiery
+warriors had that habit of the sea which enabled them to make head against
+such a past-master in the craft of the seaman as Andrea Doria. The Genoese
+was chasing the Turkish galleys from off the face of the waters.
+Constantinople itself was a sea-surrounded city; it was necessary that a
+check should be administered to the arms of the Christians on this element.
+It is easy to imagine the preoccupations of the Turkish monarch. The despot
+rules by force, but he also holds his power by the address with which it is
+wielded, and he can by no means afford to disregard his personal popularity
+if he is to make the best use of his fighting men in such a turbulent epoch
+as was the first half of the sixteenth century. Soliman had the wit to know
+that he had no mariner who was in any way comparable to Doria; he was also
+aware that Kheyr-ed-Din had risen from nothing to his present position by
+his sheer ability as a seaman. It would appear, therefore, a very natural
+thing that he should invite the co-operation of the King of Algiers, but
+that with which he had to reckon was the furious jealousy that such an
+appointment must inevitably arouse among his own subjects.
+
+It says much for the steadfast moral courage of the man that he eventually
+decided to take the risk; it says even more for the absolute correctness of
+his judgment that he never afterwards repented of the step which he then
+took.
+
+Once the mind of the Grand Turk was made up he hesitated no longer. The
+Capitan de Rodas, one of his personal guard, was sent to Barbarossa to
+request him to come to Constantinople and take command of the Ottoman
+fleet. There were no conditions attached; the honour was supreme.
+Barbarossa loaded the messenger with rich gifts, and overwhelmed him with
+honours. For Kheyr-ed-Din this was in a sense the apotheosis of his career.
+The Grand Turk, the head of the Mohammedan religion, had not only
+recognised his kingship, but had conferred on him an honour unprecedented,
+unlooked for, and one of the highest value to a man of such an insatiable
+ambition. Into the cool and crafty brain of this prince among schemers
+instantly sprang the thought that now at last his kingdom was secure, that
+in future the whole of the Barbary coast would own no other lord than he.
+
+Preparations for the voyage were immediately begun, and, as an earnest of
+the new importance which he derived from the advances of Soliman, the
+corsair actually sent presents to the King of France and proffered him his
+aid against his enemies. To such a pass as this had one of the most
+powerful monarchs in Christendom been reduced by the defection of Andrea
+Doria. Algiers he left in the keeping of his son Hassan, and in charge of
+Hassan his kinsman Celebi Rabadan and a captain of the name of Agi. In the
+middle of August, 1533, Barbarossa left Algiers, his fleet consisting of
+seven galleys and eleven fustas. Sailing northward, he fell in with a fleet
+which he at first feared was that of Doria, but which, fortunately for him,
+was that of a corsair named Delizuff from Los Gelues. Courtesies were
+interchanged between the two leaders, and Barbarossa succeeded in
+persuading Delizuff to accompany him to Sicily, where it was possible they
+might fall in with Doria, and with their combined forces inflict defeat
+upon the Christian admiral. Delizuff was nothing loath to join forces with
+so noted a commander as Kheyr-ed-Din, as he had no desire to tackle Doria
+single-handed, and at the same time wished to extend the sphere of his
+plunderings, which had been cruelly restricted recently by the wholesome
+fear instilled into the Sea-wolves by the new admiral of Charles V.
+
+Accordingly, reinforced by the fifteen fustas and one galley of Delizuff,
+the Algerian fleet once more proceeded on its voyage. Although bound for
+Constantinople at the request of Soliman, at a time when it would have been
+thought that delay was not only dangerous but impolitic, and although the
+corsair was endeavouring to merge the pirate in the king who dealt on terms
+of equality with those whom he now regarded as his brother monarchs, still
+the old instinct of robbery was too strong to be resisted; the lust of gain
+and the call of adventure were still inherent in the man whose famous beard
+was now far more white than red. Advancing age had not tamed the spirit nor
+weakened the frame of this leader among the Moslems.
+
+Sailing through the Straits of Bonifacio, they touched Monte Cristo, a
+small island where they found a slave who had formerly belonged to
+Delizuff. This man was base enough to betray his own native island of Biba
+into the hands of the corsairs, who sacked it thoroughly and carried off
+its inhabitants; they also captured thirteen large ships going to Sicily
+for wheat, and burnt them, making slaves of their crews. In the fight with
+these vessels Delizuff was killed. Shortly after this, some disagreement
+arising between the crews of the ships of Barbarossa and the men in
+Delizuff's fleet, the Algerian commander seized a man out of one of
+Delizuff's galleys and had him summarily shot. The death of Delizuff
+naturally caused some confusion in his command, and the high-handed
+proceeding of Kheyr-ed-Din caused great resentment, not unmixed with fear,
+as the terror inspired by the Barbarossas was a very real sentiment. Under
+their command no man knew when or at how short notice his life might not be
+required of him; but the glamour of success was ever around them, and they
+never, in consequence, lacked for followers. But the taking out and
+shooting of one of their comrades was too much for the pirates from the
+islands of Los Gelues, from whence Delizuff was in the habit of
+"operating." In the words of Sandoval, "they were not used to such tyranny
+and cruel usage." In consequence they concerted among themselves and one
+dark night sailed off, leaving Kheyr-ed-Din to continue his voyage with his
+original following.
+
+That warrior, nothing disconcerted, pursued his way to the island of Zante,
+where he fell in with a Turkish "flota," under the command of the Bashas
+Zay and Himeral. To these officers of the Grand Turk Barbarossa used most
+injurious language, bitterly reproaching them with not having sought out
+and destroyed Andrea Doria, which he declared they ought to and should have
+done. This is yet another instance of the extraordinary character of the
+man. These persons were the highest officers in the fleet of the Ottoman
+Empire; it was more than possible that they would be placed under the
+command of Barbarossa as soon as his new position as Admiralissimo was
+adjusted at Constantinople; and yet, in spite of these facts, the corsair
+had taken the very first opportunity which presented itself grossly to
+insult these men. It is true, as we shall see, that his injurious words
+came home to roost in the future; but arrogant, conquering, contemptuous,
+Barbarossa seems to have shouldered his way through life, fearing none and
+feared by all.
+
+The fact of his known cruelty accounts for much of the dread which he
+inspired, but it was something far more than this which caused the son of
+the Albanian renegado to ride roughshod as he did over all with whom he was
+brought into contact. Men felt, in dealing with Barbarossa, that here was a
+rock against which they might dash themselves in vain. In all his
+enterprises he spared not himself. He asked no man to do that which he was
+not prepared to do, but if any failed him there was no mercy for that man;
+and, although in deference to modern susceptibility no mention is made of
+the tortures he so frequently caused to be inflicted on his victims, they
+were none the less a daily spectacle to those who lived under his rule. He
+possessed, it is true, the rough geniality of the fighting man, a certain
+"Hail fellow, well met!" manner in greeting old comrades, and yet none of
+these men there were who did not tremble in an agony of fear when the bushy
+brows were bent, when the famous red beard bristled in one of his
+uncontrollable furies. The real secret of his success must have been that,
+no matter how uncontrollable did his passions appear to be, the man was
+always really master of himself. Further, he possessed a marvellous insight
+as to where his own interests lay. He used as his tools the bodies and the
+minds of the men who were subject to him, and he carried his designs to an
+assured success by the aid of that penetrating, far-seeing mental power
+with which, above all else, he must have been gifted. He could drive men,
+he could lead them, he could invariably persuade when all else failed him.
+In this we have had an instance when he was chased from Algiers by the
+combined efforts of Venalcadi and Hassan, whom he had flogged; for no
+sooner did he meet with other corsairs than he persuaded them to take up
+his quarrel--which, it must be understood, was none of theirs--and to
+replace him on that precarious throne from which he had been so rudely
+thrust. We have already said that he was a man who never knew when he was
+beaten, and in the years which we have yet to chronicle this characteristic
+appears again and again; for age had no effect apparently, either mentally
+or physically, on this man of iron who had by this time reached the age of
+seventy-seven.
+
+Leaving the high officers of his future master, the Grand Turk, smarting
+under the opprobrium which he had heaped upon their heads, Barbarossa fared
+onward with his fleet to Salonica, capturing a Venetian galley on the
+voyage: from thence he made his way to the Dardanelles, where he anchored
+and remained several days, to make ready his fleet for the spectacular
+entry which he intended to make into Constantinople.
+
+The city on the Golden Horn was all agog for the arrival of Barbarossa; no
+matter what private opinions the inhabitants might have had concerning him,
+of which we shall hear more presently, they were none the less all curious
+to a degree to catch sight of this man, so famous in his evil supremacy on
+that distant shore of Northern Africa.
+
+Kheyr-ed-Din, among his other qualities, possessed in the highest degree
+that of a successful stage-manager; no pageant which he undertook was ever
+likely to fail from the want of the striking and the dramatic. It was now
+his business to impress the citizens of Constantinople with an idea of his
+greatness, and none knew better than he that it is the outward and visible
+sign which counts among the orientals, more perhaps than the inward and
+spiritual grace: he may also possibly have felt that he did not possess the
+latter to any overwhelming extent.
+
+Even before he left Algiers this entry to the chief city of the Ottoman
+Empire had been in the mind of Barbarossa, who had caused to be embarked a
+quantity of flags and pennons for the decoration of his grim war-galleys
+when they should stream into the Golden Horn. There were also bands of
+music, which, it is to be presumed, utilised the delay in the Dardanelles
+to attain to something like "a concord of sweet sounds," as the incidents
+of the voyage from Algiers, so far, had hardly been conducive to much time
+to spare for band-practice. The galleys were scrubbed and gaily painted;
+round the ship of Kheyr-ed-Din ran a broad streak of gold on the outer
+planking to denote the presence of a King of Algiers, and at last all was
+ready. The fleet weighed anchor, and, with banners flying and bands
+playing, entered the harbour. The shores were black with spectators; even
+the Sultan himself deigned to look forth on the coming of the man from whom
+he expected such great things.
+
+Ceremonial was the order of the day. Soliman the Magnificent was too wise a
+man not to know what was being said in his capital that day; it was his
+part to accustom the minds of men to the fact that he, Soliman, had chosen
+Barbarossa to command his fleet, and that there could be no looking back.
+The decree had been signed, the invitation had been sent, the man had
+arrived, there could be no possible retreat from the situation. The anchors
+splashed into the placid waters close to the shore, and the ships were soon
+so surrounded by boats as to be almost unapproachable; then came official
+persons from the Sultan with greetings to the famous seaman; also came
+Bashas and officers ("con carga de guerra," says Sandoval), to offer a
+welcome and to stare in undisguised curiosity at the man chosen by their
+sovereign to make head against the famous Andrea Doria. This preliminary
+courtesy completed, there came the next act in the drama, which consisted
+in the immemorial custom of the East in the offering of gifts from
+Barbarossa to the Sultan, from the vassal to his suzerain. The Janissaries,
+splendid in scarlet and gold, tall above the ordinary stature of man,
+bristling with weapons inlaid in gold and silver, cleared the common vulgar
+from the streets approaching the palace of the Sultan; they formed the
+spearhead of the procession clearing a way for the King of Algiers, who,
+mounted on a splendid bay stallion, the gift of the Sultan on his arrival,
+headed the captives who bore the gifts. Of these the exact number is not
+stated, but the procession was headed by two hundred women and girls, each
+of whom carried in her hand a gift of gold or silver; one hundred camels
+were loaded with silks and golden ornaments, and other "curious riches"
+("con otras mil cosas de que hizo ostentacion"), says Sandoval. There were
+also lions and other animals, brocades and rich garments.
+
+All of this reads no doubt somewhat too like the tales in the "Arabian
+Nights"; but we have to remember that, if you have led a long and eminently
+successful life as a robber, you have necessarily accumulated a store of
+riches. In the case of Barbarossa he had begun in extreme youth, and was
+now an old man; he had been quite in the wholesale way as a thief, and now
+desired to pay a good price for that which he coveted, namely, the post of
+Admiralissimo to the Grand Turk. It may be objected that he had already
+been offered and had already accepted the post; this is quite true, but
+there were certain conventions to be fulfilled on the side of the recipient
+of the bounty of the Sultan quite understood on both sides, although no
+word had passed on the subject. In those days the man who desired the
+favour of an Eastern potentate never dreamed of approaching him
+empty-handed, and the more liberal that he was in the matter of gifts the
+greater was the favour with which he was regarded. Therefore the principle
+acted upon by Kheyr-ed-Din on this occasion was both wise and politic; that
+is to say, he placed certain of his riches in a perfectly sound investment,
+certain to yield him an admirable percentage, not only in added personal
+prestige, but also in the placing under his command of such a force as he
+had never before commanded, with unlimited opportunities of preying on the
+detested Christian on a far larger scale than it had ever been his good
+fortune to do before.
+
+The Sultan Soliman was not called "the Magnificent" without just cause; his
+life was splendid in its social prodigality, as it was in war and in
+statesmanship; yet even he was somewhat astonished at the amazing richness
+of the gifts which were laid at his feet by a man whom he knew to be, in
+spite of the kingly title which he had assumed, merely a rover of the sea.
+Therefore, in spite of himself, he was impressed. To him, it is true, in
+his splendour and magnificence, the intrinsic value of that which was
+brought to him by Barbarossa mattered but little; but the fact that the
+corsair was in a position to do so opened the eyes of the Sultan to the
+manner of man with whom he had to deal. Hitherto he had but known of him by
+hearsay, as the one Moslem seaman who was likely to be capable of making a
+stand against the terrible Doria, who had now become the plague of the
+Sultan's existence. He now knew that the man who disposed of such
+incredible riches must be, no matter what his moral character, a man who
+stood a head and shoulders over any commander in the Ottoman fleet sailing
+out of the Golden Horn.
+
+Both materially and psychologically this man somewhat bewildered the
+despot: and his _alter ego_, the Grand Vizier, happening to be away on a
+mission to Aleppo, Soliman had no one with whom to confer in a strictly
+confidential manner; for, after the manner of autocrats, he had but few
+familiars, in fact it may be said none at all save the statesman mentioned.
+His reception of the corsair lacked, however, nothing in cordiality. He
+inquired after the incidents of the voyage, interested himself graciously
+in all that he was told concerning Africa and the conflicting claims of
+Christian and Moslem in that region, and was generally courteous to his
+distinguished visitor. He placed at his disposal a palace and attendants on
+a scale commensurate with the state of a reigning sovereign, and sent his
+most distinguished generals to confer with Kheyr-ed-Din. The latter, for
+the first time in his life, was thoroughly out of his element. His had been
+the life of the seaman and the soldier to begin with, and of later years
+that of a rude and unquestioned despot on a savage coast, surrounded by
+myrmidons to whom his voice had been as the voice of a god. Never had it
+been his lot before to dwell within the limits of such a comparative
+civilisation as that which obtained in Constantinople at this date; never
+before had it been necessary for him to restrain that naturally fiery and
+impetuous temper of his and to speak all men fairly.
+
+The strain must have been great, the effort enormous, and he knew, as he
+was bound to know, that his coming had unloosed jealousies and
+heart-searchings innumerable, with which he could not deal in the usual
+drastic fashion common to him. The winter was coming on, which was, as we
+have before remarked, very much of a close season both for the pirate and
+the honest merchant seaman. In consequence there was not very much chance
+against the foes of Soliman for the present. When that opportunity offered
+he promised himself that the courtiers and the soldiers of the Grand Turk
+would very soon discover that the fame of Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa was no
+empty matter, and that there existed no seaman in all the Ottoman dominions
+with whom they could compare the "African pirate," as he had reason to
+believe that he was scornfully called behind his back.
+
+A weaker man would have been daunted by his surroundings, by the manifestly
+unfriendly atmosphere in which he lived, and by the dread that perhaps,
+after all, Soliman might go back upon his word. There were no lack of
+counsellors, he knew very well, who would advise the Sultan to his undoing,
+if that monarch gave them the opportunity; and, as time passed, so his
+anxiety grew. Soliman also could not have felt particularly comfortable at
+this juncture, with a sullen spirit possessing his men "con carga de
+guerra," bitterly resenting the step which he had taken, and the
+appointment which he had made. For the present, however, he made no sign,
+treating Kheyr-ed-Din with distinguished courtesy, but making no reference
+to the future. Soliman was revolving the problem in his acute mind,
+doubtless weighing the unpopularity of the step which he had taken against
+the services likely to be rendered to him by his strange guest. And thus
+several weeks passed at Constantinople, probably amongst the most trying of
+all those in the unusually prolonged life of Kheyr-ed-Din.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+THE RAID ON THE COAST OF ITALY; JULIA GONZAGA
+
+The Grand Turk had spoken, the appointment had been made, Barbarossa had
+arrived; but though autocrats can cause their mandate to be obeyed, they
+cannot constrain the inward workings of the minds of men. In spite of the
+awe in which Soliman the Magnificent was held, there were murmurs of
+discontent in the capital of Islam. The Sultan had been advised to make
+Barbarossa his Admiralissimo by his Grand Vizier Ibrahim, who was, as we
+have said, his _alter ego_. This great man had risen from the humblest of
+all positions, that of a slave, to the giddy eminence to which he had now
+attained by the sheer strength of his intellect and personality. The Grand
+Vizier it was who had pointed out to his master that which was lacking in
+the Ottoman navy: brave men and desperate fighters he had in plenty, but
+the seaman who cleared the Golden Horn and made his way through the
+archipelago into the open sea beyond had forces with which to contend
+against which mere valour was but of small avail. Out there, somewhere
+behind the blue line of the horizon, did Andrea Doria lie in wait; and if
+the Moslem seaman should escape the clutches of the admiral of the
+Christian Emperor, were there not those others, the Knights of Malta, who,
+under the leadership of Villiers de L'lsle Adam, swept the tideless sea in
+an unceasing and relentless hostility to every nef, fusta, and galley which
+flew the flag of the Prophet?
+
+It had come to a pass when the Ottoman fighting man was by no means anxious
+to go to sea. He was still as brave as those marvellous fanatics of seven
+centuries before, who, in the name of God and of His Prophet Mahomet, had
+swept all opposition aside from the path of Islam, had conquered and
+proselytised in a manner never paralleled in the world before. At the call
+of the Padishah, for the honour of the Prophet, the sons of Islam were as
+ready to march and to fight as had ever been the warriors of the earlier
+Caliphs. But they had ever been soldiers; the habit of the sea was not
+theirs, and they found that, time after time, such sea-enterprises as they
+did undertake were shattered by the genius of Doria, or broken into
+fragments by the reckless, calculating assaults of the knights. And so it
+came about that there was but little heart in the navy of the Padishah, and
+those who served therein had but slight confidence in those by whom they
+were led. To use a metaphor from the cricket-field, it was time "to stop
+the rot" by sending in a really strong player. He was not to be found
+within the confines of orthodox Islam, and must be imported from outside.
+
+The man had been found; could he be forced on an unwilling and discontented
+populace? Who, it was asked in Constantinople, was this man who had been
+called in to command the ships of the Ottomans at sea? They answered their
+own question, and said that he was a lawless man, a corsair: were there not
+good seamen and valiant men-at-arms like the Bashas Zay and Himeral, who
+should be preferred before him; this man who had come from the ends of the
+earth, and of whom nobody knew anything good? Again, could he be trusted?
+Something of the history of the Barbarossas had penetrated to the capital
+of Turkey, and it was known that scrupulous adherence to their engagements
+had not always characterised the brothers: who should say that he might not
+carry off the galleys of the Grand Turk on some marauding expedition
+designed for his own aggrandisement? There was yet more to be urged against
+him: not only was he infamous in character, but he was no true Mussulman,
+for had not his father been a mere renegado, and--worst of all--had not his
+mother been a Christian woman?
+
+It was thus that the talk ran in that blazing autumn in Constantinople.
+Naturally there were plenty of persons who carried reports to Kheyr-ed-Din,
+and that astute individual soon made up his mind as to the most
+advantageous course for him to pursue. With the full concurrence of the
+Sultan, he left Constantinople and journeyed to Aleppo to see Ibrahim. The
+latter was both cunning and tenacious. Removed from the capital, the tide
+of gossip and discontent only reached him at second-hand; but he was not to
+be deterred by popular clamour even had he been in the midst of it. None
+knew better than he who and what was Barbarossa; in fact, it may be
+confidently asserted that none in Constantinople had anything like the same
+knowledge of this man and all that concerned him. Ibrahim had not named
+Barbarossa to his sovereign without weighing all the pros and cons of the
+matter, and that which was now happening in the capital had been fully
+anticipated by him. It pleased the Grand Vizier very much that Kheyr-ed-Din
+should take this long journey to see him; not from any ridiculous idea that
+this was an act of homage due to the dignity of his position--Ibrahim was
+far too great a man for such pettiness--but because it enabled him to see
+for himself what manner of man was this redoubtable pirate on whom he was
+relying to defeat the enemies of the Sublime Porte at sea. The corsair must
+have made the most favourable impression possible on the Grand Vizier, as
+that statesman wrote to Soliman:
+
+  We have put our hands on a veritable man of the sea. Name him without
+  hesitation Basha, Member of the Divan, Captain-General of the Fleet.
+
+The Grand Turk had no intention of going back upon the appointment already
+made, but he was none the less pleased to receive from his Vizier so strong
+an endorsement of his policy; and now the time had come to stop the mouths
+of the murmurers and scandal-mongers of Constantinople. Accordingly he
+formally recalled Barbarossa from Aleppo, gave him, with his own hand, a
+sword and a royal banner, and invested him with plenary power over all the
+ports of his kingdoms, over all the islands owning his jurisdiction,
+command of all ships, vessels, and galleys, and of all soldiers, sailors,
+and slaves therein. The die was cast, the erstwhile corsair, the son of the
+renegado of Mitylene and his Christian wife was henceforward the supreme
+head of the Ottoman fleet.
+
+The following description of the famous corsair may be found interesting at
+this juncture.
+
+Barbarossa was at this time seventy-seven years of age. Courageous and
+prudent, he was as far-seeing in war as he was subtle in peace. A tireless
+worker, he was, above all things, constant in reverse of fortune, for no
+difficulties dismayed him, no dangers had power to daunt his spirit. His
+ruddy skin, his bushy eyebrows, his famous red beard, now plentifully
+streaked with white, his square, powerful frame, somewhat inclined to
+stoutness, above all, his penetrating and piercing eyes, gave to his aspect
+a certain terror before which men trembled and women shrank appalled.
+
+All this harmonised well with his reputation as a chief so resolute, so
+pitiless, that it was the boast of his followers that his very name shouted
+in battle put to flight the Christian vessels. His smile was fine and
+malicious, his speech facile, revealing beneath the rude exterior of the
+corsair the subtle man of affairs, who, from nothing, had made himself King
+of Algiers, and was now, by the invitation of Soliman the Magnificent,
+Admiralissimo of the Ottoman navy.
+
+Well may Jurien de la Gravi�re say that "in the sixteenth century even the
+pirates were great men."
+
+It has been stated that in speech Barbarossa was facile. He was not only
+so, but he possessed a power of addressing such a man as Soliman in terms
+which, while delicately flattering that mighty monarch, gave him also a
+lead which he might follow in the future disposition of such power as he
+possessed at sea.
+
+On his return from Aleppo Kheyr-ed-Din was received in audience by the
+Sultan. We must be pardoned if we give the long speech which he addressed
+to his new master in its entirety; and we have to remember that the man who
+made it was now an old man who, all his life, had been absolutely free and
+untrammelled, owing allegiance to no one, following out his own caprices,
+and sweeping out of his path any whom he found sufficiently daring as to
+disagree with him. That this ruthless despot should have been able so to
+change the whole style and manner of his address so late in life is only
+one proof the more of the marvellous gifts which he possessed.
+
+It was in the following words that the corsair addressed the Sultan:
+
+  Dread Sovereign, fortune itself has made it a law to second you in all
+  your enterprises because that you are always ready to declare war upon
+  the enemies of Mahomet the Prophet of God, on whom be peace. You have
+  extended the limits of your vast possessions, you have vanquished and
+  slain the King of Hungary, you have humiliated Charles V., this Emperor
+  with whom the Christians dare hold you in comparison. These have been
+  the recompenses received by you for the pure flame with which
+  your zeal for the religion of Mahomet has ever burned.
+
+  "But these successes and these triumphs are not capable of contenting
+  that thirst for glory with which your being is animated, and I am humbly
+  desirous of indicating to you the means of culling fresh laurels.
+  Experience has taught me the way, and I can assert, without fear of
+  being accused of vanity, that in this matter I can be of great
+  assistance to your Majesty.
+
+  "That which fortune has done for me in the past that will it continue to
+  do for me in the future. Age has not enfeebled me, continual exercise
+  has but rendered me stronger; I can therefore promise to you the most
+  ready service both by land and sea. The desire which has always been
+  mine to persecute the Christians caused me to conceive the idea of
+  serving in your sea-army.
+
+  "If Heaven is favourable to my vows, the Spaniards will soon be chased
+  from Africa; the Carthaginians, the Moors, will soon be your very
+  submissive subjects; Sardinia, Corsica, Sicily, will obey your will. As
+  for Italy, it will soon be desolated by famine when I attack it in
+  formidable force, without fearing that the Christian Princes will come
+  to its aid.
+
+  "Mahomet II., your illustrious grandfather, formed the project of
+  conquering this country; he would have succeeded had he not been carried
+  off by death. If I counsel you, dread Sovereign, that you should carry
+  war into Europe and Africa, it is not that I desire your arms should be
+  turned back in Asia from against the Persians, the ancient enemies of
+  the Ottomans. I require but your sea-army, which is no use against the
+  Persians. While you shall be conquering Asia I shall be
+  subduing Africa. The first enterprise which I shall undertake will be
+  against Muley Hassan, the King of Tunis; he has all the vices and
+  possesses not one single virtue. He is a man of sordid avarice, of
+  unexampled cruelty; he has rendered himself odious to the entire human
+  race.
+
+  "He had twenty-two brothers, all of whom he has caused to be murdered.
+  That which is a common failing among tyrants is his: he dare not place
+  himself at the head of his troops. He prefers to endure the outrages
+  which he suffers at the hands of the Moors to taking up arms and
+  inflicting upon them a salutary vengeance. He had the baseness to enter
+  into an alliance with the Spaniards, and to favour their conquests in
+  Africa. It will be all the easier for me to exterminate this wild beast
+  because I have with me his brother, who prayed me to save him from the
+  cruelty of Muley Hassan.
+
+  "When I besiege Tunis I shall present him to the inhabitants, who love
+  him as much as they hate Muley Hassan. They will open their gates to me,
+  and I shall gain the town without the loss of a single man: it will be
+  then you who will be master. On my way thither I will do what harm I can
+  to the Christians; I will endeavour to defeat Andrea Doria, who is my
+  personal enemy and my rival in glory: should I succeed in defeating him
+  your Majesty will possess the empire of the sea. Be then persuaded,
+  great Prince, by me, and believe that he who is master of the sea will
+  very shortly become master on land."
+
+It is somewhat difficult to fathom the reasons which induced Barbarossa to
+treat Soliman to his sanctimonious diatribe concerning the King of Tunis;
+coming, as it did, from a pirate, it was merely ludicrous, and could not
+for one instant have deceived the remarkably shrewd person to whom it was
+addressed. The corsair stated the facts correctly, but the reasons which
+led to an Eastern autocrat disposing of his family in this manner were so
+obvious at the time that, if Soliman felt any emotion at all concerning the
+event, it was probably one of admiration! Regarded from the practical,
+apart from the sentimental side, what the proposition amounted to was that
+Barbarossa should attack a king with whom the Grand Turk had no sort of
+quarrel, and that, once his territory had been reft from him, that it
+should be handed over to the ruler of Constantinople for the greater glory
+of the Sublime Porte. What mental reservations there were on the part of
+the corsair we are not told, but had Soliman known him better he would have
+been aware that never had Barbarossa pulled any chestnuts from the fire of
+life which were not intended for his own eating; and that it was extremely
+unlikely, at his time of life, that he was now going to alter the habits of
+his long and strenuous career.
+
+There was one thing, however, that Kheyr-ed-Din was not; he was no bragger
+or boaster, and, whatever may have been his mental reservations in his
+interview with the Sultan, that which he stated he would do, that he did.
+And now the time had come when the grim old Sea-wolf had done with intrigue
+and the unaccustomed atmosphere of a Court and went back to his native
+element, the sea.
+
+Soliman, it must be said to his credit, was no man to deal in
+half-measures, and when once he had given his trust he gave it
+whole-heartedly, generously. In consequence he gave Barbarossa eighty
+galleys, eight hundred Janissaries, eight thousand Turkish soldiers, and
+eight hundred thousand ducats for expenses (some three hundred thousand
+pounds sterling of our money). All the necessary preparations were carried
+out under the orders of Barbarossa, who was given a roving commission to do
+what seemed best to him for the advancement of the glory of his master and
+the discomfiture of his Christian foes. The commission which he now
+received was practically that which had been given by Charles V. to Doria,
+the most flattering with which any man can be entrusted, as in his hands
+were left issues of peace and war usually only vested in the sovereign.
+
+All through the early summer of 1534 the dockyards and the arsenals of
+Constantinople hummed with the note of preparation; Ibrahim had returned
+from Aleppo and threw himself, heart and soul, into these activities, which
+meant the sailing of the Ottoman fleet under the command of "that veritable
+man of the sea," Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa. Stilled were the murmurs of the
+year before; the corsair, invested with plenary powers by the Sultan
+himself, was now in a position to make his authority felt; added to this,
+the more sensible of the malcontents had been won round by the Grand Vizier
+to the view that as, so far, the Ottoman navy had been conspicuously
+unsuccessful at sea, it was just as well to make use of the most capable
+Moslem seaman upon whom they could lay their hands. As to his moral
+character, that they could afford to discount, and as to the question of
+his faithfulness or the reverse, it was pointed out with irresistible logic
+by Ibrahim, that never before had the Sea-wolf had such glorious
+opportunities of plunder as now, when he could count ten ships for every
+one that had followed in his wake before.
+
+It was in July 1534 that the Ottoman fleet left Constantinople, and
+Kheyr-ed-Din began operations by a descent upon Reggio, which he sacked. On
+August 1st he arrived at the Pharos of Messina, where he burnt some
+Christian ships and captured their crews; then he worked north from Reggio
+to Naples, ravaging the coast and depopulating the whole littoral, burning
+villages, destroying ships, enslaving people. In this expedition he is said
+to have captured eleven thousand Christian slaves. There is perhaps nothing
+more amazing in the whole history of this epoch than the number of the
+slaves captured by the corsairs, and the damnable cruelties exercised upon
+them; these were, of course returned by the Christians with interest
+whenever possible. As an instance of the treatment to which the slaves were
+subjected it is only necessary to mention the course taken by Barbarossa
+when he left Algiers in the previous year. There were at that time seven
+thousand Christian captives in his power; immediately before starting he
+had the entire number paraded before him, and, under the pretext of having
+discovered a plot, which in no circumstances could possibly have existed,
+owing to the supervision of the slaves, he caused twenty of them to be
+beheaded on the spot in order to strike terror into the remainder during
+his absence.
+
+Back to the Golden Horn streamed ship after ship laden with plunder and
+with slaves. "The veritable man of the sea" was proving the correctness of
+the choice of the Sultan, the acumen of the Grand Vizier who had
+recommended his appointment. Barbarossa was determined to leave nothing
+undone to prove to Soliman that his choice had indeed been a worthy one
+when he had selected him as admiral of his fleet: also he had in his mind
+those others who spoke slightingly of him as "the African pirate"; they
+should know as well as their master of what this pirate was capable.
+Northward the devastating host of Barbarossa took its way; the fair shores
+of Italy smoked to heaven as the torches of the corsairs fired the
+villages. Blood and agony, torture and despair, followed ever on the heels
+of the Sea-wolves of the Mediterranean. And now a fresh pack had been
+loosed, as it was, of course, in enormously increased strength that
+Barbarossa returned to the scene of so many of his former triumphs.
+
+Plunder and slaves were all very well in their way, and acceptable enough
+on the shores of the Golden Horn; but Kheyr-ed-Din had a pet project in
+view on this particular cruise, which was to capture Julia Gonzaga and to
+present her to Soliman for his harem. The lady destined by him for this
+pleasant fate was reported to be the loveliest woman in Europe, a fitting
+gift for such an one as the Grand Turk. The fame of her surpassing
+loveliness had reached even the corsairs. She was the widow of Vespasian
+Colonna, Duchess of Trajetto, and Countess of Fundi; she had now been a
+widow since 1528, and lived at Fundi, some ninety miles north-east of
+Naples. Barbarossa laid his plans with his accustomed acuteness, and it was
+only through an accident that they miscarried.
+
+There was one undeniable advantage in the system which swept off into
+slavery the whole of the inhabitants of a country-side, and that was, if at
+any time you required a guide at any particular point on the coast, he was
+sure to be forthcoming from one of the vessels in the fleet. Now Barbarossa
+did not exactly know where Julia Gonzaga was to be found, so he set his
+captains to work to discover the necessary slave. This was soon
+accomplished, and there was really no occasion for a slave on this
+occasion, as a renegado of Naples knew the castle in which Julia Gonzaga
+was residing at the time, and readily agreed to act as guide to the
+expedition sent to accomplish her capture. Kheyr-ed-Din had made a sudden
+dash along the coast with some of the swiftest of his galleys for the
+purposes of this capture. In consequence the people in Naples and the
+neighbourhood were not even aware that the piratical squadron was on the
+coast before they anchored, as near as it was practicable to do, to the
+residence of the Duchess of Trajetto. The fleet actually arrived after
+dark, having kept out to sea and out of sight during the day.
+
+As soon as the anchors were down a party of two thousand picked men were
+landed and marched silently and with all expedition to the castle of Fundi.
+The escape of the Duchess was really providential. She had already gone to
+bed, and the fierce marauders were actually within the grounds of the
+castle before her distracted people became aware of their presence. But
+fortunately some among them kept their heads, and it also so happened that
+her bed-chamber was the opposite side of the castle to that by which the
+pirates approached. A horse was brought round under the window of the room,
+and, in her night-dress with nothing but a shawl wrapped around her, was
+Julia Gonzaga lowered out of her window on to the back of her horse. As she
+galloped for dear life down the avenue of her home she heard the shrieks of
+her miserable household murdered in cold blood by the furious pirates who
+had thus been balked of their prey.
+
+Dire was the vengeance taken by the corsairs. They sacked Fundi and burned
+the town; they killed every man on whom they could lay their hands, and
+carried off the women and girls to the fleet.
+
+Kheyr-ed-Din was furious with anger and disappointment. "What is the value
+of all this trash?" he demanded, with a thundering oath, of the commander
+of the unsuccessful raiders, surveying as he spoke the miserable, shivering
+women and girls. "I sent you out to bring back a pearl without price, and
+you return with these cattle."
+
+Thus balked of his prey, Barbarossa swung his fleet round to the southward
+and westward and sailed for Sardinia, where, from the Straits of Bonifacio
+to Cape Spartivento, he left no house standing that would burn, or man
+alive who was not swept in as a captive. The descent of the corsairs in
+force, such as Kheyr-ed-Din now had at his disposal, was one of the most
+awful calamities for a country that it is possible to imagine. When
+Sardinia had ceased to yield up either booty or slaves the fleet sailed for
+Tunis, where it arrived before Bizerta on August 15th. The arrival of the
+corsairs was totally unexpected, and caused the greatest consternation. The
+story which Barbarossa had told to Sultan Soliman concerning the reigning
+King Muley Hassan was correct in every detail, and there is no doubt that
+he was a bloody and cruel tyrant of the worst description.
+
+Therefore when the wily Barbarossa sent on shore and informed the sheiks
+and ulemas of the place that he had come in the name of the head of the
+Mohammedan religion to free them from this monster by whom they were
+oppressed, and that he intended to place on the throne the brother of Muley
+Hassan, Raschid, who had miraculously escaped from the fate which had
+overtaken all the other members of his house, the townspeople were inclined
+to listen to his advances and to admire the picture which he drew of the
+peace and prosperity which would accrue to them should Raschid, and not
+Muley Hassan, be on the throne of their country. That which he inferred in
+all his dealings with these people was that he had Raschid with him ready
+to step into the shoes of his unpopular brother as soon as the latter
+should be deposed by a justly indignant populace. The fact of the matter
+was that Kheyr-ed-Din had taken the fugitive prince with him to
+Constantinople, thinking to make use of him, and that, when he was sailing,
+Soliman had absolutely forbidden him to remove Raschid from his capital.
+
+Completely deceived, the townspeople allowed the landing of eight hundred
+Janissaries. The tyrant, who was, as Barbarossa had told the Sultan, a
+craven coward, waited for no further demonstration of force, but
+incontinently fled into the interior with such valuables as he could carry.
+As soon as this was reported to Barbarossa he landed in force and entered
+the town, and then the townspeople noticed that the soldiers were all
+shouting for Soliman and for Barbarossa. They then demanded that Raschid
+should be produced according to promise, but naturally he was not
+forthcoming. Those who had acclaimed the soldiers of Soliman as liberators
+now began to arm against them, and they very shortly discovered, from some
+Tunisians who had come in the fleet from Constantinople, that Raschid had
+been left behind in that city.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+BARCELONA, MAY 1535; THE GATHERING OF THE CHRISTIAN HOSTS
+
+Some idea of the terror inspired by the actions of the Sea-wolves at this
+date is contained in the following extract from "The Golden Age of the
+Renaissance," by Lanciani:
+
+  "The Bastione del Belvedere, which towers in frowning greatness at the
+  north-east end of the Vatican Garden and commands the approach to the
+  Borgo from the upper-end valley of the Tiber, was begun by Antonio de
+  Sangullo the younger, and finished by Michel Angelo after the death of
+  Antonio, which took place on September 30th, 1546. This great piece of
+  military engineering must not be considered by itself, but as a part of
+  a great scheme of defence conceived by Paul III, to protect the city
+  against a hostile invasion from the sea. The Pope could not forget that,
+  in August 1534, the fleet of infidels commanded by Barbarossa had cast
+  anchor at the mouth of the Tiber to renew its supply of water, and that
+  if its leader had thought fit they could have stormed, sacked, and
+  plundered the city, and carried off the Pope himself into slavery
+  without any possibility of defence on the Christian side. This point has
+  not been taken into due consideration by modern writers; the
+  fortifications of Rome, designed or begun or finished at the time of
+  Paul III., have nothing to do with the sack of 1527, with the Conn�table
+  de Bourbon, or with the Emperor Charles V. All the bastions, that of the
+  Belvedere excepted, point towards the sea-coast, which was perpetually
+  harried and terrified by Turkish or Barbary pirates. These would appear
+  with lightning-like rapidity in more than one place at a time, and carry
+  off as many unfortunate men, women, and children as they could
+  collect.... To prevent the recurrence of such disasters the sea-coast
+  was lined with watch-towers, the guns of which could warn the peasants
+  of the approach of suspicious vessels."
+
+That Paul III. had good warrant for the precautions which he designed to
+take is not only instanced by the fact of Barbarossa anchoring in the mouth
+of the Tiber on the occasion of the raid with which we are at present
+concerned, but from what had occurred to his predecessor on the Papal
+throne in 1516. Pope Leo, son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, was accustomed to
+leave Rome in the autumn for hunting, and fishing in the sea, of which
+latter pastime he was particularly fond. One of his favourite resorts was
+the castle of Magliana, five miles from Rome, on the banks of the Tiber. On
+September 18th, 1516, he left Rome and proceeded to Civita Lavinia, on the
+Laurentian coast. Here he was waited for by the corsair Curtogali, who,
+with fifteen ships off the coast and an ambush on shore, was ready to carry
+him off. Curtogali is supposed to have derived his information as to the
+movements of the Pope from some traitor about the Papal Court who desired
+the downfall of "the fatal House of Medici."
+
+Some one, however, warned the Pope, who fled, accompanied by his retinue,
+at a headlong gallop to Rome, never drawing bridle until he reached the
+safe seclusion of the Vatican.
+
+We must now return, however, to that eagle who fluttered so sorely the
+dovecotes, both Christian and Moslem, and whose loudly proclaimed faith in
+the Prophet never permitted his religion to stand inconveniently in the way
+of his material advancement in the world. The soldiers and sailors of the
+corsair entered Bizerta shouting for Soliman and Barbarossa. There was no
+mention of Raschid, that Prince of the Hafsit dynasty, whom Kheyr-ed-Din
+had declared to the townspeople he had come to restore to the throne of his
+ancestors. Too late the town sprang to arms, under a chief named Abdahar,
+and in the first instance accomplished a considerable success. Barbarossa's
+men were unprepared, and a number of them were slain. Driven into a bastion
+of the walls, a party of the corsairs were desperately defending
+themselves, when one Baetio, a Spanish renegado, discovered that a cannon
+behind them pointing seawards was loaded. He succeeded, with the assistance
+of others, in slewing it round and discharged it at close quarters into the
+packed masses of the enemy. This caused a frightful demoralisation to set
+in; the corsairs rallied and soon swept all before them. The massacre
+turned from the one side to the other, and it is said that no less than
+three thousand of the unfortunate townspeople were slain. Barbarossa only
+called off his men when they were wearied out by the slaughter.
+
+Kheyr-ed-Din now graciously accepted the submission of the townsfolk; that
+is to say, such of them as were left, and took charge of the entire kingdom
+as governor for the Sultan of Turkey. He sent out ambassadors to the
+neighbouring Arab and Berber chieftains of the hinterland, repaired
+fortifications, appointed magistrates--all ostensibly in the name of that
+phantom prince whom the Tunisians were destined never to see, and who never
+returned to his native country.
+
+King of Algiers, _de facto_ King of Tunis, Admiralissimo to Soliman the
+Magnificent, his name a portent in Christendom, his fame reaching from
+Spartel to Tunis, and from the shores of France to the foothills of the
+Atlas, Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa was at the height of his power. Never before
+had a corsair risen to such eminence, never again was there destined to be
+so magnificent a sea-robber. Thus it was that the year 1535 opened gloomily
+for all those Powers whose coasts were washed by the tideless sea. Italy,
+torn and bleeding, her strong men slain, her fairest matrons and maids
+carried off into the most odious captivity, was lamenting the terrible fate
+to which she had been exposed by the raids of the pirate admiral. In
+Catalonia, in Genoa, in Venice, along what is now known as the Riviera, men
+trembled and women wept; for who could say that it might not be upon them
+that the next thunderbolt might fall? In Venice taxation was raised to the
+breaking strain to provide galleys wherewith to combat the foe, while the
+Genoese fortified their coasts and poured out money like water upon arms,
+armaments, and ammunition. Says Sandoval:
+
+  "Desde el Estrecho de Me�ina hasta el de Gibraltar ninguno de la parte
+  de Europa pudiera tomer comida ni sue�o seguro de lo que viviera en las
+  riberas del mar." (From the Straits of Messina to those of Gibraltar
+  none living in Europe on the shores of the sea were able to eat in peace
+  or to sleep with any sense of security.)
+
+The Emperor Charles V. was roused to action, stung by the intolerable
+humiliation of the position into which he had been placed by a mere
+corsair.
+
+King of Sicily, Naples, and Spain, as well as Emperor of Germany, in any
+direction he might turn he would find a trail of blood and fire over the
+fair face of his dominions in the Mediterranean. Although it might gall his
+pride to admit that his enemy was formidable, Charles was too wise a man,
+too experienced a warrior to underrate his foe. He repaired the
+fortifications of Naples and Sicily at great cost: he wrote letters to the
+Pope, to Andrea Doria, to the Viceroys of Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia, to
+the Marquis de Vasto, and Antonio de Leyva to collect all the arms and
+munitions necessary for the attack on Barbarossa. He sent orders to Don
+Luis Hurtado de Mendoza, Marquis de Mondejar, Captain-General of the
+Kingdom of Granada, to collect money and to have men ready in the ports of
+Andalusia. He gave orders for eight thousand German soldiers to hold
+themselves in readiness; these were to be joined by the veterans of Coron
+and Naples, which body counted four thousand more; in Italy he also raised
+another eight thousand men. All this was done under the seal of secrecy,
+which the Emperor most peremptorily ordered was to be observed.
+
+But news travelled in the first half of the sixteenth century, although
+newspapers, war correspondents, and telegraphs were not; when all the
+feudatories of the greatest king in Christendom were busy it was impossible
+for the matter to remain hidden. Even had it been within the range of
+possibility to conceal what was going on there was one circumstance which
+would have rendered all effort to this end nugatory. Charles had invited
+Francis of France to join in this holy war against the scourge of
+Christendom: not only did Francis refuse to join, but he had the incredible
+baseness to betray the scheme to Barbarossa. It would be pleasanter to
+think that some mistake had been made in this matter, but unfortunately it
+is beyond dispute, as the facts have been placed on record by Sandoval,
+whose history, it must be remembered, was published in 1614. In this matter
+he is quite precise, as he states that a "Clerigo Francese," one Monsieur
+de Floreta, was sent with despatches from Francis to Barbarossa at Tunis,
+and that this treacherous envoy from Christendom gave the corsair king all
+the available information that he had been able to collect before starting.
+
+This was typical of that "Golden Age of the Renaissance" in which it took
+place; when real devotion to all arts, sciences, and amenities of a higher
+civilisation went hand in hand with crime of the vilest and treachery of
+the basest description. Well might Barbarossa, and such as he, laugh to
+scorn the pretension that his Christian enemies were one whit better than
+were they, when they could point to the fact that, to serve a private
+revenge, a great Christian king could betray his co-religionists to their
+Moslem foes. Shamelessly did the Sea-wolves seek their prey wherever it was
+to be found; their methods were villanous and seemingly without excuse,
+but, after all, there was some colour, some shadow of right in what they
+did, for their argument was that they were merely getting back from
+Christendom that which had been reft from them in the near past in the
+kingdoms of C�rdova and Granada. But who shall find excuse for the
+Christian kings, governors, and princes at this epoch? They sought their
+prey no less ravenously than did the pirates, and with just about the same
+amount of justification: witness the sacking of Rome by Charles V. in 1527,
+and the unexampled act of treachery just recorded of Francis of France.
+
+Kheyr-ed-Din had lived all his turbulent life among wars and rumours of
+wars: the head of the tiller, the hilt of the scimitar, the butt of the
+arquebus, had been in his hand since early youth; bloodshed and strife were
+the atmosphere in which he lived and breathed. Desperate adventures by land
+and sea had been his ever since he could remember; there was no hazard that
+he had not run, no peril which he had not dared. But now even he, the
+veteran of far more than one hundred fights, was grave and preoccupied when
+he considered the greatness, the imminence of his peril. The "Clerigo
+Francese" had put him in possession of the fact that Carlos Quinto was
+exerting all his strength for the combat which was to come; and Barbarossa
+was far too old a fighter, far too wise a warrior, to underrate by one
+soldier or by one galley the forces that the Emperor could put into line
+against him; from far and near his foes were gathering for his destruction,
+and he did not deceive himself in the least as to what the fate of his
+followers and himself would be should the Christian hosts be victorious.
+
+But, nevertheless, such an emergency as this found the man at his best:
+ready to take fortune at the flood when she smiled upon him, he was perhaps
+at his very greatest in adversity; and when all around him trembled and
+paid one of their infrequent visits to the Mosque to implore the aid of the
+Prophet, the veteran corsair was coolly reviewing the situation, seeking a
+way to weather the tempest before which lesser men shrank appalled,
+declaring that the end had come. The storm was coming in a squall of such
+violence as even he had never before experienced, but, thanks to his friend
+the King of France, he had been forewarned. He sent at once to his master,
+Soliman the Magnificent, at Constantinople, to impart to him the direful
+intelligence; then the bagnios were thrown open, and, under pitiless lash
+and scourge, the Christian captives toiled from dawn till dark to repair
+the fortifications of Tunis. Silent and unapproachable, conferring with
+none, the grim old Sea-wolf sat in his palace overlooking the bay and
+considered the question of whether he should give battle by land or sea
+when the time came. If it were possible, he came to the conclusion that it
+should be the latter; he had been evicted from his kingdom on land once
+before, but he knew that in the open ocean few cared to face Barbarossa,
+and he might fall on Doria first and the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem
+second if matters turned out favourably for him. In any case, he must
+summon all the aid that was possible.
+
+East and west flew the galleys of Kheyr-ed-Din, scudding before the wind if
+that were favourable, or churning the surface of the sea with straining,
+strenuous oars should the wind be foul or a calm prevail.
+
+It was an appeal for aid to the Moslem corsairs from Algiers, from Tlemcen,
+from Oran, from Los Gelues (or Jerbah), and from all the countless islands
+of the Archipelago, where they lurked to seize their prey--Tunis, which
+flew the Crescent flag of the Prophet, was in danger--let them rally
+against the grandson of the man who expelled the Moors from Spain.
+
+Grim and sinister, the corsairs came flocking to the standard of
+Barbarossa. Well they knew that, should he fall, it was but a matter of
+time for them all to be chased from off the face of the waters. Of cohesion
+there was but little among them, and, in spite of the bond of a common
+religion and a common hatred of the Christian, they were swayed far more by
+a lust for plunder than by such considerations as these. In times of
+imminent danger, however, men naturally crave for a leader, and in
+piratical circles all was now subordinated to the instinct of
+self-preservation.
+
+Meanwhile, in Christendom their great enemy was maturing his plans. To the
+Marquis de Ca�ete, Viceroy and Captain-General of the Kingdom of Navarre,
+Charles wrote, confiding to his care the charge of the Empress, with
+instructions that her orders were to be implicitly obeyed during his
+absence. Having done this he journeyed to Barcelona, at which city he
+arrived on April 8th, 1535. Here he was immediately joined by the armada of
+Portugal--twenty caravelas raised, armed, and paid for by the King, Don
+Juan of Portugal. This fleet was commanded by the Infante Don Luis, brother
+to the Empress, and carried on board the vessels of which it was composed a
+whole host of nobles and gentlemen of quality, who had come to fight under
+the approving eyes of the C�sar of the modern world.
+
+On May 1st came Andrea Doria with twenty-two galleys, and those already in
+the harbour crowded the sides of their vessels to watch the arrival of the
+famous Genoese seaman.
+
+Four abreast in stately procession the great galleys swept into the
+harbour. With that love of "spectacle" so inherent in the southern nature,
+everything was done to ensure the military pomp and circumstance of the
+coming of the first sea-commander of the Emperor. At first with furious
+haste, and then slowing down to make the approach more stately, the fleet
+of Andrea moved on. From mast and yard and jackstaff of the galleys of the
+admiral floated twenty-four great banners of silk and gold embroidered with
+the arms of the Emperor, with those of Spain, of Genoa, and of the Dorias,
+Princes of Oneglia. The principal standard bore upon it a crucifix,
+broidered at the sides with pictures of Saint John and the Virgin Mary;
+another represented the Virgin with her Son in her arms. With the sound of
+trumpets, clarions, chirimias, and atambours the fleet moved to within a
+short distance of the Portuguese and saluted them; then, as the thunder of
+the guns ceased and the light wind blew away the smoke, they circled round
+and stopped abreast of the royal vessel on which Charles had embarked. Once
+again the guns barked a royal salute, while knights and nobles, seamen and
+soldiers hailed their Emperor with frenzied shouts of "Imperio! Imperio!"
+
+Then Andrea Doria stepped into his boat and was rowed across the shining
+water to visit the Emperor, who received him, we are told, "with great
+honour and many tokens of love."
+
+On May 12th arrived Don Alvaro de Bazan, General of the Galleys of Spain.
+This magnificent caballero made an entrance in much the same state and
+circumstance as did Doria, and during the remainder of the stay of the
+armada in Barcelona there was much banqueting and feasting and drinking of
+healths to the Emperor and confusion to the Moslem foe. It was once again
+as it had been in those days in which Ferdinand and Isabella had descended
+upon the doomed city of Granada, and had built, in full sight of its
+defenders, the town which they called Santa Fe (or the Holy Faith) as an
+earnest that they would never leave until that symbol of their faith had
+triumphed. To witness this victory the best blood of Europe had flocked,
+and now, forty-three years later, when the audacious Moslem had raised his
+head once more, the descendant of the warriors who had followed "Los Reyes
+Cat�licos" rallied to that standard which Carlos Quinto, their grandson,
+had set up on the shores of Catalonia. Sandoval devotes pages of his work
+to the names, styles, and titles of the noble caballeros who joined the
+army for the destruction of Barbarossa.
+
+On May 16th Charles embarked in the _Galera Capitana_ of Andrea Doria,
+accompanied by many grandees and caballeros of the Court, as well as
+illustrious foreigners like Prince Luis of Portugal, and held a review of
+the armada. There was much expenditure of powder in salutes to the Emperor,
+and all vied with one another in shouting themselves hoarse in honour of
+the great monarch who deigned to lead in person the hosts of Christendom
+against the infidel, who had defied his might and dared to offer him
+battle. On May 28th the Emperor travelled some leagues inland, starting
+before dawn, to visit the Monastery of Nuestra Se�ora de Monferrato, in
+which was kept a singularly holy image of the Virgin. Here he confessed and
+received the sacrament, and then returned to Barcelona.
+
+[Illustration: THE EMPEROR CHARLES V.]
+
+On May 30th he embarked in the Royal Galley, the _Galera Bastarda_, which
+had been prepared for him by Andrea Doria, his Captain-General of the
+Galleys. This vessel seems to have somewhat resembled the barge of
+Cleopatra in the magnificence of its appointments, as its interior was
+gilded, and it was fitted up with all the luxury that could be devised at
+this period. Silken carpets and golden drinking-vessels, stores of the most
+delicate food and of the rarest wines, were embarked to mitigate, as far as
+possible, the inevitable hardships of a sea-passage, and there were not
+lacking instruments of music wherewith to beguile the C�esar with concord
+of sweet sounds. Perhaps that which strikes the modern seaman most in this
+recital of all the useless matters with which the vessels of the great were
+burdened at this period is the extraordinary number of flags and banners
+with which they went to sea.
+
+The catalogue of those in the _Galera Bastarda_ makes one rather wonder how
+there was room for anything else of more practical usefulness when it came
+to fighting. There were in this galley twenty-four yellow damask banners,
+inscribed with the imperial arms; a pennon at the main of crimson taffeta
+of immense length and breadth, with a golden crucifix embroidered thereon.
+Two similar ones bore shields with the arms of the Emperor, and there was a
+huge flag of white damask sewn with representations of keys, communion
+chalices, and the cross of Saint Andrew, in crimson, with a Latin
+inscription. There were yet two others of scarlet damask "of the same
+grandeur," embroidered round the edge with "Plus Ultra," the device of
+Spain. Among a further varied assortment was one which bore the
+inscription: "Send, O God, thine angel to guard him in all his goings."
+
+The fleet under the command of Andrea Doria numbered sixty-two galleys and
+one hundred and fifty nefs. There were also a miscellaneous assortment of
+small craft, known in those days as "brigantines," employed in the carriage
+of stores and ammunition. We have seen, on a former occasion, what terrible
+losses attended one of these armadas when really bad weather was
+encountered, and therefore it is not surprising that, on his second
+venture, Charles should have selected the finest season of the year for his
+descent upon the coast of Africa. They were brave men, these Mediterranean
+seamen, and the risks which they ran in their strangely formed, unseaworthy
+craft were of course much enhanced when they were loaded to the gunwale
+with stores, provisions, horses, banners, and last, but by no means least,
+a mob of seasick soldiery.
+
+Into this armada were crowded twenty-five thousand infantry and six hundred
+lancers with their horses.
+
+Cagliari, in Sardinia, was the last rendezvous of the expedition, and here
+it arrived in the early part of June, where a week was spent in making the
+final preparations; and at last, on June 10th, a start was made for the
+coast of Africa.
+
+Meanwhile in Tunis Kheyr-ed-Din was working double tides. He was kept well
+informed by his spies of all that was going on, and his preparations for
+defence were as adequate as they could be made; the corsairs, as we have
+said, had come flocking in at his call. He had withdrawn as many of his
+fighting men from Algiers as he deemed prudent. Knowing that the attack was
+directed against him personally, he had not much fear that it would be
+diverted at the last moment. It would have been true strategy on the part
+of Charles to have done this, but the Emperor considered that his honour
+required that the attack should be an absolutely direct one, and so Algiers
+was left on one side, to the ultimate upsetting of his plans. We say this
+because, although in this case he was to take Tunis and to restore to the
+throne of that country the puppet King Muley Hassan, and although he was to
+rescue some twenty thousand Christian captives, he did not capture
+Barbarossa, who was to live for many years to continue and to carry on his
+unceasing war against the Christians.
+
+There was no artifice left untried by the despot of Tunis. To the African
+princes, Moors as well as Arabs and Berbers, did Kheyr-ed-Din send
+embassies. For these he chose cunning men well versed in the means of
+exciting the furious passions of these primitive and ferocious peoples, and
+it was their mission to represent Muley Hassan as an infamous apostate who
+was prompted by ambition and revenge, not only to become the vassal of a
+Christian king, but to conspire with him to extirpate the Mohammedan faith.
+The subtle policy inflamed these ignorant and bigoted Mohammedans to the
+point of madness, and from far and near they threw in their lot with the
+man who represented himself to be the rallying-point for all those in
+Africa who desired not only to preserve their holy religion but also their
+personal liberty. From Tripoli and Jerba, from Bougie and Bona, from the
+shores of Shott-el-Jerid, through all the dim hinterland that stretches
+from thence north-westwards to Algiers, the tribesmen came flocking in. The
+wild riders of the desert had been rounded up, and it is said that no less
+than twenty thousand horsemen, in addition to an innumerable crowd of
+infantry, responded to the call of the master schemer who was but using
+these guileless savages to further his own personal ends. The land-pirates
+of the desert, those stormy petrels whose lives only differed from those of
+the followers of Kheyr-ed-Din in that they carried on their depredations on
+the land instead of on the sea, camped in their thousands in the environs
+of Tunis and boasted of the deeds which they were about to perform.
+Kheyr-ed-Din stimulated their enthusiasm with presents of the most costly
+description. Ever wise and politic, he knew when it was necessary to pay
+royally, and on this occasion surpassed himself in prodigality. For all
+this he himself cherished no illusions; he had the measure of the fighting
+men of his foes at his fingers' ends, and the most that he expected from
+these wild irregulars was that they might, perchance, stay an onset and
+worry the imperial army with dashing cavalry raids. But that they should
+hold their own with the incomparable infantry of Spain, or make head
+against the stolid valour of the German men-at-arms, was not contemplated
+by Barbarossa. In his Janissaries, in his hard-bitten fighting men from the
+galleys, he could expect much; but there were but some few thousands of
+these, while the disciplined host against which he was called upon to
+combat was at the least twenty-five thousand--the flower of the imperial
+forces. The situation was unique, one on which the world had never looked
+before--all the might of Christendom going up against one who, no matter by
+what titles he might choose to describe himself, was no more than a vulgar
+robber. He was, however, a robber on such a scale as had never before been
+equalled--a force which remained unsubdued during the whole of his
+extraordinary and unusually protracted career.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+THE FALL OF TUNIS AND THE FLIGHT OF BARBAROSSA
+
+Autocracy in the sixteenth century was a very real and concrete fact. The
+orders of great kings were, as a rule, implicitly obeyed, and, when they
+were not, there was likely to be trouble of the worst description for those
+by whom they had been contravened. It is this that causes us to regard as
+most extraordinary one of the happenings in the armada which sailed from
+Barcelona for the coast of Africa. A most peremptory order was issued that
+no women, no boys, no one, in fact, save fighting men of approved worth,
+should find a place in the ships. Says Sandoval, "No se consintiesen en la
+armada mugeres ni muchachos ni otra gente inutil, mas de aquellos solos que
+eran para pelear." (There were not allowed in the armada women, boys, or
+useless persons, but only those who were capable of fighting.) It appears,
+however, that the women paid no sort of attention to this ordinance, and
+the historian gravely relates that "it was no use turning them out of the
+ships as, as soon as you sent them down one side they returned and climbed
+up the other," It seems almost incredible, but is none the less a fact,
+that four thousand women accompanied the expedition and landed at Tunis.
+The autocracy of the Emperor apparently stopped short where women were
+concerned, or else he was indifferent whether they came or not.
+
+On June 16th the armada arrived before Tunis, and the army disembarked to
+attack the fortress known as La Goletta. Into this strong place of arms
+Barbarossa had sent some six thousand of his best men, mostly Turkish
+soldiers, under the command of Sinan-Reis, a renegado Jew, and one of the
+fiercest and most faithful of his followers. To the camp of the Emperor
+came the fugitive King, Muley Hassan, in whose cause the armada had
+nominally been assembled--how nominal this was we shall see later by the
+light of the treaty concluded between him and the Emperor. Charles had
+complete command of the sea for the time being, and, in consequence, the
+ex-Sultan was amazed at the profusion and luxury which reigned in the camp
+of the Christians; and he concluded that these indeed must be the lords of
+the earth, as luxury and profusion was hardly the note of such courts as
+then existed in the northern portion of the African continent.
+
+Although the army was landed, and with it artillery for the bombardment of
+the Goletta, there remained, of course, "the army of the sea," under the
+orders of the redoubtable Doria; and while the Marquis del Guasto, who was
+in supreme command on shore, prepared to batter down the defences of the
+fortress on the land side, the attack was carried on simultaneously from
+the sea by the galleys. The actual presence of the Emperor stimulated the
+various nationalities under his eyes to vie with one another in deeds of
+daring, and they contended among themselves for the posts of the most
+honour and danger. The attacks of the African horsemen were brushed on one
+side by the disciplined valour of the Andalusian cavalry, while the great
+guns thundered from land and sea against the walls of the doomed Goletta.
+Sinan and his Ottoman soldiers performed prodigies in the way of repairing
+breaches in the walls as soon as they were made; but Kheyr-ed-Din from the
+city watched the progress of the bombardment gloomily, as he saw and knew
+that the fall of the Goletta was but a matter of days. All this time he was
+far from idle; sortie after sortie did the dauntless old warrior lead in
+person against those engaged in the task of bombardment. Time and again he
+heartened the Arab and Berber levies to attack, but the sallies were
+repulsed, and the lightly armed Africans were driven like chaff before the
+wind when they swooped down on the lines of investment.
+
+But the time came at last when Sinan and his gallant Turks could hold the
+place no longer; the walls were breached in six or seven places, and
+Spaniards, Germans, and Italians made a simultaneous attack. Sinan fighting
+to the last, evacuated the fortress, and retired actually through the water
+across a shallow part of the bay to the city, with the remnant of his once
+magnificent force; and now Barbarossa knew that the end was come, and that
+Tunis must pass from his hands to those of the Christian Emperor. It was
+not only the fall of the Goletta that troubled him, but the equally
+important fact that by this the fleet of the enemy was enabled to lay hands
+upon his own fleet, consisting of eighty-seven galleys and galliots,
+together with his arsenal, and no less than three hundred cannon, mostly
+brass guns of excellent construction, mounted on the walls and planted on
+the ramparts. The surprising amount of this artillery gives a measure of
+the strength of the fortress and the efforts it must have cost the
+besiegers with such a man as Sinan in command.
+
+That the end was near was known to all, and not the least of their
+embarrassments was the presence within the city walls of some twenty
+thousand Christian captives. The city was large, the defences were spread
+out over a great area, it was abundantly evident that it could not be held,
+and, in consequence, Barbarossa summoned his principal officers and
+communicated to them his decision.
+
+  "We will not remain here to be slain like rats in a trap by the accursed
+  of God by whom we are attacked. No, rather will we perish, sword in
+  hand, as our fathers have done before us; but first there is a danger
+  against which we have to guard. Within these walls are twenty thousand
+  prisoners who will rise against us at the first opportunity; let us,
+  then, first put them to death, and then we will leave this place and
+  show our enemies how the true Moslems can die."
+
+Even those hardened men of blood shrank before the horror which was
+proposed to them by their chief, and Sinan-Reis took up his parable and
+spoke the minds of all when he said that follow him to the death they would
+cheerfully do, but stain themselves with so awful a massacre was to place
+themselves outside the pale of humanity for ever. It was seldom that they
+crossed his mood, and Barbarossa listened in frowning silence, accepting as
+a partial excuse that time pressed, and to put to death twenty thousand
+persons would occupy longer time than they could spare. On the morrow a
+battle was fought which, as Kheyr-ed-Din anticipated, ended in the complete
+rout of the Moslems. Everywhere the Corsair King was in the forefront of
+the battle, and it is said that he disposed of fifty thousand men on this
+occasion; but this is probably an exaggeration, and in any case the bulk of
+his forces consisted of those African levies which, in a pitched battle
+against European troops, were practically useless owing to their want of
+discipline and cohesion. Very soon the hosts of the Emperor had prevailed,
+and the Arabs and Berbers had fled back into the wilderness from whence
+they had come and whither it was useless to pursue. Barbarossa, at the head
+of such of his corsairs and Turks as were left--a number estimated at some
+three to four thousand--burst through all opposition and also escaped,
+travelling so rapidly that pursuit was abandoned almost at once. And then
+the event happened which the Moslem leader had foreseen: some of the
+Christian captives managed to get free from their shackles within the city
+and released others; they overpowered those left to guard them, and threw
+open the gates to the soldiery of the Emperor.
+
+Then occurred one of those awful horrors of which this time was so
+prolific: before Charles or his generals could prevent them the soldiery
+had swept into the town and commenced to slay, to plunder, and to ravish,
+without distinction of age, sex, or nationality. Ostensibly these Christian
+warriors had come to rescue the inhabitants of Tunis from the oppression of
+Barbarossa, but while that chieftain was in full flight across the
+mountains to Bona, those by whom he had been defeated entered the town,
+which they had come to save, and perpetrated a massacre so awful that it is
+said that no less than thirty thousand people perished. It is a terrible
+blot on the escutcheon of the Emperor; as, although he and his generals
+deprecated the massacre--and indeed to do them justice tried to prevent
+it--this is no excuse for allowing their men to get out of hand, when they
+must have been aware of the inevitable result: as the Moslem corsairs at
+their worst were equalled in their iniquities by the European soldiery,
+once the strong hand of discipline had relaxed its grip.
+
+It may have been that the Emperor was displeased with this excess of zeal
+on the part of his army; but, if it were so, the chroniclers are silent
+concerning the matter, being far too busy singing the praises of the C�sar
+to think of such a trifle as the massacre of most of the persons whom he
+had come to deliver. The wretched inhabitants of Tunis must have found it
+somewhat difficult to distinguish between the corsair, who killed three
+thousand of their fellow townsmen, and the Christian Emperor, who had
+massacred ten times that number. Charles, however, reaped great glory from
+an expedition which had but one good result, which was, that he succeeded
+in rescuing twenty thousand captives; these men, very naturally, on their
+return to their homes in every corner of Europe, magnified the wonderful
+deeds of that prince who had been instrumental in securing their release,
+and the massacre of the Tunisians was conveniently ignored. Charles had
+defeated Barbarossa and expelled him from Tunis; he had now displayed his
+magnanimity and altruism by the terms which he imposed on the miserable
+Muley Hassan. As far as that individual was concerned, he certainly
+deserved nothing better; but, as a _finale_ to an expedition blessed by the
+Pope, and looked upon almost in the light of a modern crusade, it certainly
+displays a remarkably keen eye for the main chance.
+
+The preamble of the treaty runs as follows:
+
+  That the King of Tunis, recognising that he had been expelled from his
+  kingdom by Barbarossa, and that the Emperor in person, with a powerful
+  armada, had come and expelled this tyrant, taking from him the fortress
+  and town of Tunis and restoring them to the King Muley Hassan: that this
+  monarch is most grateful for so magnificent a service, and in
+  recognition thereof contracts to liberate all Christian captives who may
+  be in his realm, to give them a free passage to their homes, and from
+  this time forward binds himself to extend to all Christians kind and
+  generous treatment.
+
+There can be no exception taken to this, which was the least which the
+Emperor had the right to expect; but this was only, as we have said, the
+preamble.
+
+Muley Hassan was further made to contract to hold his kingdom in fee to the
+Spanish Crown, to covenant that no corsair should use his ports for any
+purpose whatsoever, that the Emperor should not only retain the Goletta but
+that all other fortified seaports should be put into his hands, that the
+King of Tunis should in future pay twelve thousand crowns per annum 'for
+the subsistence of the Spanish garrison of the Goletta, that he should
+enter into no alliance with the enemies of the Emperor, and should annually
+present, as an acknowledgment of his vassalage, six Moorish horses and six
+hawks.
+
+Muley Hassan had exchanged the comparatively dignified position of a prince
+in exile, who has been expropriated by the strong hand, for that of the
+puppet of one of the greatest enemies of his religion. Neither he nor his
+people were one whit the better for the change, and, as far as vassalage
+was concerned, they would in all probability, in the state of religious
+feeling at the time, have sooner been subordinate to the Moslem corsair
+than to the Christian King.
+
+[Illustration: MULEY HASSAN, KING OF TUNIS.]
+
+Barbarossa, as we have seen, frankly acknowledged that he sought his own
+advantage, and, when he possessed himself of Tunis, made no pretence of any
+altruistic motive. The Emperor, on the other hand, having come in the guise
+of a Christian reformer, simply stole the kingdom from Barbarossa and kept
+it for himself. Incidentally he released the captives, which enabled him to
+pose once more as the great champion of the oppressed. But, however this
+may have been, there is no doubt that he had performed a notable feat of
+arms, and even the most mighty monarch then in Europe felt uplifted by the
+fact that he had defeated the greatest of the corsairs: accordingly, on
+July 25th Charles wrote to England, France, Portugal, Milan, Florence,
+Venice, Genoa, Siena, Mantua, and Naples: "De manera que en pocas dias se
+supo in toda Europa su buena fortuna." (So it was in a few days the whole
+of Europe was acquainted with his good fortune.)
+
+Martin Nunez, "Caballero de Toledo," was sent on a special embassy to the
+Pope to acquaint the Pontiff at first hand of all that happened, and the
+success which had attended the arms of the Emperor, and also to thank his
+Holiness for the assistance which he had rendered by sending the Papal
+galleys. Jorge de Melo, a Portuguese caballero, was sent to his own country
+with despatches, and other nobles and high officials were despatched to the
+Emperor's Viceroys in the various parts of his dominions. In the long
+circular letter which Charles addressed to all these potentates--and which
+is reproduced in its entirety by Sandoval--he says "that the Christian
+captives found in Tunis amounted to something like eighteen to twenty
+thousand, that Barbarossa had escaped with some five thousand Turks,
+corsairs, and renegadoes, of which three thousand were on horseback and two
+thousand afoot; that, as they suffered from great scarcity of provisions,
+and the almost total lack of water, many were falling by the way, and many
+others were being murdered by their quondam allies for such goods as they
+possessed, or for the value of their arms and clothing."
+
+We must now return to Kheyr-ed-Din. What the sufferings of that chieftain
+and the remnant of his gallant army must have been in their flight to Bona
+they alone knew. It was the height of summer, and burning tracks of desert
+and rugged mountain passes had to be surmounted; naturally they could have
+carried but very little food, and water they had to find on the way. In
+addition to this, as we have seen in the despatch of Charles, the tribesmen
+turned against them, cutting off stragglers and murdering and plundering as
+opportunity offered. Barbarossa himself was an old man, so old that it
+seems nothing short of a miracle that he should have survived the hardships
+of this awful march. Not only did he do this, but apparently arrived at
+Bona in condition to continue his journey by sea at once, had he cared to
+do so. He had lost his newly acquired kingdom, he had lost nearly his
+entire fleet, his arsenal and stores were in the hands of his enemies; if
+ever a man was completely crushed it was he on this memorable occasion. As
+we have said before, however, it was in times of the greatest stress when
+the indomitable character of this man rose to meet the occasion, and, while
+his foes were congratulating one another that at last there was an end of
+the scourge of the Mediterranean and the bugbear of Christendom, the hunted
+fugitive was merely preparing himself for fresh acts of aggression.
+
+The real fact of the matter was that he was above all and before all a
+seaman. The defeat of Kheyr-ed-Din meant merely the transference of his
+malign activities from one sphere to another--from the sea to the land, or
+from the land to the sea. King he called himself, and king _de facto_ he
+was both in Algiers and Tunis, reigning with unexampled cruelty, a
+prototype of those other corsair kings by whom he was succeeded. But the
+real source of his power lay, not in stone walls and fortifications, nor in
+ill-trained levies of African tribes, but in his own genius for command at
+sea, and the manner in which he was able to inspire with his own dauntless
+and desperate spirit those hardy mariners who followed in his train, the
+descendants of the "Moriscoes" who hailed from the ancient Moorish kingdoms
+of Cordoba and Granada.
+
+Thus it was in the present instance. He had been unable to withstand the
+might of C�sar and his legions, but Tunis was not the whole of Northern
+Africa, nor had quite all his eggs been kept in that one basket. He had
+kept fifteen galleys in reserve at Bona, and, in consequence, on his
+arrival there, was able to embark at once. This he did, and hardly had he
+done so when there appeared upon the scene fifteen galleys commanded by
+Adan Centurion and John Doria. Kheyr-ed-Din had had enough of fighting just
+for the present; his men and he were wearied out by the hardships of their
+flight, and accordingly he drew up his galleys under the fort at Bona and
+awaited an attack, should the enemy care to deliver one. But Adan
+Centurion's heart failed him; to cut out the old Sea-wolf from under one of
+his own batteries was more than he had the stomach for, and he accordingly
+sailed away. "Fue sin duda la perdida grande" (this no doubt was a great
+pity), is the comment of Sandoval, who goes on to say that, had the Genoese
+been the men that they had been aforetime, this would never have been, and
+that they would have gone in and burnt or disabled the galleys of the
+corsair, slain their leader, or driven him ashore. Hot on the tracks of
+Adan Centurion and his nephew John came the veteran Andrea Doria with forty
+galleys, but he was too late, and the bird had flown; had it been he who
+had arrived in the first instance, then it is more than probable that
+matters would have turned out differently, and Kheyr-ed-Din had then and
+there terminated his career. It is true that Andrea possessed himself of
+Bona, and the Corsair King was shorn of yet another of his land-stations,
+but for the time he had cut himself adrift from the land, and had gone back
+to that element in which he was particularly at home.
+
+Doria left Bona in the charge of Alvar Gomez and a company of Spanish
+troops and then sailed away, if possible to find and capture Barbarossa,
+thus to set the seal of completeness on the victory which had been won by
+his master the Emperor. Another stronghold of the corsairs was now in most
+competent hands, as Alvar Gomez Zagal was one of the most renowned
+caballeros of Spain, son of that Pero Lopez de Horusco on whom the Moors
+themselves had bestowed the title of "Al Zagal," or "The Valiant," on
+account of his extraordinary bravery.
+
+On August 17th Charles re-embarked his army and evacuated the country,
+leaving, however, one thousand Spanish veterans, under the command of
+Bernard de Mendoza, in charge of the Goletta, as a permanent memorial of
+the expedition, and as a guarantee that the wretched Muley Hassan should
+fully comply with the treaty obligations which had been imposed upon him.
+It is true that Barbarossa had not been captured, but his city had been
+taken, his fleet had been destroyed, and he himself was now a fugitive,
+unable any further to trouble the peace of Christendom or the dignity of
+the Emperor by whom he had been so soundly chastised. In consequence the
+C�sar departed well pleased with himself and with those who had been acting
+under his orders, to whom he distributed orders and titles, as a memento of
+the occasion upon which they had finally broken up the power of those by
+whom his peace had so long been troubled.
+
+One of the difficulties in dealing with the career of Kheyr-ed-Din
+Barbarossa is that, in times when he was unsuccessful, or when, as on the
+present occasion, he had received a severe setback, it is next to
+impossible to find out what he was doing or where exactly he was preparing
+for his next coup. In this case, in particular, the old-time historians
+were thanking God that the Emperor had rid the world of a particularly
+pestilent knave, and ceased to trouble themselves much about him until he
+forced himself once more upon their notice. Had Charles at this time
+recognised the greatness of the man whom he had just so signally defeated
+he might have changed the course of history. Had he, instead of sailing
+back to Europe, content with that which he had accomplished in Tunis,
+pushed his attack home on Algiers, he might have made himself master of the
+whole of Northern Africa, as, in the disorganised state in which the
+corsairs now found themselves, they could certainly have offered no
+effective resistance. But to the Emperor these rovers of the sea presented
+themselves merely in the light of robbers. Robbers, it is true, on a
+somewhat large scale, but still not persons of sufficient importance to
+detain him from the infinitely more pressing affairs which awaited him on
+the opposite shores of the Mediterranean Sea.
+
+In addition to the fifteen galleys which Kheyr-ed-Din picked up at Bona he
+had in reserve at Algiers some fifty others. Escaping the attention of Adan
+Centurion and John Doria, and the infinitely more formidable squadron of
+Andrea, he headed once more for Algiers, and for a time seems to have
+remained quiet, no doubt recuperating from the fatigues, disappointments,
+and physical hardships which he had so recently undergone. He was
+apparently undisturbed during the winter by his Christian enemies, and was
+in consequence able to think out his future plans of campaign and to
+collect and put heart into his scattered followers, who, in ones and twos,
+were gradually, such of them as were left, finding their way back to the
+headquarters of piracy and its indomitable chieftain.
+
+That cool calculator of the chances of life knew that this must be so; the
+power of the corsairs generally had received the worst blow it had ever
+encountered since the dispossessed Moriscoes had taken to the sea for a
+living; those of them who remained alive were without ships--that is to
+say, without their only means of making a livelihood--and that they should
+gravitate towards Algiers and its master was as nearly a certainty as
+anything human could be. And, as was anticipated by the chief, so it came
+to pass. Into the city straggled broken, starving, sullen men who had lost
+their all, for whom the future held nothing but misery and despair unless
+they could get to sea once more.
+
+It was on occasions such as this that the intellectual eminence of
+Barbarossa was so marked. Rough and cruel as he was, he possessed
+nevertheless a magnetic power over the minds of men, on which, when it so
+pleased him, he could play with the most extraordinary effect. And now,
+when the rank and file of the corsairs were ragged, hungry, and smarting
+under defeat, he dealt with them tenderly and graciously; and the sum of
+his teaching was to the effect that they had but to follow him once more
+and all the evils from which they were suffering would be presently
+remedied. So it came about that men who, before the defeat, had commanded
+ships of their own, were glad enough to become units on board the galleys
+of Kheyr-ed-Din, animated by the pleasing hope that soon again, under the
+leadership of this man, they might regain all, nay more, than they had
+lost. It must be remembered that Barbarossa argued from sound premises when
+he held out such hopes as these to the desperate remnant of the corsairs in
+Algiers in that sad winter of 1535. He was the greatest of them all, and
+they, as well as he, knew this to be a fact: if they had lost their all in
+the past battles, they had been fighting in a common cause to preserve
+their own lives and their liberty to plunder the Christian at sea. And now
+there was work and there was bread to eat for those who once again would
+throw in their lot with their old leader; and, although it may be said that
+these men had no alternative, still they threw themselves with heartiness
+into that which the master mind decreed should be their work, and this was
+none other than the preparation of the galleys for another campaign against
+the Christian.
+
+"What matter, comrades?" said the veteran on one occasion when he was
+superintending the fitting out of the galleys. "These dogs have gone back
+from whence they came, and they have left that creature, Muley Hassan, to
+do their will in Tunis. It is true that there is Mendoza and his thousand
+Spaniards in the Goletta, but did not Martin de Vargas hold the Pe�on here?
+And where is De Vargas, and in whose hands is the Pe�on now? We know from
+whence the garrisons of Spain draw their supplies, and believe me that
+there will be hungry men in the Goletta in this coming year. Once we get to
+sea again, there will be more than enough for every good man who believes
+in the Prophet, and who has the sense to follow Barbarossa. For every ducat
+that you have lost see, in the coming year, if you do not gain ten; the
+Christians are off their guard now, and they think that they have done with
+me because they have captured Tunis." He laughed his great, jovial laugh.
+"By the beard of the Prophet--upon whom be peace!--they have yet to find
+out the man with whom they have to deal."
+
+It took a master mind to instil heart of grace into men who so recently had
+had so bad a beating as these; but in the end they began to cheer up, and
+to recollect how Barbarossa had sooner or later always risen from defeat as
+strong or stronger than before; also they recalled the fact that he was the
+chosen of the Padishah, and that that potentate, the representative of the
+Prophet on earth, would assuredly come to his assistance now that Tunis,
+which had been taken in his name, had been reft from Barbarossa by the
+Christians. Gradually hope took the place of despair, and when the corsairs
+took to the sea in the early part of the following year it was with renewed
+confidence in both themselves and their leader.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+ROXALANA AND THE MURDER OF IBRAHIM
+
+At the coming of spring Barbarossa was at sea again with thirty-two ships
+ready for any eventuality, his crews aflame with ardour for revenge against
+those by whom they had been so roughly handled. He chose for the scene of
+operations a place on the coast of Majorca some fifteen miles from Palma;
+from here he commanded the route of the Spaniards from their country to the
+African coast, and it was against this nation that he felt a great
+bitterness owing to recent events. Eagerly did the corsair and his men
+watch for the Spanish ships, the heavier vessels lying at anchor, but the
+light, swift galleys ranging and questing afar so that none might be
+missed. Very soon the vigilance of the Moslems was rewarded by the capture
+of a number of vessels, sent by Bernard de Mendoza laden with Turkish and
+Moorish slaves, destined to be utilised as rowers in the Spanish galleys.
+These men were hailed as a welcome reinforcement, and joyfully joined the
+forces of Kheyr-ed-Din when he moved on Minorca, captured the castle by a
+surprise assault, raided the surrounding country, and captured five
+thousand seven hundred Christians, amongst whom were eight hundred men who
+had been wounded in the attack on Tunis--all these unfortunates were sent
+to refill the bagnio of Algiers.
+
+This private war of revenge was, however, destined soon to come to an end,
+as Soliman the Magnificent in this year became involved in disputes with
+the Venetian Republic, and recalled "that veritable man of the sea," as
+Barbarossa had been described by Ibrahim, to Constantinople.
+
+In this city by the sea there had taken place a tragedy which, although it
+only involved the death of a single man, was nevertheless far-reaching in
+its consequences; for the man was none other than that great statesman
+Ibrahim, Grand Vizier, and the only trusted counsellor of the Padishah. He
+who had been originally a slave had risen step by step in the favour of his
+master until he arrived at the giddy eminence which he occupied at the time
+of his death. It is a somewhat curious commentary on the essentially
+democratic status of an autocracy that a man could thus rise to a position
+second only to that of the autocrat himself; and, in all probability,
+wielding quite as much power.
+
+Ibrahim had for years been treated by Soliman more as a brother than as a
+dependent, which, in spite of his Grand Viziership, he was in fact. They
+lived in the very closest communion, taking their meals together, and even
+sleeping in the same room, Soliman, a man of high intelligence himself, and
+a ruler who kept in touch with all the happenings which arose in his
+immense dominions, desiring always to have at hand the man whom he loved;
+from whom, with his amazing grip of political problems and endless
+fertility of resource, he was certain of sympathy and sound advice. But in
+an oriental despotism there are other forces at work besides those of _la
+haute politique_, and Ibrahim had one deadly enemy who was sworn to compass
+his destruction. The Sultana Roxalana was the light of the harem of the
+Grand Turk. This supremely beautiful woman, originally a Russian slave, was
+the object of the most passionate devotion on the part of Soliman; but she
+was as ambitious as she was lovely, and brooked no rival in the affections
+of Soliman, be that person man, woman, or child. In her hands the master of
+millions, the despot whose nod was death, became a submissive slave; the
+undisciplined passions of this headstrong woman swept aside from her path
+all those whom she suspected of sharing her influence, in no matter how
+remote a fashion. At her dictation had Soliman caused to be murdered his
+son Mustafa, a youth of the brightest promise, because, in his intelligence
+and his winning ways he threatened to eclipse Selim, the son of Roxalana
+herself.
+
+This woman possessed a strong natural intelligence, albeit she was totally
+uneducated; she saw and knew that Ibrahim was all-powerful with her lover,
+and this roused her jealousy to fever-heat. She was not possessed of a cool
+judgment, which would have told her that Ibrahim was a statesman dealing
+with the external affairs of the Sublime Porte, and that with her and with
+her affairs he neither desired, nor had he the power, to interfere. What,
+however, the Sultana did know was that in these same affairs of State her
+opinion was dust in the balance when weighed against that of the Grand
+Vizier.
+
+Soliman had that true attribute of supreme greatness, the unerring aptitude
+for the choice of the right man. He had picked out Ibrahim from among his
+immense entourage, and never once had he regretted his choice. As time went
+on and the intellect and power of the man became more and more revealed to
+his master, that sovereign left in his hands even such matters as despots
+are apt to guard most jealously. We have seen how, in spite of the
+murmurings of the whole of his capital, and the almost insubordinate
+attitude of his navy, he had persevered in the appointment of Kheyr-ed-Din
+Barbarossa, because the judgment of Ibrahim was in favour of its being
+carried out. This, to Roxalana, was gall and wormwood; well she knew that,
+as long as the Grand Vizier lived, her sovereignty was at best but a
+divided one. There was a point at which her blandishments stopped short;
+this was when she found that her opinion did not coincide with that of the
+minister. She was, as we have seen in the instance of her son, not a woman
+to stick at trifles, and she decided that Ibrahim must die.
+
+There could be no hole-and-corner business about this; he must die, and
+when his murder had been accomplished she would boldly avow to her lover
+what she had done and take the consequences, believing in her power over
+him to come scatheless out of the adventure. In those days, when human life
+was so cheap, she might have asked for the death of almost any one, and her
+whim would have been gratified by a lover who had not hesitated to put to
+death his own son at her dictation. But with Ibrahim it was another matter;
+he was the familiar of the Sultan, his _alter ego_ in fact, It says much
+for the nerve of the Sultana that she dared so greatly on this memorable
+and lamentable occasion.
+
+On March 5th, 1536, Ibrahim, went to the royal seraglio, and, following his
+ancient custom, was admitted to the table of his master, sleeping after the
+meal at his side. At least so it was supposed, but none knew save those
+engaged in the murder what passed on that fatal night; the next day his
+dead body lay in the house of the Sultan.
+
+Across the floor of jasper, in that palace which was a fitting residence
+for one rightly known as "The Magnificent," the blood of Ibrahim flowed to
+the feet of Roxalana. The disordered clothing, the terrible expression of
+the face of the dead man, the gaping wounds which he had received, bore
+witness that there had taken place a grim struggle before that iron frame
+and splendid intellect had been levelled with the dust. This much leaked
+out afterwards, as such things will leak out, and then the Sultana took
+Soliman into her chamber and gazed up into his eyes. The man was stunned by
+the immensity of the calamity which had befallen him and his kingdom, but
+his manhood availed him not against the wiles of this Circe. Ibrahim had
+been foully done to death in his own palace, and this woman clinging so
+lovingly around his neck now was the murderess. The heart's blood of his
+best friend was coagulating on the threshold of his own apartment when he
+forgave her by whom his murder had been accomplished. This was the
+vengeance of Roxalana, and who shall say that it was not complete?
+
+The Ottoman Empire was the poorer by the loss of its greatest man, the
+jealousy of the Sultana was assuaged, the despot who had permitted this
+unavenged murder was still on the throne, thrall to the woman who had first
+murdered his son and then his friend and minister. But the deed carried
+with it the evil consequences which were only too likely to occur when so
+capable a head of the State was removed at so critical a time. Renewed
+strife was in the air, and endless squabbles between Venice and the Porte
+were taking place. With these we have no concern, but, in addition to other
+complaints, there were loud and continuous ones concerning the corsairs.
+Venice, "The Bride of the Sea," had neither rest nor peace; the pirates
+swarmed in Corfu, in Zante, in Candia, in Cephalonia, and the plunder and
+murder of the subjects of the Republic was the theme of perpetual
+representations to the Sultan. The balance of advantage in this guerilla
+warfare was with the corsairs until Girolame Canale, a Venetian captain,
+seized one of the Moslem leaders known as "The Young Moor of Alexandria,"
+The victory of Canale was somewhat an important one as he captured the
+galley of "The Young Moor" and four others; two more were sunk, and three
+hundred Janissaries and one thousand slaves fell into the hands of the
+Venetian commander. There being an absence of nice feeling on the part of
+the Venetians, the Janissaries were at once beheaded to a man.
+
+The whole story is an illustration of the extraordinary relations existing
+among the Mediterranean States at this time. Soliman the Magnificent,
+Sultan of Turkey, had lent three hundred of his Janissaries, his own picked
+troops, to assist the corsairs in their depredations on Venetian commerce.
+Having done this, and the Janissaries having been caught and summarily and
+rightly put to death as pirates, the Sultan, as soon as he heard of what
+had occurred, sent an ambassador, one Yonis Bey, to Venice to demand
+satisfaction for the insult passed upon him by the beheading of his own
+soldiers turned pirates. The conclusion of the affair was that the
+Venetians released "The Young Moor of Alexandria" as soon as he was cured
+of the eight wounds which he had received in the conflict, and sent him
+back to Africa with such of his galleys as were left. There was one rather
+comical incident in connection with this affair, which was that when Yonis
+Bey was on his way from Constantinople to Venice he was chased by a
+Venetian fleet, under the command of the Count Grandenico, and driven
+ashore. The Count was profuse in his apologies when he discovered that he
+had been chasing a live ambassador; but the occurrence so exasperated
+Soliman that he increased his demands in consequence.
+
+Barbarossa, who had spent his time harrying the Spaniards at sea ever since
+the fall of Tunis, was shortly to appear on the scene again. He received
+orders from the Sultan, and came as fast as a favouring wind would bring
+him. Kheyr-ed-Din had been doing well in the matter of slaves and plunder,
+but he knew that, with the backing of the Grand Turk, he would once again
+be in command of a fleet in which he might repeat his triumph of past
+years, and prove himself once more the indispensable "man of the sea."
+
+Soon after his arrival his ambitions were gratified, and he found himself
+with a fleet of one hundred ships. Since the death of Ibrahim, and the
+incident which terminated with the despatch of Yonis Bey to Venice, the
+relations between the Grand Turk and the Venetian Republic had become
+steadily worse, and at last the Sultan declared war. On May 17th, 1537,
+Soliman, accompanied by his two sons, Selim and Mohammed, left
+Constantinople. With the campaign conducted by the Sultan we are not
+concerned here; it was directed against the Ionian Islands, which had been
+in the possession of Venice since 1401. On August 18th Soliman laid siege
+to Corfu, and was disastrously beaten, re-embarking his men on September
+7th, after losing thousands in a fruitless attack on the fortress. He
+returned to Constantinople utterly discomfited. It was the seventh campaign
+which the Sultan had conducted in person, but the first in which the
+ever-faithful Ibrahim had not been by his side.
+
+This defeat at the hands of the Venetians was not, however, the only
+humiliation which he was destined to experience in this disastrous year;
+for once again Doria, that scourge of the Moslem, was loose upon the seas,
+and was making his presence felt in the immediate neighbourhood of Corfu,
+where the Turks had been defeated. On July 17th Andrea had left the port of
+Messina with twenty-five galleys, had captured ten richly laden Turkish
+ships, gutted and burned them. Kheyr-ed-Din was at sea at the time, but the
+great rivals were not destined to meet on this occasion. Instead of
+Barbarossa, Andrea fell in with Ali-Chabelli, the lieutenant of Sandjak Bey
+of Gallipoli. On July 22nd the Genoese admiral and the Turkish commander
+from the Dardanelles met to the southward of Corfu, off the small island of
+Paxo, and a smart action ensued. It ended in the defeat of Ali-Chabelli,
+whose galleys were captured and towed by Doria into Paxo. That veteran
+fighter was himself in the thickest of the fray, and, conspicuous in his
+crimson doublet, had been an object of attention to the marksmen of
+Chabelli during the entire action. In spite of the receipt of a severe
+wound in the knee, the admiral refused to go below until victory was
+assured. He was surrounded at this time by a devoted band of nobles sworn
+to defend the person of their admiral or to die in his defence. His
+portrait has been sketched for us at this time by the Dominican Friar,
+Padre Alberto Gugliel-motto, author of "La guerra dei Pirati e la marina
+Pontifica dal 1500 al 1560." The description runs thus: "Andrea Doria was
+of lofty stature, his face oval in shape, forehead broad and commanding,
+his neck was powerful, his hair short, his beard long and fan-shaped, his
+lips were thin, his eyes bright and piercing."
+
+Once again had he defeated an officer of the Grand Turk; and it may be
+remarked that Ibrahim was probably quite right in the estimation, or rather
+in the lack of estimation, in which he held the sea-officers of his master,
+as they seem to have been deficient in every quality save that of personal
+valour, and in their encounters with Doria and the knights were almost
+invariably worsted. For the sake of Islam, for the prestige of the Moslem
+arms at sea, it was time that Barbarossa should take matters in hand once
+more.
+
+The autumn of this year 1537 proved that the old Sea-wolf had lost none of
+his cunning, that his followers were as terrible as ever. What did it seem
+to matter that Venetian and Catalan, Genoese and Frenchman, Andalusian and
+the dwellers in the Archipelago, were all banded together in league against
+this common foe? Did not the redoubtable Andrea range the seas in vain, and
+were not all the efforts of the Knights of Saint John futile, when the son
+of the renegado from Mitylene and his Christian wife put forth from the
+Golden Horn? What was the magic of this man, it was asked despairingly,
+that none seemed able to prevail against him? Had it not been currently
+reported that Carlos Quinto, the great Emperor, had driven him forth from
+Tunis a hunted fugitive, broken and penniless, with never a galley left,
+without one ducat in his pocket? Was he so different, then, from all the
+rest of mankind that his followers would stick to him in evil report as
+well as in the height of his prosperity? Men swore and women crossed
+themselves at the mention of his name.
+
+"Terrible as an army with banners," indeed, was Kheyr-ed-Din in this
+eventful summer: things had gone badly with the crescent flag, the Padishah
+was unapproachable in his palace, brooding perchance on that "might have
+been" had he not sold his honour and the life of his only friend to gratify
+the malice of a she-devil; those in attendance on the Sultan trembled, for
+the humour of the despot was black indeed.
+
+But "the veritable man of the sea" was in some sort to console him for that
+which he had lost; as never in his own history--and there was none else
+with which it could be compared--had the Corsair King made so fruitful a
+raid. He ravaged the coasts of the Adriatic and the islands of the
+Archipelago, sweeping in slaves by the thousand, and by the end of the year
+he had collected eighteen thousand in the arsenal at Stamboul. Great was
+the jubilation in Constantinople when the Admiralissimo himself returned
+from his last expedition against the infidel; stilled were the voices which
+hinted disaffection--who among them all could bring back four hundred
+thousand pieces of gold? What mariner could offer to the Grand Turk such
+varied and magnificent presents?
+
+Upon his arrival Barbarossa asked permission to kiss the threshold of the
+palace of the Sultan, which boon being graciously accorded to him, he made
+his triumphal entry. Two hundred captives clad in scarlet robes carried
+cups of gold and flasks of silver behind them came thirty others, each
+staggering under an enormous purse of sequins; yet another two hundred
+brought collars of precious stones or bales of the choicest goods; and a
+further two hundred were laden with sacks of small coin. Certainly if
+Soliman the Magnificent had lost a Grand Vizier he had succeeded in finding
+an admiral!
+
+All through the earlier months of 1538 the dockyards of Constantinople
+hummed with a furious activity, for Soliman had decreed that the maritime
+campaign of this year was to begin with no less than one hundred and fifty
+ships. His admiral, however, did not agree with this decision; to the
+Viziers he raged and stormed. "Listen," he said, "O men of the land who
+understand naught of the happenings of the sea. By this time Saleh-Reis
+must have quitted Alexandria convoying to the Bosphorus twenty sail filled
+with the richest merchandise; should he fall in with the accursed Genoese,
+Doria, where then will be Saleh-Reis and his galleys and his convoy? I will
+tell you: the ships in Genoa, the galleys burned, Saleh-Reis and all his
+mariners chained to the rowers' bench."
+
+The Viziers trembled, as men did when Barbarossa stormed and turned upon
+them those terrible eyes which knew neither fear nor pity. "We be but men,"
+they answered, "and our lord the Sultan has so ordained it."
+
+"I have forty galleys," replied the corsair; "you have forty more. With
+these I will take the sea; but, mark you," he continued, softening
+somewhat, "you do right to fear the displeasure of the Sultan, and I also
+have no wish to encounter it; but vessels raised and equipped in a hurry
+will be of small use to me. In the name of Allah the compassionate and his
+holy Prophet give me my eighty galleys and let me go."
+
+In Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa sound strategical instinct went hand in hand
+with the desperate valour of the corsair. To dally in the Golden Horn while
+so rich a prey was at sea to be picked up by his Christian foes was
+altogether opposed to his instincts: never to throw away a chance in the
+game of life had ever been his guiding principle.
+
+Soliman, great man as he undoubtedly was, had not the adamantine hardness
+of character which enabled his admiral to risk all on the hazards of the
+moment; or possibly the Grand Turk was deficient in that clearness of
+strategical instinct which never in any circumstances forgoes a present
+advantage for something which may turn out well in a problematical future.
+Soliman, sore, sullen, and unapproachable, dwelt in his palace brooding
+over the misfortunes which had been his lot since the death of Ibrahim.
+Barbarossa, who so recently had lost practically all that he possessed, and
+who had reached an age at which most men have no hopes for the future, was
+as clear in intellect, as undaunted in spirit, as if he had been half a
+century younger: to be even once more with those by whom he had been
+defeated and dispossessed was the only thing now in his mind. The capture
+of Saleh-Reis and his convoy would be a triumph of which he could not bear
+to think. Further, it would add to the demoralisation of the sea forces of
+the Sultan, which were sadly in need of some striking success after the
+defeats which had so recently been their portion. The Sultan had decided
+that one hundred and fifty ships were necessary; his admiral thought
+otherwise. There was too much at stake for him to dally at Constantinople;
+his fiery energy swept all before it, and in the end he had his way. On
+June 7th, 1538, he finally triumphed over the hesitations of the Viziers
+and put to sea with eighty sail.
+
+The Sultan, from his kiosk, the windows of which opened on the Bosphorus,
+counted the ships.
+
+"Only eighty sail; is that all?" he asked.
+
+The trembling Viziers prostrated themselves before him.
+
+"O our Lord, the Padishah," they cried, "Saleh-Reis comes from Alexandria
+with a rich convoy; somewhere lurking is Andrea Doria, the accursed; it was
+necessary, O Magnificent, to send succour."
+
+There was a pause, in which the hearts of men beat as do those who know not
+but that the next moment may be their last on earth.
+
+The Sultan stared from his window at the retreating ships in a silence like
+the silence of the grave. At last he turned:
+
+"So be it," he answered briefly; "but see to it that reinforcements do not
+lag upon the road."
+
+If there had been activity in the dockyards before it was as nothing to the
+strenuous work that was to be done henceforward.
+
+Before starting on this expedition Kheyr-ed-Din had made an innovation in
+the manning of some of the most powerful of his galleys, which was of the
+utmost importance, and which was to add enormously to the success of his
+future maritime enterprises. The custom had always been that the Ottoman
+galleys had been rowed by Christians, captured and enslaved; of course the
+converse was true in the galleys of their foes. There were, for the size of
+the vessels, an enormous number of men carried in the galleys of the
+sixteenth century, and an average craft of this description would have on
+board some four hundred men; of these, however, the proportion would be two
+hundred and fifty slaves to one hundred and fifty fighting men. That which
+Kheyr-ed-Din now insisted upon was that a certain proportion of his most
+powerful units should be rowed by Moslem fighting men, so that on the day
+of battle the oarsmen could join in the fray instead of remaining chained
+to their benches, as was the custom with the slaves. It is, however, an
+extraordinary testimony to the influence which the corsair had attained in
+Constantinople that he had been able to effect this change in the
+composition of some of his crews; it must have been done with the active
+co-operation of the Sultan, as no authority less potent than that of the
+sovereign himself could have induced free men to undertake the terrible
+toil of rower in a galley. This was reserved for the unfortunate slave on
+either side owing to the intolerable hardship of the life, and results, in
+the pace at which a galley proceeded through the water, were usually
+obtained by an unsparing use of the lash on the naked bodies of the rowers.
+
+This human material was used up in the most prodigal manner possible, as
+those in command had not the inducement of treating the rowers well, from
+that economic standpoint which causes a man to so use his beast of burden
+as to get the best work from him. In the galley, when a slave could row no
+more he was flung overboard and another was put in his place.
+
+The admiral, however, even when backed by the Padishah, could not man a
+large fleet of galleys with Moslem rowers, and, as there was a shortage in
+the matter of propelling power, his first business was to collect slaves,
+and for this purpose he visited the islands of the Archipelago. The lot of
+the unhappy inhabitants of these was indeed a hard one. They were nearer to
+the seat of the Moslem power than any other Christians; they were in those
+days totally unable to resist an attack in force, and in consequence were
+swept off in their thousands.
+
+Seven islands cover the entrance to the Gulf of Volo. The nearest to the
+coast is Skiathos, which is also the most important; it was defended by a
+castle built upon a rock. This castle was attacked by Barbarossa, who
+bombarded it for six days, carried it by assault, and massacred the
+garrison. He spared the lives of the inhabitants of the island, and by this
+means secured three thousand four hundred rowers for his galleys. He had to
+provide motor-power for the reinforcements which he expected. In July he
+was reinforced from Constantinople by ninety galleys, while from Egypt came
+Saleh-Reis, who had succeeded in avoiding the terrible Doria, with twenty
+more; the fleet was thus complete.
+
+Barbarossa ravaged Skios, Andros, and other islands, putting them under
+contribution, and in this manner raised some eight thousand ducats; from a
+pen of guinea-fowl to a king's ransom, nothing escaped the maw of this most
+rapacious of corsairs. Candia and some other islands yielded up some small
+spoil, but the sufferings of such insignificant folk as the wretched
+islanders were soon lost to the sight of the Christian world in the
+magnitude of the events which were now impending.
+
+Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, Corsair, Admiral, and King, the scourge of the
+Mediterranean, and Andrea Doria, Prince of Oneglia, Admiral of the modern
+C�sar, Charles V., Emperor and King, were at last to meet face to face.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+THE PREVESA CAMPAIGN; THE GATHERING OF THE FLEETS
+
+Some thirty-five miles to the south-eastward of Cape Bianco (the
+southernmost point of the island of Corfu) lies Prevesa, at the entrance of
+the Gulf of Arta, or, as it was known in classic times, the Ambracian Gulf.
+In these seas, in the year 31 B.C., was fought one of the most memorable
+battles of antiquity, for it was here that Octavius, afterward Augustus
+C�sar, defeated the forces of Antony and Cleopatra. There have been many
+controversies of late years as to whom the original idea of breaking the
+line in naval combats is due: anyhow, it can claim a respectable antiquity,
+as it was practised at the battle of Actium by Octavius, who by a skilful
+manoeuvre caused Antony to lengthen his line, which he then cut through and
+attacked the ships of Cleopatra, which were in support: this was too much
+for the lady, who fled with her sixty ships, followed by Antony, to his
+eternal disgrace. The remainder of his fleet fought bravely for a time, but
+was eventually defeated, the land army also surrendering to Octavius. The
+date of the actual battle of Actium was September 2nd, 31 B.C.: it was in
+September 1538 that the battle of Prevesa between Andrea Doria and
+Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa took place, and the conditions of the battle were
+almost exactly similar.
+
+To this very place came, 1569 years later, the Christian and the Moslem,
+the Crescent and the Cross, each under its most renowned leader, each side
+burning with an inextinguishable hate. It was one of the peculiarities of
+this warfare that into it entered so much actual personal feeling, each
+side hating the other for the love of God in the most poisonous fashion.
+Save and except the battle of Lepanto in 1571 (with which we shall deal
+later in the story of Ali Basha, or Occhiali as he was called by his
+Christian opponents) the contest at Prevesa was far the most important ever
+fought by those strange oar-propelled vessels known as galleys. It was
+memorable in many ways, but particularly so for the ages of the men in
+chief command. Andrea Doria was at this time seventy years of age; in fact,
+Guglielmotti gives the date of his birth as 1466, thus making him two years
+older. That amazing veteran Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, who died in his bed at
+Constantinople on July 4th, 1546, at the age of ninety, must have been
+eighty-two. Vicenzo Capello was sixty-eight, as the epitaph on his tomb at
+Venice in the church of Santa Maria Formosa says that he was seventy-two in
+the year of his death, 1542.
+
+Once again Christendom was nerving itself for a supreme effort against the
+corsairs, and, during the time that Barbarossa was raiding and ravaging
+among the islands of the Archipelago, the Christian fleet was gradually
+assembling. At first it numbered some 150 galleys, 81 Venetian, 36
+Pontifical, and 30 Spanish; Charles V. sent, at the last moment, 50 ships
+on which were embarked 10,000 troops. The force totalled altogether 59,000
+to 60,000 men, 195 ships, and 2,594 cannons. This was no doubt a most
+formidable armada, but the policy of those by whom it was composed was not
+all directed to the same end. While Charles desired, above all things, to
+exterminate the corsairs for good and all, which was, in the circumstances,
+the only sound view of the matter, the Venetians were for fighting
+defensive actions to maintain their supremacy in the Ionian Islands, and
+were disposed to let the future take care of itself. There was not, in
+consequence, that absolute unanimity among the various commanders of the
+expedition as was necessary for its complete success.
+
+The concentration of the Christian fleet took place at Corfu. The Venetians
+arrived first, with Vincenzo Capello in command; Marco Grimani brought
+thither the Papal contingent; they anchored and waited, but Andrea Doria
+did not appear. Days lengthened into weeks, and Grimani and Capelli chafed
+and fumed; provisions were running low and the dignity of Venice and of the
+Pope were flouted by this strange remissness on the part of the Admiral of
+the Emperor. At last, furious with impatience, Grimani made a raid into the
+Gulf of Arta, which was defended at the entrance by the fortress of
+Prevesa. The only result of this ill-timed attack was that two Papal
+captains and a number of soldiers were killed. Grimani then returned to
+Corfu, to find Capello irritated to the last extent by the non-appearance
+of Doria.
+
+At last, on September 5th, the Imperial fleet hove in sight. It was
+composed of forty-nine galleys, but these were supplemented by a great
+number of sailing ships; the sailing craft, however, did not arrive till
+September 22nd. These vessels were gradually making way among the Spaniards
+since the discovery of the new world.
+
+At this time the Venetians possessed fourteen nefs. Doria had augmented
+these by twenty-two of his own, and the total number of thirty-six was
+commanded by Franco Doria, a nephew of the admiral. The Venetian nefs were
+commanded by Alessandro Condalmiero, captain of the _Galleon of Venice_.
+This was the most formidable fighting vessel in the Mediterranean; she was
+reckoned an excellent sailor, she was by far the most heavily armed sailing
+ship then afloat; in fact, in the opinion of contemporary seamen, she was
+"an invincible fortress."
+
+Doria, Grimani, and Capello had now nearly 200 ships carrying nearly 60,000
+men. Such a force, in all ages, has been considered great. William the
+Conqueror conquered Britain with a less number; it is almost half the total
+of the personnel of the British fleet in the present day which has to
+defend a country with 40,000,000 inhabitants, and all this force had been
+raised, armed, and equipped to combat with a Moslem corsair.
+
+Barbarossa had succeeded in assembling 122 ships. He was accompanied by all
+the most famous corsairs of the day, among whom was Dragut, who fell at the
+siege of Malta, and of whom we shall have more to say in due time. Far and
+wide ranged the swift galleys of the Ottoman fleet, for the plan of the
+commander of the Moslems was to locate and destroy his enemies in detail if
+possible. At last news came to him that Grimani's ships had been sighted in
+the Gulf of Arta. Not one moment did he lose; he would fall upon the Papal
+contingent with his whole force and destroy it utterly. Such, at least, was
+his plan when he sailed for Prevesa; but, notwithstanding his haste, he was
+too late. Happily for himself, Grimani had returned to Corfu before the
+arrival of his enemy.
+
+At this juncture Barbarossa hesitated; had he not done so, and had he
+followed Grimani to Corfu, he might have destroyed both him and Vincenzo
+Capello in detail before the arrival of Doria. The Prevesa campaign is a
+curious study of hesitation on both sides, and the idea naturally occurs
+were not the corsair and the Christian commanders-in-chief too old for the
+work on which they were engaged? Men of over seventy are not impetuous, but
+grave and deliberate as a rule; but there is no rule without its
+exceptions, and Doria and Barbarossa were not as other leaders. Up to the
+present their dash and initiative had been unimpaired. There was no
+question that Barbarossa not only made a mistake in hesitating, but that by
+it he lost the game. Instead of striking at once he did what he had never
+done before in the whole of his career, which was to send to Constantinople
+for instructions. Some of his galleys had captured a fishing-boat off
+Corfu, the crew of which had seen Doria's fleet. The Moslem leader sent the
+fishermen themselves to report to Soliman exactly what they had seen, and
+to ask for and bring back instructions from that potentate. What Barbarossa
+had discovered was that the odds were very much against him; so much, in
+fact, that he would have to act on the defensive. In consequence, he
+steered for Prevesa and entered the Gulf of Arta, which is approached by a
+long narrow strait, dominated by the castle of Prevesa. Once inside he
+anchored his galleys in such a position that they could fire direct out to
+sea, thus overwhelming with their fire any vessel attempting to enter.
+
+Barbarossa now occupied the same position as did Octavius in his combat
+with Antony. The r�le of the latter general was now taken by Doria. Antony,
+like Doria, had heavy ships which could not advance to the attack owing to
+their too great draught. Octavius, with his light-draught ships, could both
+attack and retreat into safety if overmatched.
+
+On September 22nd Doria, having collected all his ships, gave orders to
+fill up with wood, water, and fresh provisions. On the 25th, to the sound
+of the trumpet, the Commander-in-Chief, with his fleet of two hundred sail,
+weighed anchor and sped before the wind rapidly southwards. Grimani
+commanded the advance-guard, Doria was in the centre, Vincenzo Capello,
+with his Venetians, brought up the rear. Formed in two columns, the nefs
+followed the galleys; the _Galleon of Venice_, commanded by Condalmiero, a
+squadron in herself, preceded them.
+
+[Illustration: GALEASSE UNDER SAIL.]
+
+From the anchorage at Corfu to the entrance of the Gulf of Arta is about
+fifty-eight miles, and, traversing this distance during the hours of
+daylight, the fleet anchored, as night fell, under Cape Prevesa. The
+Galleon which acted as what we should now call the guide of the fleet,
+anchored in sixteen feet of water, which was barely sufficient to keep her
+afloat.
+
+The Gulf of Arta, in which, as we have said, the fleet of the Moslems were
+now anchored, presents very curious physical peculiarities: it is
+twenty-two miles in length from east to west, and fifteen miles in breadth
+from north to south. This sheet of water is formed into an immense bay by
+the configuration of the land, and its depth, in places, is from one
+hundred and thirty to two hundred feet. Inside it all the navies in the
+world might ride at anchor, were it not for the fact that the entrance is
+closed by a bar upon which the depth varies from six and a half to thirteen
+feet. With his light-draught ships Barbarossa occupied the interior
+position, while the heavy ships of Doria must in any event remain outside.
+A strong sea-breeze was blowing on shore; all night the nefs and the
+galleys were nearly rolling their gunwales under. In these packed and
+crowded vessels the misery and discomfort of their crews may be imagined.
+On the morning of the 26th, however, the west wind dropped, and a light
+wind sprang up from the northward.
+
+The position at this time was one of surpassing interest. Here at long last
+the two most renowned sea-captains of the time were face to face. Each was
+aware that his antagonist was worthy of his steel, also that great issues,
+political and national, hung upon this conflict; which was no mere affair
+of outposts, but a struggle to the death as to whether the Crescent or the
+Cross was in time to come to be supreme in the tideless sea. And yet--such
+is the irony of fate--this battle proved indecisive, and it was not until
+thirty years later, at the battle of Lepanto, that this momentous question
+was set at rest for a time.
+
+Would Doria, greatly daring, go in and risk all in attacking a fortified
+position; or would Barbarossa make a sally and fight it out to the death on
+the element on which he was so supremely at home?
+
+But Doria had no mind to attack a fleet anchored under the guns of a
+fortress; Barbarossa would not risk all in an encounter with a foe
+possessed of great numerical superiority without orders from
+Constantinople. On Doria's side nothing but a disembarkation and a
+land-attack would offer a fair security for success, Kheyr-ed-Din, who
+held, as we have said, the interior position, was well aware of this fact,
+and in this supreme moment of his career was not disposed to give away any
+advantage. The situation occupied by Kheyr-ed-Din at the battle of Prevesa
+was, in a sense, different from any which he had held before, as he was in
+this case hampered by his sense of responsibility as Admiralissimo to the
+Grand Turk. What happened on the distant shores of Africa mattered but
+little to that monarch, and he had been content to allow his admiral an
+entirely free hand; here in Europe, on the shores of Greece, so close
+relatively to his own capital city, it was a very different matter, and
+Soliman was kept in touch with the happenings of his fleet as far as was
+possible in those days. But if the great corsair did not add to his
+reputation in this eventful campaign he still displayed an aptitude in
+realising the situation which, it is safe to say, was shown by none of
+those under his command.
+
+Prevesa illustrates for us more than any other action the difficulties with
+which the path of the partisan leader in these days must always have been
+filled; and how it was that personal ascendancy was the only force to which
+such a leader had to trust Sheer dominance of the minds, the wills, and the
+bodies of others had placed Kheyr-ed-Din where he was; all his life he had
+commanded undisciplined pirates, and yet now, when he was the properly
+accredited officer of a mighty monarch, when he might have expected far
+more discipline and subordination than had ever been his lot in the past,
+he was met with a contumaciousness which he was unable to quell, and was
+forced into taking steps which, in his own unequalled knowledge of war, he
+knew to be doomed to disaster.
+
+Around him the Reis, or captains of the Moslem galleys, clamorously
+demanded that he should take precautions against a land-attack. It was true
+that the raid which had been made by Grimani had been easily repulsed, but
+in present circumstances there was no question of a mere raid, as, should
+the Christian admiral so decide, he could land twenty thousand men. Sinan
+Reis, an old Osmanli warrior, furious with jealousy that the chief command
+should be in the hands of a corsair, sustained his opinion in a manner
+which augured ill for the hearty co-operation of all the Turkish forces.
+Sinan was just one of those blindly valiant fighters from whom the politic
+Ibrahim had desired to deliver his master when he had urged the appointment
+of Kheyr-ed-Din: brave as a lion, keen as the edge of his own good
+scimitar, fanatical, as became a Hodja who had visited the Holy Places,
+Sinan was a type of the Turkish sea-officer: devoid of strategical instinct
+and tactical training, his one idea was a headlong attack, then victory or
+the houris of Paradise. It will be seen that Barbarossa had not only Doria
+and the Christian fleet and army against which to contend on this occasion.
+
+The peril conjured up by Sinan Reis on this occasion was not altogether an
+imaginary one: the idea of a disembarkation had, in point of fact, been
+seriously discussed that very morning by Andrea Doria and his council of
+war, at which Hernando de Gonzaga, Generalissimo of the troops embarked,
+had advised a landing. His argument, embodied in a long and technical
+harangue, may be reduced to the following:
+
+  If we cannot go straight at the enemy and force our way through the
+  entrance under his cannon why should we not reduce the fortress of
+  Prevesa by a siege? Once masters of this height, we could close the
+  strait by sinking in it vessels laden with stones, and we then have the
+  Ottoman fleet at our mercy.
+
+But Doria the sailor was not to be led by Gonzaga the soldier. He said:
+
+  The advice seems sound, but in reality it would prove most dangerous if
+  followed. Barbarossa must have landed some of his men, the cavalry which
+  defeated Grimani's raid will no doubt come again from the interior, if
+  necessary. If we deprive our ships of their soldiers we expose ourselves
+  to a sea-fight under most disadvantageous conditions. But most,
+  important of all is the fact that time presses; the season is far
+  advanced; at any time the fleet may be driven off these shores by a
+  storm, in which case what would become of the troops left on shore?
+  Again, if it comes on to blow a tempest from the westward we may lose
+  not only our troops, but our ships, in fact the whole expedition.
+
+At the battle of Actium, Octavius occupied the shore upon which Hernando
+Gonzaga wished to land and assault; but notwithstanding this fact Octavius
+did not attempt the passage of the gulf but waited for his enemy outside.
+Doria was therefore all the more justified in not sacrificing ships and men
+in attempting to force an entrance now that this same shore was in the
+hands of the enemy. He was asked, he said, to thrust his head into the
+mouth of the wolf, and this he was determined not to do.
+
+In the meanwhile Barbarossa was using much the same language to his
+captains as was Doria.
+
+"My brothers," said he, "you wish to transport cannon and raise redoubts on
+this uncovered shore because you think that the Christians will disembark
+and seize it: if you attempt this I tell you that the guns of the enemy
+will annoy you terribly., Not only this, supposing that Doria, profiting by
+the moment that our vessels are empty of troops, should attack in force, we
+cannot with five thousand men repulse twenty thousand. The fort of Prevesa
+will defend itself quite sufficiently well with its own garrison; our
+business is to think of the fleet and not to weaken in any way our means of
+attack and defence, If the infidels force, or attempt to force, an entry
+into the port, they will be most likely merely losing time and ammunition
+in cannonading us. You know that it is principally in this that these
+accursed dogs do trust, whereas we, O men of Islam, will place our
+confidence in God, in Mahomet his Prophet, in the strength of our right
+arms, in the keenness of our scimitars; we will carry them by boarding,
+therefore we must keep our crews on board,"
+
+But Barbarossa had not that absolute domination of the forces under his
+command which should be the prescriptive right of any leader. Sinan-Reis,
+the implacable be-turbaned old Osmanli, held him in bitter scorn. "Your
+advice may be good," he retorted, "but we think our plan the better."
+
+The admiral suggested a reconnaissance of the site, which was merely a ruse
+to gain time. This was carried out under his own supervision, and confirmed
+him in the idea that disembarkation was folly; but Sinan-Reis and the
+Janissaries held obstinately to their opinion, while the "Joldaks," or
+Turkish soldiers in the galleys, grumbled among themselves that
+Kheyr-ed-Din must indeed be full of vanity to reject the counsels of one
+like Sinan-Reis.
+
+Both commanders-in-chief, Christian and Moslem, seem on this occasion to
+have taken an absolutely correct view of the problem as it was presented;
+but whereas Andrea Doria was a real commander-in-chief, Barbarossa was
+forced to consider and to defer to the opinions of men whom he knew to be
+in the wrong.
+
+It was against his better judgment that Kheyr-ed-Din at last yielded; the
+men were backing up their officers, a spirit of disaffection was abroad in
+the armada: such a thing as this a wise chief must gauge at its true value,
+and stop before it goes too far. The Osmanli were murmuring against "the
+corsair"; it was time to let them see whether they or their war-worn leader
+possessed the greater wisdom.
+
+According to Moslem chroniclers the valour of Kheyr-ed-Din was only
+equalled by his piety; consequently he murmured a prayer into that famous
+beard of his, which was now so much nearer to white than red, and gave
+orders that the cannon shall be immediately disembarked. "Let the will of
+God and of His Prophet be accomplished; that which is written is that which
+will take place," exclaimed this pious man as he watched the preparations
+being carried out under the supervision of Mourad-Reis.
+
+That which "took place" was precisely and exactly what the Commander-in-
+Chief had predicted from the first: no sooner had Mourad-Reis landed upon
+the exposed beach, and attempted to open a trench, than he was met by a
+furious and concentrated fire from the galleys and nefs of the Christian
+fleet. To entrench themselves was impossible in the circumstances, as they
+had been told by the Admiral before they started on this harebrained
+adventure. There could be only one result, which was that, after a cruel
+and perfectly useless slaughter, the soldiers of Mourad-Reis had to retreat
+before the hail of shot poured upon them, and to return ignominiously to
+their vessels.
+
+It is not on record what Kheyr-ed-Din said to Sinan, Mourad, and those
+other tacticians who had recommended the landing; which perhaps is a pity.
+
+Doria then made a tentative movement against the strait by a detachment of
+galleys; Barbarossa told off an equal number to oppose them, and they
+mutually cannonaded and skirmished during the day. There was much noise and
+excitement, but practically no advantage was gained by either side, as
+Doria's men could not risk passing the guns of the fort, nor could those of
+Barbarossa the chance of being cannonaded by the heavy vessels lying in
+wait-for them outside. And so the day closed down with no success on either
+side, but with a decisive demonstration to the Moslems that, if they
+desired victory, to their admiral had better be left the organisation by
+which it was to be obtained.
+
+Whether Doria really desired a pitched battle can never be known; that
+which is certain is that, during the whole time the fleets were in touch,
+all his dispositions make it appear there was nothing of which he was so
+much afraid. And yet it was the opportunity of his life; he had superiority
+in numbers, he had valiant and experienced leaders, and sixty thousand men
+thirsting for battle, under his command. Also he had his opportunity,
+which, had he seized upon, must have ended in victory, did those who were
+under his orders only fight as he had every reason to believe that they
+would. As it was, he threw away the gift of fortune, and left to the
+Osmanli the practical dominance of the Mediterranean Sea until that great
+day in 1571 when Don John of Austria, the natural son of Charles V., proved
+to the world at Lepanto that the Turk was not invincible upon the waters.
+
+It is true that Doria was awkwardly situated; Kheyr-ed-Din held the
+interior position, and that leader was a great believer in the adage that
+"if Brag is a good dog, Holdfast is a better." He was well aware of his
+numerical inferiority, and in consequence refused to listen to the frenzied
+appeals of the excited Moslems to be led against the Christian dogs. It may
+seem a contradiction in terms to speak of the moral courage of a pirate;
+but if ever that quality were displayed to its fullest extent it was
+exhibited by Barbarossa in the Prevesa campaign. In his intellectual
+outlook on all that was passing, both inside and outside of the Gulf of
+Arta, in this September of 1538, we see Kheyr-ed-Din at his best. Ever a
+fighter, he knew when to give battle and when to refrain, when to sweep
+headlong upon the foe, but also when to hold back and to baffle by waiting
+till the psychological moment should arrive. Around him Sinan-Reis,
+Mourad-Reis, and half a hundred others of their kidney were clamouring;
+they hurled insults at his head, they heaped opprobrium on "the corsair,"
+they practically incited their troops to mutiny in their mad appeals to be
+led against the foe.
+
+But "the corsair" kept his head, and kept his temper, and saved the Ottoman
+fleet for his master from his great rival, Doria. That noble Genoese seaman
+was for once in his life "letting I dare not wait upon I would"; he would
+not order the attack for which his men were waiting, and no provocation,
+apparently, could tempt Barbarossa to play Antony to the Octavius of Doria;
+the Christian admiral was tempting Providence at that advanced season of
+the year in keeping the sea on an hostile coast on which at any time he
+might be driven by a tempest. His old and experienced antagonist was well
+aware that the winds and the waves might save him the trouble of destroying
+the fleet of the enemy; an equinoctial gale would do that far more
+effectually than could he. If Doria had an uneasy consciousness that he
+might at any time see the shore littered with oarless galleys and dismasted
+nefs, while the sea was filled with drowning men, the same vision had been
+vouchsafed to his imperturbable adversary. Had it been left to the entire
+initiative of Barbarossa, his Fabian tactics would assuredly have prevailed
+in the end; but as it was he was surrounded by a clamouring host of men,
+soldiers by trade, who, understanding nothing of the happenings of the sea,
+merely derided as cowardice any postponement of what they regarded as the
+inevitable battle. The admiral of the Sultan held out as long as it was
+possible, but at last, owing to a new factor in the case, was forced,
+against his better judgment, to offer the battle which it was in his power
+to have withheld.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+THE BATTLE OF PREVESA
+
+  How Alessandro Condalmiero fought the _Galleon of Venice_--"The
+  King of the Sea is dead."
+
+There is something almost pathetic in the spectacle of a really great
+leader badgered and importuned by lesser men to adopt a course which he,
+with a superior insight, knows to be unsound. In the matter of the landing
+Barbarossa had demonstrated that it was he whose knowledge of war was
+superior to those who were so ready to thrust upon him their opinions;
+this, however, did not content them, and they now desired to close with the
+foe waiting for them outside. If ever a commander was justified in waiting
+on events it was Barbarossa at this juncture; the business of a
+commander-in-chief is to ensure victory, and if he sees, as did the Moslem
+admiral on this occasion, that more is to be gained by delay than by
+fighting, then he is justified in refusing battle: particularly is this the
+case when the enemy is in greatly superior force blockading on an open and
+dangerous coast at an inclement season of the year. Every day that Doria
+was kept at sea added to his difficulties, as fresh water and provisions
+would be running short, and the energies of the human engines by which his
+galleys were propelled would be weakened; naked men chained to a bench were
+suffering from the blazing heat of the days, the cold and drenching dews of
+the nights. All these things had the veteran seaman weighed in his mind,
+they all inclined him to wait still longer in that secure anchorage where
+he could not be touched by his foe.
+
+There was one counsellor, however, whom even Kheyr-ed-Din could not resist,
+and who had hitherto kept silence; this was the eunuch Monuc, legal
+counsellor to Soliman, who had accompanied the armada. He now brought the
+weight of his influence to bear upon the side of Sinan-Reis and his
+colleagues.
+
+"Are you going," he asked the admiral, "to allow the infidels to escape
+without a battle? Soliman can find plenty of wood to build new fleets,
+plenty of captains to command them; he will pardon you if this fleet is
+destroyed: that which he will never pardon is that you should allow Doria
+to escape without fighting. You have brave men in plenty; why not lead them
+to the attack?"
+
+The patience of the veteran gave way at last; none who knew Barbarossa had
+ever seen him shrink from fighting--to this his whole career bore witness.
+He had delayed the issue from the soundest of strategical reasons, which
+those under his command were too stupid and too prejudiced to understand:
+what cared they for reason in their blind valour?--they wished only to do
+or die heedless of the fact that their lives might be spent in vain. Truly
+it was no thanks to the subordinates of Kheyr-ed-Din that this campaign did
+not end in disaster to the arms of the Ottoman Porte. Such backing as the
+admiral had came from among his own men, the corsairs whose lives had been
+spent at sea, but their opinions were but dust in the balance once the
+all-powerful Monuc ranged himself on the side of the malcontents.
+
+"Let us then fight," said the admiral to Saleh-Reis, "or this fine talker
+who is neither man nor woman will accuse us before the Grand Turk and we
+shall all probably be hanged."
+
+The Christian fleet during the night of September 26-7th had made some
+thirty miles to the southward; just before daybreak the wind freshened and
+drew right ahead; Doria approached the island of Santa Maura and anchored
+under the small islet of Sessola.
+
+Barbarossa had now decided to leave his anchorage, but the veteran seaman
+did not disguise from himself the risks which he ran: a greater sea captain
+than he once said "only numbers can annihilate," and it was at annihilation
+that both the Moslem and the Christian aimed: in this case, however, he
+knew that he could but hope for a hard-won victory, and only that if Allah
+and his Prophet were unusually favourable to his cause. He assembled his
+captains, many of whom had served with him during long periods of his
+career, and directed them to form line: he said, "I have but one order to
+give, follow my movements attentively and regulate your own accordingly."
+
+With fustas, brigantines, galleots, and galleys, the Ottoman fleet amounted
+in all to one hundred and forty sail. With shouts of joy the soldiers
+hailed the command to weigh the anchors, and in a very short time all were
+slowly moving seaward.
+
+The die was cast: Doria from his anchorage at Sessola saw the sea white
+with the sails of the enemy, the blue water churning to foam beneath the
+strokes of his oars; the Ottoman fleet was issuing from the Gulf of Arta
+manoeuvring with precision and deploying into a single line abreast; which
+line being slightly concave, either from accident or design, resembled the
+form of a crescent. In advance came six great fustas commanded by Dragut;
+the left wing hugged the shore as closely as possible; the Ottoman
+commander-in-chief intended to commence operations on the first principles
+of strategy by flinging his whole force on a portion of that of the enemy.
+
+Andrea Doria remained undecided: he was on a lee shore, and that shore was
+the coast of the enemy; although his foes were advancing to the attack it
+seemed as if he had no mind to fight: whether he had or had not he
+displayed a most remarkable sluggishness, hesitating for three hours before
+getting up his anchors; these he only weighed at last under pressure from
+the bellicose Patriarch of Aquilea, Vincenzo Capello, and the Papal
+captain, Antonio Grimani. Doria had counted on the support of the _Galleon
+of Venice_ and the nefs; but the galleon was becalmed four miles from the
+land and ten miles from Sessola, where Doria was at the beginning of the
+action.
+
+Condalmiero sent a light skiff from the _Galleon of Venice_ to the
+commander-in-chief demanding orders and help from the galleys.
+
+"Begin the fight," answered the admiral, "you will be succoured."
+
+The position of Condalmiero was that of a modern battleship which is
+disabled and surrounded by foes in full possession of their motive power;
+the great galleon floated inert upon the waters while the galleys could
+fight or fly as they wished. The captain of the galleon, however, had no
+alternative save to surrender or fight; but there was no hesitation on his
+part, for a more gallant officer never trod the decks of a warship of the
+proud Republic to which he belonged.
+
+The Moslem galleys were now close upon him, although as yet out of
+gun-shot; around him they wheeled and circled like a flight of great
+sea-birds, their ferocious crews shouting their war-cries calling upon
+Allah and the Prophet to give them the victory for which they craved; many
+a brave Venetian who heard for the first time the name of Barbarossa
+shouted in battle must have braced himself for the coming conflict, knowing
+all that was imported by that terrible name. The sun shone in a cloudless
+sky, the galleon lay becalmed in the middle of furious and ravening foes,
+the succour promised by Doria was ten miles away; they saw no movement
+which indicated help, and the odds against them were heavy indeed. But all
+the nervousness was not on one side, for the _Galleon of Venice_ was
+something new in the naval warfare of the time; she carried engines of
+destruction in the shape of great guns which the corsairs could by no means
+equal. Of this they were well aware, and the attack was delayed while the
+oarsmen in the galleys rested on their oars out of range to allow them
+breathing time before the supreme moment arrived. But the hounds were only
+held in leash; there came a signal which was answered by a concentrated
+yell of fury and of hate; then from right ahead, right astern, on the port
+side and the starboard, the galleys were launched to the attack. But all on
+board the great Venetian vessel was as still as that death which awaited so
+many of the combatants in this supreme struggle.
+
+Condalmiero had caused the crew of the galleon to lie down upon her decks,
+and stood himself, a gallant solitary figure in his shining armour, a mark
+for the hail of shot so soon to be discharged. It came, and with it the
+mast of the galleon bearing the Lion Standard of St. Mark crashed over the
+side into the water; renewed yells of triumph came from the Moslems, but
+still that ominous silence reigned on board the galleon. Untouched,
+unharmed, the Osmanlis came on firing as rapidly as possible until they
+were absolutely within arquebuss range. Closer they came and closer; then
+the sides of the galleon burst into sheeted flame, and the guns levelled at
+point-blank range tore through the attacking host. Condalmiero was throwing
+away no chances; he had directed his gunners to allow their balls to
+ricochet before striking rather than to throw them away by allowing them to
+fly over the heads of the enemy.
+
+The first broadside did terrible execution; a ball one hundred and twenty
+pounds in weight, fired by the chief bombardier, Francisco d'Arba in
+person, burst in the prow of a galley so effectually that all her people
+flew aft to the poop to prevent the water rushing in; but the vessel was
+practically split in twain, and sank in a few moments. All around were dead
+and dying men, disabled galleys, floating wreckage; the _Galleon of Venice_
+had taken a terrible toll of the Osmanli; the order to retreat out of range
+was given, and never was order obeyed with greater alacrity.
+
+With accuracy and precision the galleon played upon such vessels as
+remained within range, doing great execution. But she was now to be
+subjected to an even severer test than the first headlong attack. She had
+demonstrated to the Moslem leaders that here was no vessel to be carried by
+mere reckless valour; a disciplined and ordered offensive was the only plan
+which promised success; the Osmanli must use their brain as well as their
+courage if that tattered flag, rescued from the water, and nailed to the
+stump of the mast of the galleon, was ever to be torn down. There was
+something daunting in the very aspect of the solid bulk of the huge
+Venetian, something weird in the manner in which her crew never showed,
+save only the steadfast figure of her captain immovable as a statue of
+bronze, where he stood on her shot-torn poop.
+
+This Homeric conflict was a triumph of discipline and gunnery on the part
+of the Venetians; alert, accurate, and cool, the gunners of the galleon
+threw away none of their ammunition: inspired by the heroic spirit of their
+captain, great was the honour which they did on this stricken field to the
+noble traditions of their forbears and the service to which they belonged.
+
+The first attack had been most brilliantly repulsed, but this was only
+preliminary to a conflict which was to last all through the day; the Moslem
+galleys withdrew out of gunshot and re-formed; then a squadron of twenty
+advanced, delivered their fire, and retired; their place was then taken by
+a second squadron, which went through the same performance, and then came
+on a third. In this manner the attack, which began one hour after noon, and
+which was continued until sunset, was conducted. The galleon had thirteen
+men killed, and forty wounded; no doubt the slaughter would have been much
+greater had it not been for the enormous thickness of her sides and for the
+fact that the guns carried by the galleys were necessarily light.
+Notwithstanding, the galleon suffered terribly, she was a mass of wreckage;
+twice fire had broken out on board of her, she was cumbered by fallen
+masts, battered almost out of recognition, but still Condalmiero and her
+gallant crew fought on imperturbably with no thought of surrender. Covered
+with blood, wounded in the face and the right leg by flying splinters, her
+captain preserved his magnificent coolness, and his decimated crew
+responded nobly to his call. At eventide the fire from the galleon was
+almost as deadly as it had been at the first onslaught, and many galleys of
+the Turks were only saved from sinking by the activity and bravery of their
+carpenters, who, slung over their sides in "boatswains' chairs," drove home
+huge plugs of wood with their mallets into the shot-holes made by the
+Venetian guns.
+
+At the hour when the sun dipped below the horizon all the Turkish fleet
+seemed assembled to assault the colossus which so long had resisted their
+attack; there was a pause in the combat, and the firing died down.
+Condalmiero and his men braced themselves for the assault which they felt
+to be inevitable: for now the darkness was swiftly coming, in which they
+could no longer see to shoot, and under cover of which their numerous foes
+could assail them by boarding in comparative safety. Now the moment had
+come for the last act in this terrible drama of the sea. They had held
+their own at long odds throughout the whole of a hot September day, and as
+the level beams of the setting sun shone on their shattered ship they were
+prepared to die, fighting to the last man for the honour of Venice and the
+glory of St. Mark.
+
+Stiff and worn, wearied almost to the breaking strain, there was no man on
+board who even dreamt of surrender; all the guns were charged to the muzzle
+with bullets and broken stone, the artillerists match in hand stood grimly
+awaiting the order to fire, straining their eyes and their ears in the
+gathering darkness; in a few minutes at most they knew that the fate of the
+_Galleon of Venice_ must be decided.
+
+On board his galley, decorated for this occasion with scarlet banners,
+Barbarossa himself directed the assaulting line. Never before when the
+battle was joined had the gallant corsair been known to draw back; and yet
+on this occasion he not only hesitated but actually hauled off. The
+Venetians saw to their amazement that the expected attack was not to be
+pushed home; for Barbarossa and his captains fell upon some lesser vessels:
+the _Galleon of Venice_ was victorious.
+
+Meanwhile Doria was displaying his mastery of tactics when it was hard
+fighting that was wanted; he pretended that he wished to draw the Ottoman
+fleet into the high seas in order that he might destroy their galleys by
+means of the broadsides of his nefs; consequently he executed useless
+parade movements when he should by all the rules of warfare have closed
+with his enemy who was in distinctly inferior force; as he had a fair wind
+there is only one conclusion to be drawn, and that is that he did not want
+to fight.
+
+His manoeuvres certainly mystified the Turks, who viewed his tactics with
+mistrust, thinking them the outset of some deeply laid scheme; it never
+entered into their calculations for one moment that the great Andrea Doria,
+the terror of the Mediterranean sea, and the victor in scores of desperate
+engagements, was anxious to avoid a fight.
+
+Grimani and Capello, docile to the orders of their admiral, followed him
+full of uneasiness and distrust; they were fighting men of the most fiery
+description; to them the issue seemed of the simplest: there was the enemy
+in inferior force to themselves, they had the weather gauge, why delay the
+attack?
+
+"For much less than this," says Admiral Jurien de la Gravi�re, "the English
+shot Admiral Byng in 1756." The conduct of Doria on this occasion has
+certainly never been explained; the two other leaders went on board and
+remonstrated with their commander-in-chief; they were neither of them men
+who could be treated as negligible quantities on the field of battle; both
+belonged to that brilliant Venetian nobility so renowned in commerce and in
+war. Marco Grimani was in command of the Papal galleys, in itself a mark of
+the highest esteem and confidence from a potentate second to none in his
+influence in the civilised world. To Vincenzo Capello, Henry the Seventh of
+England confided his royal person and the command of his fleet when he
+crossed the Channel to encounter Richard the Second at Bosworth field. Five
+times had he filled the office of Providiteur in Venice, twice had he been
+commander-in-chief of her fleet, he was in perpetuity Procureur of St.
+Mark, to him Venice owed her naval discipline. He wore on this day the
+mantle of crimson silk with which the Republic invested her generals.
+Bitter was the rage in his heart, and bitterly must he have spoken to
+Doria, who, in spite of all remonstrances, continued his futile
+manoeuvrings.
+
+There was glory won on this day, but it was gained neither by Andrea Doria
+nor Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa. The _Galleon of Venice_ with Alessandro
+Condalmiero and his gallant crew had shown to all a splendid example of
+disciplined valour unexcelled in sixteenth-century annals.
+
+Barbarossa had captured a Venetian galley, a Papal galley, and five Spanish
+nefs, but he had recoiled from the assault on Condalmiero when the prize
+was actually within his grasp. For the rest it was a day of manoeuvring and
+tactics; tactics when sixty thousand men had been embarked on board two
+hundred ships for a specific and definite object on the side of the
+Christians and under the command of their most celebrated admiral; and yet
+the balance of advantage was actually gained by the inferior force. No
+subsequent glories can ever wipe this stain from the scutcheon of Doria, or
+can excuse the fact that at the most supreme moment of his career he failed
+to fight the battle that he was in honour, in conscience, and in duty bound
+to deliver. Next day the wind came fair for Corfu, and Doria, his ships
+untouched, unscathed, unharmed, put his helm up and sailed away followed by
+his fleet.
+
+Sandoval records the fact that Barbarossa, roaring with laughter the while,
+was accustomed to say that Doria had even put out his lanterns in order
+that no one might see whither he had fled. This was an allusion to the
+fact--or supposition--that Doria extinguished on that night the great poop
+lantern carried by him as admiral.
+
+When Soliman the Magnificent heard of the result of this battle he caused
+the town of Yamboli, where he was at the time, to be illuminated, and in
+the excess of his joy he added one hundred thousand aspres to the revenues
+of the conqueror; there were processions to the Grand Mosque, and all Islam
+rejoiced and sang the praises of the invincible admiral who had humbled to
+the dust the pride of the Christian and caused the dreaded Doria to fly
+from before the fleet of the Sultan.
+
+This, the most historical, if not the greatest feat in the life of
+Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, was for him a triumph indeed; with a vastly
+inferior force he had driven from the field of battle his "rival in glory,"
+as he himself had denominated Andrea Doria, and he had accomplished this
+feat notwithstanding the almost mutinous condition of his own forces. In
+spite of this it is with Condalmiero and with him alone that the glory of
+this day must rest; alone, absolutely unsupported as we have seen, he
+fought one of those fights which bring the heart into the mouth when we
+read of them; the stern pride of the Venetian noble, who despised as
+canaille the pirate hosts by whom he was assailed, had its counterpart in
+the sturdy valour of Chief Bombardier Francisco d'Arba and the other
+nameless heroes of which that good company was composed; to them we render
+that homage which so justly is their due.
+
+The whole campaign of Prevesa, as we have said, is a curious study in
+hesitation, in dilatoriness, in absolute lack of initiative and virility on
+the part of the two chief actors in the drama: that Doria should fly from
+the field of battle in an untouched ship is only one degree less incredible
+than that Barbarossa should have relinquished his attack on the _Galleon of
+Venice_. It would almost seem as if on this occasion each of the great
+rivals was hypnotised by the presence of the other; all their lives they
+had been seeking honour and riches on the sea, they knew, of course, that
+all men in both the world of Islam and that of Christendom looked upon them
+in the light of the special champions of the opposing sects, that the eyes
+of the entire world were fastened on this meeting of theirs in the classic
+waters of the Ambracian Gulf. In consequence neither man was at his best;
+indeed, we might go further than this, and say that on this occasion both
+lamentably failed. There is no fault to be found with the strategic
+preliminaries to the final conflict, each admiral acting with prudence and
+wisdom in the situation in which he found himself placed. That the
+perfectly correct idea of not giving battle to a superior force when he
+held so strong an interior position was given up by Barbarossa, was, as we
+have seen, not his fault; and when he issued from his anchorage, in
+deference to a sentiment among those under his command which he could no
+longer resist, his dispositions seem to have been made with his usual
+skill. Where he failed, however, was where, from all his previous history,
+we should least have expected failure, in his abandonment of the attack on
+the _Galleon of Venice_; this, of course, was inexcusable, and can only be
+set down to failure of nerve at the supreme moment. The ship had been
+battered by artillery all day long, a huge percentage of her company were
+dead and wounded, and the remainder worn out with fatigue. On the Moslem
+side we have seen that there were squadrons of galleys able to relieve one
+another with no interference from Doria, who was persisting in his futile
+manoeuvring miles away. Had the galleon been boarded, as she might and
+should have been, at nightfall, nothing could have saved Condalmiero and
+his crew: so strenuous, however, had been their resistance, that the
+Turkish seamen feared the issue; in consequence the battle between them and
+the Venetians was a drawn one, with all the honours on the Christian side.
+
+It is here that we shall take leave of Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, as although
+he was yet to live another eight years before he died in his bed at
+Constantinople in July, 1548, there are no further happenings of any great
+importance in his career.
+
+"Valorous, yet prudent, furious in attack, far-seeing in preparation, he
+ranks as the first sea-captain of his time;"[1] as the story of his life
+has unfolded itself in these pages we have seen what manner of man it was
+who terrified Europe, who made for himself a reputation which stands out
+clear and distinct among all the great men of which this century was so
+prolific. One of the surest methods of estimating a strenuous man of action
+is to seek for the names of those by whom he was surrounded: the men
+selected by him to assist in the carrying out of the work of his life; thus
+in reading of Napoleon Bonaparte we interest ourselves in his marshals, in
+reading of Nelson we note the captains by whom he was supported. In the
+case of Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, a great man of action if one ever lived,
+we find no trace of devoted adherents on that high plane of command we have
+indicated in the cases cited above. That he had devoted followers enough is
+absolutely certain, but of high officers we very seldom find a trace, and
+these he treated with contumely and offence on many occasions; witness the
+treatment meted out to Hassan and to Venalcadi. There is practically no
+trace of his domestic life to be found, we cannot discover that he
+possessed any intimate friend. There is none other in all history to whom
+he can be satisfactorily compared; there are few who in their generation
+have wielded such enormous powers, who have climbed so high from the sheer
+unassisted force of their own intellect and their own character.
+
+[Footnote 1: Stanley Lane Poole.]
+
+Physical strength such as is vouchsafed to one man in a million, a
+constitution nothing could impair, endurance incomparable, were his bodily
+attributes: an intellect cold, clear, and penetrating was his, joined to an
+imperturbability of temperament which enabled him to accept with a cheerful
+philosophy blows by which weaker men were absolutely prostrated; his
+outlook on life was not dimmed by any affections, and pity was a sensation
+which to him was entirely alien. In this record of his deeds the reader has
+been spared all mention of the atrocious tortures he was in the habit of
+inflicting on his victims for any or no provocation, and many of them are
+as incomprehensible as they are sickening. That in which he was supreme was
+his craft as a seaman in an age when real seamen were rare; on land he was
+frequently defeated, at sea there seems to be no record of such an
+occurrence. To sum up, he appears to us in the light of history as a body,
+a brain, and an intellect, without any trace of a heart. His path through
+life was one unending trail of blood and fire, moistened by the tears of
+his countless victims, followed by the curses of those whom he despoiled.
+Yet, in spite of this, it is impossible not to admire the man who, by his
+own superhuman energy, ever swept all obstacles from his path, and caused
+the whole of the civilised world to quail at the name of Barbarossa.
+
+He died peacefully in his bed at Constantinople in July, 1546, to the grief
+of the world of Islam and the inexpressible joy of Christendom. "The king
+of the sea is dead," expressed in three Arabic words, gives the numerical
+value 953, the year of the Hegira in which he died.
+
+For many years after his death no Turkish ship ever left the Golden Horn
+without her crew repeating a prayer and firing a salute over the tomb of
+Beshiktsah, where lie the bones of the first and greatest of Turkish
+admirals, the corsair who was at one and the same time admiral, pirate, and
+king.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+THE NAVY OF OARS. THE GALLEY, THE GALEASSE, AND THE NEF
+
+In the sixteenth century the vessel of war in the Mediterranean was
+essentially that oar-propelled craft known to us as the galley. As time
+went on she was gradually superseded by the sailing man-of-war which was
+able to carry that heavy ordnance which the light scantling of the galley
+did not permit of her mounting; but for the use of the corsairs who lived
+by means of raids and surprise attacks, whose business it was to lie perdu
+on the trade routes, the mobility of the galley was of prime importance,
+and they could not afford to trust to the wind alone as a motive power. The
+galley was analogous to the steam vessel in that it was independent of the
+wind to a large extent: human bone and muscle supplied the part of engines,
+and those who fought upon the sea caused themselves to be moved over the
+face of the waters by the exertions of their enemies. It is true that upon
+one occasion, as we have seen, Kheyred-Din Barbarossa did possess a fleet
+of galleys the rowers of which were all Moslems, which crew upon battle
+being joined dropped their oars, seized their weapons and assisted in the
+conquest of the foe. But this was an isolated instance, as it was almost
+impossible at any time and in any circumstances to procure free men ready
+to undertake a life of such intolerable suffering as that of a rower on
+board a galley; in consequence these men were almost invariably slaves, or
+else in later times condemned felons whose judges had sent them to work out
+their sentences upon the rowers' bench. The great characteristic of the
+galley was her mobility, and in a comparative degree her speed, as for a
+short burst, when her crew of rowers were fresh, their trained muscles were
+capable of tremendous exertion; for any length of time, however, it is
+obvious that her speed must have declined as the rowers became exhausted.
+She was long, narrow, of extremely low freeboard, and slight depth of hold;
+a galley of 125 feet between perpendiculars would perhaps be 180 feet over
+all taking in the poop and the prow. A galley of this length would only
+have a beam of 19 feet and a depth of hold of 7 feet 6 inches. The sailing
+ship of contemporary times would for the same length have had a beam of
+about 40 feet and an extremely high freeboard; she was in consequence
+necessarily slow and incapable of sailing on a wind.
+
+So distinct at this time was the line drawn between the sailing vessel and
+the galley that the actual terminology used was entirely different; that is
+to say, the names of such things as masts, sails, rudder, tiller, stern,
+stempost, cutwater, etc., were not the same words; the sailor who used
+sails could not understand his brother mariner who used oars, and _vice
+versa_.
+
+[Illustration: GALLEY UNDER OARS.]
+
+What was necessary of course in the galley was many oars and many hands to
+use them; the vessel was most skilfully constructed for this purpose so as
+to get the fullest power from her human engines; the result was that men
+were crowded on board of her to such an extent that there was scarcely room
+to breathe, such a craft as the one of which the dimensions have been given
+having on board some four hundred men.
+
+Barras de la Penne, a French officer who in 1713 first went on board a
+galley, thus describes what he saw:
+
+  "Those who see a galley for the first time are astonished to see so many
+  persons; there are an infinite number of villages in Europe which do not
+  contain an equal number of inhabitants; however, this is not the
+  principal cause of one's surprise, but that so many men can be assembled
+  in so small a space. It is truth that many of them have not room to
+  sleep at full length, for they put seven men on one bench; that is to
+  say, on a space about ten feet long and four broad; at the bows one sees
+  some thirty sailors who have for their lodging the floor space of the
+  rambades (this is the platform at the prow of the galley) which consists
+  of a rectangular space ten feet long by eight in width. The captain and
+  officers who live on the poop are scarcely better lodged, and one is
+  tempted to compare their grandeur with that of Diogenes in his tub.
+
+  "When the unpitying Libyan Sea surprises these galleys upon the Roman
+  coasts, when the Norther lashes to foam the Gulf of Lyons, when the
+  humid east wind of Syria is driving them off shore, everything combines
+  to make life on board a modern galley a hell of misery and discomfort.
+  The creaking of the blocks and cordage, the loud cries of the
+  sailors, the horrible maledictions of the galley slaves, the groaning of
+  the timbers, mingled with the clank of chains and the bellowings of the
+  tempest, produce sentiments of affright in the most intrepid breasts.
+  The rain, the hail, the lightning, habitual accompaniments of these
+  terrific storms, the waves which dash over the vessel, all add to the
+  horror of the situation, and although devotion is not as a rule very
+  strongly marked on board a galley, you will hear these folk praying to
+  God, and others making vows to the Saints; these would do much better
+  not to forget God and his Saints when the danger is past.
+
+  "Calm itself has also its inconveniences, as the evil smells which arise
+  from the galley are then so strong that one cannot get away from them in
+  spite of the tobacco with which one is obliged to plug one's nostrils
+  from morning till night."
+
+The gallant officer here goes into further details concerning the vermin on
+board which it will be as well to spare the reader.
+
+Jean Marteille de Bergeraq, who died at Culenbourg in 1777, was condemned
+to serve on board the galleys in 1707 "in his quality of Protestant"; he
+must indeed have been a man of iron constitution as he lived to the age of
+ninety-five. This is his description of the life of a _for�at_:
+
+  "They are chained six to a bench; the benches are four feet wide covered
+  with sacking stuffed with wool over which are thrown sheepskins which
+  reach to the floor. The officer who is master of the galley slaves
+  remains aft with the captain to receive his orders; there are two under
+  officers, one amidships and one at the prow; all of these are armed with
+  whips, with which they flog the absolutely naked bodies of the
+  slaves. When the captain gives the order to row, the officer gives the
+  signal with a silver whistle which hangs on a cord round his neck; the
+  signal is repeated by the under officers and very soon all the fifty
+  oars strike the water as one. Imagine six men chained to a bench as
+  naked as they were born, one foot on the stretcher the other raised and
+  placed on the bench in front of them, holding in their hands an oar of
+  enormous weight, stretching their bodies towards the after part of the
+  galley with arms extended to push the loom of the oar clear of the backs
+  of those in front of them who are in the same attitude. They plunge the
+  blades of the oars into the water and throw themselves back, falling on
+  to the seat which bends beneath their weight. Sometimes the galley
+  slaves row thus ten, twelve, even twenty hours at a stretch, without the
+  slightest relapse or rest, and on these occasions the officer will go
+  round putting into the mouths of the wretched rowers pieces of bread
+  soaked in wine to prevent them from fainting. Then the captain will call
+  upon the officers to redouble their blows, and if one of the slaves
+  falls fainting upon his oar, which is a common occurrence, he is flogged
+  until he appears to be dead and is then flung overboard without
+  ceremony."
+
+The Italian captain, Pantero Pantera, of the _Santa Lucia_ galley, in his
+work on "L'Armata Navale" published in 1614, gives it as his opinion that
+although soldiers and sailors could be obtained for service in the galleys
+if good pay were given, still no money could tempt any free man to
+adventure himself as a rower for any length of time owing to the
+intolerable sufferings which the "gallerian" was called upon to endure. As,
+however, in the opinion of the captain it was most necessary that the
+galleys should be manned, he thought that all judges should in future send
+criminals aboard; those who had committed murder as "lifers," those who had
+committed lesser crimes _pro rata_. Those who by the nobility of their
+birth or their physical incompetence were unable to handle the oar should
+be called upon to pay for substitutes to act for them; these were called
+"Buone-Voglie."
+
+There was not much difference after all between the methods used by the
+seventeenth-century Italian to those actually in force in England at a much
+later date when the Press Gang swept the honest and the dishonest into its
+net in its midnight raids.
+
+"The galley slaves," observes Pantera, "cherish repose and sincerely wish
+to avoid fatigue; in order to incite them to do their duty it is necessary
+to use the whip as well as the whistle; by using it with severity the
+officers will find that they are better obeyed, and it will in consequence
+be good for the service, for fear of the whip is the principal cause of
+good behaviour among the gallerians." Further on he observes that it is
+well not to flog them too severely and without reason, "for this irritates
+the gallerians, as I have frequently observed: this may cause them to
+despair and to wish for death as the only sure way out of their troubles."
+The excellent Pantera a little later on even says that he cannot agree that
+the attempt to cure a sick gallerian "is all nonsense, as is maintained by
+some persons," as sick men are a source of danger on board. He apparently
+was not prepared to throw them overboard alive, but urges that the best way
+to avoid such pestilences among them as killed forty thousand Venetians at
+the port of Zara in 1570 is to embark sound and good victuals.
+
+It is interesting to have a contemporary view of the correct treatment of
+the galley slave from those who had to do with him. In the case of the
+corsairs and their adversaries the gallerians were as a rule prisoners of
+war, but as time went on and wars became less frequent than they were
+throughout the sixteenth century, another source of supply was tapped by
+sending to the galleys the criminals of any country which desired to fill
+up the rowers' benches. In consequence there was always one thing which was
+feared above all others on board a galley, and that was a rising of the
+slaves.
+
+If they were not your enemies officially, they were a set of desperate
+criminals ripe for any mischief should they get loose, and chained,
+starved, beaten, frozen with the cold, baked by the summer heats, tortured,
+murdered, they had nothing earthly for which to hope except escape. If in
+the heat of battle there should occur a rising of the slaves, then their
+masters knew that victory would declare itself surely on the side of the
+enemy. Therefore that they should be securely chained was the first and
+most important thing to which the boatswain of a galley and his mates had
+to see. If by a bold stroke they once freed themselves from their shackles
+it was a fight to the death for those who erstwhile had been in command, as
+the gallerians, outnumbering them and caring nought for their lives in
+comparison to their liberties, were far the most formidable foes that they
+could be called upon to encounter. When men are so treated that their daily
+life is one long martyrdom they become the most dangerous force in
+existence, and on the occasions which sometimes happened that the slaves
+got the upper hand, there were none left of the fighting men of the galley
+to tell the tale of their discomfiture.
+
+In time of battle the gallerians were of course equally exposed to death
+and wounds from the projectiles of the enemy as were the orthodox fighting
+men; but to them came no rejoicing at the sound of victory; rather they
+prayed for the defeat of their masters, as it frequently happened that
+those against whom they were arrayed were their own countrymen and friends
+by whom they hoped for release. Thus at Lepanto, the Christian slaves,
+seeing the right wing of the Turkish fleet thrown into disorder by the
+galleys of the Allies, broke out into furious mutiny, succeeded in
+shattering their fetters and chains, attacked their masters the Turks in
+the rear with incredible energy with any weapons upon which they could lay
+their hands, and thus contributed in no small measure to the ultimate
+triumph of the Christian arms.
+
+The Captain Pantero Pantera and Barras de la Peine have written
+exhaustively on the galley, her crew, her armament, her manner of
+provisioning, her masts, sails, rigging, etc., and Admiral Jurien de la
+Gravi�re has given a most painstaking exposition concerning the
+technicalities of these craft. But to enter into too much detail would be
+to weary the reader unnecessarily, who, it is apprehended, merely desires
+that a general idea should be given of the way in which these vessels were
+handled and fought.
+
+It would appear that during the whole time that oar-propelled vessels were
+used as warships their form did not differ to any material extent, as
+certain limitations of size were obviously imposed on them by the mere fact
+that they had to be moved by so finite and feeble a force as human muscles,
+hearts, and lungs. No cruelty, however ghastly, could extract from the
+gallerians more than a certain amount of work, and the Captain Pantero
+Pantera, as we have seen, even advocates that a certain minimum of
+consideration should be shown to them in order that better work might be
+obtained. It was probable, however, that in the case of the Christian
+slaves captured by the corsairs even this minimum was to seek, as the
+numbers swept off by them were so enormous that they could be used up and
+replaced without inconveniencing these rovers of the sea, to whom
+compassion for suffering was absolutely unknown.
+
+The Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, or the Knights of Malta as they were
+also called, used the galley in their unceasing warfare with the Moslem.
+The General of the Galleys was a Grand Cross of the Order; the captains
+were knights, and the second officer, or first lieutenant, was known as the
+Patron. The crew of a galley of the knights had twenty-six rowing benches
+and carried two hundred and eighty rowers and two hundred and eighty
+combatants; the armament consisted of one bow cannon which discharged a
+forty-eight pound ball, four other small guns, eight pounders, and fourteen
+others which discharged stones.
+
+"The Religion," as the Knights were in the habit of describing themselves,
+had certain definite stations assigned to each knight, seaman, or officer
+during action. It is to be imagined, however, that these were merely for
+the preliminary stages of the fight, as it was seldom that time allowed for
+more than one discharge, or at the most two, of the artillery, before the
+opposing galleys met in a hand-to-hand conflict which must have immediately
+become an indiscriminate m�l�e.
+
+The manner in which the galley should engage is thus contained in an answer
+to a question of Don John of Austria, the victor of Lepanto. He wrote to
+Garcia de Toledo, fourth Marquis of Villafranca, and General of the Galleys
+of Sicily, to ask his opinion as to what distance it was most efficacious
+to open fire in a naval action. Toledo replied that "one cannot fire more
+than twice before the galleys close. I should therefore recommend that the
+arquebussiers should hold their fire until they are so close to the enemy
+that his blood will leap into the face of him who discharges his piece.
+have always heard it said, and this by captains who are well skilled in the
+art of war, that the last discharge of the cannon should be coincident with
+the noise made by the breaking of the spurs carried in the prows of the
+galleys; in fact that the two noises should be as one; some propose to fire
+before the enemy does: this is by no means my advice."
+
+Artillery, it will be seen from this, played a comparatively unimportant
+part in the combats between galley and galley; that in these craft men
+still relied on the strength of their right arm and the edge of their
+swords; there was still a certain contempt for villainous saltpetre, which
+was looked upon as a somewhat cowardly substance, preventing the warrior
+from settling his disputes in the good old fashion of his forbears. In any
+case, when you practically had to push the muzzle of your gun against your
+enemy's body in order to hit him, it was not a weapon upon which much
+reliance was to be placed.
+
+There were, in addition to the galley, the nef and the galeasse; the former
+of these was a sailing vessel pure and simple like those remarkable
+caravels in which Columbus discovered America.
+
+What these caravels were exactly like it was the good fortune of the writer
+to see in the year 1893. This was the date of the great exhibition of
+Chicago, and the American Government were most anxious to have, and to
+exhibit if possible, an exact replica of these historic craft. They
+accordingly communicated with the Spanish Government and inquired if by any
+chance they possessed the plans and specifications of the caravels of
+Columbus? Search was made in the archives of Cadiz Dockyard and these
+priceless documents were discovered. From them the ships were built in
+every respect the same as the wonderful originals and then towed across the
+Atlantic by the United States cruiser _Lancaster_. On their way they were
+brought to Gibraltar, where the writer's ship was then stationed, and were
+anchored inside the New Mole. The _Santa Maria_, the flagship of Columbus,
+was a three-masted vessel with a very high "forecastle" and "sterncastle"
+and very deep in the waist; she had three masts, the foremast carrying one
+square sail, the mainmast having both mainsail and main-topsail, the mizzen
+was rigged with a lateen sail, on the mainsail was painted the Maltese and
+on the foresail the Papal cross, and on deck she carried a brick-built
+cooking galley. A most beautiful model of this vessel is to be seen in the
+Science and Art Department of the South Kensington Museum.
+
+The nef in its later manifestations became a much more seaworthy vessel
+than this, with four masts, the two foremost ones square-rigged and
+carrying courses and topsails, the two after ones carrying lateen sails;
+the latter from their small size and their proximity to one another could
+not have had much effect on the sailing qualities of the ship. The nefs in
+the fleet of Don John of Austria in 1571 were rigged in this fashion and
+comprised vessels of eight hundred, nine hundred, and even one thousand
+tons, while a contemporary English vessel, the _Great Harry_ or _Henri
+Grace � Dieu_, was as much as fifteen hundred tons, and carried no less
+than one hundred and eighty-four pieces of ordnance. It was from the nef
+and the galeasse that the sailing man-of-war arrived by the process of
+evolution. The galley in the first instance was the vessel of men who
+fought hand to hand, the men in whom personal strength and desperate valour
+were blended, who desired nothing so much as to come to close grips with
+their enemy. Such rude engines of war as the pierriers, or short cannons
+which discharged some forty or fifty pounds of broken stone upon the enemy,
+were first mounted in the galley; these were followed by improved artillery
+as time went on. But although the galleys eventually carried quite big
+guns, as instanced by the forty-eight pounder in the galleys of the Knights
+of St. John, still it soon became apparent that the limit was reached by
+guns of this weight; the galley was essentially a light vessel and was not
+built to withstand those rude shocks caused by firing heavy charges of
+powder.
+
+The galeasse was the connecting link between the navy of oars and the navy
+of sails. The navy of oars was in its generation apt for warlike purposes;
+but it was in its essence a force analogous to the light cavalry of the
+land; useful for a raid, a sudden dash, but without that great strength and
+solidity which came in later years to the building of the sailing line of
+battleship.
+
+The galeasse was really a magnified galley, one which used both sails and
+oars, on board of which the rowers were under cover; she was built with a
+forecastle and a sterncastle which were elevated some six feet above the
+benches of the rowers, and her very long and immensely heavy oars were of
+course proportionate to the size of the vessel. The description of a
+galeasse of nearly one thousand tons burden is set forth as follows by
+Jurien de la Gravi�re:
+
+  "Her draught of water was about 18 feet 6 inches, she was propelled by
+  52 oars, 48 feet in length, each oar being worked by 9 men. Her crew
+  consisted of 452 rowers, 350 soldiers, 60 marines, 12 steersmen, 40
+  ordinary seamen, 86 cannoneers, 12 petty officers, 4 boatswains' mates,
+  3 pilots, 2 sub-pilots, 4 counsellors, 2 surgeons, 4 writers, 2
+  sergeants, 2 carpenters, 2 caulkers, 2 coopers, 2 bakers, 10 servants, a
+  captain, a lieutenant, a purser. In all some thousand men, or about the
+  same number as the crew of a three-decker of a later date."
+
+The fleet of the "Holy League" at the battle of Lepanto had in it six
+galeasses from the arsenal of Venice; and whereas an average galley carried
+110 soldiers and 222 galley slaves, the crews of these galeasses comprised
+270 soldiers, 130 sailors, and 300 galley slaves.
+
+The speed of the galley was calculated by the French engineer Forfait to be
+in the most favourable circumstances, that is to say in a flat calm, but
+four and a half knots for the first hour, and two and a quarter to one and
+a half miles per hour for subsequent hours; the exhaustion of the rowers
+consequent on their arduous toil would not admit of a greater speed than
+this. The studies of Forfait were made when the invasion of England by
+rowing boats was a topic of burning interest. It is evident from this that
+long voyages, trusting to the oar alone, could not be undertaken; but as we
+have seen, the galley was also provided with motive power in the shape of
+two masts carrying the lateen sail, which may be still seen in so many
+Mediterranean craft.
+
+That the galley was no vessel in which to embark in bad weather is
+instanced for us by the disasters which befell a Spanish fleet of these
+craft in 1567 under the Grand Commander of Castile, Don Luiz de Requesens.
+A revolt of the Moors in Granada had caused Philip the Second to wish to
+withdraw a certain number of Spanish troops from Italy. Requesens was sent
+to Genoa with twenty-four galleys to embark a detachment of an army corps
+then stationed in Piedmont. Each galley embarked one hundred and fifty
+soldiers; they then got under way and reached the island of Hy�res, where
+they anchored, the weather being too bad to proceed. At the end of their
+eighth day in port a number of vessels were seen flying to the eastward
+before the wind; it was a squadron of Genoese.
+
+Requesens, who was no seaman, was furious. Here were the Genoese at sea,
+and he wasting his time in harbour; if they could keep the sea why could
+not he, he demanded? He instantly ordered the anchors to be weighed. The
+commander of the Tuscan galleys, of which there were ten in the fleet,
+immediately went on board the galley in which Requesens was embarked and
+represented that the wind was foul and that should they leave their
+anchorage they could make no headway once they got clear of the land. But
+Requesens was obstinate: "if others can go on their way it is shameful that
+I should not proceed on mine," he protested. Alfonso d'Aragona argued with
+him in vain, representing that his master, the Duke of Tuscany, would hold
+the Grand Commander responsible for damage to his galleys. It was all in
+vain, as the Grand Commander was too arrogant and stupid to listen to
+advice from anybody. The fleet put to sea and struggled out a mile from the
+land; when they got thus far Requesens discovered his mistake and regretted
+that he had not taken the advice of the mariners; but it was now too late,
+they had drifted to leeward of their anchorage and could not get back
+again.
+
+One galley, a new vessel, ran into another which was an old one, and sank
+her on the spot, carrying all her luckless crew to the bottom. The
+remaining vessels scattered far and wide; Alfonso d'Aragona found refuge in
+the Bay of Alghieri, two more of his galleys reached an anchorage in the
+Isle of St. Pierre, another sheltered in the Gulf of Oristano; three
+galleys were shipwrecked on the coast in this neighbourhood and lost many
+of their men; yet another, called the _Florence_, was twice nearly wrecked
+on the coast of Barbary, and eventually reached the Bay of Cagliari. A
+Genoese captain found himself as far afield as the Island of Pantellaria,
+two galleys were never heard of again, and the Grand Commander himself
+anchored eventually in the Bay of Palamos on the Spanish coast. Of the
+twenty-four galleys which left their anchorage twelve were lost and the
+twelve which remained were practically valueless until large sums had been
+spent in repairs.
+
+It is small wonder in the light of these events that the seamen who ranged
+the Mediterranean in vessels propelled by oars regarded the winter as a
+close season and laid up their galleys in harbour. They were seaworthy
+enough for ordinary weather, but could not withstand such a tempest as the
+one in which Requesens put to sea. The whole story is only a further proof
+of the folly of putting supreme command of a sea-going venture in the hands
+of a man totally ignorant of the hazards he was called upon to encounter.
+In the sixteenth and even in the seventeenth centuries this was done
+perpetually, and if no disaster occurred it was because no bad weather was
+encountered.
+
+[Illustration: Brigantin donnant chasse a une Felouque, et prest a la
+ border. BRIGANTINE CHASING FELUCCA.]
+
+As time went on the sailing ship became larger and larger and was able to
+mount more and more powerful ordnance; this had the effect of discounting
+the value of the galley as a fighting ship; in consequence she became
+practically obsolete, for the line of battle, after the combat at Lepanto.
+In spite of this she was to linger on for many long years to come as the
+weapon of the corsairs who had established themselves on the coast of
+Africa. The "long ship" was still to be the cause of many an awful sea
+tragedy, whether the actors therein were the pirates who hailed from the
+Barbary coast or their most capable imitators the notorious rovers of
+Sallee.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+DRAGUT-REIS
+
+  How he became Lieutenant to Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa--His capture by
+  Jannetin Doria--His four years as a galley slave--His ransom by his old
+  chief.
+
+In character, in capability, in strategic insight, in tactical ability, not
+one of the predecessors or the successors of Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa can be
+compared to him; he was the greatest and most outstanding figure of all
+those corsairs of whose deeds we hear so much during the sixteenth century,
+the man above all others who was feared and hated by his contemporaries in
+Christendom. He lived, as we have said, for another eight years after the
+battle of Prevesa, but his great age prevented him from pursuing a very
+active career. There were, however, other and younger men, trained in the
+terrible school of hardship in which his life had been passed, who proved
+themselves to be his very worthy successors, even if they did not display
+the same genius in war and statecraft. The conditions of this period are
+somewhat remarkable when we come to consider them; Europe, which had been
+sunk in a rude and uncultured barbarism during the middle ages, was
+emerging under the influence of the Renaissance into a somewhat higher and
+nobler conception of life. It is true that the awakening was slow, that
+morally the plane on which the peoples stood was far from being an elevated
+one, that altruism was far from being the note of the lives lived by the
+rulers of the so-called civilised nations. For all this they had emerged
+from that cimmerian darkness in which they had lived so long, and the dawn
+of better things, of more stable government, of some elementary recognition
+of the rights of those governed, was beginning to show above the murky
+horizon.
+
+But if the sun of European progress was slowly and painfully struggling
+through the clouds, the light which had shone brightly for over seven
+centuries of Moslem advance was certainly and surely dying. Beneath the
+mail-clad heel of the Christian warrior the torch of learning which had
+burned so brightly in Cordova and Granada had been extinguished and ground
+into the dust, and the descendants of the alumni of those universities were
+seeking their bread in the Mediterranean Sea in the guise of bloodthirsty
+and desperate pirates.
+
+There were no longer among the Moors of Andalusia learned philosophers,
+expert mathematicians, wise astronomers, and practical agriculturists;
+there was among them but one art, one science, one means of gaining a
+livelihood--the practice of war--and their very existence depended on the
+spoils which could be reft from the hereditary enemy. The corsair who grew
+to man's estate, brought up in Algiers, Tunis, Tenes, Jerba, or any other
+of the lurking places in which the sea-wolves congregated, had as a rule no
+chance but to follow the sea, to exist as his father had existed before
+him; he must fight or starve, and in a fighting age no youngster was likely
+to be backward in taking to the life of wild excitement led by his elders.
+Unless following in the train of one of the leaders, such as Barbarossa,
+the Moslems were apt to take to the sea in a private capacity; a certain
+number of them joining together to man a small craft which was known as a
+brigantine. As has been said in a previous chapter, this word must not be
+understood in the light of the terminology of the modern seaman: the
+brigantines of the Moslem corsairs were really large rowing boats, carrying
+fourteen to twenty-six oars, and made as seaworthy as the small size of
+such craft would allow. Should the venture of the crew of a brigantine
+prove successful, then the reis, or captain, might blossom out into the
+command of a galley, in which his oars would be manned by his slaves; but,
+in the first instance, he would man his brigantine with a crew of Moslem
+desperadoes working on the share system and dividing anything that they
+could pick up; in this manner most of those corsairs who became famous
+commenced their careers, and rose as we have seen from the thwart of a
+brigantine to the unstable eminence of a throne in Algiers, Tunis, or
+Tlemcen.
+
+This life which they led made of them what they were, namely desperate
+swordsmen, efficient men at arms, incomparably skilful in the management of
+the craft in which they put to sea; but it did nothing else for them in the
+way of education; in consequence he who would rise to the top, who aspired
+to be a leader amongst them and not to remain a mere swash-buckling
+swordsman all his life, was bound to acquire that dominance necessary for
+control of the wild spirits of the age. Nor was this ascendancy by any
+means easy to obtain, as the rank and file led lives of incredible
+bitterness, almost inconceivable to modern ideas. What they suffered they
+alone knew, but it was compounded of hunger, thirst, heat, cold, sickness
+unrelieved by care or tending, wounds which festered for lack of
+medicaments, death which ever stared them in the face, and last, and worst
+of all, the risk of capture by some Christian foe, by whom they would be
+chained to the rowers' bench and taste of a bitterness absolutely
+unimaginable. As a set-off to this the man who aspired to lead must offer
+to his followers at least a record of success in small things; also he had
+to be something of an enthusiast, something of an orator, some one subtly
+persuasive. Against all the disagreeables of the strenuous life of the
+corsair he had to hold before the dazzled eyes of Selim, Ali, or Mahomet
+the promise of fat captures of the merchant vessels of the foe; when they
+had but to slit a few throats and to return with their brigantines laden to
+the gunwale with desirable plunder. Again he had to hearten them for
+possible encounters with Spaniards, with the terrible Doria, or worst of
+all with the dreaded Knights of St. John themselves; to point out that to
+die in conflict with the infidel was a sure passport to heaven and its
+houris, and to invoke great names, such as that of Barbarossa to show to
+what dizzy heights the fighting Moslem could climb. In such an age and
+among such men as these it was no mean feat to become a leader by whom men
+swore and to whom they yielded a ready obedience.
+
+Fashioned by the hammer of misfortune on the anvil of racial expropriation,
+such leaders arose among the Moslems, men of iron, before whom all who
+worshipped at the altars of Islam bowed the knee. These men, whose fame
+extended throughout all the length and breadth of the Mediterranean, taught
+to European rulers something of the value of that great force which is
+known to us under the modern name of "Sea Power."
+
+Next in importance to Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa himself and in many ways his
+very worthy successor, was Dragut Reis. We have it on the authority of
+Messire Pierre de Bourdeille, the Seigneur de Brant�me, that Dragut was
+born at a small village in Asia Minor called Charabulac, opposite to the
+island of Rhodes, and that his parents were Mahommedans. Being born within
+sight and sound of the sea, the youthful Dragut naturally graduated in the
+school of the brigantine and completed his education on board of a galley.
+His training was that which makes the best of fighting seamen, as from
+contemporary records he appears to have passed all his life actively
+engaged on board ship. At a very early age he entered the service of a
+master gunner who served on board the galleys of the Grand Turk. Under his
+auspices the youngster became an expert pilot in his own home waters, and
+likewise a most excellent gunner. Dragut was evidently a youth of ability
+and determination, as almost before he reached man's estate he had
+succeeded in buying a share in a cruising brigantine where his venture
+prospered so exceedingly that he was soon able to become sole proprietor of
+a galeasse. Here again fortune favoured the enterprising young man; his
+name began to be known as a formidable corsair in the Levant, where he was
+remarkable for his knowledge of that portion of the Mediterranean.
+
+To better his condition he offered his services to Barbarossa at Algiers,
+who accepted this new subordinate with joy, delighted to have so valiant
+and capable a man under his orders.
+
+"During some years," says J. Morgan in his _Compleat History of Algiers_,
+1728, "he was by that basha intrusted in the direction of sundry momentous
+expeditions; in which he acquitted himself much to the satisfaction of his
+principal: as having never once been unsuccessful." When we remember the
+treatment meted out by Barbarossa to some of his unsuccessful lieutenants,
+Dragut must be esteemed a very fortunate man. His master, we are told,
+advanced him to all the military offices of the State--it would be
+interesting to know what these were in a purely piratical confederation
+ruled by a pirate! In the end Dragut was appointed to be kayia, or
+lieutenant, and given entire command of twelve galleys.
+
+  "From thenceforward this redoubtable corsair passed not one summer
+  without ravaging the coasts of Naples and Sicily; nor durst any
+  Christian vessel attempt to pass between Spain and Italy; for if they
+  offered it he infallibly snapped them up, and when he missed his prey at
+  sea, he made himself amends by making descents along the coasts
+  plundering villages and towns and dragging away multitudes of
+  inhabitants into captivity."
+
+That "no vessel durst pass from Spain to Italy" is no doubt a picturesque
+form of exaggeration on the part of the historian; at the same time, when
+Dragut was at the height of his activities there is no doubt that any one
+passing through those seas ran a great risk of capture; so much so in fact
+that at this period, from 1538, the date of the battle of Prevesa, until
+Lepanto in 1571, all maritime commerce in the Mediterranean was greatly
+circumscribed. At the beginning of this epoch, which saw the rise of the
+Moslem corsairs, these robbers perforce confined themselves more to the
+North African coast than was the case later on. The pioneers of the
+piratical movement, after the fatal date 1492, which saw the wholesale
+expulsion of the Moors from Spain, were comparatively speaking inexpert
+practitioners in the art and mystery of piracy; they had not the habit of
+the sea, and in consequence confined their depredations to the
+neighbourhood of their own selected ports in Africa, which dominated that
+sea lane running east and west through the Mediterranean, which then, as
+now, was one of the greatest highways of commerce of the world. Gradually,
+as we have seen, under the able guidance of the two Barbarossas, but
+particularly that of the second and greater of the two, piracy became a
+commonplace in the north, as well as in the south, of the tideless sea; the
+corsairs, as time went on, even devoting more time and attention to the
+coast of Italy and the islands of the archipelago than they did to the
+recognised trade routes. These latter had become by 1540 similar to an
+estate which has been shot over too frequently; birds had become both wild
+and scarce, it was hardly worth while to go over the ground, except now and
+again on the chance of picking up a straggler. Towns and islands, on the
+other hand, even if they did not yield much in the way of actual plunder,
+were always good cover to beat for slaves, which had a certain value in the
+markets of Algiers and Tunis. Another circumstance which had led to the now
+frequent raids on the littoral of the European countries was the
+countenance and support accorded to the corsairs by the Grand Turk: so
+admirably did they fit into the scheme of his ambitions, that by the time
+Dragut arrived at a commanding position they were, so to speak, officially
+recognised as a fighting asset of the Sublime Porte; and, as we have seen,
+the Sultan did not hesitate to lend his picked troops, the Janissaries, to
+the corsairs when engaged in their ordinary piratical business. To the
+Grand Turk the corsairs were Moslems who were prepared to fight on his
+side, and who, taking it all in all, really cost him hardly anything; in
+fact, at this date, owing to the magnificent gifts made to the Sultan by
+Kheyr-ed-Din, the Padishah must have made something out of his association
+with the sea-wolves.
+
+By the year 1540 Dragut had distinctly "arrived"; that is to say, he had
+succeeded in making himself so dreaded that Charles V. ordered Andrea Doria
+to seek him out and destroy him at any cost. The Christian admiral was "to
+endeavour by all possible means to purge the sea of so insufferable a
+nuisance."
+
+Andrea got ready a fleet, which he entrusted, together with the care and
+management of this affair, to his nephew Jannetin Doria. This was the
+nephew who, in the disastrous attack by Charles on Hassan Aga at Algiers in
+the following year, was so nearly lost in the storm which destroyed the
+fleet of the emperor; and of whom Andrea Doria is reported to have said,
+"It was decreed that Jannetin should be reduced to such an extremity
+purposely to convince the world that it was not impossible for Andrea Doria
+to shed a tear." Certainly from what we know of the celebrated Genoese
+admiral it is hard to imagine him in a tearful mood. Jannetin Doria put to
+sea, and, after a long hunt, found the object of his quest at Andior on the
+coast of Corsica; Dragut was at anchor in the road of Goialatta, under a
+castle situated between Cabri and Liazzo. The corsair knew nothing of his
+enemies being at sea, and was in consequence keeping no particular
+look-out. Although we are not told the composition of the fleet of Jannetin
+Doria, it must have been a large one, as Dragut had under his orders
+thirteen galleys, and was unable to withstand the attack to which he was
+subject. He was also assailed from the shore, as well as the sea, as the
+castle under which he was at anchor opened fire upon him as soon as it was
+discovered by its garrison that the new arrivals were Christians. The fire
+was too hot for the corsair to withstand, and, to add to his
+embarrassments, the beach soon became lined by hundreds of the fierce
+Corsi, awaiting the inevitable end when they should be able to fall upon
+the defeated Moslems and wipe them from off the face of the earth; it was a
+warfare in which there was no mercy, and if the pirates were to fall into
+the hands of the islanders they knew well that they would be exterminated.
+
+In all his venturesome life things had never gone so badly with Dragut as
+upon this occasion. On the one side, should he and his men land they would
+be massacred; on the other hand, his road to the open sea was barred by an
+immensely superior force. Recognising the logic of circumstances, and
+seeing no way of escape, the white flag was hung out by the Moslem leader.
+The only terms, however, which he could obtain were immediate surrender or
+instant death. It must have been a moment of anguish to the man who
+hitherto had always ridden on the crest of the wave of success and
+achievement to be thus trapped like a rat; and to have the added bitterness
+of the thought that had he exercised seamanlike care and precaution in
+keeping a good look-out he might have escaped. As it was, he was allowed no
+time for reflection, but had to decide on the instant: he did the only
+thing possible in the circumstances, which was to haul down his flag and to
+become the thrall of his lifelong foes.
+
+The principal captives were made to pass before young Doria. When Dragut
+beheld him he cried out in a fury: "What! Am I a slave to that effeminate
+Caramite?" for Doria was but a beardless youth. These opprobrious epithets
+being interpreted to the young nobleman, "highly incensed he flew at
+Dragut, tore out his beard and moustaches, and buffeted him most
+outrageously: nay his passion was so great it is said that had he not been
+prevented, he certainly would have sheathed his sword in the bowels of that
+assuming prisoner."
+
+For four long years Dragut rowed in Doria's galley. No distinctions were
+made in those days, and knight or noble, companion or grand master, basha
+or boy, was, if caught, condemned to the rowers' bench to slave at the oar
+beneath the boatswain's lash, perchance alongside some degraded criminal,
+filthy and swarming with vermin. While Dragut was employed as a galley
+slave there came on board the craft in which he rowed Monsieur Parisot,
+Grand Master of the Knights of Malta. This high officer, recognising his
+old enemy, called out to him in Spanish:
+
+"Hola, Se�or Dragut, usanza de guerra" ("The usage of war, Se�or Dragut").
+
+To which the undaunted corsair merely replied with a laugh:
+
+"Y mudanza de fortuna" ("And a change of luck").
+
+The Grand Master, who had known the chain and lash himself, smiled and
+passed on--there was no pity in those days.
+
+But Dragut was not destined to end his life as a galley slave, for, when
+indeed hope must have died within him, after more than four years of this
+veritable hell upon earth, there sailed one day into the harbour of Genoa
+the great Kheyr-ed-Din himself. The Admiralissimo of the Grand Turk, full
+of years, honours, and booty, was on his last cruise, and one of the last
+acts of his active life was the rescue of Dragut, the man who had served
+him so well, and for whom he had so high a regard as a resourceful mariner,
+from the degrading servitude into which he had fallen. The Spanish
+historian, Marmol, recounts that the sum of three thousand ducats was paid
+by Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa for the redemption of Dragut. As this history
+was published in 1573, we must conclude that the author who wrote of these
+events so soon after they had happened is correct; at the same time,
+Barbarossa was in command of one hundred galleys of the Grand Turk, and it
+was never his custom to pay for anything which he could take by force.
+However this may have been, and the point is not one of very great
+importance, the Genoese Senate was terrified lest their territory should be
+ravaged; they wrote accordingly to their Grand Admiral, requesting that
+Dragut might be released and sent on board of the galley of the admiral
+basha. This was immediately done, and the man who for four years had tugged
+at the Christian oar was once again in a position to make war on those who
+had been for that period his masters.
+
+Not only had he tugged at the Christian oar, but also he had tasted of the
+Christian whip--and of very little else, as the food of the rower was as
+scanty as it was disgusting; in consequence, if he had been an implacable
+foe to Christendom before this event, he was not likely to have become less
+so while toiling in the Genoese galley.
+
+The practical retirement of Barbarossa from that sphere of activity in
+which his life had been passed now left Dragut-Reis the most feared and the
+most formidable of all the Moslem corsairs in the Mediterranean. From the
+time of his release by Barbarossa until the day of his death at the siege
+of Malta in 1565, he followed the example shown him by that prince among
+pirates with so much assiduity as to render him only second to Kheyr-ed-Din
+in the detestation in which he was held. Says Morgan: "The ill-treatment he
+had met with during his four years' captivity was no small addition to the
+Innate Rapaciousness of his Disposition."
+
+In the year 1546, Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa died, and to replace him the
+Sultan Soliman ordered all the mariners in his dominions to acknowledge
+Dragut-Reis as their admiral, and to obey him in the same manner as they
+had obeyed his predecessor. From this date he was the foremost corsair in
+the Mediterranean, and the feats which were performed by him showed that
+the Padishah had not erred in his selection.
+
+The ambition of Dragut increased with his power, and he determined,
+following the example of the Barbarossas, to seize and hold some strong
+place of arms possessed of a commodious port in which he might be the
+supreme ruler. Accordingly, in the depth of winter in the year 1548, at a
+time which was, as we have pointed out, a close season for piratical
+enterprises, and during which attack from the sea was not expected, he
+collected all the corsairs whom he could gather, and fell upon the
+Spaniards on the coast of Tunis, at Susa, at Sfax, and at Monastir. These
+places had been taken from the corsairs in the previous summer by Andrea
+Doria; they formed a sort of regular battle-ground when the combatants were
+in want of something to do, and were held alternately by the King of Tunis,
+the Spaniards, and the corsairs.
+
+Dragut was well aware that as soon as the spring arrived he would be
+attacked; he also knew that the attack would come in sufficient force to
+drive him out, as none of these towns was really strong or easily defended;
+in consequence he concentrated his attention on the town of "Africa,"
+otherwise known as Mehedia, and in the Roman histories as Adrumentum.
+
+This great city lay some leagues to the east of Tunis on a tongue of land
+projecting into the sea; its fortifications were regular, its walls of
+great thickness, height, and solidity, and were strengthened by many towers
+and bulwarks; the guns were large, numerous, and in good condition. At the
+back of the town, on an eminence, stood a large fortress, the citadel of
+the place; the harbour was large and secure, with an inner basin forming a
+port for galleys; the entrance to this was closed by a strong chain. The
+sea washed the walls of the city; indeed, it was entirely surrounded,
+except where by a narrow neck of land it joined the shore.
+
+The inhabitants, natives of the place, had shaken off the yoke of the King
+of Tunis, and had formed themselves into a kind of independent republic.
+They admitted neither Turk nor Christian within their walls, trusting
+neither party, and fearing from them the fate which befell Susa, Sfax, and
+Monastir.
+
+"Africa" was the goal of the desires of Dragut-Reis: once in possession of
+this, by far the strongest city on the littoral of Northern Africa, he
+thought that he might abide secure against the attacks of Charles and of
+Andrea Doria. He had seen the enormous expedition of 1541 against Algiers
+come to naught on account of the wholesale wrecking of the fleet in which
+it had sailed by a tempest of unexampled violence. But he was too
+level-headed a man to think that a miracle like this would be likely to
+come to pass a second time for his own special behoof, and preferred to act
+the part of the strong man armed who keepeth his goods in peace. He had,
+however, first to gain over the inhabitants of "Africa" to his views, and
+they proved anything but anxious to listen to his blandishments. The more
+he tried to ingratiate himself the less inclined did these people seem to
+listen.
+
+"My ambition," said the silver-tongued corsair, "is to become a citizen of
+your great and beautiful city. If you will admit me to its privileges it
+shall be my business to render you the richest people in the whole
+Mediterranean, and your city the most dreaded place in the world."
+
+The "Africans," however, were obdurate; they knew a pirate when they saw
+him quite as well as any one else, and they were quite aware that, should
+they open their gates to Dragut, sooner or later they would have to stand a
+siege from the Christian forces, which was a thing they by no means
+desired.
+
+But Dragut was not yet at the end of his resources; he was rich, and he
+spent money freely in order to gain over to his side those men of
+importance by whom such a question as this was bound to be decided. By rich
+presents and other blandishments he succeeded in securing the friendship of
+one Ibrahim Amburac, who was not only a leader among the inhabitants, but
+also governor of one of the towers by which the city was surrounded.
+Through him he approached the Council by which the town was ruled, only to
+receive a very decided negative: the Council observed the outward forms of
+politeness to this formidable person who was speaking them so fair: in
+reality, they hated and feared the corsairs only one degree less than they
+did Andrea Doria and his Christians. To admit the one was to bring upon
+themselves the vengeance of the other; therefore if they could keep them
+both out they intended so to do. The ill-omened courtesy of the corsair
+filled their hearts with apprehension, and they viewed his immediate
+departure, after the refusal of the council had been conveyed to him, with
+undisguised relief. Had they but known their man a little better, their
+uneasiness would have been far greater than their joy at his temporary
+absence. Those things desired by Dragut which he could not obtain by fair
+means he usually seized by the strong hand; and when he left so hurriedly,
+and at the same time so unostentatiously, he had already entered into a
+plot with Ibrahim Amburac. This leader, furious at the rebuff which he had
+received at the hands of his fellow councillors on the subject of the
+admittance of Dragut to the citizenship of "Africa," was now ready to
+deliver that city into the hands of the corsairs by treachery.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+DRAGUT-REIS
+
+  How the corsairs captured the town of "Africa"; of its recapture by
+  Andrea Doria and its eventual total destruction by Charles V.
+
+Dragut had made it a practice never to appear in the harbour of "Africa" in
+any great force, as he had no desire to frighten the birds whom he desired
+to snare; on the occasion of which we are now speaking he had but two
+galleys, and their departure from the outer harbour passed almost
+unnoticed, as the ruck of the population were accustomed to visits from the
+corsairs, who came to fill up with provisions and fresh water. Swiftly as
+hawks his vessels swept along the coast collecting the garrisons of Susa,
+Sfax, and Monastir to aid him in his latest design; they were all picked
+men and singularly apt for the stern business which their leader destined
+them to undertake. In this manner he soon collected five hundred of the
+stoutest and most reckless fighters who sailed out of the ports of Northern
+Africa, and, when it became noised abroad among them what the service was
+for which they were required, there was universal joy and eagerness. True
+the adventure was a formidable one: to capture "Africa" was no light task,
+even for such men as these under so renowned a leader; there was further
+the difficulty that the persons against whom they went up to fight were no
+Christians but Moslems like themselves. But against this was the
+declaration of Dragut, who represented to his following that there was
+really no choice in the matter; that to these stiffnecked and singularly
+ungrateful people he had offered the protection of the corsairs, that they
+had refused in the most contumelious manner, and in consequence there was
+nothing for it but the strong hand. They--that is to say the corsairs--knew
+right well that some strong place of arms in which to shelter themselves
+and their vessels was an absolute necessity for their continued existence,
+as at any moment Doria or the Knights of Malta might be on their track in
+superior force, and then what was their fate likely to be if they had no
+harbour under their lee in which to shelter? Further it was hinted that
+"Africa" would provide very nice pickings in the way of loot, and when this
+came to be generally understood the promptings of the Mahommedan conscience
+yielded easily to the sophistries with which it was lulled.
+
+The council of the town of "Africa" troubled themselves but little more
+concerning Dragut, his ships, and his corsairs; he had departed, and as the
+days wore on and no further tidings of him came to hand, these simple folk
+thanked God that they were rid of a knave and went about their usual
+avocations as unconcernedly as if no sea-wolves lurked under the shadowed
+headlands of that continent in which their homes were situated. They were a
+people essentially of the land; although they dwelt on the confines of the
+ocean the ways and habits of those who earned a precarious living on the
+waters were a sealed book to them, and with the "Africans" it was a case of
+"out of sight out of mind" so far as the corsairs were concerned. But that
+black-hearted traitor Ibrahim Amburac and the few others who had been
+gained over by the gold of Dragut watched and waited for the attack which
+they knew to be impending.
+
+The inhabitants of the doomed city never saw their assailants until they
+were actually upon them, so well had the surprise attack been planned by
+the leader of the corsairs. He had collected five hundred men, and this was
+but a small number with which to assail so strong a place; but Dragut knew
+exactly what he was doing and the effect likely to be produced by the
+introduction of this number of highly trained men-at-arms among a
+population which, although brave and warlike, lacked the elements of
+organisation for the defence of their city.
+
+So it was that, all preparations being completed, he stood along the coast
+anchoring out of sight of his objective, but close enough to reach it by
+midnight after darkness had fallen. He had every confidence in himself, an
+absolute trust in the hardbitten fighters whom he was about to lead;
+success or failure now rested in the hands of traitors within the city.
+
+"Faith unfaithful kept them falsely true," for when Dragut and his
+followers arrived at a certain rendezvous outside the walls which had been
+agreed upon previously, there they found Ibrahim Amburac and his men ready
+to assist them in scaling this obstacle. It will be remembered that Ibrahim
+Amburac was personally in charge of one of the towers with which the walls
+were guarded, and thus his task of aiding those who came from without was a
+singularly easy one. But even at midnight the passage of five hundred men
+could not remain long undiscovered as they clambered in over the walls.
+Soon an alarm was raised and the "Africans" rushed to arms and hurried to
+the quarter from which danger threatened. The townsmen were well armed and
+brave, also they were numerous; but it was the old story of the break-up of
+undisciplined valour by highly organised attack.
+
+In the choking heat of the African night townsmen and corsairs wrestled in
+deadly conflict hand to hand and foot to foot; but these untrained landsmen
+stood but a poor chance against the picked fighting men of the Moslem
+galleys who had been inured to bloodshed from their earliest youth and
+trained by such a master in the art of war as Dragut. That warrior, his
+great curved scimitar red to the hilt, the blood dripping from a gash in
+his cheek, his clothing torn and in disarray, followed by a gigantic negro
+bearing a flaming torch, was ever in the thickest of the fray. Behind him
+his lieutenants Othman and Selim strove to emulate his prowess, while all
+around surged his devoted band of fanatics.
+
+"Allah! Allah!" and "Dragut! Dragut!" pealed the war-cry of the corsairs;
+foot by foot and yard by yard that spearhead of dauntless dare-devils
+pressed onwards into the packed masses of the "Africans," who, fighting
+stubbornly, nevertheless were borne back by the fury of the terrible
+onslaught. Torch-bearers among the pirates leaped into houses and set them
+ablaze, the flames volleyed and crackled, the dense smoke rolled upwards to
+the stainless sky, the night was a hell of blood and fire.
+
+There was a sharp order repeated and passed on, the corsairs drew back, and
+the "Africans" shouted that the triumph was theirs; but they little knew
+Dragut, the sea-hawk who poised to strike anew. A blazing beam dropped
+across the street, the townsfolk shouted in insult and derision; but the
+joy which they had experienced at seeing their adversaries recoil was but a
+short and fleeting emotion. Giving himself and those who had hitherto been
+engaged time to breathe and recover themselves, Dragut waited while the
+noise of the strife died down, and nought was heard but the roar of the
+flames and the crash of the burning buildings.
+
+The leader turned to his followers, among whom dwelt an ominous silence.
+"Dost remember Prevesa," he cried, "when Andrea Doria and the best of the
+Christian warriors fled before you like sheep before a dog: are these
+miserable townsmen to stay your onward march?"
+
+There remained for an appreciable period after he had spoken a tense
+silence; the red light from the burning houses shone on the lean faces
+alight with the fierce fire of fanaticism, with an inextinguishable lust of
+slaughter. There came an answering frenetic roar, "Lead! Lead! Dragut!
+Dragut! Dragut!" It was enough: the corsair had tried the temper of the
+steel, he had now but to use the edge. There was an ordered movement on the
+part of the pirates: a fresh hundred men, who had hitherto taken no part in
+the combat, now pressed to the front and formed the advance, those who had
+been before engaged now forming the supports; that which had been the shaft
+of the spear now forming its head. With Dragut leading, these fresh
+unwounded men swept forward over the burning beam; irresistible as some
+mighty river in spate, these disciplined ruffians, headed by this master
+spirit, burst through the ill-organised resistance opposed to them, and
+slew and slew and slew.
+
+Behind them, alert and wary, came the supports, asking no quarter and
+giving none, cutting up the wounded, trampling under foot friend and foe
+alike who fell in the weltering shambles which marked the onward path of
+their leader and the advanced party. Very soon the broken hosts of the
+"Africans" cried piteously for mercy; the fight was over, and Dragut-Reis,
+wounded, breathless, but victorious, stood master of the strongest place of
+arms in all the continent of Africa. It is true that treachery had given
+him his opportunity, but once that was obtained the rest he had done for
+himself: the stealthy advance by sea, the midnight march to the exact spot
+on the walls where he was awaited by Ibrahim Amburac, the marshalling of
+his five hundred for the conflict, and the actual conduct of the fight
+itself, were all to the credit of this apt pupil of the great Kheyr-ed-Din
+Barbarossa, As warriors his followers were worthy of their leader: defeated
+the corsairs frequently were, but, in the combats in which they engaged,
+they were frequently, as we have seen in the course of this story, largely
+dependent upon auxiliaries in whom no trust could be placed; and at
+Prevesa, at the siege of Malta, and later on at the battle of Lepanto, the
+spot on which they fought, were it on the land or on the sea, was ever the
+one which formed the nucleus of resistance. It was not only that fighting
+was their particular trade; that, of course, might be said also of any man
+who trailed a pike or carried an arquebus and marched in the ranks of
+Spain, France, Genoa, or Venice. In the case of the sea-wolves it was the
+perpetual practice in the art of war, as it was then understood, that
+caused them to be the men that they were. Much of their fighting could
+hardly be dignified by such a name, as in their everlasting raids on
+villages and undefended places they seldom lost many of their number: when,
+however, it came to the real thing, as it did on the occasion we have just
+recounted, the long years of training told, and opposition had to be strong
+indeed if it were not to be beaten down by such a leader as Dragut, by such
+men as his picked five hundred.
+
+What passed between Dragut and the council of "Africa," who in so
+unqualified a manner had refused that warrior as a citizen, is not on
+record; all that we know is that the Moslem leader dispensed with their
+services, and did not invite his new fellow-townsmen to share with him the
+burden of government. There was hurry in the administration of the corsair
+states, as the form of rule which they adopted was apt to irk the rulers in
+Christendom. In this particular instance Dragut, having expelled the
+Spaniards from the coast towns, knew that a reckoning with the Emperor and
+his militant admiral, Andrea Doria, was but a matter of time, and, in all
+probability, of a very short time.
+
+Promptly, hurriedly, but efficiently, the corsair organised his new
+possession: such laws as he decreed did not err on the side of tenderness
+towards a people so ungrateful as to have refused his protection in the
+first instance, and who had only accepted the gift at the point of the
+sword. His nephew Aisa, a man young in years but a past-graduate in the
+school of his terrible uncle, was left in charge, while Dragut himself
+sailed once more with his fleet, for, as it is put by the Spanish historian
+Marmol, "truly the sea was his element."
+
+Once again had a Moslem corsair bid defiance to that ruler whom Sandoval
+and Marmol in their histories greet by the name of the "Modern C�sar." It
+was told to Charles that Susa, Sfax, and Monastir had fallen, that "Africa"
+was in the hands of the corsairs; "was he never to be free from these
+pestilent knaves," he demanded of his trembling courtiers? Hot-foot came
+the couriers from Charles to Andrea Doria, with orders to take Dragut dead
+or alive, but alive for choice; and up and down the tideless sea in the
+summer of 1549 did the great Genoese seaman range in search of the bold
+corsair. Doria was getting a very old man now, but his eye was undimmed,
+his strength yet tireless, his vigilance and zeal in the service of his
+master unabated.
+
+Dead or alive, great was the reward offered for the capture of Dragut, but
+the veteran admiral required no stimulus of this sort to urge him to put
+forth his utmost endeavours, to strain every nerve and sinew in the chase.
+All his life he had been fighting the corsairs, mostly with conspicuous
+success; but what Andrea could never forget--and what his enemies never
+allowed him to forget even had he been so inclined--was the fact that, at
+the supreme crisis of his valiant life, when he met with Kheyr-ed-Din
+Barbarossa at the battle of Prevesa, he had come off so badly that his
+under officers of the Papal and Venetian fleets had made representations,
+on their return to their respective headquarters, which had detracted from
+his fame, and lowered him in the estimation of Europe. Further than this,
+he knew that Barbarossa had laughed at and made game of him among his wild
+followers: this to the aristocrat, the Prince of Oneglia, the admiral who
+treated on almost equal terms with such men as the Pope, Charles of Spain,
+and Francis of France, was an insult hard to be borne; the next corsair
+with whom he should meet should not escape so easily as had Kheyr-ed-Din,
+that the admiral had sworn.
+
+Personal pique and vanity, racial detestation, and religious fanaticism
+were in his case all allied together to spur him on in the chase of this
+the last of the Emperor's foes; but, search as he might, during that summer
+Doria could never get on to the track of Dragut. The corsairs, as we have
+just remarked, were fine fighters on occasion when it was necessary for the
+purposes of loot, or of escape from those who, like Doria, interfered with
+their particular method of gaining a livelihood; but, on the other hand,
+they were no fools, they did not covet hard knocks and the possibility of
+defeat from such a one as the admiral of the Emperor, when by the exercise
+of a little ingenuity they could keep out of his way. Dragut was not going
+to fight a general action at sea merely to please Doria; in this summer his
+luck stood to him, and he never came across this man, who, with a sombre
+hatred in his heart, was seeking him high and low. If the corsair were bold
+as a lion when occasion offered, he was no less as slippery as an eel when
+he desired to escape; to face twenty-two royal galleys with Doria in
+command was no part of his programme. An occasion might arise when he would
+be forced to action; should this happen Dragut had not forgotten his four
+years in the galley of Jannetin Doria, the nephew of the admiral, and next
+time he intended to fight to win. Just at present the Christian admiral was
+in too great strength for him to do aught but keep out of his way, and much
+to Andrea's annoyance this was what he succeeded in doing.
+
+Doria got information that Dragut was at Monastir, information that was
+perfectly correct; but by this time the corsair knew that not only had he
+raised all Christendom, but that the admiral was on his track. In
+consequence, he slipped out of Monastir, "for," as it is pithily put by
+Marmol, "our corsair cared not to be shut up in so defenceless a port; he
+had good heels and loved sea-room."
+
+Dragut did not fear for his new possession, "Africa," as he knew that Doria
+had not sufficient force to attack so formidable a place; therefore,
+leaving it to its destiny and the valour and conduct of his nephew Aisa, on
+whom he knew that he could rely, "he went," according to the chronicler,
+"on his old trade making Horrid Devastations on the coast of Spain and its
+islands."
+
+While Dragut was pursuing his "Horrid Devastations," Doria was not idle,
+but was ranging the northern coast of Africa in his fruitless search; in
+the course of this he landed at Cape Bona, on which was the castle of
+Calibia, held by the corsairs; these men, who were a portion of Dragut's
+following, made a most valiant defence; they were, however, few in number,
+and when their captain was killed by the ball from an arquebus they
+surrendered. Encouraged by this success, the Christian fleet then stood
+along the coast to inspect "Africa." Sailing quite close to the shore they
+came within range of the guns of the garrison, who, under the direction of
+Aisa, were very much on the alert. As the admiral's galley at the head of
+the line passed the walls of the town, she was received with a hot fire,
+and one large cannonball struck the stern of Doria's ship, doing
+considerable structural damage, and killing five of his men. This
+occurrence took place in broad daylight in full view of all the garrison,
+who signalled their delight at the discomfiture of their foes by the noise
+of cymbals and atambours, and by wild and ferocious yells. Doria, who was
+in no position to land and make reprisals, fell into the greatest paroxysm
+of fury, and we are told that "he swore the destruction of that detested
+city."
+
+The season being now advanced, Doria returned home, where he found orders
+awaiting him from Charles that preparation was to be made for the capture
+of "Africa". While the admiral was in harbour, Dragut, finding the seas
+open to him once more, returned from his "Horrid Devastations," and
+employed his time profitably in throwing provisions and men into the city,
+which he knew would be beleagured in the following year.
+
+During the ensuing winter Doria, in conjunction with the viceroys of Naples
+and Sicily, prepared the expedition which was to accomplish not only the
+capture of "Africa," but what was, in his opinion, equally important, the
+destruction of Dragut-Reis, Early in the spring of 1550, all was in
+readiness, and the armada of Charles sailed from Palermo to Trapani, where
+it met with the forces of Don Juan de Vega, Viceroy of Sicily, those of Don
+Garcia de Toledo, the son of the Viceroy of Naples, and likewise the
+Maltese squadron. The galleys, accompanied by a fleet of transports, set
+sail early in June, and on the 20th of that month landed an army a little
+to the east of Mehedia or "Africa".
+
+It must be remembered that the inhabitants of Mehedia were by no means
+enamoured of Dragut-Reis and his piratical followers: King Stork had
+succeeded to King Log, the part of the former monarch being taken by that
+singularly capable and ferocious person, Aisa, whose rule was far from
+being to the liking of the richer and more respectable portion of the
+townsfolk.
+
+When, therefore, Andrea Doria and his captains laid siege to the city, they
+murmured against its defence, desiring ardently to enter into some sort of
+treaty with the besiegers; they had had enough of war, they said, and
+wished to end their days in peace if possible.
+
+Aisa Reis, however, would hear no word of surrender, telling those who
+murmured against the defence that "if he heard a word more of these plots
+he would infallibly sacrifice every mother's son amongst them, and then lay
+the town in ashes." Having already had a taste of the quality of this
+redoubtable corsair, and feeling perfectly certain that should the occasion
+arise he would be as good as his word, there was no more disaffection among
+the inhabitants, who had to put up with their native place being made a
+cockpit for Doria and Dragut to fight out their quarrel. It is permissible
+to sympathise very sincerely with these unfortunates, who, having been
+betrayed in the first instance, were compelled to stand a siege in the
+second.
+
+Aisa had a picked force of his uncle's men, some seventeen hundred foot and
+six hundred horse, all seasoned and formidable veterans, inured to warfare
+by land and sea. On these of course he could rely to the death. The common
+folk of the town were inclined to make common cause with the corsairs in
+resistance to their hereditary enemy the Christians; but the magistrates
+and members of the council, the grave and reverend signiors, held so
+conspicuously aloof that Aisa was constrained into forcing them to aid in
+the defence when he had time to attend to the matter. As Dragut was not
+actually present at the siege it falls outside the scope of this chronicle;
+he was without the walls when the besiegers arrived, but all that he could
+do, that he did. With a body of his own men reinforced by a rabble rout of
+Berber tribesmen, he harassed the Christian army; they were, however, in
+far too great numbers for him to make any impression, and after several
+desperate skirmishes he recognised that the day was lost, and re-embarking
+in his galleys sailed away. The town after a desperate and prolonged
+resistance was at last taken by storm; and Doria captured Aisa, a Turkish
+alcaid, and ten thousand prisoners of the baser sort. Of these, however,
+there was scarce one who owed allegiance to Dragut; the warriors of this
+chief neither gave nor accepted quarter, as they feared the wrath of the
+terrible corsair even more than death itself.
+
+Don Juan de Vega put his son Don Alvaro in command of the city and set out
+in search of Dragut with twenty galleys, but the sea leaves no traces by
+which a fugitive can be tracked, and his search proved as fruitless as had
+been that of Doria in the previous year. The rage and the disappointment of
+the admiral were beyond all bounds; what to him was the value of the
+capture of Aisa, of the Turkish alcaid, of the ten thousand of the baser
+sort; nay, what to him was the value of "Africa" itself when once again
+like a mocking spirit Dragut had glided beyond the sea horizon to
+devastate, to plunder, and to slay once more, the scourge and the menace of
+Christendom.
+
+It will be interesting to record briefly the fate of this city which we
+have seen taken and retaken. Don Alvaro de Vega remained as governor till
+the end of July, 1551, when his place was taken by Don Sancho de Leyva; at
+which time there took place one of those curious military mutinies so
+characteristic of the sixteenth century. The soldiers, unpaid for months,
+possibly for years, mutinied, expelled the governor and other officers,
+even the sergeants, from the city, and placed themselves under the
+direction of a stout soldier called Antonio de Aponte, to whom they gave
+the title of "Electo Mayor."
+
+Don Sancho repaired to Brussels to report matters to the Emperor, and
+during his absence a circumstance which is also singularly characteristic
+of this faithless epoch took place, for the Prior of Capua, then general of
+the French galleys, entered into negotiations with the mutineers for the
+surrender of the city to the French King.
+
+Bluff Antonio de Aponte would have none of this treachery; he held the city
+for the Emperor Charles and only wanted his pay. Eventually a mutiny within
+a mutiny was fomented from without, and with the mutineers divided the
+Emperor regained possession of the city; some of the mutineers were hanged,
+and Aponte, who had been captured by the Turks, died at Constantinople.
+
+The Emperor offered "Africa" to the Knights of Malta with a yearly
+allowance of twenty-four thousand ducats; the Knights refused, much to the
+chagrin of Charles, who gave orders for its complete destruction. This was
+accomplished by blowing up with gunpowder the walls, towers, and
+fortifications which Al-Mehedi, after whom the city had been named, "had
+erected with such art and strength, and had his mind so fixed upon that
+work that he used to say, 'If I thought building these fortifications with
+iron and brass would render them more durable, I would certainly do it.'"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+DRAGUT-REIS
+
+  How Dragut was blockaded in the Island of Jerbah--How he left Andrea
+  Dona "with the dog to hold"--His return to Constantinople, and how he
+  sailed from thence with a great expedition against the Knights of Malta.
+
+Charles V. had "smoked out the fox," but his admiral in so doing had not
+succeeded in capturing that remarkably wily animal; for Dragut was not only
+still at liberty, but was burning for revenge on those by whom he had been
+dispossessed. He had lost "his city," as he called "Africa"; he had lost
+two thousand five hundred men--among them some of the fiercest and most
+experienced of his corsairs; he had lost ten thousand slaves, representing
+a large sum of money, and much wealth besides. The corsair, however, was
+not one of those who merely sit down and repine; for him strenuous and
+continued action was the law of his being, and he at once repaired to
+Constantinople. Here he was well known as an adroit and skilful seaman and
+a most determined enemy of the Christians, and, in consequence, was not
+only certain of a welcome, but of substantial help as well, if he could but
+win over the Grand Turk to take the same view of his grievances as he did
+himself. In reality, the corsairs, as we have seen, played the game of the
+Padishah, as a rule, at no expense to that potentate; when they were in
+trouble he was therefore by no means indisposed to render them assistance.
+
+Dragut, like all the sea-wolves, was fond of money, fonder still of what
+money could buy; he now hankered after revenge as the sweetest morsel that
+his hoarded ducats could procure for him. That the Sultan was well disposed
+to him he had every reason to think; none the less did he spend royally
+among the venal favourites of the Court in order that nothing might be left
+undone to inflame the ardour of Soliman against those whom he considered to
+be his hereditary foes.
+
+With such skill and address did the corsair manage his suit that he
+prevailed upon the Sultan to address a letter to Charles demanding the
+immediate return of the towns of Susa, Sfax, Monastir, and "Africa." This,
+of course, meant war; as Charles immediately replied that these places were
+dependencies of the King of Tunis, and that that ruler was under his
+special protection; further that they were his by right of conquest;
+finally that the matter was no concern whatever of the Sultan of
+Constantinople. The stern and imperious Christian Emperor was in no mood to
+brook interference, the more so that he discerned plainly that though the
+demand was that of Soliman, the mover in the affair was none other than
+Dragut. He therefore by way of a rider to his answer to the Sultan informed
+that monarch that these places which he had taken on the coast of Africa
+had been reft by him "from one Dragut, a corsair odious to both God and
+man"; that without in any way departing from the treaty which he had made
+with Soliman "he intended to pursue this pirate whithersoever he might go."
+
+Whether or no this denunciation of Dragut had any influence on the Sultan
+it is impossible to say; he was in the habit of employing the corsairs, and
+apparently cared nothing about their piratical reputation, so long as their
+depredations were confined to Christian vessels. Shortly after the receipt
+of the answer of Charles, however, the Sultan conferred upon Dragut the
+title of Sandjak or governor of the island of Santa Maura, thus
+constituting him a Turkish official.
+
+Once again was Andrea Doria ordered to put to sea to fight against neither
+small nor great save Dragut alone; he was to take him dead or alive, but
+alive for choice, in order that he might be made to answer at the bar of
+Christian justice for all the atrocities committed by him both by land and
+sea. The corsair had returned in the meanwhile to Jerbah, an island on the
+east coast of Tunis much affected by the sea-wolves, and which in
+contemporary histories is known as Jerbah, as Los Gelues (by the Spanish
+writers), as Gelves, and various other names which greatly confuse its
+identity.
+
+Doria put to sea with twenty-two royal galleys before Dragut was aware of
+the fact. The Genoese admiral heard that his prey was at Jerbah; he
+repaired thither without losing a moment, found that he had been correctly
+informed, and anchored at the mouth of the harbour, at a place known as La
+Bocca de Cantara. Dragut was completely hemmed in, Doria was in such
+strength that he could not, reckless as he was, attempt to force the
+passage. But as the hour came the spirit of the corsair rose to answer the
+challenge: it was one thing to get Dragut-Reis into a trap, it was quite
+another to keep him there. Accordingly, he assembled all his troops,
+dragged cannon to the mouth of the harbour, and opened so brisk a foe on
+the Christian ships as to compel them to haul out of range. These tactics
+left Doria unaffected; there was but one way out of the harbour, and he
+felt quite convinced that when Dragut had had enough of starvation he would
+either surrender or else fight a hopeless action. The admiral surveyed his
+anchored fleet with a contented mind; his enemy had been delivered into his
+hand, he had nothing to do now but wait for that final triumph of appearing
+before his master the Emperor with the famous corsair as his prisoner. He
+saw a great fort rising before his very eyes at the mouth of the harbour,
+and merely smiled serenely; he sent off to Sicily and Naples for
+reinforcements in order that when the psychological moment should arise he
+might crush the corsair stronghold so thoroughly that it should never rise
+again. In the despatches which he sent he said "the fox is trapped"--"which
+news rejoiced all parts of Christendom, and most powerful succours came
+daily flocking to the seaports from every quarter; so eager were the
+sufferers to revenge themselves on this so much dreaded corsair."
+
+The history of what now happened is given by Don Luys de Marmol Caravajal
+in his "Descripcion general de Affrica," which was printed in Granada, "en
+casa de Rene Rabat impresor de libros a�o de 1573," or only some twenty
+years or so after these occurrences; it is set forth in his chapter
+entitled "Como Andrea Doria fue en buscar de these occurrences; it is set
+forth in his chapter Dragut Arraez." We have also the authority of that
+eminent historian, M. L'Abb� de Vertot.
+
+Captain Juan Vasquez Coronado journeyed to Naples carrying with him letters
+from Andrea Doria to Don Pedro de Toledo, requesting that the Viceroy would
+send him all the galleys in Naples, carrying as many soldiers as possible,
+pointing out that he had Dragut in a trap, from which he could not possibly
+escape, but that this time he wished to make security doubly secure.
+Letters to the same purport were also sent to Don Juan de Vega, the Viceroy
+of Sicily, and to Marco Centurion at the admiral's own city of Genoa. Doria
+was leaving nothing to chance this time. Meanwhile, great earthworks had
+been thrown up at the Bocca de Cantara at the entrance of the harbour by
+Dragut, and any ship which approached within range was most furiously
+bombarded. This served to amuse Andrea Doria, who, confident that the jaws
+of the trap had closed, kept a sharp look-out for vessels issuing from the
+harbour, but otherwise concerned himself not at all about the
+entrenchments. Was not Naples humming with the note of preparation? Would
+not the Genoese come in their thousands to the summons of their renowned
+chieftain? Could not the Viceroy of Sicily be trusted to work his best to
+gain the favour of his Imperial master?
+
+"Time and I are two" was the favourite expression of King Philip II. of
+Spain; the same idea might have crossed the mind of Doria on this memorable
+occasion. He had only to wait; the longer he waited the more secure he
+would be of success, the more certain would he be of the complete undoing
+of his enemy. But even yet the admiral did not know the man to whom he was
+opposed; in all the years in which he had done battle against Dragut, he
+had never gauged the limitless resource and calculated audacity of this
+lineal successor of Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa. While the admiral had been
+sending his despatches, and idly watching that which he considered to be
+the futile construction of earthworks on the shore at the Bocca de Cantara,
+his enemy was preparing for him that surprise which was shortly afterwards
+to make of him the laughing-stock of the whole of Europe. Dragut was in a
+trap, and he was quite aware of the fact; by way of the Bocca de Cantara
+escape was impossible, and neither a tame surrender nor complete
+annihilation was by any means to the taste of the pirate leader. Had Doria
+gone in and attacked at once, the fate of the corsair had been sealed; the
+policy of delay adopted by the Christian admiral was his salvation.
+
+A man less able, less determined, than Dragut, might well have despaired;
+but he brought to bear on the problem with which he was confronted all the
+subtlety of his nature, all the resourcefulness of the born seaman that he
+was. His mind had been made up from the very beginning: the earthworks at
+the Bocca de Cantara, the movements of troops, the furious cannonading, had
+all been nothing but a blind to hide the real design which he had in view.
+In addition to his fighting men he had at his command some two thousand
+islanders, stout Mohammedans to a man, ready and willing to assist him in
+his design of cheating the Christians of their prey. Day and night, with
+ceaseless silent toil, had garrison and islanders been at work on the
+scheme which the leader had devised. From the head of the harbour Dragut
+had caused a road to be made right across the island to the sea on the
+opposite side: on this road he caused planks to be laid, bolted to sleepers
+and then thickly greased. The vessels of the day were of course
+comparatively speaking light, and capable of being manhandled, supposing
+that you had sufficient hands. At dead of night Dragut assembled his
+forces, and before morning every galley, galeasse, and brigantine had been
+dragged across the island and launched in the sea on the opposite side.
+There was then nothing left to do but to embark stores, guns, and
+ammunition and to sail quietly away, and this was what happened. Once again
+Dragut faded away beyond the skyline, "leaving Andrea Doria with the dog to
+hold," in the quaint language of the chronicler of these events, Don Luys
+de Marmol Caravajal.
+
+Not only did the indefatigable corsair get clear away without any suspicion
+on the part of the admiral, but his first act on gaining the open sea was
+to capture the _Patrona_ galley sent from Sicily by Don Juan de Vega to say
+that reinforcements were on the road. In this ill-fated craft was Buguer,
+the son of Muley Hassan, King of Tunis, who was sent as prize to Soliman at
+Constantinople, where the Sultan caused him to be shut up in the "Torre del
+Mar Negro." Here he remained till he died, as a punishment for that he, a
+Mussulman, had aided the Christians.
+
+Never again was Dragut to be in such sore straits as he was on this
+occasion at the island of Jerbah, when, by sheer wit and cunning, he
+escaped from the trap in which he had been held by Doria. What the emotions
+of the admiral must have been when he found that once again he had been
+fooled, it is not difficult to imagine, as by no possible means could the
+story be hushed up; and, in spite of the annoyance of Christendom generally
+at the escape of Dragut, no one could help admiring his extraordinary
+cleverness, or roaring with laughter at the discomfiture of Doria and the
+viceroys of Naples and Sicily.
+
+Dragut now returned to Constantinople to receive congratulations upon his
+escape, and to take part in a fresh design of stirring up the Sultan
+against the Christians. All who professed this faith were naturally
+obnoxious to the corsair; but his private and personal hatred was entirely
+directed against the Knights of Malta, with whom he had been at war all his
+life. The present preoccupation of the Sultan was to regain the towns on
+the coast of Africa which had been taken by the Spaniards; but it was
+represented to him by Dragut that "until he had smoked out this nest of
+vipers he could do no good anywhere." The Bashaws and the Divan, heavily
+bribed by the corsair, held the same language, until Soliman heard of
+nothing from morning till night but the ill deeds of the Knights of Malta.
+They were represented to him as corsairs who ruined his commerce and
+defeated his armadas, who let slip no opportunity of harrying the Moslem
+wheresoever he was to be found. In this there was more than a grain of
+truth, as we shall see when we come to the next chapter, which will be
+devoted to a sketch of this militant order. Suffice it to say here that the
+Knights fought for what they termed "the Religion" (it was in this manner
+they designated their confederacy), and to harry and enslave the Mussulman,
+to destroy him as a noxious animal wherever he was to be found, was the
+reason for which they existed. It is true that they plundered not for
+individual gain, but many was the rich prize towed into Malta past St. Elmo
+and the ominously named "Punta delle Forche" (the "Point of the Gallows,"
+where all captured pirates were hanged), the proceeds of which went to the
+enrichment of the Order; to buy themselves the wherewithal to fight with
+the Mahommedan again.
+
+The abuse of the Knights fell upon sympathetic ears; in his early days
+Soliman the Magnificent had expelled the Knights from Rhodes; since then
+Charles V. had given them the islands of Malta and Gozo, and the town of
+Tripoli in Barbary as their abiding place; from Malta they had never ceased
+their warfare against the corsairs, and incidentally against the Sultan and
+his subjects. Therefore, in this year 1551, Soliman ordained that an
+expedition should be prepared with the object of crushing once and for all
+these troublers of the peace of Islam. The preparations were on so large a
+scale that very soon it became noised abroad in Europe that something
+really serious was in the wind: in Constantinople, however, men kept their
+own counsel; it was ill talking of the affairs of the Padishah, and,
+further than that, beyond Dragut and the proposed leaders of the
+expedition, the Sultan took no one into his confidence. Charles V., well
+served as he was by his spies, was as much in the dark as to the
+destination of this new armada as were humbler folk; in it he recognised
+the hand of Dragut again, and Doria had standing orders to catch that
+mischievous person if he could. At present, however, there was no chance of
+so desirable a thing happening, as Dragut was superintending the fitting
+out of the new expedition at Constantinople.
+
+Anxious and suspicious of the designs of the Turks, Charles ordered a
+concentration of his fleet at Messina.
+
+The Grand Master of the Knights of Malta at this time was a Spaniard, one
+Juan d'Omedes; he was, says de Vertot, "un Grand Ma�tre Espagnol," meaning
+by this that he was completely under the domination of the Emperor and
+ready at any time to place the galleys of "the Religion" under the orders
+of that monarch. The Knights, like every one else, had watched with anxiety
+the preparation of this great expedition in Constantinople, and when the
+Grand Master proposed to send the galleys of the Order to join forces with
+Doria at Messina, there was great dissatisfaction at the Council Board.
+That which it behoved them to do, the members informed the Grand Master,
+was not to help a great potentate like Charles, but to make provision for
+their own security by attending to their fortifications, which were in
+anything but a satisfactory condition. D'Omedes maintained that this
+expedition was destined to serve with the King of France against the
+Emperor, and that Malta was not the objective. He accordingly sent away the
+galleys of "the Religion" under the Chevalier "Iron-Foot," the General of
+the Galleys, to join the fleet which had its rendezvous at Messina. Hardly
+had he done so when news came from the Levant that the fleet of the Grand
+Turk was at sea heading for Sicily. The fleet was composed of one hundred
+and twelve royal galleys, two great galeasses, and a host of brigantines
+and transport vessels. Sinan-Reis was in command with twelve thousand
+Janissaries, numerous pioneers and engineers, and all the necessary
+appliances for a siege.
+
+The embarkation of so large a number of Janissaries was the measure of the
+serious purpose of the expedition, as the Sultan did not readily part with
+the men of this _corps d'�lite_ unless he was in person taking the command.
+It may be as well to explain here exactly what the Janissaries were, and it
+cannot be better done than by an extract from the famous historian
+Prescott:
+
+  "The most remarkable of the Turkish institutions, the one which may be
+  said to have formed the keystone of the system, was that relating to the
+  Christian population of the Empire. Once in five years a general
+  conscription was made by means of which all the children of Christian
+  parents who had reached the age of seven and gave promise of excellence
+  in mind or body were taken from their homes and brought to the capital.
+  They were then removed to different quarters and placed in seminaries
+  where they might receive such instruction as would fit them for the
+  duties of life. Those giving greatest promise of strength and endurance
+  were sent to places prepared for them in Asia Minor. Here they were
+  subjected to a severe training, to abstinence, to privations of every
+  kind, and to the strict discipline which should fit them for the
+  profession of a soldier. From this body was formed the famous corps of
+  the Janissaries.... Their whole life may be said to have been passed in
+  war or in preparation for it. Forbidden to marry, they had no families
+  to engage their affections, which, as with the monks and friars of
+  Christian countries, were concentrated in their own order, whose
+  prosperity was inseparably connected with that of the State. Proud of
+  the privileges which distinguished them from the rest of the army, they
+  seemed desirous to prove their title to them by their thorough
+  discipline and by their promptness to execute the most dangerous and
+  difficult services. Clad in their flowing robes, so little suited to
+  war, armed with the arquebus and the scimitar--in their hands more than
+  a match for the pike or sword of the European--with the heron's plume
+  waving above their head, their dense array might ever be seen bearing
+  down in the thickest of the fight; and more than once when the fate of
+  the Empire trembled in the balance it was this invincible corps which
+  turned the scale, and by their intrepid conduct decided the fortune of
+  the day. Gathering fresh reputation with age, so long as their
+  discipline remained unimpaired they were a match for the best soldiers
+  in Europe. But in time this admirable organisation experienced a change.
+  One Sultan allowed them to marry; another to bring their sons into the
+  corps; a third opened the ranks to Turks as well as Christians; until,
+  forfeiting their peculiar character, the Janissaries became confounded
+  with the militia of the Empire. These changes occurred in the time of
+  Philip the Second."
+
+But to resume: just before the sailing of the galleys of "the Religion"
+from Malta there had arrived in that island from France the famous
+Chevalier, the Commandeur de Villegagnon. This great noble told the Grand
+Master to his face that he was neglecting his duty, that the expedition of
+the Grand Turk was bound for Malta and Tripoli: further, that he was
+charged by Anne de Montmorency, Constable and First Minister of France, to
+advise the Grand Master that this armament was directed against "the
+Religion." The interview between the Grand Master and de Villegagnon took
+place at a chapter of the Grand Crosses of the Order; when the Commandeur
+had finished speaking, he was coldly thanked by D'Omedes, who then bowed
+him out. Turning to the Knights Grand Cross he said with a sneer, "Either
+this Frenchman is the dupe of the Constable or he wishes to make us his."
+He then proceeded to give at length the reasons why Soliman would not
+direct so huge an expedition against "the Religion." Many of the Knights
+dissented vehemently from his conclusions, but D'Omedes refused to listen
+to their arguments. Even advices which arrived on July 13th, representing
+that the armada was moving southwards devastating the Italian ports, did
+not move him from his obstinate pre-occupation; till on July 16th the
+arrival of the Ottoman fleet put an end to all speculation.
+
+The armada which had sailed from Constantinople was under the command of
+Sinan Basha: but he had explicit orders that he was to take no important
+step without first consulting Dragut, who was nominally his lieutenant. It
+was well for the Knights that on this occasion the corsair was not in
+supreme command; had this been the case the islands must have been taken,
+as no preparations had been made to repulse an attack in force, and Juan
+D'Omedes was a Grand Master who excited little enthusiasm either among the
+Knights or the inhabitants. The choice of Sinan was not one which did great
+credit to the penetration of the Sultan. Let us explain. We are all of us
+conscious at one time or another of a desire to express some fact in the
+fewest possible words; to place the transaction or the circumstance which
+we wish to describe in the searchlight of truth in so undeniable a fashion
+that the illumination consequent upon this mental effort of our own shall
+throw up our meaning in immediate relief on the intelligences of those whom
+we address. This attribute is possessed by but few even among great
+writers--indeed, some historic sayings which have come down to us have not
+emanated from the writing fraternity at all, but from soldiers, sailors,
+statesmen, and other busy men of affairs. The quality which distinguishes a
+man of action above all others is fearlessness of responsibility; the
+possession of sufficient greatness of soul and of moral fibre to seize upon
+an opportunity and to make the most thereof when an occasion arises which
+has not been foreseen by those in authority over him. But far more often in
+the history of the world has it happened that brave and capable leaders
+have failed for the lack of the indefinable quality that separated their
+sterling merits from that absolute and real supremacy which marks the
+first-class man.
+
+How then is it possible to differentiate, to describe where and in what
+manner this luck occurs?
+
+Fortunately, this has been done for us in seven words by Seignelay, the
+Minister of Marine to Louis Quatorze in 1692. Speaking of Admiral de
+Tourville, who defeated the English and Dutch at the Battle of Beachy Head,
+July 10th, 1690, Seignelay says of him that he was "poltron de t�te mais
+pas de coeur." The judgment was just: de Tourville, as recklessly gallant
+as any French noble of them all, failed to live up to his responsibilities
+two years later at the Battle of La Hogue. Mahan says: "The caution in his
+pursuit of the Allies after Beachy Head, though so different in appearance,
+came from the same trait which impelled him two years later to lead his
+fleet to almost certain destruction at La Hogue because he had the King's
+order in his pocket. He was brave enough to do anything, but not strong
+enough to bear the heaviest burdens."
+
+We see the application of this truth in the period which we are
+considering; particularly is it borne in upon us in the case of the leaders
+of the Ottoman Turks. Serving as they did a despot of unlimited powers,
+failure in the success of his arms was apt to lead to the immediate and
+violent death of the man in command. If, therefore, precise instructions
+were issued, they were, as a rule, carried out to the letter; as in case of
+defeat an effort could be made to shift responsibility on to the shoulders
+of the Padishah. Failure owing to initiative was certain of prompt
+retribution; success complete and absolute would be the only justification
+for a departure from orders.
+
+Far otherwise was it with the Sea-wolves, who were a law to themselves and
+to themselves alone. Should they care "to place it on the hazard of a die
+to win or lose it all," there was none to say them nay, there was no
+punishment save that of defeat. This it was that so often conduced to their
+success. Despots as were such men as Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa and Dragut,
+they were none the less dependent on the goodwill of their followers. If,
+therefore, they decided on a desperate enterprise, they appealed to the
+fighting instincts, the cupidity, and the fanaticism of these men. Should
+they succeed in gaining their good will for the attempt which they
+meditated, then all was well with them, and behind them was no grim
+sinister figure whose word was death and whose breath was destruction.
+
+Freed from all the trammels which bound the ordinary warrior of the day in
+which they lived, they were able, as we have seen, to go far; for the man
+in whom supreme ability is united to absolute unscrupulousness is the most
+dangerous foe of the human race. The despotism of the leaders among the
+sea-wolves was not theirs by right divine, as men considered it to be in
+the case of the Padishah; none the less in its practical application it was
+but little inferior to that wielded by the Sultan. For reasons of policy,
+the Sea-wolves allied themselves to the Grand Turk; for reasons of policy
+that monarch employed them and entrusted them with the conduct of important
+affairs. The bargain was really a good one on both sides; as to the
+sea-wolves was extended the �gis of one of the mightiest empires of the
+earth; while to the Sultan came "veritable men of the sea," hardened in
+conflict, as fearless of responsibility as of aught else; capable in a
+sense that hardly any man could be capable who had grown up in the
+atmosphere of the court at Constantinople. To Kheyr-ed-Din the Sultan had
+extended his fullest confidence; he had been rewarded by seeing the
+renowned Doria forsake the field of battle at Prevesa, and by the perpetual
+slights and insults put upon his Christian foes by that great corsair. To
+Dragut he had now turned, and, as we have said, when Sinan Basha sailed
+from the Golden Horn he had orders to attempt nothing important without the
+advice of the corsair. It is impossible to say why the command-in-chief had
+not been entrusted to him, as the Sultan had the precedent of Kheyr-ed-Din
+upon which to go. It can only be conjectured that Soliman, having
+discovered how unpopular that appointment had been amongst his high
+officers, did not care to risk the experiment the second time; and in
+consequence employed Sinan. To this officer the aphorism of Seignelay
+applies in its fullest force. He was as brave a man as ever drew a sword in
+the service of his master; he was, however, a hesitating and incompetent
+leader, with one eye ever fixed on that distant palace on the shores of the
+Golden Horn in which dwelt the arbiter of his destiny and of all those who
+sailed beneath the banner of the Crescent.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+THE KNIGHTS OF ST. JOHN
+
+  The Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem, afterwards known as the Knights
+  of Rhodes, and eventually as the Knights of Malta--A brief sketch of the
+  Order, including the relation of how Gozon de Dieu-Donn�, subsequently
+  Grand Master, slew the great Serpent of Rhodes; also some account of
+  Jean Parisot de la Valette, forty-eighth Grand Master, who commanded at
+  the Siege of Malta, in which the arms of Soliman the Magnificent were
+  defeated after a siege lasting one hundred and thirteen days.
+
+Amongst all those principalities and powers against which Dragut contended
+during the whole of his strenuous existence, there was no one among them
+which he held in so much detestation as the famous Knights of Saint John,
+known in the sixteenth century as the Knights of Malta. This militant
+religious organisation had its origin in Jerusalem in peculiar and
+interesting circumstances. After the death of Mahomet, his followers,
+burning with zeal, put forward the tenets of their religion by means of
+fire and sword; during the years which followed the Hegira, 622 A.D., the
+arms of the Moslems were everywhere successful, and amongst other places
+conquered by them was Palestine. So great was the renown acquired by the
+Emperor Charlemagne that his fame passed even into Asia, and Eginard states
+that the Caliph Haroun Raschid permitted the French nation to maintain a
+house in Jerusalem for the reception of pilgrims visiting the holy places,
+and that, further, the Prince permitted the Patriarch of Jerusalem to send
+to the Christian Emperor, on his behalf, the keys of the Holy Sepulchre and
+those of the Church of Calvary, together with a standard which was the sign
+of the power and authority delegated by the Moslem ruler to his mighty
+contemporary. In the middle of the eleventh century Italian merchants
+coming from Amalfi, who had experienced the hard lot of the Christian
+pilgrims in reaching the Holy City, secured from the Caliph Moustafa-Billah
+a concession of land, on which they built a chapel known as St. Mary of the
+Latins, to distinguish it from the Greek church already established at
+Jerusalem, and also constructed a hospice in which to receive the pilgrims,
+whether in sickness or in health, known as the Hospice of St. John.
+
+In 1093 the untiring efforts of Peter the Hermit, with the support of Pope
+Urbain II., brought about the first Crusade, and in 1099 we first hear of
+Gerard, the founder of the Order of St. John. Gerard was a French monk who,
+seeing the good work done by the Hospice of St. John, had attached himself
+to it, and had at this time been working in the cause of charity, and
+devoting himself to the pilgrims for many years.
+
+Godfrey de Bouillon, having defeated the Saracens outside the walls of
+Jerusalem, entered that city and visited the Hospice of St. John; he there
+found many of the Crusaders who had been wounded during the siege, and who
+had been carried thither after the taking of the place: all of these men
+were loud in their praises of the loving kindness with which they had been
+received and tended.
+
+Great was the honour and reverence in which these simple monks were held
+ever after by the Crusaders; for was it not common talk that these holy men
+had themselves subsisted on the coarsest and most repulsive fare in order
+that the food in the hospice should be both pure and abundant? Fired by
+this fine example of Christian charity, several noble gentlemen who had
+been tended in the hospice gave up the idea of returning to their own
+countries, and consecrated themselves to the Hospice of St. John, and to
+the service of the pilgrims, the poor, and the sick. Among these was
+Raimond Dupuy.
+
+The great Prince Godfrey de Bouillon fully approved of the steps taken by
+these gentlemen, and for his own part contributed to the upkeep of the
+hospice the seigneurie of Montbirre, with all its dependencies, which
+formed a part of his domain in Brabant. His example was widely copied by
+the Christian princes and great nobles among the Crusaders, who enriched
+the hospice with many lands and seigneuries, both in Palestine and in
+Europe. All these lands and properties were placed unreservedly in the
+hands of the saintly Gerard to do with as he would for the advancement of
+his work. In 1118 Gerard died in extreme old age; "he died in the arms of
+the brothers, almost without sickness, falling, as it may be said, like a
+fruit ripe for eternity."
+
+The choice of the Hospitallers as his successor was Raimond Dupuy, a
+nobleman of illustrious descent from the Province of Dauphiny, and it is he
+who first held rule under the title of Grand Master. In all charity and
+loving kindness the life of Gerard had been passed, the brethren of St.
+John occupying themselves merely in tending the sick, in helping the poor
+and the pilgrims; but Raimond Dupuy was a soldier of the Cross, and he laid
+before the Order a scheme by which, from among the members thereof, a
+military corps should be formed, vowed to a perpetual crusade against the
+Infidel. This, in full conclave, was carried by acclamation, and the most
+remarkable body of religious warriors that the world has ever seen then
+came existence.
+
+This pact against the Infidel was in the first instance directed against
+the barbarians who swarmed around the Holy City, and the Hospitallers, who
+nearly all had been knights and soldiers of Godfrey de Bouillon, joyfully
+took up their arms again to employ them in the defence of this locality
+which they cherished, and in defence of the pilgrims who were robbed,
+murdered, and maltreated in all the surrounding country. In becoming
+warriors once more, they vowed to turn their arms against the Infidel, and
+against him alone; to neither make nor meddle with arms in their hands in
+any dispute between men of their own faith. The composition of the Order as
+it was arranged by Raimond Dupuy caused it to consist of three classes. In
+the first were placed men of high birth and rank who, having been bred to
+arms, were capable of taking command. In the second came priests and
+chaplains, who, besides the ordinary duties attached to their religious
+profession, were obliged, each in his turn, to accompany the fighting men
+in their wars. Those who were neither of noble houses nor belonging to the
+ecclesiastical profession were known as "serving brothers": they were
+employed indifferently in following the knights into battle or in tending
+the sick in the hospital, and were distinguished by a coat-of-arms of a
+different colour from that worn by the knights.
+
+As the Order prospered amazingly, and as to it repaired numbers of the
+young noblesse from all parts of Europe to enrol themselves under its
+banner, it was accordingly divided into seven "Languages"; those of
+Provence, Auvergne, France, Italy, Arragon, Germany, and England. To the
+Language of Arragon was in later years allotted those of Castile and of
+Portugal. The dress consisted of a black robe, with a mantle of the same
+colour, the whole being called _manteau � bec_, having upon the left side
+thereof a white cross in cloth, with light points. The eight-pointed cross,
+or the Maltese Cross, as it came to be known in subsequent centuries, will
+be seen upon the armour, engraven on the breastplate, of all the pictures
+of the Grand Masters.
+
+In the year 1259 the Pope, Alexander IV., finding that men of noble birth
+objected to be habited as were the "serving brothers," ordained that the
+knights on a campaign should wear a "sopraveste" of scarlet embroidered
+with the cross in white; further, that should any knight abandon the ranks,
+and fly from the battle, he should be deprived of his order and his habit.
+The form of government was purely aristocratic, all authority being vested
+in the Council, of which the Grand Master was the chief, the case of an
+equal division of opinion being provided for by giving to the Grand Master
+the casting vote. There were in the Order certain aged knights who were
+called "Preceptors," who, under authority delegated to them by the Council,
+administered the estates and funds accruing, and also paid for the hire of
+such soldiers or "seculars" whom the Knights took into their service.
+
+Incidentally, it may be mentioned that the establishment of the Knights of
+St. John led to the foundation of the famous Order of the Knights Templars.
+In 1118 Hugues de Payens, Geoffrey de St. Aldemar, and seven other French
+noblemen, whose hearts were touched by the sufferings which the pilgrims
+underwent in their journey to Jerusalem, formed themselves into a society
+with the object of the protection of these inoffensive persons on their
+transit from the coast inland. Hugues de Payens, received in audience by
+Pope Honor� II., was sent by the Pontiff to the Peers of the Council, then
+assembled at Troyes in Champagne; the Council approving of so charitable an
+enterprise, the Order was formed, and Bernard, known as "Saint" Bernard,
+drew up the code of regulations by which it was to be governed. The
+movement spread, and many princes and nobles returned to the Holy Land in
+the train of de Payens and his companions.
+
+So famous did the Order of St. John become, that in 1133 Alfonzo, King of
+Navarre and Arragon, who called himself Emperor of Spain, carried his zeal
+so far as to bequeath to the knights his kingdoms of Navarre and Arragon:
+this, however, was naturally and hotly contested in these places, and
+Raimond Dupuy, who attended a Council to regulate the matter, was content
+to compromise on certain lands and benefits being allocated to those whom
+he represented.
+
+On August 15th, 1310, the knights, under the Grand Master, Fulke de
+Villaret, conquered the Island of Rhodes and established themselves there,
+and from this time onward, while they held the island, were known as the
+Knights of Rhodes. No sooner were the knights firmly established in Rhodes
+and the fortifications placed in a proper state of repair, than a tower was
+built on the highest point of the island, of great height, from which a
+view could be obtained of the sea and the surrounding islands, and from
+which information could be signalled as to the movements of any vessels
+which were observed. It was then decided to fortify the small island of Cos
+or Lango in the vicinity, as it contained an excellent harbour; a fortress,
+planned by the Grand Master himself, was erected on the island, a knight
+was left in command, and we are told that under the successors of de
+Villaret--himself twenty-fourth Grand Master--the island, which was very
+fertile, flourished exceedingly, producing much fruit and some most
+excellent wine.
+
+There was reigning in Bithynia, at the time when the knights seized upon
+Rhodes, that Ottoman whose name has come down to us when we speak of the
+Ottoman Empire; it is a somewhat strange coincidence that the Christian
+warriors, sworn foes of the Mussulman, should have so established
+themselves just when the tide of the Mohammedan conquest was about to rise
+and sweep away Byzantium; that they should arrive upon the scene just as
+the curtain was about to rise on the tragedy which, in its onward march,
+was to make of the church of St. Sophia a mosque for the worship of the
+Ottoman Turks.
+
+Ottoman--the descendant of one Soliman, the chief of a nomadic tribe of
+Tartars who had been chased from the Empire of Persia in the year 1214--was
+not only a soldier and a conqueror, but also a great and beneficent ruler
+in those regions in which he held sway. Approached by those of his
+co-religionists who had been driven out of Rhodes by the Knights, Ottoman
+embarked an army and attacked the place, assuring himself of an easy
+conquest. In spite, however, of the fortifications having been hastily
+constructed, his troops were defeated with great loss, and he was obliged
+to raise the siege. In this manner did the indomitable champions of
+Christendom begin that long and bloodthirsty war between the Cross and the
+Crescent in the Mediterranean which was to endure for nearly another five
+centuries.
+
+[Illustration: GOZON DE DIEU-DONN� SLAYING THE GREAT SERPENT OF RHODES.]
+
+In the long, chequered, and glorious history of the Knights there are many
+strange and semi-miraculous deeds recounted of them in the wars and
+adventures in which they took so prominent a part; the following, which is
+gravely set out by the historians of the time, may be left to the judgment
+of the reader. In 1324 Fulke de Villaret was succeeded in the Grand
+Mastership by Helion de Villeneuve, a knight of exemplary piety and a
+strict disciplinarian. Under his rule the Order regained those habits of
+severe simplicity from which they had been allowed to lapse by his
+predecessor. In 1329 Rhodes was greatly agitated by the fact that a
+crocodile or serpent--as it is indifferently described--had taken up its
+abode in the marshes at the foot of Mount St. Etienne, some two miles from
+the town. This ferocious creature devoured sheep and cattle; also several
+of the inhabitants had lost their lives by approaching the neighbourhood in
+which it dwelt. Several attacks were made upon it, but, as there were no
+firearms, all the missiles projected against it rebounded harmlessly from
+the scales with which it was covered. So dangerous had it become, that the
+Grand Master thought it his duty to forbid any of the knights to attempt
+its destruction; an order which was obeyed with a right good will. There
+was, however, a knight of the Language of Provence called Gozon de
+Dieu-Donn�, who secretly determined that he would slay the serpent, and he
+accordingly made it his occupation to observe as closely as possible the
+habits of the monster. Having satisfied himself on certain points, he then
+returned to his chateau of Gozon in the province of Languedoc. The point
+which Gozon had wished to determine was in what portion of its body was the
+serpent vulnerable; and he had convinced himself that the belly of the
+creature was unprotected by scales. He accordingly modelled in wood as
+exact a representation of the serpent as he could accomplish, colouring it
+the same as the original; the belly of the model was constructed of
+leather. He then trained some large and ferocious hounds, at a certain
+signal, to dash in under the model and fix their teeth in its leathern
+underpart. For months did the ingenious knight persevere with the training
+of his dogs, himself on horseback in full armour cheering them to the
+assault. At last he considered them to be perfect in their parts, and,
+taking two servants and the hounds with him, returned to Rhodes. Avoiding
+everybody, he caused his arms to be carried to a small church in the
+neighbourhood of Mount St. Etienne by his servants. The knight went into
+the church, where he passed some time in prayer, recommending his soul to
+God in the enterprise which he was about to undertake.
+
+He then donned his armour and mounted his horse, ordering his servants, if
+he were killed, to return to France but if he succeeded in killing the
+serpent to come at once to him, or to aid him if he were wounded. He then
+rode off in the direction of the marsh accompanied by his hounds. No sooner
+did the serpent hear the ring of bit and stirrup-iron, the trampling of the
+charger and the baying of the hounds, than it issued forth with wide-open
+slavering jaws and terrible burning eyes to slay and to devour. Gozon,
+recommending his soul to his Maker, put spurs to his horse and charged. But
+his lance shivered on the hide of the serpent as though it had struck a
+stone wall. His horse, mad with terror at the sight and the foul odour of
+the serpent, plunged so furiously as to unseat him. He fell to the ground,
+uttering as he did so his call to the hounds; had it not been for these
+faithful auxiliaries he would instantly have been slain, but they rushed in
+and, fastening their teeth in the belly of the serpent, caused it to writhe
+and twist in its anguish. Instantly Gozon was upon his feet again, and,
+watching his opportunity, plunged his sword into the exposed vitals of his
+enemy. Mortally wounded, the serpent flung itself high in the air with a
+convulsive effort, and falling backwards pinned the knight to the ground
+beneath its enormous bulk. The servants, who had been the horrified
+spectators of this terrific conflict, now rushed to the assistance of their
+master, and succeeded in freeing him from his unpleasant predicament.
+Gozon, they thought, was dead, but upon dashing some water in his face he
+opened his eyes, to behold the pleasing spectacle of his monstrous enemy
+lying by his side a corpse.
+
+Naturally elated, he returned to Rhodes, where he became on the instant the
+popular hero; for who could say or do enough for the man who had slain the
+serpent. He was conducted in triumph to the palace of the Grand Master by
+his fellow knights, but here a remarkably unpleasant surprise was in store
+for him. Very austerely did Helion de Villeneuve regard the triumphant
+warrior, and stern and uncompromising was the voice in which he asked him
+how he had dared to contravene the express order of his Grand Master by
+going forth to combat with the serpent? Calling a Council immediately the
+implacable de Villeneuve, in spite of all entreaties, deprived Gozon de
+Dieu-Donn� of the habit of a knight. "What," said this just and severe
+disciplinarian, "is the death of this monster, what indeed do the deaths of
+the islanders matter, compared with the maintenance of the discipline of
+this Order of which I am the unworthy chief?"
+
+But Helion de Villeneuve was of too wise and kindly a nature to make his
+decree absolute, and having thus vindicated his authority he shortly
+afterwards released Gozon and made him happy by his praises and more
+material benefits.
+
+The Abb� de Vertot tells us that the learned Bochart argues that the
+Phoenicians gave to this island the name of Gefirath-Rod (from whence the
+name "Rhodes"), or the Isle of the Serpents, and that when the Romans were
+at war with the Carthaginians Attilius Regulus slew a monster in the island
+of Rhodes the skin of which measured one hundred feet. Thevenot, in his
+Travels published in 1637, states that he saw the head of Gozon's serpent
+still attached to one of the gates of the town of Rhodes, and that it was
+as large as the head of a horse.
+
+Upon the death of Helion de Villeneuve in 1346, a Chapter of the Order was
+held as usual to elect his successor. When it came to the turn of the
+Commander Gozon de Dieu-Donn� to speak, he said:
+
+  "In entering this conclave I made a solemn vow not to propose any knight
+  whom I did not consider to be most worthy of this exalted office, and
+  animated by the best intentions for the glory and well-being of the
+  Order. After considering carefully the state of the Christian world, of
+  the wars which we are perpetually obliged to wage against the infidel,
+  the firmness and vigour necessary for the maintenance of discipline, I
+  declare that I find no person so capable of governing our 'Religion' as
+  myself."
+
+He then proceeded to speak in a purely impersonal tone of the magnificent
+services which he had rendered, not forgetting the famous episode of the
+serpent, and drew their attention to the fact that the late Grand Master
+had constituted him, Gozon, his principal lieutenant. He ended: "You have
+already tried my government, you know well that which you may hope to
+expect. I believe that in all justice I shall receive your suffrages."
+
+Naturally the assemblage was stupefied at hearing a man thus recommend
+himself; on reflection, however, they decided that he had spoken no less
+than the truth, and Gozon de Dieu-Donn�, "the hero of the serpent," became
+twenty-sixth Grand Master of the Order. He died in 1353, when he was
+succeeded by Pierre de Cornillan, and upon his tomb were graven these
+words:
+
+  "Cy Gist le Vainqueur du Dragon."
+
+In the years 1480 and 1485 under the Grand Master Pierre D'Aubusson, Rhodes
+withstood two great sieges from the Turks. The first of these is described
+at length by the knight Merri Dupuis "temoin oculaire" who sets down: "Je,
+Mary Dupuis gros et rude de sens et de entendement je veuille parler et
+desscrire au plus bref que je pourray et au plus pres de la verite selon
+que je pen voir a lueil." The description of that of 1485 is written by
+another eye-witness, the Commandeur de Bourbon, to whom "ma semble bon et
+condecent a raison declairer premierement les causes qui out incite mon
+poure et petit entendement a faire cest petit oeuvre."
+
+But we have no space to follow these gallant Knights, and it must suffice
+to say that on both occasions, after incredible exertions and terrible
+slaughter on both sides, the attacks of the Turks were eventually repulsed.
+
+It was reserved for Soliman the Magnificent to finally vanquish the Knights
+and to expel them from Rhodes; from July 1522 until January 1523 the
+Knights under the heroic Villiers de L'Isle Adam maintained an all unequal
+struggle against the vast hosts of the Crescent, which were perpetually
+reinforced. At last, on January 1st, 1523, the Knights, by virtue of a
+treaty with Soliman, which was honourably observed on both sides, evacuated
+the island in which they had been established for nearly two hundred and
+twenty years.
+
+By favour of Charles V. the Knights on October 26th, 1530, took charge of
+the islands of Malta and Gozo, and established themselves therein; still
+under the Grand Mastership of L'Isle Adam, whose sword and helmet are still
+religiously kept in a small church in Vittoriosa, just at the back of the
+Admiral Superintendent's house in the present dockyard.
+
+The knights fortified the islands and there abode, until in 1565 the
+Ottoman returned once more to the attack.
+
+It may be said that heroism is a relative term, that it has many uses and
+applications all equally truthful. On the side of mere physical courage
+almost every man who took part in that memorable siege of Malta in the year
+1565 may have been said to have earned the title of hero. No man's foot
+went back; no man's courage quailed; no man's face blanched when called
+upon to face perils so appalling that they meant an almost inevitable and
+speedy death; this was true or Christian and Moslem alike. The death-roll
+on either side was so tremendous as to prove this contention up to the
+hilt. From May 18th to September 8th, 1565--that is to say, in one hundred
+and thirteen days--thirty thousand Moslems and eight thousand Christians
+perished--an average of some three hundred and thirty-six persons per day.
+In that blazing torrid heat the sufferings of those who survived from day
+to day must have been accentuated beyond bearing by the myriads of unburied
+corpses by which they lived surrounded; and that the contending forces were
+not swept away by pestilence is an extraordinary marvel.
+
+[Illustration: CARRACK IN WHICH THE KNIGHTS ARRIVED AT MALTA, 1530.]
+
+In many, nay, in most campaigns, personal feeling enters but little into
+the contest. Nationality strikes against nationality, army against army, or
+navy against navy; but no burning hatred of his adversary animates the
+breast of the combatant on either side; it may even be said that frequently
+some pity for the vanquished is felt, when all is over, by the side which
+has conquered. At Malta the element of actual personal individual hatred
+was the mainspring by which the combatants on both sides were moved; each
+regarded the other as an infidel, the slaying of whom was the sacrifice
+most acceptable to the God they worshipped. "Infidel" was the term which
+each hurled at the other; to destroy the infidel, root and branch, was the
+act imposed upon those whose faith was the one only passport to a blessed
+eternity, and those who fell in the strife, whether Christian or Moslem,
+felt assured that for them the gates of heaven stood wide open. Great as
+were those others who perished, faithful to the death as were those noble
+knights who died to a man in the culminating agony of St. Elmo, adroit,
+resourceful, master of himself and others as was the famous Dragut, there
+is one name and one alone that shines like a beacon light upon a hill-top
+when we think of the siege of Malta. Jean Parisot de la Valette, whose name
+is enshrined for ever in that noble city which crowns Mount Sceberass at
+the present day, was the forty-eighth Grand Master of the Noble Order of
+the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem the charter for which, contained in
+the original Bull of Pope Paschal II., dated 1113 (in which the Holy Father
+took the Order under his special protection), may be seen to this day in
+the armoury of the palace at Valetta. At the time when the supreme honour
+was conferred upon him, in the year 1557, he had passed through every grade
+of the Order: as soldier, captain, general, Counsellor, Grand Cross: in all
+of them displaying a valour, a piety, a self-abnegation beyond all praise,
+A man of somewhat austere manner, he exacted from others that which he gave
+himself--a whole-hearted devotion to the Order to which he had consecrated
+his life. Fearing no man in the Council Chamber, even as he feared no foe
+in the field, he ever spoke his mind in defence of that which he deemed to
+be right. Proud, with the dignity becoming a man of his ancient lineage, he
+merged all personal haughtiness in the zeal he felt in upholding the rights
+and privileges of that splendid confederation of knights of the best blood
+in Europe over which he had been called upon to preside at the mature age
+of sixty-three. There is no instance in history of any man more absolutely
+single-minded than La Valette; that in which he believed he cherished with
+an ardour almost incredible in these days, and that the sword of the Lord
+had been confided into his hand for the utter extermination and extirpation
+of the Moslem heresy was the leading feature in his creed. That he had been
+advanced to a dignity but little less than royal in achieving the Grand
+Mastership was but as dust in the balance to him compared with the
+opportunities which it gave him to harry his life-long foes; and he who had
+known so well how to obey throughout all his youth and manhood was now to
+prove, in the most emphatic manner, that he had learned how to command. In
+all those terrible hundred and thirteen days during which the siege lasted
+there was none to be compared to him. As occasion occurred this man's soul
+rose higher and ever higher; beseeching, imploring, commanding, by sheer
+force of example did he point out the way to the weaker spirits by whom he
+was surrounded.
+
+To speak of weaker spirits in connection with the siege of Malta seems
+almost an insult; these gallant knights and soldiers were only so in
+comparison with their leader. Twice during the siege of St, Elmo did the
+garrison send to La Valette and represent that the place was no longer
+tenable; but Garcia de Toledo, Viceroy of Sicily for Philip of Spain, was
+writing specious letters instead of sending reinforcements, and every
+moment gained was of importance. Coldly did La Valette remind the Knights
+of their vows to the Order, and when renewed assurances came that it was
+only a matter of a few hours before they should be overwhelmed he replied
+that others could be found to take their places, that he, as Grand Master,
+would come in person to show them how to die. A passion of remorse overcame
+these noble gentlemen, who, thus nerved by the indomitable spirit of their
+chief, died to the last man in the tumbled ruins of that charnel-house
+which had once been a fortress.
+
+La Valette was ready to die; there was no man in all that garrison so
+ready. With pike and sword this veteran of seventy-one years of age was
+ever at the post of the greatest danger, repelling the assaults of
+Janissaries and corsairs, fighting with the spirit of the youngest among
+the Knights in the breaches rent in the walls of Il Borgo. In vain did his
+comrades try to prevent him from this perpetual exposure; in vain did they
+point out that the value of his life outnumbered that of an army. He was
+very gentle with these remonstrances, but quite firm. There were plenty as
+good as he to take his place should he fall, he insisted; till that time
+came it was his duty to inspire all by his example, to show to the simplest
+soldier that he was cared for by his Grand Master.
+
+As things went from bad to worse, when Il Borgo became in little better
+case than had St. Elmo before it, La Valette never hesitated, never looked
+back, never ceased to hope that the sluggard Garcia de Toledo might send
+relief; and, if he did not, then would they all perish with arms in their
+hands, as had their brethren across that narrow strip of water who had held
+St. Elmo to the last man. What man or woman can read without something of a
+lump coming in their throat of those noble words of the Grand Master in the
+last few days of the siege when all had utterly abandoned hope?
+
+Grimed, emaciated, covered with sweat and blood and dust, did La Valette
+move from post to post exhorting and encouraging his soldiers. So few had
+the gallant company of the Knights become that command was necessarily
+delegated to the under-officers; yet who among them did not find fresh
+courage and renewed strength when that great noble, the head of the Order,
+stood by their sides and spoke thus to them as man to man?--
+
+  "My brothers, we are all servants of Jesus Christ; and I feel assured
+  that if I and all these in command should fall you will still fight on
+  for the honour of the Order and the love of our Holy Church."
+
+We have to think of what it all meant, we have dimly to try and realise the
+burden which was laid upon this man, before we come to a right conception,
+not only of what he endured but the terrible sacrifices he was called upon
+to make. Here was no man of iron lusting for blood and greedy of conquest
+for the sake of the vain applause of men; but one full of human love and
+affection for those among whom he had lived all the days of his life. Upon
+him was laid the charge of upholding the honour of the Order, the majesty
+of the God whom he served. To this end he doomed to certain death those
+brethren of his in St. Elmo, his own familiar friends, reminding them that
+it was their duty so to die, while his heart was breaking with the agony of
+this terrible decision, which no weaker man could have given. When his
+beloved nephew was slain, together with another gallant youth, he smiled
+sadly and said that they had only travelled the road which they all had to
+tread in a few days; that he grieved as much for the one as for the other.
+In speaking of this man, it may truly be said that there is no character in
+history more elevated; there is none which shows us the picture of a more
+perfect, gentle, and valiant knight.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+DRAGUT-REIS
+
+  How Sinan Basha and Dragut raided the islands of Malta and Cozo and
+  captured the town of Tripoli. How the Knights of Malta captured "the
+  puissant galleon" belonging to the Kustir-Aga and the Odalisques of the
+  harem of the Grand Turk. The despair of the ladies and the advice of the
+  Imaum to Soliman the Magnificent. A great armada is fitted out in
+  Constantinople. The preparations for defence on the part of La Valette
+  and the Knights. The expedition sails from Constantinople and lands in
+  Malta.
+
+Great must have been the consternation of the Knights when the armada,
+commanded by Sinan Basha, appeared off their coasts, and bitter must have
+been the reflections of Juan d'Omedes, the Grand Master, who had all along
+contended that so formidable an expedition could not possibly be directed
+against Malta. The inhabitants of that island were, however, not left long
+in doubt, as Sinan, immediately on his arrival, entered the Grand Harbour,
+or "the Great Port," as it was called in those days. Sinan, in his royal
+galley, led the way in, contemptuously assured of an easy victory over so
+insignificant a place of arms. He had his first rude awakening before he
+had traversed some quarter of a mile of the placid waters of the Great
+Port. The harbour, as is well known, though long, is very narrow, and, on
+the starboard hand of the Turkish galleys as they entered, the Commandeur
+de Guimeran, a Spanish Knight, had ambushed three hundred arquebusiers. As
+the galley of Sinan came abreast of the ambush, the Commandeur gave the
+order to fire. The volley at so close a range had a terrible effect,
+especially among the "chiourme," or the slaves who rowed the galley, some
+hundred of whom were placed _hors de combat_. Sinan, in a furious rage,
+ordered an immediate disembarkment; but when his men landed and scaled the
+heights of Mount Sceberras (the elevated land on which the city of Valetta
+now stands) there was no one to be found, the Commandeur and the men who
+had formed the ambush having disappeared. Gazing from the heights at Il
+Borgo, the fortress on the opposite side of the harbour where the Knights
+then dwelt, Sinan demanded of Dragut, "If that," pointing to the fortress,
+"was the place which he had told the Sultan could easily be taken?"
+
+Dragut, whom no peril ever daunted, coolly replied:
+
+"Certainly, no eagle ever built his nest on a rock more easy of access."
+
+A corsair, who had been slave to the Knights, now approached Sinan, and
+told him that he had assisted at the building of the fortress; which, he
+averred, was so strong that if the admiral delayed until he had taken it
+that the winter would be upon them, although it was then only the month of
+July. Sinan, as we have said, was a hesitating commander. He had the
+ever-present fear of the Grand Turk before his eyes, and was not inclined
+for so difficult and dangerous an enterprise as this was represented to be.
+Leaving the fortress in his rear, he marched off to the high land in the
+centre of the island, on which was situated the Citt� Notabile, the capital
+of Malta, some seven miles distant from the sea. On their march through the
+island the Turks committed their usual atrocities, murdering the wretched
+inhabitants, firing their dwellings, destroying their crops, and carrying
+off their women. Had the siege of Notabile been pressed, the city must have
+fallen; but Sinan declared to Dragut that the principal object of the
+expedition was the reduction of Tripoli, and, in consequence, he had not
+the time to devote to its reduction. Dragut, furious at this temporising
+policy, urged an immediate assault, and, while the contention was waxing
+sharp between the two leaders, a letter was brought to Sinan which had been
+captured in a Sicilian galley. It was from the "Receiver" of the Order, who
+dwelt at Messina, to the Grand Master, informing him that he had expressly
+sent this ship to inform him that Andrea Doria had just returned from Spain
+and was hastening with a large fleet to attack the Turks. The letter was a
+ruse on the part of the "Receiver," and contained not a particle of truth.
+It was, however, quite enough for Sinan, who immediately called a council
+of war and imparted this alarming news to its members. The council, after
+the invariable fashion of such bodies, decided to take the safest and
+easiest course: the name of the terrible Andrea was one of evil omen to the
+Ottomans, and, as one man, they voted for prosecuting their voyage to
+Tripoli before the Genoese seaman should put in an appearance. In vain was
+the fury of Dragut, who had counted on a full revenge on his ancient
+enemies the Knights. The armada sailed to the adjacent island of Gozo,
+which was thoroughly sacked with every refinement of cruelty. Every house
+on the island was burned, and six thousand of its inhabitants carried off
+to slavery. One incident is deserving of record. In Gozo dwelt a certain
+Sicilian with his wife and two daughters: sooner than that they should fall
+into the hands of the Turks this man stabbed his wife and daughters and
+then threw himself, sword in hand, into the ranks of his enemies, where he
+slew two of them, wounded several others, and was then hacked to pieces.
+The fleet then proceeded to Tripoli, which was taken almost without
+opposition, as it was defended by a mere handful of the Knights and some
+utterly unreliable Calabrian infantry, who had never before seen a shot
+fired: these men very soon mutinied and refused to fight any longer. Dragut
+became the autocrat of Tripoli, as his great predecessor Kheyr-ed-Din
+Barbarossa had been of Algiers: from hence, in the years that were to come
+before his death, he carried on his sleepless and unending warfare with his
+Christian foes, on whom he was destined to inflict another terrible defeat
+when they attacked this stronghold which he had made his own.
+
+Claude de la Sangle dying on August 18th, 1557, Jean Parisot de la Valette
+was chosen Grand Master of the Knights of Malta in his stead on August 21st
+of the same year. He was, as we have said before, in succession, soldier,
+captain, councillor, general, and Grand Cross; he was as wise in council as
+he was terrible in battle; he was as much esteemed by his brethren as he
+was feared by the infidel. Under his governorship "the Religion" regained
+the ancient authority which it had once possessed, especially in some of
+the German Provinces and in the Republic of Venice. So great was the
+influence of La Valette that he succeeded in making the "Languages" (or
+confederations of Knights) of Germany and Venice pay their "responsions,"
+which had been allowed to get into arrear. These "responsions" were a tax
+levied on the "Languages " exclusively for the purpose of combatting the
+infidel, and La Valette brought all the firmness of his high character to
+bear, in order to induce these Knights to do what, he reminded them, was
+their simple and obvious duty. Fired by the highest conception of the
+office he had been called upon to execute, La Valette allowed none of those
+under his command to be slack in their performance of their duties. In him
+dwelt the real old crusading spirit. He saw life with the single eye, for
+that which was paramount was the utter destruction of the infidel. There
+are many men who have a high conception of duty; there are but few who can
+inspire those with whom they are brought in contact. Of these latter was
+Jean Parisot de la Valette; in him the pure flame of religious enthusiasm
+burnt with so clear a light as to act as an illuminant for the paths of
+others. In him dwelt that rare quality of lifting others almost to that
+plane on which he dwelt himself, of making men nobler and better almost in
+spite of themselves. So it was that, when La Valette stooped to remind
+others of his brother Knights that they owed money to the Order, that money
+was paid at once.
+
+Having thus restored order to the finances, the Grand Master turned his
+attention to the state of affairs (as he had received them from his
+predecessor) connected with the territorial possessions of the Knights. For
+long years now the fortress of Tripoli had been in the hands of the
+renowned Dragut, who was the scourge and the terror of the Christians. The
+corsair dwelt in his stronghold in insolent defiance of the Knights, whose
+property it once had been. Years before he had wrested it from them by the
+strong hand: what, then, more necessary in the eyes of such an one as La
+Valette than to expel this audacious pirate? The Grand Master invited the
+co-operation of Juan la Cerda (a Spanish Grandee, Duke of Medina-Celi, and
+Viceroy of Sicily for the King of Spain) in this enterprise. The Viceroy
+joyfully acceded to the request, and informed his master. Philip II.
+approved the project, and sent orders to the Duke of Sesse, Governor of
+Milan, to the Duke of Alcala, Governor of Naples, and to John Andrea Doria,
+General of the Galleys, to join forces and to repair to Sicily, placing
+themselves under the orders of the Duke of Medina-Celi, who was expressly
+charged to take no action save by the advice of the Grand Master. The
+expedition assembled, the Duke took it to Malta, where it wintered, and in
+the spring it sailed and attacked Tripoli.
+
+They found this fortress, however, in a very different state from that
+which they expected. Dragut, says De Vertot, "avoit faire terasser les
+murailles de cette place." Bastions had been constructed, and every
+advantage taken for defence which was permitted by the terrain, or that the
+art of fortification admitted at this epoch. The castle, which was not
+advantageously placed, was, notwithstanding, put in a state of defence by
+an enormous expenditure of money. Great towers, in which were mounted many
+big guns, defended the entrance to the port, which had become the
+headquarters of the vessels owned by Dragut, and also of those corsairs who
+sailed their craft under the crescent flag of the Sultan of Constantinople.
+It was against such a fortress as this that the Duke of Medina-Celi went
+up: we have no space to deal here with the details of this attack, which
+ended in the hopeless and irremediable defeat of the Christian forces. The
+Duke was an incompetent commander; he was opposed to one of the greatest
+leaders of the age--an expert in almost every branch of the science of war,
+in command of a large body of the fiercest fighters of the day, who ever
+feared the wrath of Dragut more than the swords of the enemy.
+
+La Valette, though he mourned over the repulse of the Christian forces from
+Tripoli, did not on that account allow his pursuit of the infidel to grow
+faint; the galleys of "the Religion" were always at sea, and both the
+corsairs and the Ottoman Turks were perpetually losing valuable ships and
+costly merchandise. Under the General of the Galleys, the Commandeur Gozon
+de Melac, and that celebrated chevalier, the Commandeur de Romegas, the sea
+forces of the Knights were everywhere in evidence. Into the hands of the
+Christians fell the Penon de Velez, situated on the northern coast of
+Africa opposite to Malaga--a fortress much frequented by the corsairs; the
+Goletta at Tunis was also taken, and the pirates became so much alarmed
+that they demanded succour from Constantinople. They represented to Soliman
+that, at this rate, the whole of Northern Africa would soon be in the hands
+of the Christians to the total exclusion of the true believer.
+
+Soliman listened to their complaints and promised that soon he would send
+forth an armament which should put an end to the misfortunes from which
+they were suffering. Once again preparations were begun in the arsenals of
+Constantinople, and while these were in progress an event took place which
+had an important bearing on the situation. Just after the taking of the
+Penon de Velez seven galleys of "the Religion," under the command of the
+chevaliers de Giou and De Romegas, which were cruising in the neighbourhood
+of Zante and Cephalonia, fell in with "a puissant galleon" filled with the
+richest merchandise of the East, armed with "twenty great cannons of
+bronze," and a number of smaller guns, under the command of the Reis
+Bairan-Ogli, having on board "excellent officers of artillery," as well as
+two hundred Janissaries for her defence. This great ship was the property
+of Kustir-Aga, the chief Eunuch of the Seraglio of the Sultan, and many of
+the ladies of the harem were interested in a pecuniary sense in the safe
+arrival of this vessel at Constantinople. The galleys of "the Religion"
+attacked, and, after a most obstinate resistance, in which one hundred and
+twenty of the Christians and an even larger number of the Turks were
+killed, the galleon was captured. If there had been an outcry in
+Constantinople before this occurrence it was all as nothing to that which
+now arose. Kustir-Aga and the Odalisques of the Harem prostrated themselves
+at the feet of Soliman the Magnificent, and with streaming eyes,
+dishevelled hair, and frantic gestures, demanded the instant despatch of an
+expedition to utterly exterminate these barbarian corsairs, the Knights of
+Malta, who had thus injured them and lacerated their tenderest
+susceptibilities. The Grand Turk, autocrat as he was, had no peace day or
+night; he was surrounded by wailing women and sullen officials, all of whom
+had lost heavily by the capture of the puissant galleon. The Imaum, or
+preacher in the principal mosque, called upon the Sultan in his discourse
+to fall upon the audacious infidel and smite him hip and thigh. He reminded
+the Padishah that, in the dungeons of the Knights, true believers were
+languishing; that on the rowers' benches of the galleys of "the Religion"
+Moslems were being flogged like dogs. In a furious peroration he concluded:
+"It is only thy invincible sword which can shatter the chains of these
+unfortunates, whose cries are rising to heaven and afflicting the ears of
+the Prophet of God: the son is demanding his father, the wife her husband
+and her children. All, therefore, wait upon thee, upon thy justice, and thy
+power, for vengeance upon their cruel and implacable enemies."
+
+Contrary to all precedent, which enjoins the most perfect silence in the
+mosque, these bold utterances were received with something more than
+murmurs of applause: never in all his long and glorious reign had the great
+and magnificent despot heard so plainly the voice of his people. Apart,
+however, from eunuchs, women, and Mullahs, Soliman had long been importuned
+by Dragut to take the course which was now being urged upon him with so
+much insistence. There was at this time no warrior in all his _entourage_
+for whose opinion the Sultan had the same respect as he had for that of the
+ruler of Tripoli. Dragut had more than a tincture of learning: he was first
+of all an incomparable leader of men and an entirely competent seaman. He
+was also a scientific artillerist, and was learned in the technique of the
+fortification of his time. Added to this he was--albeit by no means so
+cruel as most of his contemporaries--one of those men before whom all
+trembled: as we have seen in the case of the corsairs who defended
+"Africa," "they feared the wrath of Dragut more than death itself."
+
+It was this renowned leader who warned Soliman against the Knights; he
+pointed out that they were far more dangerous now than they had been in
+1523, the year of their expulsion from Rhodes. When established there they
+were, so to speak, surrounded by the Turkish Empire; in Malta, on the
+contrary, they were easily succoured from Sicily, which belonged to Spain,
+another implacable enemy of the Moslem; that Malta lay right on the route
+which all the ships of the Sultan must take on passage from the East to
+Constantinople; and in consequence the Order was a standing and perpetual
+menace to the trade of the Empire. All this was so undeniably true that so
+shrewd a man and so competent a ruler as Soliman could not fail to be
+impressed by the soundness of the reasoning.
+
+Besides all this, he knew quite well that now he could not hold back, had
+it been even against his inclination--which was by no means the case; for
+there had arisen one of those storms of popular opinion--all the more
+formidable because of their infrequency--before which even the most
+hardened of despots must bend. Accordingly the Sultan called a conference
+of his fighting men, which was held on horseback in the open-air. The
+inclination of the Sultan being known, most of the generals, like good
+courtiers, voted for immediate war with the Knights. At this conference was
+present that Ali Basha, or Occhiali, or Uluchali, as he was indifferently
+called, of whom we shall have more to say later on. Upon this occasion he
+was present as the representative of Dragut, and urged, on behalf of his
+master, that the time was not yet ripe for an attack on Malta. First, he
+contended, it was necessary to recapture the Goletta and the Pe�on de
+Velez, and to defeat the Moors of Tunis, who were feudatories of the
+Spanish king and avowed enemies of the Ottoman Empire. Ali was supported by
+one Mahomet, an old warrior who had grown white in the service of the
+Sultan, who strongly opposed the contemplated campaign on the ground that
+the Knights would in all probability have the full strength of Europe at
+their backs.
+
+Numbers, however, added to the personal inclination of the Sultan, carried
+the day. The die was cast, the memorable expedition was decided upon, and
+all the Sultan's vast Empire soon rang with the note of preparation. The
+Capitan Basha, Piali, was in command of the fleet, and the direction of the
+land forces was confided to Mustafa, an old officer sixty-five years of
+age, a severe disciplinarian, and of a sanguinary and cruel disposition to
+any of his enemies who had the misfortune to fall into his hands.
+
+Once again did Europe lose itself in speculation: against whom, all men
+were asking, was this new expedition to be directed? Spain feared for her
+African possessions, as the Goletta was the key to the kingdom of Tunis,
+while the Pe�on de Velez was one of the bulwarks of Algeria. In consequence
+Don Garcia de Toledo passed over from Sicily to confer with the Grand
+Master of the Knights. Garcia de Toledo was by no means a favourable
+specimen of the illustrious race from which he sprang, and was a complete
+antithesis to La Valette; he was to prove himself in the terrible days that
+were to come to be sluggish, incompetent, a ruler who could not rule, a
+person for ever letting "I dare not wait upon I would." Just as long as
+Spain considered this new expedition was directed against herself
+considerable activity was shown; when the attack developed and it was seen
+that the objective of the Turks was Malta, the procrastinating Spanish king
+and his incompetent viceroy allowed matters so to drift that, had any other
+man than La Valette been in command at Malta, the fall of that island had
+been inevitable.
+
+We have seen how Juan d'Omedes had dealt with a previous crisis in the
+affairs of the Order; very different was it in the opening months of the
+year 1565. La Valette was well served by his spies in Constantinople, and
+the Grand Master was under no illusions from the very first as to what the
+destination of the army of the Sultan would be. He recognised that against
+the small islands of Malta and Gozo all the strength of the mightiest
+Empire in the world was about to be directed, and with serene confidence
+set about the task of preparation. His first care was to send out "a
+general citation" to those Knights living in their own homes in different
+countries in Europe, commanding them to repair at once to Malta and take
+part in the defence of that Order to which they had vowed to consecrate
+their lives. The agents of the Order in Italy succeeded in raising two
+thousand infantry, and the Viceroy of Sicily sent over two companies of
+Spanish infantry which he had promised. All the galleys of "the Religion"
+were called in from distant service and were set to work importing
+ammunition, stores, provisions, and all requisites for the withstanding of
+a siege. As the galleys passed backwards and forwards to Sicily, in each
+returning vessel came noble gentlemen of every country in Europe, in answer
+to the summons of their Grand Master. They were received with the tenderest
+affection by him and by those others already assembled; never in all its
+long and glorious history had the Order assembled in circumstances more
+grave; never in its history, either in the past or in the future, did it
+quit itself with so supreme a heroism as in those days of 1565 which were
+yet to come. In Malta the orderly bustle of preparation went on
+ceaselessly; the Italian and Spanish troops and the inhabitants of the
+island, for the most part hardy mariners well accustomed to the ceaseless
+_guerre de course_ of the Knights, were formed into companies, officered by
+the members of the Order, and assigned to different posts.
+
+Meanwhile the Grand Master caused copies of the letters which he had
+received from Constantinople to be sent to all the great princes of Europe;
+showing them the straits to which the Order was shortly to be reduced and
+imploring of them to send timely succour. But it was not upon outside aid
+that La Valette counted overmuch; he was preparing to confront the Turks
+with such forces as he had at his own disposal; content, if necessary, to
+leave the issue in the hands of the God in whom he trusted. As the
+chevaliers came flocking to the standard of St. John he received them, we
+are told, "as a kind father receives his beloved children, having provided
+in advance for their food and lodging." He personally entered into the most
+minute details of his charge; he reviewed his infantry, he instructed his
+artillery, he planned sites for hospitals, he sketched out new
+fortifications, and then went among the humblest of his followers and
+wielded the pick and shovel in the burning sun. Everywhere his cheering
+presence was felt, his equable and serene temperament diffused confidence
+and hope.
+
+All things being thus in train he assembled his brethren and addressed them
+in the following terms:
+
+  "A formidable army, composed of audacious barbarians, is descending on
+  this island; these persons, my brothers, are the enemies of Jesus
+  Christ. To-day it is a question of the defence of our faith as to
+  whether the book of the Evangelist is to be superseded by that of the
+  Koran? God on this occasion demands of us our lives, already vowed to
+  His service. Happy will those be who first consummate this sacrifice.
+  But that we may indeed be worthy to render it come, my dear brothers, to
+  the foot of the altar, where we may renew our vows. Let each one rely on
+  the blood of the Saviour of men and in the faithful practice of the
+  sacraments; in them we shall find so generous a contempt for death that
+  we shall indeed be rendered invincible."
+
+The Knights then, headed by the Grand Master, took themselves in procession
+to the church. Here they confessed and received the sacrament. "They went
+out from thence as men who had received a new birth." The Knights, we are
+then told, tenderly embraced one another in all solemnity; vowing to shed
+the last drop of their blood in defence of their religion and its holy
+altars. It was in this lofty frame of mind that the Knights of Malta
+awaited the coming of their hereditary foe. Into the hearts and minds of
+these gallant gentlemen of the best blood in the world the Grand Master had
+instilled some leaven of the greatness by which he himself was inspired.
+When belief is so wholehearted as it was in the case of La Valette; when it
+is allied to a genius for war, and a supreme gift for the inspiration of
+others, then that man and the force which he commands are as near to
+invincibility as it is permitted to fallible human beings to attain. There
+were two things in which the Knights were supremely fortunate on this
+occasion: the first was that they had La Valette as Grand Master, the
+second that Dragut was not in supreme command of the Turks, and that the
+siege had opened before he arrived upon the scene. In this expedition, as
+in previous ones, the Turkish commanders had orders to attempt nothing
+really important without the advice of Dragut. They found themselves
+without him when they arrived and made an initial mistake. With La Valette
+in command there was no room for blundering; the ultimate result of their
+blunder was the defeat which they sustained.
+
+Grand Master, Knight, and noble, soldier, peasant, and mariner, strove
+valiantly with the task of putting the island into a state of defence, and
+when at last the long-expected armada of their foes rose above that distant
+blue horizon in the north all had been done that skill and experience could
+dictate.
+
+It was upon May 18th in the year 1565 that the Turkish fleet arrived at
+Malta. It was composed of one hundred and fifty-nine galleys and vessels
+propelled by oars: on board of these was an army for disembarkation of
+thirty thousand men, composed of Janissaries and Spahis, the very pick and
+flower of the Turkish army. Soliman the Magnificent was leaving as little
+to chance as was possible on this occasion; he well knew the temper of the
+Knights, and that this expedition had before it a task which would try both
+the army and its leaders to the very utmost of their strength. Behind the
+main body of the fleet came a host of vessels, charged with provisions, the
+horses of the Spahis, the siege-train of the artillery, all the innumerable
+appliances and engines of war which were in use at that day. The initial
+mistake on the part of the Turks was in embarking cavalry for a siege; they
+knew, or they should have known, of the extreme smallness of the island
+which they were about to attack, and that they were by no means likely to
+be met with armies in the field owing to the enormous preponderance of
+numbers which they had assured to themselves.
+
+Piali, as we have said, was in command of the fleet, and Mustafa of the
+army; the corsairs did not arrive on the scene till some days afterwards.
+
+The Turks landed some men who encountered the Chevalier La Riviere and some
+Maltese troops, with whom they had some lively skirmishes. Unfortunately,
+in one of these the Chevalier was captured, put to the torture, and
+eventually beheaded for having wilfully misled the Turks. A council of war
+was held by Piali, Mustafa, and their principal officers, to deliberate on
+the best manner of prosecuting the enterprise on which they were engaged.
+The admiral, wishing to conform strictly with the instructions of Soliman,
+voted to delay all initiative until the arrival of the famous corsair.
+Mustafa, however, held a different opinion: the unfortunate Chevalier La
+Riviere had, before his death, informed the Turkish general that large and
+powerful succours were expected daily from Sicily. Secretly disquieted by
+this news, which he had at the time affected to disbelieve, Mustafa now
+urged immediate action. His opinion was that, in the first instance, they
+had better attack the castle of St. Elmo. It was a small and insignificant
+fort which at best would only delay them some five or six days; when this
+had fallen they could proceed to the more serious business of taking Il
+Borgo, the principal fortress on the island in which the Grand Master and
+most of the Knights were established. By the time St. Elmo had been taken
+they might reasonably expect that Dragut and his corsairs would have
+arrived, and, with these seasonable reinforcements, proceed to the really
+formidable portion of their task. In their decisions both admiral and
+general were wrong; to delay attack, once the troops were landed, was a
+counsel of pusillanimity hardly to be expected of Piali, but showing at the
+same time how he dreaded above all else departing one iota from the
+instructions which he had received. To attack the castle of St. Elmo first
+was a military mistake, because it could be--and was during the whole of
+the siege--reinforced from its larger sister Il Borgo.
+
+The discourse of Mustafa prevailed in the council of war, and the siege of
+St. Elmo was decided upon and immediately begun.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+THE SIEGE OF MALTA
+
+  The siege of Malta by the Turks; The capture of the fortress of St.
+  Elmo; The death of Dragut-Reis
+
+[Illustration: JEAN PARISOT DE LA VALETTE, GRAND MASTER OF THE KNIGHTS OF
+MALTA, AT THE SIEGE OF THAT ISLAND BY THE TURKS IN 1565.]
+
+There was an entire disregard of human life among the leaders of the
+Ottoman Turks at this time which is almost incredible; to attain their end
+in war they sacrificed thousands upon thousands of men with an absolutely
+callous indifference. In no chapter of the bloodstained history of their
+Empire was this trait more in evidence than it was at the siege of Malta.
+There was, however, a reason for this, which developed itself more and more
+as the ceaseless assaults on the positions of the Knights went on. From a
+military point of view, all the operations which took place were those of
+the siege of a fortress; as when at length St. Elmo fell the Turks turned
+their attention to the fortress of Il Borgo. The time-honoured method of
+the attack on a fortress, of approaching it by sap and mine, was here
+almost an impossibility, as the island of Malta is composed of solid rock
+through which it was practically impossible to drive trenches. It is true
+that the rock is of an exceptionally soft nature, easily cut through with
+proper tools; but you cannot cut through rock, no matter how soft it may
+be, when your operations are opposed at every step by a brave and vigilant
+enemy. Mustafa and the council of war had, as we have said, decided to
+begin operations by the siege of the fortress of St. Elmo. This place had
+been built from the designs of the Prior of Capua, an officer of the Order,
+and was situated at the extreme end of the promontory of Mount Sceberass,
+which juts out between the Great Port and the harbour of Marsa Muzetto. The
+fort was in a commanding position and dominated the entrance to the two
+principal harbours in the island. It was admirably adapted for repulsing an
+attack from the sea; but, owing to the proximity of other points of land
+upon which artillery could be mounted, was easily capable of attack by such
+an enemy as that by which it was now assailed.
+
+The principal preoccupation of the militant Prior of Capua had been to make
+it formidable on the side facing the sea; perhaps the designer had never
+contemplated the possibility that the day might dawn when it would be
+attacked from the landward side! However this may have been, Mustafa
+decided that it could and should be carried on this, its weakest face, and
+made his preparations accordingly.
+
+As far as it was possible to open trenches this was done, at the most
+prodigal expenditure of the lives of the pioneers. Where the rock proved
+absolutely impossible of manipulation redoubts were constructed of massive
+beams on which thick planks were bolted, the whole covered with wet earth
+which had to be collected with incredible toil from the country at the
+back. Disembarking their siege-guns, and utilising the cattle of the
+islanders for transporting them, the great cannon of the Turks were dragged
+up the slopes of the Mount and got into position; and by the 24th of May
+fire was opened on St. Elmo with ten guns which threw balls weighing eighty
+pounds. Besides these there were two culverins which threw balls of sixty
+pounds, and a huge basilisk, the projectile from which weighed no less than
+one hundred and sixty pounds. A terrible fire was opened against the walls
+of the fort, and so destructive did it immediately become that the Bailli
+of Negropont, the Knight in command, very soon became aware that his trust
+must be in the stout hearts and strong arms of his garrison; as the walls
+by which they were surrounded were hourly crumbling into nothingness.
+
+Regarding the matter from this point of view, he sent at once to the Grand
+Master by the Chevalier La Cerda demanding succour; this officer, "rendered
+eloquent by fear," exaggerated the peril to which the fort was exposed and
+stated that it could not possibly hold out for more than another eight
+days.
+
+"What losses have you had?" demanded the Grand Master.
+
+"Sire," replied La Cerda, "the fort may be compared to a sick man in his
+extremity, in the last stage of weakness, unable to sustain himself except
+by perpetual cordials and remedies."
+
+"Then I myself will be your physician," said the Grand Master with
+contempt, "and I will bring others with me. If that cannot cure you of fear
+it will, at all events, prevent the infidels from seizing upon the fort."
+
+There was no real hope in the mind of La Valette that St. Elmo could be
+saved from the enemy. The place was too weak, and none knew this fact
+better than the man to whom all the defences of the island were as familiar
+as the hilt of his own good sword; but, though he secretly deplored the
+necessity, he felt that if Malta were to be preserved it could only be done
+by delaying until succour should come from outside; every day, nay, every
+hour, was of importance, and he was prepared to sacrifice St. Elmo and the
+lives of its entire garrison to attain his end. He did not, however--to
+continue the simile of La Cerda--prescribe for others a medicine which he
+himself was not prepared to take, and when he said that he would go to the
+fort of St. Elmo it was no mere figure of speech. The council of the
+Knights, however, would not hear of the Grand Master thus sacrificing
+himself; well did these noble gentlemen know that there was none among them
+like unto him, that his name and his influence were worth an army in
+themselves. The outcry was so loud that La Valette had to yield; which he
+did the more readily when he saw the splendid emulation among his brethren
+to cross over to the beleaguered and crumbling fortress which promised
+nothing but the grave to those who should pass within the circle of fire by
+which it was now surrounded. To the Chevaliers Gonzales de Medran and de la
+Motte was conceded the proud privilege for which all the Knights were
+clamouring; and, accompanied by the tears and the prayers of their
+brethren, they passed to that place where, if death were certain, honour at
+least was immortal. Truly the heart warms somewhat to the days of chivalry
+when one reads of what was done at the siege of Malta. The motto of
+_Noblesse oblige_ was no dead letter in the sixteenth century. By this time
+the whole of Europe was awake to the peril of the Order, and, galloping for
+dear life across Europe, came the Knights, anxious and willing to share in
+the danger. For most of these gentlemen Sicily was the goal at which they
+aimed; arrived there they flung themselves into any boat or shallop which
+they could hire, and, heedless of the risk of capture by the Turkish fleet,
+totally ignorant of what was passing in Malta save that the infidel was at
+her gates, they passed across the channel which separates the two islands
+and joined their fellows at Il Borgo.
+
+Greatly heartened by the reinforcements brought to them by de Medran and de
+la Motte, the garrison of St. Elmo made a sortie, surprised the Turks in
+their entrenchments, and, under cover of the guns of the fort, succeeded in
+destroying nearly all the works which the enemy had so painfully built up.
+The Turks, however, when they had recovered from the surprise, were in such
+large numbers as to be able to rally and drive the Christians from the
+vantage points which they had gained; and to oblige them once again to
+retire into the fort. From this time onward there was never a day in which
+the garrison and the besiegers were not hand to hand in the trenches.
+
+Just after the first reinforcements had been thrown into St. Elmo there
+arrived on the scene Ali, the Lieutenant of Dragut. This corsair came from
+Alexandria with six galleys, on board of which were nine hundred men,
+reinforcements for the Turkish army. A few days after this the famous
+Dragut himself appeared, with thirteen galleys and two galleots, on board
+of which were sixteen hundred men.
+
+What must not have been the despairing feelings with which the defenders
+viewed the arrival of this augmentation to the swarming ranks of their
+foes! From afar they noted the vessels and knew, while Philip of Spain and
+Garzia de Toledo still procrastinated, that now was added to the number of
+their enemies the most famous captain who served the autocrat of the
+Eastern world. Very naturally the arrival of Dragut was hailed with
+acclamation by the Turks: every gun in that vast armada spoke in salute,
+every trumpet blared, every drum rolled to welcome the man honoured of the
+Padishah, notorious throughout the whole world of Europe for his implacable
+enmity to the Knights. The first preoccupation of the corsair was to inform
+himself as to the conduct of the operations. These, when disclosed to him,
+by no means met with his approval. This real leader immediately made it
+clear to Piali and Mustafa that which they should have done. In the first
+place they should have made themselves masters of the castle of Gozo, and
+then captured the Citt� Notabile. By doing this the supplies to the town
+and fortress of Il Borgo would have been cut off: besides--and more
+important than aught else--they would in this manner have closed the road
+to those succours expected by the Christians. Piali, who had desired from
+the first to undertake nothing without the advice of Dragut, now said that
+the siege of St. Elmo was not so far advanced after all, and, if the Basha
+of Tripoli should so direct, it could be raised at once. To this, however,
+Dragut would by no means consent.
+
+"That would have been well enough," he said, "if the affair had not gone so
+far; but, after the opening of the trenches and several days of attack, it
+is not possible to raise the siege without sullying the honour of the
+Sultan and discouraging the valour of the soldiers."
+
+It cannot be denied that, in acting as he did, the corsair displayed a
+self-restraint and a loyalty to the Sultan hardly to be expected in the
+circumstances. The jealousy which so often obtains among rival commanders
+was singularly in evidence in the forces of the Padishah: Dragut had good
+cause to be dissatisfied with the dispositions which had been made, and
+yet, for the reasons which we have quoted, he allowed them to proceed.
+Before the Basha had left Tripoli he had been engaged in communications
+with Muley Hamid, the then King of Tunis, who was feudatory of Spain.
+Anxious as was the corsair to aid in attacking his implacable enemies, the
+Knights, he could not afford to leave his own flank unguarded in Africa. He
+succeeded, however, in arriving at an understanding with the King of Tunis,
+and, further than this, he had assured himself, by means of his spies, that
+the succours which were to be sent from Sicily by the Spanish King could
+not possibly arrive for another two months. It was the negotiations which
+he was obliged to undertake with Muley Hamid which had caused his late
+arrival. As far as it is possible to judge, it was this circumstance, which
+(added to their own incomparable valour) turned the scale in favour of the
+Knights.
+
+Among all those brave men at Malta, on both sides, in this flaming month of
+June 1565, there were none who excelled the Basha of Tripoli. "No one had
+ever seen a more intrepid general officer," says de Vertot. "He passed
+entire days in the trenches and at the batteries. Among his different
+talents none understood better than did he the direction and conduct of
+artillery, which was his special _m�tier_. By his orders on June 1st a
+second battery was constructed closer to the fort and parallel to the one
+already in existence, in order that an absolutely continuous fire might be
+maintained. He mounted four guns on the opposite side of Marsa Muzetto
+Harbour on a projecting point of land, from which a further enfilading fire
+smote the doomed fortress on the flank: this point has been known ever
+since as the Point Dragut."
+
+A ravelin in advance of the fortress on the land side was scourged without
+ceasing by the arquebus fire of the Janissaries. One evening, as the return
+fire had slackened and all seemed quiet within this work, some Turkish
+engineers stole forth from the trenches to reconnoitre. Approaching the
+cavalier, all was still as death; the bold sappers pushed on as far as the
+ditch by which the work was surrounded, creeping on hands and knees. They
+let themselves down noiselessly into the ditch, and then, one standing on
+the shoulders of another, peeped in upon their Christian foes. Whether or
+no the sentry had been slain by a stray shot, or whether he too slept, can
+never be known; but the cavalier was unguarded; all within it slept the
+sleep of men utterly exhausted. The sappers crept back to their trenches,
+fetched scaling-ladders, swept like a flood over the rim of the cavalier,
+and put to death every man whom they found. Profiting by their advantage,
+the Turks dashed over the bridge connecting the cavalier with the fort;
+here, however, they were met by Sergeant-Major Guerare and a handful of
+soldiers aroused by him. These men were instantly succoured by the
+Chevaliers de Vercoyran and de Medran, who were immediately followed by the
+Bailli of Negropont and several other Knights. An obstinate hand-to-hand
+combat now ensued; fresh Turks came up to the attack, but were mown down in
+swathes by an enfilading fire from two cannons which the defenders of the
+fort managed to bring to bear upon them. More pioneers arrived from the
+trenches, carrying planks and sacks filled with wool. These men tried to
+effect a permanent lodgment, but the fire was too hot on the Christian
+side, and men fell in hundreds. Nothing daunted, the Turks reared their
+scaling-ladders against the sides of the fortress itself, and attempted to
+scale the walls; but for this the ladders were too short, and the
+assailants were hurled back into the ditch. This attack, in which the
+Turkish arms were rewarded by the capture of the ravelin behind the
+cavalier, is said to have cost them the lives of three thousand men. It
+lasted from daybreak until midday.
+
+On the side of the Christians twenty Knights and one hundred soldiers were
+slain; but worst of all, from their point of view, the ravelin remained in
+the hands of their enemies. The chevalier Abel de Bridiers de la Gardampe
+having received a ball through his body, some of his comrades ran to place
+him under cover. "Count me no longer among the living," said the Knight.
+"You will be better employed in defending the rest of our brethren." He
+then, unassisted, dragged himself to the foot of the altar in the chapel,
+where his dead body was discovered when all was over.
+
+So far communication remained established between St. Elmo and their
+comrades in Il Borgo on the opposite side of the harbour; in consequence
+the wounded were removed and their places taken by one hundred fresh men
+under the Chevalier Vagnon. To the Bailli of Negropont and the Commandeur
+Broglio, La Valette sent a message to return to Il Borgo. These gallant and
+aged veterans, both of whom were wounded, whose faces were scorched by the
+sun and blackened with powder, whose bodies were well-nigh worn out with
+perpetual vigil and hand-to-hand fighting, refused stoutly to quit their
+post, which now was naught but a dreadful shambles filled with corpses
+mangled out of recognition and heads and limbs which had been torn and
+hacked from their bodies.
+
+Dragut now proposed to erect batteries on the same side of the Great Port
+as that on which Il Borgo was situated; on the point now known as Ricasoli,
+but which was then and for centuries afterwards known as the Punta Delle
+Forche (or Point of the Gallows, because it was here that all pirates was
+executed; and their bodies, swinging in chains, were the first objects that
+met the eye on entering the Great Port). In this he was overruled ruled by
+Piali, who declared that he had not sufficient men to spare, and the
+Knights of II Borgo would soon render the battery untenable even if they
+should succeed in erecting it, which the Turkish admiral now considered
+extremely doubtful. The siege of St. Elmo, which Mustafa had said would
+last at the outside for five or six days, had now been in progress for four
+weeks; and, although the fort was in a ruinous condition, nothing seemed
+capable of daunting those invincible warriors by which it was held.
+
+The position in St. Elmo now was that the Turks still held on to the
+ravelin which they had captured; this they had built up to such a height
+that they could look over the parapet of the fortress and shoot down with
+arquebus fire any one whom they could see. Meanwhile the Turkish sappers
+delved night and day in their endeavour to undermine the parapet, which, if
+blown up, would give them free access to the interior of the fort; while
+another party, by use of the yards of galleys and huge planks of wood,
+busied themselves in constructing a bridge to connect the ravelin with the
+parapet. Lamirande, one of the most active of the defenders of the fort,
+viewed these preparations without undue alarm, as he was aware that, by the
+nature of the ground, it would be almost impossible to excavate
+sufficiently under the parapet to place an effective mine. As, however, the
+sapping was causing the parapet to incline outwards, and it was possible
+that it might almost at any moment fall over into the ditch, he caused a
+second parapet to be erected inside the first and artillery to be mounted
+thereon. Having done this he caused a false sortie to be made on the
+following night, and when the Turks rushed to the attack he, accompanied by
+a party of sappers, sallied out into the ditch and burned the bridge which
+had been made. The Turks, returning after their fruitless assault, found
+their bridge destroyed, but with untiring activity set to work and
+constructed it afresh. Dragging cannon to the very edge of the ravelin,
+they, on the very next evening, revenged themselves by also making a false
+attack: they swarmed into the ditch, and, placing their scaling-ladders
+against the walls, pretended that an escalade was to be attempted. The
+garrison, deceived, appeared on the parapet in large numbers, when a
+murderous fire at point-blank range was opened upon them from the ravelin.
+So great was the execution done on this occasion that the garrison lost
+more men than had hitherto been the case in the most determined attacks
+which they had sustained.
+
+It now seemed as if indeed the end had come, that the garrison had done all
+that was in the power of mortal man and nothing was left for them but to
+retire while there was yet time. Accordingly choice was made of the
+chevalier Median to represent the desperate extremities to which they were
+reduced to La Valette. It was well known that for none among the Knights
+had the Grand Master more respect than he had for Medran, one of the
+bravest and most chivalrous of them all. He, at least, could never be
+suspected of cowardice, feebleness, at a desire to desert his post. This
+gallant Knight crossed the harbour on his dolorous errand and was received
+by his chief: to him he represented the state of affairs as it has here
+been set down, assuring him that at best the fort could but hold out for a
+few days longer.
+
+A chapter of the Knights Grand Cross was immediately held and the most part
+of them were of opinion that the time had come to abandon a hopeless
+position. But this decision did not meet with the approval of the Grand
+Master. No one was more sensible than he of the peril to which their
+brethren were exposed; at the same time, he contended, that there were
+occasions on which it was necessary to sacrifice a certain number for the
+good of the whole Order. He had certain information that, if St. Elmo were
+abandoned, the Viceroy of Sicily would hazard nothing for the relief of the
+island; that upon the arrival of succours depended the existence of their
+ancient and honourable confederacy: therefore, at no matter what cost, they
+were bound to hold out as long as possible. So dominant was the personality
+of the Grand Master that, in a short time, he had won over the votes of the
+chapter and Medran was ordered to return to St. Elmo and deliver to the
+garrison a message that the siege must take its course.
+
+Medran accordingly returned and reported to his comrades the result of his
+embassy. Several of the older Knights received the command with due
+submission, but among those who were younger there were murmurings. These
+men deemed the answer to their appeal hard and cruel; they could see no
+object in the loss of their lives, which they well knew would all be
+sacrificed in the next assault. They accordingly, to the number of
+fifty-three, wrote a letter to the Grand Master, demanding permission to
+abandon St. Elmo and retire to Il Borgo. If their request were denied they
+announced their design to sally forth, sword in hand, and perish in the
+ranks of the enemy. The Commandeur de Cornet was the bearer of this letter,
+which was received by the Grand Master with sorrow and indignation. To
+reassure them, he sent three commissioners to inspect the place. This was
+done, and one of them, a Knight of Greek descent named Constantine
+Castriot, reported that the fort could still hold out a while longer. When
+he announced this at St. Elmo the recalcitrant Knights were so furious with
+him that the Baili of Negropont had to sound "the alarm" to prevent a
+disgraceful fracas. The commissioners returned to Il Borgo. After hearing
+their report La Valette wrote a letter to those by whom he had been
+memorialised to the following effect:
+
+  "Return to the convent, my brothers; you will there be in greater
+  security; and on our part we shall feel a greater sense of security in
+  the conservation of so important a place, on which depends the safety of
+  the island and the honour of our Order."
+
+Never were men so taken aback as were the Knights in St. Elmo when they
+received this response; here it was intimated to them that that which they
+refused to do on account of the danger thereof was to be undertaken by
+others. This was no more than a fact, as La Valette was besieged with
+applications from, not only the Knights, but also the simple soldiers of
+the garrison, to be allowed to pass over to St. Elmo and die if necessary
+to the last man. It was, therefore, with prayers and tears that the Knights
+besought the Grand Master to allow them to remain. At first La Valette was
+adamant. He preferred, he said, the rawest militia which was prepared to
+obey his orders, to Knights who knew not their duty. In the end, however,
+he yielded, and in the fortress of St. Elmo, that crushed and ruined
+charnel-house, its defences gaping wide, its every corner exposed night and
+day to a sweeping murderous fire, there remained a host of men sadly torn
+and battered, but animated by such a spirit that nothing the Turks could
+devise made upon it the least impression. These great and gallant gentlemen
+had had their moment of weakness; they had been heartened to the right
+conception of their duty by the noble veteran who was their chief. To him
+had they turned at last, as his obedient children who had had their moment
+of rebellion in a trial as hard as was ever undergone by man. And now, as
+the inevitable end drew near, it was as if they would imitate the Roman
+gladiator with that terrible chorus of his: "Ave C�sar morituri te
+salutant."
+
+All day and every day did the garrison fight, snatching such repose as was
+possible when their pertinacious enemies, worn out by fatigue and the
+terrible heat, could no longer be led to the attack against those whom they
+now firmly believed to be in league with Shaitan himself; "For how else,"
+demanded Janissary and Spahi alike, "could infidels like these make head
+against those chosen of the Prophet like ourselves."
+
+At this time the garrison took into use a device attributed to the Grand
+Master himself. This consisted in hoops of wood which were first thoroughly
+soaked in alcohol and then boiled in oil; they were then tightly bound with
+cotton or wool, also soaked in inflammable liquids mixed with saltpetre and
+gunpowder. Once these fiendish contrivances were set alight nothing availed
+to put them out, and they were feared as was naught else by the Turks
+during the remainder of the time they were in Malta. They were particularly
+deadly against the Turks, and at times two or more soldiers mounting the
+breach would be caught in one of these fiery circles, and the unfortunate
+wretches would be burnt alive. Even the Janissaries refused to advance at
+times when these fireworks were being flung down upon their flowing
+garments.
+
+On June 16th another attack was made on the fortress, and, incredible as it
+may seem, it was repulsed with such awful slaughter that at last the Turks
+would not face the swords of the garrison. Alter this the enemy succeeded
+in drawing so close a cordon round the place that no more succours could
+reach it, and the end was but a matter of time. The day before it came
+Dragut, who, with his usual intrepidity, was standing in the midst of a hot
+fire, was struck on the side of the head by a stone dislodged from a wall
+by a cannon-ball. At the moment when this happened he was holding a council
+of war in the trenches with Piali, a Sanjak, and the principal Turkish
+engineer. The same shot which wounded Dragut killed the Sanjak on the spot.
+Piali caused a cloak to be thrown over the body of the corsair in order
+that his state should not be observed by the soldiers, and as soon as
+possible had him removed to his tent, where he lay unconscious till the
+following day.
+
+The council on which the corsair had been engaged when he received his
+mortal wound had for its object the complete isolation of St. Elmo from Il
+Borgo; his dispositions were completed and his orders given to the engineer
+just before he was struck.
+
+The agony of St. Elmo was drawing to an end; completely hemmed in by the
+latest dispositions of Dragut, the fortress was at its last gasp; a brave
+Maltese swimmer managed to slip through the cordon, swim the harbour, and
+deliver to the Grand Master a letter from the Bailli of Negropont. The
+Grand Master made one last effort to throw succours and reinforcements into
+the place, but these were beaten off with terrible slaughter: nothing now
+remained but to await the inevitable tragedy.
+
+[Illustration: DEATH OF DRAGUT AT THE SIEGE OF MALTA.]
+
+On the night of June 22nd the defenders of St. Elmo, having now lost all
+hope of being supported, made ready for death. Into them La Valette had
+breathed his own heroic spirit, and none among them counselled or dreamed
+of surrender. The Order to which they had given their allegiance now
+demanded of them the last sacrifice which it was in their power to make,
+and this was offered in the manner most fitting to its tenets. These
+exhausted, war-worn, battle-scarred warriors repaired to the chapel, where
+they confessed, and made ready by partaking together of the sacrament,
+"and, having thus surrendered their souls to God, each retired to his post
+to die on the bed of honour with arms in his hand." Those among the Knights
+who were too severely wounded or too ill to stand caused chairs to be
+carried to the breach in which they seated themselves and awaited the
+assault. For four hours did these indomitable men withstand the might of a
+host innumerable: at the conclusion of this period there remained alive but
+sixty of the garrison. Mustafa ceased the assault for a few moments only to
+replace the storming party by fresh troops, and then the end came. Almost
+the last to fall were the Chevalier Lamirande and the veteran Bailli of
+Negropont, and when the crescent banner was planted on the walls there
+remained alive not one of those defenders who had held the fort. Several of
+Dragut's officers ran to his tent and announced the taking of St. Elmo. The
+great captain was in his last extremity and unable to speak, "He, however,
+manifested his joy by several signs, and, raising his eyes to heaven as if
+in thankfulness for its mercies, immediately expired: a captain of rare
+valour and even abundantly more humane than are ordinarily these corsairs."
+
+The Basha Piali, on entering the fort and observing with what miserable
+resources it had so long been held exclaimed, as he looked across the
+harbour to Il Borgo:
+
+"What will not the parent do to us, when so small a son has cost us the
+lives of our bravest soldiers?"
+
+There is no record of what that cruel savage, Mustafa, said on this
+occasion; his deeds, however, spoke eloquently. He caused the bodies of the
+Knights to be decapitated and nailed to wooden crosses, while across their
+corpses were slashed a cross in derision of the religion of his foes. The
+bodies were then cast into the harbour, and were washed up at the foot of
+Il Borgo. Instantly the Grand Master ordered the decapitation of all the
+Turkish prisoners, and their heads were fired from cannon into the camp of
+Mustafa.
+
+With the remainder of the siege, which was yet to last till September 18th,
+we have no concern in this book. It is only necessary to say that the men
+of Il Borgo were worthy to stand in the same category with the defenders of
+St. Elmo, which is equivalent to stating that in them also was discovered
+the last limit of heroism. The Grand Master survived the siege, his
+monument is the noble city of "Valetta" built on Mount Sceberras. The Turks
+abandoned the siege and returned to Constantinople on the arrival of some
+insignificant reinforcements from Sicily. So terrible had been the
+resistance of the Knights that no heart was left in their armada. Of Dragut
+there remains but little to be said: he was perhaps the best educated of
+the corsairs and less cruel than was usually their habit. Although not so
+renowned as his more celebrated master, Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, this is,
+perhaps, because his career was cut short at the siege of Malta at a
+comparatively early age. Although he never attained the rank of
+Admiralissimo to the Grand Turk, that potentate, as we have seen, placed in
+him the greatest confidence, and relied largely on his judgment, especially
+when sea-affairs were in question. Like the Barbarossas before him, he rose
+from nothing to the height to which he eventually attained by sheer force
+of intellect and character. In the stormy times in which his lot was cast
+he never faltered in his onward way, never repined, never looked back,
+sustained as he was by a consciousness of his own capability to rule the
+wild spirits by whom he lived surrounded. So it is that, whatever other
+opinion we may hold of Dragut, we cannot deny that in this captain of the
+Sea-wolves were blended rare qualities, which caused him to shine as a
+capable administrator, a fine seaman, but above all as a supreme leader of
+men. Dragut died with arms in his hands fighting those whom he considered
+to be his bitterest enemies. He did not live to see the repulse of Piali
+and Mustapha, and it is to be presumed that he died assured in his own mind
+that victory would rest with the Moslem host. For such a man as this no
+death could have been more welcome.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+ALI BASHA
+
+  Ali, the Basha of Algiers, succeeds to Dragut--He conquers the Kingdom
+  of Tunis, captures four galleys from the Knights of Malta, joins Piali
+  Basha in his raidings preliminary to the battle of Lepanto--The
+  gathering of the Christian hosts and the arrival of Don John of Austria
+  in the Mediterranean to take command.
+
+"Now I have heard several mariners and captains of the sea, nay, even
+Knights of Malta, debate among themselves this question, as to which was
+the greater and better seaman, Dragut or Occhiali? And some held for one
+and some for the other; those who held for Occhiali declaring that he had
+held greater and more honourable charges than Dragut, because he commanded
+as General and Admiral for the Grand Turk and that _il fit belle action_ at
+the battle of Lepanto." Pierre de Bourdeille, the Seigneur de Brant�me,
+from whom we make the above quotation, was himself present at the siege of
+Malta and, besides this, as is well known, gossiped in his own inimitable
+way concerning men and women of his time, from corsairs to courtesans. When
+such contemporary authorities as those mentioned could not agree it is
+quite certain that we of the twentieth century cannot decide on the rival
+claims to distinction between the Bashaw of Tripoli and his follower
+Occhiali, as he was known to the Christians, or Ali Basha, as he was called
+by the Turks. Ali Basha has a title to fame in the fact that he is
+mentioned by Cervantes in his _Don Quijote de la Mancha_ under the name of
+"Uchali" in chapter xxxix., "Donde el cautivo cuenta su vida y sucesos."
+The captive is supposed to have been no less a person than the famous
+Cervantes himself, and he briefly describes how Uchali became "Rey de
+Argel," or King of Algiers.
+
+Ali was a Christian, having been born at a miserable little village in
+Calabria called Licastelli. Nothing whatever is known of his birth and
+parentage, and he does not appear even to have possessed a Christian name,
+although born in a Christian land. He followed from his earliest youth the
+calling of a mariner; "he was from infancy inured to salt water," says
+Joseph Morgan, in his _Compleat History of Algiers_, and he was, as a mere
+boy, captured by Ali Ahamed, Admiral of Algiers, and was chained to the
+starboard-bow oar in the galley of that officer. He was thus very early in
+life "inured" to suffering, and must have possessed a constitution of iron
+to withstand thus, in boyhood, the hardships of the life of a galley-slave,
+which as a rule broke down the endurance of strong men in a very few years.
+Morgan presents us with a description of him at this period which in these
+more squeamish days can certainly not be set down in its entirety: suffice
+it to say that he suffered all his days from what is known as "scald-head,"
+and that personal filthiness was one of his principal characteristics.
+
+For some years Ali remained at the heart-breaking toil of the rower's
+bench: cut off from home, which to him meant nothing, devoid of kinsfolk,
+alone--miserably alone in a world which, so far, had given him naught but
+the chain and the whip--it is not a matter for surprise that he became a
+Mussulman, thus freeing himself from slavery. From the time that he took
+this step his fortunes mended rapidly in that strange medley of savagery
+and bloodshed in which his lot was cast.
+
+Alert, strong, capable, and vigorous, he became in early manhood chief
+boatswain in the galley in which his apprenticeship had been passed--a
+position which enabled him to accumulate a small store of ducats, with
+which he bought a share in a brigantine. Here he soon acquired sufficient
+wealth to become captain and owner of a galley, in which he soon gained the
+reputation of being one of the boldest corsairs on the Barbary coast.
+Having in some sort made a name for himself, his next step was to seek for
+a patron who could make use of his valour, address, and capability for
+command. His choice was soon made, as who in all the Mediterranean, in his
+early days, held such a name as Dragut? He accordingly entered the service
+of the Basha of Tripoli, and, under his command, became well known to the
+officers of the Grand Turk, particularly to the Admiral, Piali Basha, to
+whom he was able to render some important services.
+
+There is no object to be gained in lingering over the earlier years of this
+notable corsair, as we should thus only be repeating what has been said
+about Dragut, whose lieutenant and trusted follower he became. He
+accompanied his master to the siege of Malta, and when Dragut was slain the
+Capitan-Basha, Piali, named him as successor to his chief as Viceroy of
+Tripoli. Ali sailed from Malta to Tripoli, taking with him the remains of
+Dragut, to be buried as that chieftain had directed. When he arrived on the
+Barbary coast he made himself master of the slaves and treasure which had
+been left behind by Dragut; shortly after this he was confirmed in his
+Vice-royalty of Tripoli by the Grand Turk; thenceforward increasing, both
+his wealth and the terror in which his name was held, by continual raids
+upon the Christians, more particularly on the coasts of Sicily, Calabria,
+and Naples. It is curious to observe the sort of spite which all the
+renegadoes seem to have harboured against the countries in which they were
+born.
+
+In March 1568, owing to the fall of Mohammed Basha, the Vice-royalty of
+Algiers became vacant, and, through the good offices of his old friend
+Piali, Ali became Governor. He thus returned to occupy a position of
+literally sovereign power to the city which he had first entered as a
+galley-slave.
+
+That he was no negligent Governor and that he took an entirely intelligent
+view of his functions, is proved by an occurrence which took place in this
+same year in Spain. The Moriscoes in the Kingdom of Granada revolted
+against their Spanish Governor, by whom they were sorely oppressed. They
+sent messages to Ali at Algiers, begging for succour against their
+persecutor. But the Basha would send no expedition; he permitted all and
+sundry to go as volunteers, but gave out publicly that "it more concerned
+him to defend well his own State than to interfere in the affairs of
+others." He even went farther than this, and when a number of Moriscoes,
+who were settled at Algiers, embarked a quantity of arms for transportation
+to the coast of Andalusia, he put an embargo on the vessels and would not
+allow them to sail, saying "he would never suffer the exportation of what
+was so necessary for the defence of his own dominions." At last, after much
+importunity, he consented "that all such as had two of a sort--as muskets,
+swords, or other weapons--might, if they thought fit, send over one of
+them, provided they did it gratis and purely for the cause' sake; but he
+would never allow any of them to strip themselves of their arms for lucre."
+
+Ali, being now firmly established at Algiers, took up arms against the
+neighbouring State of Tunis. For long years now the King of Tunis had been
+protected by the Spaniards--a nation whom the Sea-wolves always held in
+singular abhorrence as the most bigoted of the Christian Powers, and who
+held in thrall many of their co-religionists. Hamid, son of Hassan, who now
+ruled in Tunis, had reduced that unfortunate State to anarchy bordering on
+rebellion, and the whole country, torn by internal feud, was ready to rise
+against him. The Goletta was in the hands of the Spaniards; Carouan, an
+inland town, had set up a king of its own, while the maritime towns passed
+from the domination of the Sea-wolves to that of the Christians, and from
+the Christians back to the Sea-wolves, according to which party happened to
+be the stronger for the time being.
+
+El Maestro Fray Diego de Haedo, "Abad de Fromesta de la Orden del Patriarca
+San Benito" and "natural del Valle de Carranca," whose _Topografia e
+Historia de Argel_ (or Algiers) was printed in Valladolid in the year 1612,
+gives an account of Hamid at this time in which he describes that monarch
+as an "unpopular tyrant who sadly persecuted his vassals and the friends of
+his father; who could by no means suffer his tyrannies and those of his
+ministers, the scum of the earth ("hombres baxos"), to whom he had given
+the principal offices of the kingdom. Accordingly, since the time that Ali
+had become Basha of Algiers, letters had been written to him importuning
+him to come to Tunis that he might possess himself of that city and
+kingdom."
+
+There were three principal conspirators--the Alcaid Bengabara, General of
+the Cavalry, the Alcaid Botaybo, and the Alcaid Alcadaar. Ali, however, was
+too shrewd a man to move until he had satisfied himself by reports from his
+own adherents; he, therefore, awaited the result of investigations made by
+spies from Algiers. At last, in the beginning of the year 1569, when the
+offers from the Alcaids had been three times renewed and the Basha was
+assured that the people in Tunis were sincere in their offer to him of the
+sovereignty of the kingdom--which they begged him to conquer and hold in
+the name of the Ottoman Empire--the ex-galley-slave no longer hesitated. He
+left Algiers in the month of October, leaving that city in charge of one
+Mami Corso, a fellow renegado. Unlike Dragut, who would have gone by sea,
+he set out by land with some five thousand corsairs and renegadoes. On the
+way he was reinforced by some six thousand cavalry of the wild tribes of
+the hinterland, then as ever ready to join in a fray with promise of booty:
+doubly ready in this case, as it was to harass so unpopular a tyrant as
+Hamid. Passing through Constantine and Bona, he continued to march towards
+Tunis, his following augmenting as he proceeded, and adding to his forces
+ten light field-guns. Arriving at Beja, a town which Haedo describes as
+being but two short days' march from Tunis, he came upon a fortress,
+recently erected by Hamid, mounting fourteen brass cannon. Here he halted,
+whereupon Hamid sallied out to give him battle at the head of some three
+thousand troops, horse and foot. The engagement had scarcely begun when the
+three Alcaids, who had been in communication with Ali, deserted with all
+their following. Hamid fled to Tunis, expecting to find shelter there, but
+he was hotly pursued by the corsairs, who followed him up to Al-Burdon,
+where his summer palace was situated. Hamid, finding that his people were
+everywhere in revolt, fled to the Goletta, carrying with him a quantity of
+money, jewels, and portable valuables, and placed himself under the
+protection of the Spanish garrison--not, however, without the loss of the
+major portion of his baggage, plundered from him by certain Moors in the
+course of his flight.
+
+Like Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, Ali was now lord of Algiers and Tunis, and as
+he was, for a corsair, a man of wide views, he treated his new subjects
+with consideration. He made, however, one curious mistake not to have been
+expected from one so politic: he demanded tribute from the tribes of the
+hinterland. In those days, particularly in Northern Africa, men paid
+tribute to an overlord because he was stronger than they; because
+retribution followed swiftly and suddenly upon refusal. To order tribute to
+be paid without being ready to strike was merely to expose the man making
+the demand to derision. Particularly was this the case with the fierce
+land-pirates of the desert, whose habit it was to exact and not to pay
+tribute. To Ali the Sheiks replied that "if he wanted tribute from them he
+must demand it lance in hand in the field, for there and nowhere else were
+they accustomed to pay: that their coin was steel lance-heads and not
+golden aspers." After this, says Morgan, "the Basha thought it well to
+dissemble."
+
+Ali, being in no position to wage war in the desert against these people,
+had to swallow the insult and to turn his attention to regulating the
+internal affairs of his newly acquired kingdom. This he succeeded in doing
+sufficiently by the month of June in the following year to enable him to
+leave Tunis in the hands of one Rabadan, a Sardinian renegado, and to start
+himself for Constantinople. His reason for doing this was the old one of
+attempting to consolidate his power in Northern Africa by appealing to the
+Sultan for help. As long as the Goletta remained in the hands of the
+Spaniards no corsair could feel himself secure in either Tunis or Algiers.
+The object of Ali was to beg from the Grand Turk men and ships to assist
+him to chase the Spaniards out of Africa.
+
+The month of June 1570, in consequence, saw Ali once more at sea in his
+"Admiral galley," steering northwards to the Golden Horn. Carrying with
+them a favourable breeze from the south-east, the galleys spread their huge
+lateen sails, and the straining rowers had rest awhile. The squadron
+consisted of twenty-four galleys. Off Cape Passaro, in Sicily, a small
+vessel was captured which gave information that five galleys of the Knights
+of Malta were at anchor at Licata, a small harbour in the neighbourhood,
+and that they were on the point of sailing for Malta. The decision of Ali
+was taken on the instant: were he to go in and attack them with the
+overwhelming force at his command the crews might escape to the shore; even
+the Knights of Malta could hardly be expected to fight twenty-four galleys
+with five. He was anxious to capture the ships, but above all to capture
+those by whom they were manned: to have the satisfactory revenge of seeing
+the proud Knights stripped naked and chained to the benches of his own
+fleet.
+
+The hot Mediterranean sun poured down out of a cloudless sky as the
+Sea-wolves made their offing; out of sight of land they lay, but right in
+the course which the galleys of the Christians were bound to take. The
+great yards, with their lateen sails, were got down on deck, and, oar in
+hand, the Moslems awaited their prey. Presently the Maltese galleys were
+discovered coming leisurely along, under oars and sails, and then--when it
+was too late--the Knights discovered the snare into which they had fallen.
+There was but scant time for preparation or deliberation, and who shall
+blame four out of the five if they decided to try to escape? for it was
+escape or annihilation.
+
+But there was one which did not fly, "Una galera hizo cara a los Turcos"
+(One single galley turned her bows towards the Turks), says that faithful
+chronicler Haedo. She was named the _Santa Ana_, but the name of her heroic
+commander has not come down to us. Even as Grenfell "at Flores in the
+Azores," stood upon the deck of the little _Revenge_ on that memorable
+August day in 1591, when "he chose to die rather than to dishonour himself,
+his country, and her Majesty's ship," so also did this Knight of Malta bear
+down on the twenty-four that were his foes.
+
+When Don John of Austria, being at the time young and inexperienced in
+warfare on the sea, wrote to the Marquis of Villafranca, General of the
+Galleys of Sicily, requesting advice on the subject of galley attacking
+galley, that officer replied to him, "Never fire your arquebus at the foe
+until you are so close at hand that his blood will leap into your face at
+the discharge." If we bear in mind such an instruction as this it will help
+us to picture that close-packed sanguinary conflict upon which the
+Mediterranean sun looked down on this day. Eight to one, all that could
+find room to get alongside of the _Santa Ana_, fought with the Knight and
+his followers. The issue was, of course, never in doubt for a moment.
+"Muertos y cansados" (Dead and deadbeat), says Haedo, the caballeros and
+soldados of the Christian ship could at length hold out no longer. The
+Sea-wolves were victorious, the proud banner of Saint John was lowered; but
+never in all its history had it been more nobly upheld, and the galley
+_Santa Ana_, commanded by that unknown member of the great Christian
+military hierarchy of the sixteenth century, may well stand in the roll of
+fame alongside of the _Revenge_, the _Vengeur_, and the _Victory_.
+
+The _Capitana_, or "Admiral's galley," of the Knights, being hotly pursued,
+ran ashore with one of her consorts at Licata: the crews landed, but were
+pursued and overtaken. One galley escaped altogether, but four out of the
+five were taken. So notable a victory as this over the Knights caused so
+much rejoicing in the fleet of the Sea-wolves that Ali determined to
+celebrate it by a triumphal return to Algiers instead of proceeding
+directly to Constantinople. Accordingly, the ships' heads were turned south
+once more, and upon July 20th, 1570, the fleet arrived in the African port,
+"on sus galeras todas llenas de muchas banderas"--with galleys gaily
+beflagged.
+
+[Illustration: A GALLEY OF THE KNIGHTS OF MALTA.]
+
+The procession entered the harbour in three divisions of eight galleys: and
+towing behind each division was one of the captured galleys of the Knights.
+In memory of his prowess Ali ordered that the shields and bucklers taken
+from the Maltese galleys, which bore upon them emblazoned the white cross
+of "the Religion," should be hung up in the great arched gate of the
+Marina. Also there was placed here the image of Saint John the Baptist,
+taken from the _Capitana_ galley, "all of which remain," says Haedo, "until
+this day" _(i.e._ 1612), except the image of Saint John, which in the reign
+of Hassan Basha, a Venetian renegado, was taken down and burned at the
+instance of the Morabutos, "los letrados de los Moros" (the learned among
+the Moors). It is an instructive commentary on the fear and respect in
+which the Knights of Malta were held that such a man as Ali should have
+considered it a triumph worth the celebrating when he defeated five of
+their vessels with twenty-four of his own.
+
+The next occurrence in the life of Ali was one of those to which the
+Sea-wolves were subjected from time to time, and which do not seem to have
+caused them much trouble or anxiety. This was a mutiny of the Janissaries
+in Algiers, who very reasonably objected to being left without their pay. A
+mutiny of the Janissaries, however, was somewhat a serious matter, as they
+were accustomed to the enjoyment of many privileges, and were, as we have
+said elsewhere, a picked corps who had it in their power even to coerce the
+Sultan himself upon occasions.
+
+Those of them who were in Algiers demanded "Who was this corsair who dared
+to keep the picked men of the army of the Grand Turk waiting for their pay,
+as if they were no better than his slaves?" Such a thing as a mutiny was,
+in the days of which we speak, a matter for which any prudent corsair had
+to be prepared. Ali was in no means discomposed, and, as the crisis had
+become acute on shore, he went to sea, where he was under no obligation to
+pay his men, who paid themselves at the expense of their enemies. He put to
+sea with twenty galleys, and, shortly after leaving Algiers, he met with a
+galley from the Levant, from which he received information that a powerful
+armada was preparing in Constantinople for an expedition against the
+Christians. He steered for Coron in the Morea, where he was almost
+immediately joined by the Ottoman fleet, the commander of which force was
+overjoyed to find so formidable a reinforcement under so renowned a captain
+as Ali.
+
+Soliman the Magnificent had died in 1566, and had been succeeded by his
+son, Selim; this prince, bred in the Seraglio, was weak and licentious,
+given to that strong drink forbidden by the Prophet to an extent which
+caused him to be nicknamed by the Spaniards as "el ebrio," or "el bebedor."
+
+This was a state of affairs which boded ill for the Turkish Empire, and
+Selim II. had been educated in a very different manner from that which had
+hitherto been the custom. Speaking of this, Gibbon says, "Instead of the
+slothful luxury of the Seraglio, the heirs of royalty were educated in the
+council and the field. From early youth they were entrusted by their
+fathers with the command of provinces and of armies; and this manly
+institution, which was often productive of civil war, must have essentially
+contributed to the discipline and vigour of the monarchy."
+
+Drunkard and weakling as he was, Selim had his ambitions. He wished to
+signalise his reign by some great conquest, such as had added lustre to the
+rule of his father; and in consequence he laid claim to the island of
+Cyprus, then belonging to Venice, The Venetians, having strengthened the
+fortifications of the island and fitted out their navy, sought alliances in
+Europe to curb the pretensions of the Porte. In this they found support,
+instant and generous, from the Pope Pius V. Of this great ecclesiastic
+Prescott says: "He was one of those Pontiffs who seemed to have been called
+forth by the exigencies of the time to uphold the pillars of Catholicism as
+they were yet trembling under the assaults of Luther."
+
+The Pope, Philip II. of Spain, and Venice formed what was known as the
+"Holy League," and, having formed it, immediately began to quarrel among
+themselves as to what its functions were to be. The Venetians wished all
+its efforts to be directed to safeguarding Cyprus, while Philip and his
+viceroys were anxious to attack the Sea-wolves on the coast of Africa in
+their strongholds. After much squabbling, an agreement was come to. The
+principal items of this were, that the Pope should pay one-sixth of the
+expenses, Venice two-sixths, and Spain three-sixths; that each party should
+appoint its own Commander-in-Chief, and that Don John of Austria should be
+in supreme command of the whole forces assembled. The contracting parties
+were to furnish 200 galleys, 100 transports, 50,000 foot, 4,500 horse, and
+the requisite artillery and stores.
+
+While the Christians were negotiating and talking, the Turks were acting.
+It was in May that the Pope caused the treaty to be publicly read in full
+consistory; in April the Turkish fleet had got to sea and committed
+terrible ravages in the Adriatic, laying waste to Venetian territory.
+
+While ships and men were gathering, and while the fleet which it was to be
+his fortune to defeat was pursuing its career in the Mediterranean, Don
+John of Austria left Madrid for the south on June 6th, 1571. When he
+arrived at Barcelona he made a pilgrimage to the Hermitage of Our Lady of
+Montserrat, where his father Charles V. had confessed and received the
+sacrament before he sailed on his voyage to the Barbary coast in his
+expedition against Barbarossa. From Barcelona he sailed with thirty galleys
+to Genoa, where he arrived on the 25th, and was lodged in the palace of
+Andrea Doria. In August he arrived by water at Naples.
+
+By this time all Europe was aflame with excitement: warriors of noble birth
+were flocking to serve under the standard of the brother of the King of
+Spain, who was regarded as the very mirror of chivalry. The following
+description of Don John, at Naples, is from the pen of that great historian
+Prescott:
+
+  "Arrangements had been made in that city for his reception on a more
+  magnificent scale than any he had witnessed on his journey. Granvelle,
+  who had lately been raised to the post of Viceroy, came forth at the
+  head of a long and brilliant procession to welcome his royal guest. The
+  houses which lined the streets were hung with richly tinted tapestries
+  and gaily festooned with flowers. The windows and verandahs were graced
+  with the beauty and fashion of the pleasure-loving capital, and many a
+  dark eye sparkled as it gazed upon the fine form and features of the
+  youthful hero, who at the age of twenty-four had come to Italy to assume
+  the baton of command and lead the crusade against the Moslems. His
+  splendid dress of white velvet and cloth of gold set off his graceful
+  person to advantage. A crimson scarf floated loosely over his breast,
+  and his snow-white plumes drooping from his cap mingled with the yellow
+  curls that fell in profusion over his shoulders. It was a picture which
+  the Italian maiden might love to look on. It was certainly not the
+  picture of the warrior sheathed in the iron panoply of war. But the
+  young Prince, in his general aspect, might be relieved from the charge
+  of effeminacy by his truly chivalrous bearing and the dauntless spirit
+  which beamed from his clear blue eyes. In his own lineaments he seemed
+  to combine all that was comely in the lineaments of his race."
+
+At Naples Don John found a fleet at anchor under the command of Don Alvaro
+de Bazan, first marquis of Santa Cruz, of whom much was to be heard in the
+future in his capacity as Admiral of Castile. Here also he received from
+the hands of Cardinal Granvelle a consecrated banner sent to him by the
+Pope at a solemn ceremony in the church of the Franciscan Convent of Santa
+Chiara. On August 25th he left Naples and proceeded to Messina, where he
+landed under a triumphal arch of colossal dimensions, embossed with rich
+plates of silver and curiously sculptured with emblematical bas-reliefs.
+The royal galley in which the hero embarked was built at Barcelona: she was
+fitted with the greatest luxury, and was remarkable for her strength and
+speed; her stern was profusely decorated with emblems and devices drawn
+from history; no such warship had ever been seen in the world before.
+
+Cayetano Rosell, in his _Historia del combate naval de Lepanto_, says that
+the number of vessels, great and small, in the Christian armada was over
+300, of which 200 were galleys, the ordinary warships of the time. He goes
+on to say:
+
+  "In this spacious harbour [Messina] there were collected the squadrons
+  of the League; the people who managed the oars and sails and the
+  innumerable combatants making an immense number when added together.
+  Since the days of Imperial Rome, never had been seen in these seas so
+  imposing a spectacle, never had there been collected so many ships
+  moving towards a single end dominated by a single will. Never was there
+  a spectacle more gratifying in the eyes of justice, nor of greater
+  incentive to men to fight for the cause of religion."
+
+The Spanish fleet comprised 90 royal galleys, 24 nefs, and 50 fregatas and
+brigantines "los mejores que en tiempo alguno se habrian visto" (the finest
+that ever were seen at any time), as they were described by Don John. The
+Pope sent 12 galleys and 6 fregatas, under the command of Mark Antony
+Colonna. The Pope had also made a grant of the "Crusada" and "Excusada,"
+and other ecclesiastical revenues which he drew from Spain, to the King of
+that country, to meet expenses.
+
+Venice appointed Sebastian Veniero to the command of her fleet, which
+consisted of 106 galleys, 6 galeasses of enormous bulk and clumsy
+construction carrying each 40 guns, 2 nefs, and 20 fregatas. These vessels
+were, however, so miserably manned and equipped that Don John had to send
+on board Spaniards and Genoese to complete their complements. In a
+manuscript of the Biblioth�que du Roi (Number 10088) is an account of the
+battle of Lepanto by Commandeur de Romegas. He gives the number of the
+Turkish fleet at 333 ships, of which 230 were galleys, the rest galeasses
+and smaller craft. The total which he gives for the Christian fleet is 271.
+Ali Basha was in supreme command of the Turkish forces, "a man of an
+intrepid spirit, who had given many proofs of a humane and generous
+mature--qualities more rare among the Turks, perhaps among all nations,
+than mere physical courage." With Ali was the Basha of Algiers, that other
+Ali, the corsair, who since his arrival at Coron had done more than his
+share of the fighting, marauding, and devastating which were the
+preliminaries to the battle of Lepanto. In this historic conflict he was to
+show once again how, on the face of the waters, the Sea-wolves were
+supreme; as it was he and his corsairs, out of the whole of the Moslem
+host, who acquitted themselves with the greatest credit on that day so
+fatal to the arms of the Ottoman Turk.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+LEPANTO
+
+  How Ali Basha fought at the battle of Lepanto: his subsequent
+  career--Conclusion.
+
+Lepanto, the last battle of first-class importance in which the Sea-wolves
+bore a leading part, is memorable in many ways. It is one of the most
+sanguinary which was ever fought, the element of personal hatred between
+the combatants, to which we have alluded more than once, being singularly
+in evidence on this occasion. As we have said, this campaign was brought
+about at the initiative of the Venetians, and an incident which occurred
+not long before the battle exacerbated the feelings with which the Turks
+were regarded by the Christians to the point of madness. The city of
+Famagusta, in Cyprus, had been captured by that Mustafa of whom we heard so
+much at the siege of Malta. The Venetian defenders made an honourable
+capitulation, but when the four principal Venetian captains were brought
+before Mustafa, that general caused three of them to be beheaded on the
+spot; the fourth, a noble and gallant gentleman who had been responsible
+for the magnificent defence of the city entrusted to his charge, he caused
+to be flayed alive in the market-square. He then had the skin stuffed with
+straw, and, with this ghastly trophy nailed to the prow of his galley,
+returned in triumph to Constantinople. Bragadino, the defender of
+Famagusta, did not die in vain; his terrible fate excited such a passion of
+anger in the whole of the armada of Don John that each individual of which
+it was composed felt that the sacrifice of his own life would be but a
+small thing if it only led to the destruction of such fiends as those
+against whom they were arrayed.
+
+[Illustration: DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA.]
+
+Lepanto was a magnificent triumph for the arms of Christendom, and taught a
+much-needed lesson to Europe that the Ottoman Turk was not invincible upon
+the sea; it was not, however, an interesting battle from the point of view
+of the student of war and its combinations. Of all the high officers in
+command on that memorable day there was only one who displayed real
+generalship and a proper appreciation of the tactical necessities of the
+situation; that officer was Ali Basha, the leader of the Sea-wolves. The
+account of the battle is somewhat obscured by the fact that on the side of
+the Moslems the name of the Ottoman Commander-in-Chief was also "Ali"; in
+order to avoid confusion in this narration, we shall allude to the Basha of
+Algiers by the name given to him by the Christians, "Occhiali."
+
+It was on Sunday, October 7th, 1571, that the Christian fleet weighed
+anchor from Cephalonia and stood southwards along the Albanian coast, which
+is here fringed with rocky islets. The right wing was commanded by John
+Andrea Doria, the left wing by the Prov�diteur Barbarigo, the centre, or
+"battle," as it was called, by Don John in person, who had on the one side
+of him Mark Antony Colonna, the General of the Galleys of the Pope, and on
+the other that fiery veteran Sebastian Veniero, the commander of the
+Venetians. Here also were stationed the Prince of Parma, nephew to Don
+John, Admiral of Savoy; Duke Urbino, Admiral of Genoa; the Admiral of
+Naples, and the Commandeur of Castile. The reserve, under the command of
+the Marquis of Santa Cruz, consisted of thirty-five galleys. Immediately in
+rear of the _Real_, or royal galley of Don John, was that of the Grand
+Commander Requesens. The number of seamen, soldiers, officers, and
+galley-slaves in the fleet amounted to over eighty thousand persons;
+twenty-nine thousand infantry had been embarked, of which number nineteen
+thousand were Spaniards. Opposed to the Christians on this day was a
+Turkish fleet which had on board no less than one hundred and twenty
+thousand men embarked in two hundred and fifty galleys, without counting an
+innumerable host of smaller vessels.
+
+[Illustration: SEBASTIAN VENIERO. Inset, portraits of Don John and Pope
+Pius V. Heroic statue of Don John dominating Christian and Turkish Fleets.
+The breath of the Almighty destroying the Turkish fleet at Lepanto.]
+
+The authorities on whose accounts of the battle this description is based
+are Prescott, the famous historian; P. Daru, a member of the Acad�mie
+Fran�aise, who wrote an exhaustive _Histoire de Venise_ and Don Cayetano
+Rosell, member of the Spanish Academy, who is responsible for an exposition
+of the subject, known as _Historia del combate naval de Lepanto_. From a
+comparison of the works of these eminent men one fact emerges with great
+clearness, which is that the battle of Lepanto was an indiscriminate m�l�e
+which was decided by some of the most desperate fighting ever recorded, but
+which depended hardly at all upon the tactical abilities of the men in
+chief command. It is true that we are told Don John issued written
+instructions to the commander of each ship, but we are left in the dark as
+to what these instructions were, while at the same time we discover that in
+his line of battle, which in the first instance appears to have been that
+of "single line ahead," the galleys of all nationalities were inextricably
+mixed up; making it thereby impossible for the Papal, Spanish, and Venetian
+commanders to deal, as they should have done, exclusively with their own
+men. On the other hand, Occhiali kept together the squadron of the
+Sea-wolves; he outgeneralled and had all but defeated John Andrea Doria,
+when the end came and he was obliged to retreat.
+
+We are, however, anticipating. Don John passed down his own line in a light
+"fregata" giving a few words of exhortation and advice to each ship under
+his command. If the bastard brother of the King of Spain did not exhibit
+any large measure of ability as a leader on this occasion, he was perhaps
+none the less the right man in the right place, as he had about him so
+winning a way, he was so striking and gallant a figure, that the hearts of
+all under his command went out to him. The seamen and soldiers of the great
+armada greeted him with enthusiastic shouts of delight as he bade them
+remember in whose cause it was that they fought. The last of the
+Knights-errant must have made a brave show as he passed down that line four
+miles in length, the sun shining on his damascened armour, and his yellow
+curls streaming out from beneath his helmet.
+
+Soon after sunrise the Turkish fleet was descried sailing towards the
+Christians, in such apparently overwhelming force that several of the
+Spanish commanders represented to Don John that it would be imprudent to
+risk a battle. To his honour be it recorded that he replied he had come out
+to fight the Turks and that the time for talk was now over. He then hoisted
+all his banners, and the executive signal for the combat to begin was given
+by displaying at his mainmast head the sacred banner blessed by the Pope.
+As this standard floated out upon the breeze there went up a great shout in
+unison from all that were under the command of Don John. The scene of the
+combat was that area of the Ionian Sea which is enclosed on the east by the
+coasts of Albania and Morea and on the west by the islands of Ithaca and
+Cephalonia, Just to the northward, at the entrance to the Gulf of Arta,
+sixteen hundred years before had been fought the battle of Actium between
+Antony and Octavius; the same spot had witnessed, in 1538, the memorable
+battle of Prevesa between Andrea Doria and Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa.
+
+From the point of view of the seaman, who is naturally anxious to discover
+the dispositions of their fleets made by the rival Commanders-in-Chief,
+Lepanto is an almost hopeless puzzle. As far as can be gathered, however,
+it was that the two armadas approached one another in what is known as
+"line ahead," each ship being immediately astern of its next ahead in one
+long continuous line; and that, when they got within striking distance,
+these lines turned so that they formed "line abreast," when each ship,
+having turned at right angles, simultaneously the line advances abreast,
+the ships forming it being broadside to broadside.
+
+When the Turks discovered the allies they were issuing from between the
+islets and the shore. Seeing John Andrea Doria moving to the right, they
+judged that he was executing a turning movement with the object of escaping
+to the northwards, from whence he had come; they were, at the time, unable
+to see the rest of the fleet, which was hidden by the land. With sound
+tactical judgment they accordingly advanced to attack the allies before
+they should have time to issue from the strait. They were, however, too far
+off to accomplish this, and, by the time they arrived within striking
+distance, the Christian fleet had cleared the strait and was ready for
+them, "drawn up for battle," says Monsieur Daru, which is somewhat vague in
+describing the disposition of a fleet. What is certain, however, is that in
+advance of the galleys of Don John were six great galeasses, which were
+armed with guns of immensely superior power to anything which could be
+mounted in galleys. As the Turks advanced to the attack these vessels
+opened fire, and did so much execution that Ali, the Turkish
+Commander-in-Chief, ordered his line to open out and thus avoid their fire.
+Whatever formation the fleet was in at the time--which was, as far as we
+can gather, "line abreast"--this opening-out process, to avoid the
+galeasses, threw it into hopeless confusion. The Turkish right wing, which
+was hugging the coast, and was the first to come into action, passed on in
+an endeavour to turn the left wing of the allies. While this manoeuvre was
+in progress Ali, the Capitan-Basha of the Turks, arrived in his vessel
+opposite to the royal galley of Don John. At the masthead of the galley of
+the Capitan-Bashaw floated the sacred standard of the Ottomans. This, the
+ancient banner of the Caliphs, was covered with texts from the Koran, and
+had upon it the name of Allah emblazoned no less than twenty-eight thousand
+nine hundred times in letters of gold. "It was," says Prescott, "the banner
+of the Sultan, having passed from father to son since the foundation of the
+dynasty, and was never seen in the field unless the Grand Seigneur or his
+lieutenant was there in person." Ali, the Commander-in-Chief, a favourite
+of the Sultan, had been entrusted with this most precious of all the
+possessions of the Padishah, as an incentive to him and all under his
+command to fight their hardest to do honour to the Prophet, and to prevent
+this symbol of their religion from falling into the hands of the Christian.
+Ali, like Don John, was young, and burning to distinguish himself;
+accordingly, as soon as the ships of the two leaders came opposite to each
+other neither regarded any enemy save his rival Commander-in-Chief. Ali
+drove his great galley straight on board of the vessel of Don John, and a
+most obstinate conflict ensued. Veniero and Colonna hastened to the
+assistance of their chief, who was sore beset.
+
+The combat now became general, and, as has been said, was for the most part
+nothing but a melee, in which each ship sought out the nearest of her foes
+and closed with her. For some time the fight went hard with Don John; time
+and again the galley of the Moslem leader was boarded, but on each occasion
+the Spaniards were hurled back upon their own decks. Loredano and Malipier,
+two Venetian captains, fell upon seven Turkish galleys which were hastening
+to reinforce the attack on Don John, and sank one of them. They then fought
+with such fury and resolution with the six that remained that, although
+both captains were killed, it was conceded that they had saved their
+general, entirely altered the complexion of the battle in their
+neighbourhood, and facilitated the capture of the Turkish admiral. The
+determined conduct of the two Venetians allowed the Spanish division to
+close in on the Turkish flagship, which, after an heroic resistance, was
+captured, principally because there were practically none left alive to
+fight. The head of Ali was struck off by a Spanish soldier, the banner of
+the Moslems was replaced by the flag of the Cross, the head of Ali on a
+pike being exhibited in derision above it. The conquerors seem to have seen
+no incongruity in this performance. The lowering of the sacred standard of
+the Capitan-Basha had a disheartening effect upon the Turks; they knew by
+this that their Commander-in-Chief was dead and his ship captured, the
+result being that the resistance of the Ottomans began to weaken. Then
+thirty galleys took to flight from the neighbourhood of the Christian
+flagship; so hotly were they pursued that they ran on shore, the crews
+swimming or wading to the beach and making off inland.
+
+On the right of the Christian line things had not been going so
+propitiously for them. Here Occhiali had managed, by his apparently
+persistent attempts to outflank John Andrea Doria, to decoy that commander
+away from his supports and from the main body of the Christians. This
+tactical manoeuvre of the corsair was successful; having drawn off some
+fifteen of the Christian galleys, he suddenly flung the whole of his
+greatly superior force into the gap and surrounded them. These galleys were
+Spanish, Venetian, and Maltese, and, although they offered a most vigorous
+resistance, they were mostly destroyed or captured. Doria, in spite of all
+his efforts, was on this day both outgeneralled and outfought: the
+Sea-wolves, under their grim leader, manoeuvring for position, obtaining
+it, and then falling like a thunderbolt on the foe. They were all brave men
+at Lepanto on this memorable October day; but few there were like the
+corsair king, in whom a heart of fire was kept in check by a brain of ice,
+who, during the whole combat, never gave away a chance, or failed to swoop
+like an eagle from his eyry when the blunders of his enemy gave him the
+opportunity for which he watched. It was the old story of "the veritable
+man of the sea" pitted against gallant soldiers fighting on an unfamiliar
+element. And yet it was against the best seaman on the Christian side that
+Occhiali pitted himself on this stricken field; and none can deny that with
+him rested such honour as was gained by the Turks on this day, the day
+which broke up for ever the idea of the invincibility of the Ottomans on
+the water. It needs not to say, to those who have read the story of the
+siege of Malta, how the Knights comported themselves in the battle; and yet
+Occhiali captured the _Capitana_, or principal galley of the Order, He was
+towing her out of action, a prize, when the Marquis of Santa Cruz bore down
+upon him with the reserve. By this time the battle was lost; the Moslems
+were in full retreat.
+
+The corsair recognised that he could do no more: sullenly he cast off the
+tow, and, forming up some thirty of his galleys, still in a condition to
+navigate, stood boldly through the centre of where the battle had once
+raged, and escaped. The _Capitana_ of Malta had been taken; and to the
+Sultan did Occhiali present the great standard of Saint John, as an earnest
+of his achievement.
+
+Bernardino de Escalente, in his work _Di�logos del arte militar_, printed
+in Seville in 1583, says that the Captain Ojeda, of the galley _Guzmana_,
+recaptured the _Capitana_ of Malta; and that, in recognition thereof, "the
+Religion" pensioned him for life. Ojeda, it is to be presumed, was under
+the orders of the Marquis of Santa Cruz during the battle.
+
+There remains one incident connected with the battle of Lepanto which must
+be told. In the _Marquesa_ galley, in the division of Doria, was lying in
+his bed sick of a fever a young man twenty-four years of age; a Spaniard of
+Alcala de Henares, "de padres hidalgos y honrados," we are told, although
+these parents were poor. When this young man heard that a battle was
+imminent he rose from his bed and demanded of his captain, Francisco San
+Pedro, that he should be placed in the post of the greatest danger. The
+captain, and others, his friends, counselled him to remain in his bed.
+"Se�ores," replied the young man, "what would be said of Miguel de
+Cervantes should he take this advice? On every occasion up to this day on
+which his enemies have offered battle to his Majesty I have served like a
+good soldier; and today I intend to do so in spite of this sickness and
+fever." He was given command of twelve soldiers in a shallop, and all day
+was to be seen where the combat raged most fiercely. He received two wounds
+in the chest and another which cost him the loss of his left hand. To those
+to whom he proudly displayed them in after-years he was accustomed to say,
+"wounds in the face or the chest are like stars which guide one through
+honour to the skies." Of him the chronicler says: "He continued the rest of
+his life with honourable memory of this wonderful occurrence, and, although
+he lost the use of his left hand, it added to the glory of his right." How
+glorious was that right hand is known to all readers of _El Ingenioso
+Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha._
+
+The losses at the battle of Lepanto are something so prodigious that
+imagination boggles at them. It is said that the Christians lost five
+thousand men and the Turks no less than thirty thousand. Enormous as these
+numbers are, they represent probably a very conservative estimate of the
+loss. The Turks lost two hundred vessels, and when we recollect the number
+of men embarked on board of the sixteenth-century galleys we can see that
+the numbers are by no means exaggerated, especially as no quarter was given
+on either side. When the Captain Ojeda recaptured the battered wreck which
+had been the _Capitana_ of Malta, we are told that on board of her were
+three hundred dead Turks; if this were the cost of the capture of one
+galley we need not be surprised at the total.
+
+With the results to Europe of this amazing battle we have nothing to do in
+this book. That which it demonstrated, as far as the Sea-wolves were
+concerned, was that they still remained the most competent seamen and
+sea-fighters in the Mediterranean, and that the legend of the invincibility
+of the Ottomans at sea rested on what had been accomplished during a long
+period of years by these insatiable pirates and magnificent warriors.
+
+That which the fighting Pontiff, Pius V., said when he heard of the victory
+is in character with everything which history has told us of this
+remarkable occupant of the chair of Saint Peter. It was short but very much
+to the point, consisting of the one sentence, "Fuit homo misus a Deo cui
+nomen erat Joannes."
+
+In a collection of epitaphs printed in Colonia in 1623 (and edited by one
+Franciscus Swertius) is one in Spanish by an anonymous author on Don John
+of Austria. In this, which takes the form of question and answer, it is
+asked of him "who with so much real glory lies so humbly 'neath this
+stone," what it is that Spain can do for him, what temple or what statue
+can she raise to his honour. To this the hero is made to reply that "My
+temple is found in my works, my statue has been my fame." This is not only
+a pretty conceit, but it is very substantially true when we think of the
+place in history which this man attained.
+
+It remains to speak of the future career of Ali Basha after his experiences
+at Lepanto. He now returned to Constantinople, where he found that the
+bitter complaints of the Janissaries concerning their lack of pay had
+preceded him; this must have been annoying, as by this time so
+insignificant a circumstance had probably escaped his memory. His old
+friend and patron Piali Basha was still in power; the Basha used his
+influence, and the corsair laid at the feet of the Sultan the great
+Standard of Saint John captured by him from the Knights--which was the only
+trophy which came to Constantinople from that disastrous battle; and in
+consequence we are told that "instead of reprimands he was loaded with
+caresses and applauses."
+
+There was in Ali the same dauntless quality of never knowing when he was
+beaten which had distinguished Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa. His exploits at
+Lepanto had secured him the high favour of the Sultan, which he used in a
+manner most grateful to that sovereign by approaching him with a request
+that he might be allowed to fit out another fleet to revenge himself on the
+Christians. The Sultan acceded to his request, and such diligence did he
+use that in June 1572, only eight months after the crushing defeat of the
+Turks, Ali took the sea with two hundred and fifty galleys besides smaller
+vessels. So powerful had he now become that Selim nominated him as his
+Admiralissimo, allowing him also to retain the Bashalic of Algiers. With
+his new fleet he sought out the allies once more, finding them at anchor in
+a port in the Morea. He lay outside the harbour defying them to come out,
+which they refused to do--"but they parted without bloody noses"--is
+Morgan's comment. Haedo attributes this inertia on the part of the allies
+to dissension among their leaders; but, however that may have been, Ali
+gained almost as much favour with the Sultan as if he had defeated them in
+a pitched battle. "But these are the judgments of God and things ordered by
+His divine providence and infinite wisdom," says Haedo. The connection is
+somewhat hard to establish.
+
+In 1573 the Bashalic of Algiers passed into the hands of Arab Ahmed, and in
+this same year Don John of Austria recaptured Tunis from the Turks. Ali,
+with a fleet of two hundred and fifty galleys and forty smaller vessels,
+recaptured it again in a siege lasting forty days, and once more returned
+to Constantinople in triumph with thousands of Spanish captives. He was yet
+to live some years to harass the Christians, against whom he ever displayed
+a most inveterate rancour. In 1576 he set out from Constantinople with
+sixty galleys and ravaged the Calabrian coast, where he had been born. In
+1578, the Janissaries of Algiers having assassinated Arab Ahmed the Basha,
+he was sent to chastise them, which he did with a heavy hand.
+
+Ali was never married, and left no descendants; in the later years of his
+life he built himself a sumptuous palace some five miles from
+Constantinople, and no man in all the realm save the Sultan himself was so
+great a man as the Calabrian renegado, the unknown waif from Southern Italy
+who possessed neither name nor kindred. He was tall and robust in stature,
+but all his life suffered from "scald-head"; for a definition of which
+ailment we may refer the curious to the dictionary. He possessed, for a
+chieftain and a fighting man, the disadvantage of a voice so hoarse as to
+be inaudible at a few paces distant. In default of offspring he maintained
+at his charges five hundred corsairs, whom he called his children. He died
+in the year 1580, and with him what has been called the "Grand Period of
+the Moslem Corsairs" in this book may be said to have come to an end.
+
+By the men whose deeds have been here chronicled the pirate States of
+Northern Africa were established; and, as we have seen, they maintained an
+unceasing warfare against all that was mightiest in Christendom, aided and
+abetted by the Sultans of Constantinople. In the sixteenth century the
+Sea-wolves had this at least to recommend them, that they feared neither
+King nor Kaiser, albeit these great ones of the earth were bent on their
+destruction. Villains as they were, they were none the less men to be
+feared, men in whom dwelt wonderful capabilities of leadership. Such,
+however, was not the case with those by whom they were succeeded; and the
+great and civilised nations of the world tolerated for centuries in their
+midst a race of savage barbarians whose abominable insolence and fiendish
+cruelty were only equalled by their material weakness and military
+impotence. Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli became recognised States, and the
+Great Powers degraded themselves by actually accrediting diplomatic agents
+to the "Courts" of these people.
+
+"The Algerines are robbers, and I am their chief," was the remark made by
+the Dey of Algiers to the English Consul in 1641, and the man spoke the
+plain unvarnished truth. Yet at this time the Algerines had no more than
+sixty-five ships, and no organisation which could have held out for
+twenty-four hours against such attacks as had been successfully resisted on
+many occasions in the previous century.
+
+On April 10th, 1682 (O.S.), "Articles of peace and commerce between the
+most serene and mighty Prince Charles II., by the Grace of God King of
+Great Britain, etc., and the most illustrious (_sic_) Lord, the Bashaw,
+Dey, and Aga, Governor of the famous city of Algiers in Barbary," were
+concluded by "Arthur Herbert, Esquire, Admiral of His Majesty's Fleet." It
+need hardly be said that such a treaty as this was not worth the paper on
+which it was written; that the barbarians by whom it was signed were as
+ignorant as they were unprincipled, and that the only argument which they
+understood at that, or any other time, was that of the right of the
+strongest.
+
+When we of the present day read of the deeds of the corsairs we are filled
+with horror, we fail to understand how such things could have been
+tolerated, we seek for some explanation. When we hear of a "League of
+Christian Princes," and find that all its members could accomplish was to
+turn their arms the one against the other, we are even still more puzzled.
+What was it, then, that lay at the root of this problem? The answer would
+appear to be in the ethical standpoint of the sixteenth century. We are so
+accustomed in the present day to hear of the rights of man that we are apt
+to forget that, in the time of Barbarossa, of Dragut, of Charles V., and
+the Medicean Popes such a thing did not exist, and the only rights
+possessed by the common man were those vouchsafed to him by his sovereign
+lord. We have also to take another factor into consideration, which is that
+what we call "humanity" simply did not exist, the result being that the
+raids of the Sea-wolves were not judged by the great ones of the earth from
+the standpoint of the amount of suffering which they inflicted, but in what
+manner these proceedings affected the wealth and power of the lord of the
+territory which had been despoiled. So differently was society constituted
+in those days that the very victims acquiesced more or less meekly in their
+fate, each one unconsciously voicing that most pathetic saying of the
+Russian peasant that "God is high and the Czar is far away."
+
+The fact of the intolerable lot of the common man in these times helps us
+to understand one thing which otherwise would be an insoluble problem:
+which was, why did Christian soldiers so often become renegadoes and fight
+for the corsairs under the banner of those who were the fiercest and most
+irreconcilable foes of themselves and their kindred? The life of the common
+soldier or sailor did not offer many advantages; it was generally a short
+and anything but a merry one, and the thing by which it was most
+profoundly affected was capture by the corsairs.
+
+When this happened he became either a "gallerian," rowing out his heart on
+the benches of the Moslem galleys, or he festered in some noisome dungeon
+in Algiers, Oran, or Tlemcen. For him, however, there was always one avenue
+of escape open: he had but to acknowledge that Mahomet was the Prophet of
+God and the prison doors would fly open, or the shackles be knocked off the
+chain which bound him to the hell of the rower's bench. Many of the
+Christian captives had really nothing to bind them to the faith of their
+fathers--neither home nor lands, wealth nor kindred, and they were
+doubtless dazzled by the amazing success which accompanied the arms of the
+leaders of the pirates. Is it wonderful, then, that such men in such an age
+should grasp at the chance of freedom and throw in their lot with their
+captors?
+
+It was treachery, it was apostasy, and no amount of sophistry can prove it
+to have been otherwise; but the man who would sit in judgment in the
+present day must try to figure to himself what the life of a galley-slave
+meant--a life so horrible and so terrible that it is impossible, in the
+interest of decency, to set down a tithe of what it really was.
+
+We who in the present day sit in judgment upon the virtues and vices of a
+bygone age can, in the ordered security of our modern civilisation, see
+many things which were hidden from our forefathers, even as in another
+three hundred years our descendants will be able to point the finger of
+scorn at the mistakes which we are now committing. We have seen how it was
+that the pirate States arose; we have seen also how, in future generations,
+they were allowed to abide. We cannot, in common honesty, echo the words
+already quoted of the historian that "these are the judgments of God, and
+things ordered by His divine providence and infinite wisdom," neither can
+we acquit the heirs of the ages for that slackness which prevented them
+from doing their duty; we have, however, to ask ourselves this question,
+that, had it fallen to our own lot to deal with the problem of the
+extermination of the pirates, should we have done better?
+
+One word in conclusion. That which they did has been set down here; the
+record, however, is not complete, as many of their acts of cruelty, lust,
+and oppression are not fitted for publication in the present day. It has
+been said, with truth, that no man is much better or much worse than in the
+age in which he lives; and to hold the scales evenly--if one were tempted
+to shock contemporary opinion by too literal a transcript of all that was
+done by the corsairs--it would also be necessary to cite the reprisals of
+their Christian antagonists. It has seemed better to leave such things
+unchronicled: to present, with as much fidelity as possible, the public
+lives and acts of these troublers of the peace of the sixteenth century.
+Looking back, as we do, over three hundred and fifty years, and judging as
+fairly as is possible, it would seem that there is little which can be said
+in their favour.
+
+But we may at least concede that, no matter how infamous were the
+Barbarossas, Dragut, and Ali, they proved that in them dwelt one rare and
+supreme quality, which, in all the ages, has covered a multitude of sins.
+At a time when every one was a warrior and the whole world was an armed
+camp, men sought great captains in whose following to serve. Among the
+Moslems of Northern Africa, in ordered succession, there rose to the
+surface "veritable men of the sea," in the wake of whose galleys ravened
+the Sea-wolves. When we consider how undisciplined and how stupidly violent
+these pirates were by nature, and how they were welded into a homogeneous
+whole by those of whom we speak, we are forced to the conclusion that
+seldom, in all the ages, have abler captains arisen to take fortune at the
+flood, to dominate the minds and the bodies of a vast host, to prove that
+they were, in deed and in truth, supreme as leaders of men.
+
+
+
+
+AUTHORITIES CONSULTED
+
+Sailing Ships and their Story. E. Keble Chatterton.
+
+Barbary Corsairs: Story of the Nations. Stanley Lane Poole.
+
+Compleat History of the Present Seat of War in Africa between Spaniards
+  and Algerines. 1632. Joseph Morgan.
+
+History of Philip II. William Hickling Prescott.
+
+History of Charles V. Robertson.
+
+Histoire de Barberousse. Richer.
+
+Vie des plus c�l�bres marins. Richer.
+
+Histoire de Barberousse. Sander Rang et Ferdinand Denis.
+
+Doria et Barberousse. Les derniers jours de la Marine aux Rames. Admiral
+  Jurien de la Gravi�re.
+
+Histoire de Barbarie et ses corsaires. Pierre d'An. Paris, 1637.
+
+Histoire d'Alger. Laugier de Tassy.
+
+Messire Pierre de Bourdeille Seigneur de Brant�me. Vie des hommes
+  illustres et grands capitaines etrangers de son temps. 1594.
+
+Histoires de les Chevaliers de Malte. Mons l'Abb� de Vertot. Paris, 17S6.
+
+Histoire de Venise. P. Daru.
+
+Topografia e Historia general de Argel El Se�or Don Diego de Haedo.
+
+Reverendissimo Arcobispo de Palermo. Presidente y Capitan-General del
+  Reyno de Sicilia por el Rey Felipe Segundo. Nuestro se�or.
+  Valladolid, 1612.
+
+Descripcion general de Africa. Don Luys de Marmol Caravajal. Granada,
+  1573.
+
+Historia de Carlos Quinto. El Maestro Don Fray Prudencio
+  de Sandoval, Obispo de Pampluna. 1612.
+
+El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha. Cervantes.
+
+Arte de Navegar. Martin Cortes.
+
+Di�logos del arte militar. Bernardino de Escalante.
+  Seville, 1583.
+
+Historia del combate naval de Lepanto. Cayetano Rosell.
+
+Epitaphia joco-seria. Francisco Swertius. 1623.
+
+La Guerra dei pirati e la marina Pontifica dal 1500 al 1560.
+  Padre Alberto Guglielmotti.
+
+Storia della sacra religione et illustrissima milizia de San
+  Giovanii Gerosolimitano. Jacopo Bosio.
+
+Lo Assedio di Malta, 18 Maggio-8, Settembre, 1565. Conte
+  Carlo, Sanminiatelli, Zabarella, Colonello.
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF THE KINGS OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, SPAIN, SULTANS OF TURKEY, POPES OF
+ROME, AND GRAND MASTERS OF MALTA, BETWEEN THE DATES 1492-1580, THE PERIOD
+COVERED IN THIS BOOK.
+
+
+ENGLAND
+
+Henry VII., 1485-1509.
+Henry VIII., 1509-47.
+Edward VI., 1547-53.
+Mary, 1553-58.
+Elizabeth, 1558-1603.
+
+
+FRANCE
+
+Charles VIII., 1483-98.
+Louis XII., 1498-1515.
+Francis I., 1515-47.
+Henry II., 1547-59.
+Francis II., 1559-60.
+Charles IX., 1560-74.
+Henry III., 1574-89.
+
+
+SPAIN
+
+Granada, taken by Ferdinand and Isabella, the sovereigns of Aragon and
+Castile ("Los Reyes Catolicos") in 1492. Their daughter, Joanna, married
+Philip, son of the Emperor Maximilian of Germany. Ferdinand died 1516, and
+was succeeded by Charles V., son of Philip and Joanna, as King of Spain, in
+1517. On the death of his grandfather Maximilian, in 1519, Charles was
+elected Emperor of Germany. He resigned all his dignities and retired to
+the monastery of Yuste in 1555, and was succeeded by his son, Philip II.
+Charles died 1558. Philip II., who married as his first wife Mary Tudor, of
+England, reigned from 1555 till 1598.
+
+
+SULTANS OF TURKEY
+
+Bajazet II., 1481-1512; Selim the Cruel, 1512-20; Soliman the Magnificent,
+1520-66; Selim II., known to the Spaniards as "el bebedor" (the
+drunkard), 1566-74; Murad III., 1574-95.
+
+
+POPES OF ROME
+
+Pius III., 1503; Julius II., 1503; Leo X., 1513; Hadrian VI., 1522; Clement
+VII., 1523; Paul III., 1534; Julius III., 1550; Marcellus II., 1555; Paul
+IV., 1555; Pius IV., 1559; Pius V., 1566; Gregory XIII., 1572; Sixtus V.,
+1585.
+
+
+GRAND MASTERS OF THE KNIGHTS OF MALTA
+
+Pierre d'Aubusson, 1476-1503; Emeri d'Amboise, 1503-13; Fabrice Carette,
+1513-21; Villiers de L'Isle Adam, 1521-36; Juan d'Omedes, 1536-53; Claude
+de la Sangle, 1553-57; Jean Parisot de la Valette, 1557-68; Pierre Dumont,
+1568-72; Jean Levesque de la Cassi�re, 1572-82.
+
+
+
+
+DISTANCES IN SEA MILES ON THE COAST OF NORTHERN AFRICA
+
+Gibraltar to Oran                                   225'
+Oran to Tenes                                       110'
+Tenes to Shershell                                   41'
+Shershell to Algiers                                 40'
+Algiers to Bona                                     104'
+Bona to Jigelli                                      30'
+Jigelli to Bizerta                                  205'
+Bizerta to Tunis                                     55'
+Tunis to Susa                                       120'
+Susa to Sfax                                         86'
+Sfax to Jerbah, otherwise known as Los Gelues        54'
+Jerbah to Tripoli                                   130'
+Gibraltar to Algiers                                410'
+Algiers to Tunis                                    391'
+Algiers to Tenes                                     91'
+Tunis to Malta                                      232'
+Malta to Tripoli in Barbary                         200'
+Tripoli to Cape Serrano                             350'
+Jerbah to Malta                                     210'
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+Abdahar, 141.
+
+Abu-Abd-Allah-Mahomed, 40.
+
+Actium, battle of, 189, 199, 366.
+
+Adam, Prince Philippe Villiers L'Isle, Grand Master of the Knights of St.
+    John, 42, 124, 299.
+
+Adorno, Antony, 103.
+
+Adriatic, coasts of the, 182.
+
+Adrumentum, 251.
+
+"Africa," town of, position and fortifications, 251,
+  attacked and taken by Dragut, 257-259;
+  besieged by Andrea Doria, 265;
+  captured, 267;
+  mutiny, 268;
+  blown up, 268.
+
+Ahmed, Arab, Basha of Algiers, 375,
+  assassinated, 375.
+
+Albania, coast of, 363, 366.
+
+Al-Burdon, 350.
+
+Alcadaar, Alcaid, 349.
+
+Alcala, Duke of, 311.
+
+Alcala de Henares, 371.
+
+Alcaudite, Count of, his defence of Marzaquivir, 10.
+
+Aldemar, St., Geoffrey de, 291.
+
+Aleppo, 120, 125.
+
+Alexander IV., Pope, 290.
+
+Alexander VI., Pope, 99.
+
+Alexander VII., Pope, initiates the "Alliance of Christian Princes," 38.
+
+Alexandria, 49.
+
+"Alexandria, The Young Moor of," defeated, 177,
+  released, 178.
+
+Alfonso, King of Navarre and Aragon, 291.
+
+Alghieri, Bay of, 235.
+
+Algiers, 2,
+  attacks on, 30, 88;
+  captured, 62, 64;
+  Moorish refugees at, 63;
+  appeal for help, 66;
+  surrenders, 89;
+  mutiny of Janissaries, 355;
+  treaty with King Charles II., 377.
+
+Ali Ahamed, Admiral of Algiers, 345.
+
+Ali, at the siege of Malta, 328.
+
+Ali Basha, or Occhiali or Uluchali, 6, 14, 22,
+  present at the conference held by Soliman, 316;
+  his birthplace, 345;
+  endures the life of a galley-slave, 345;
+  becomes a Mussulman, 346;
+  enters the service of Dragut, 346;
+  at the siege of Malta, 346;
+  appointed Viceroy of Tripoli, 347;
+  Governor of Algiers, 347;
+  view of his duties,347;
+  offered the sovereignty of Tunis, 349;
+  expedition against Hamid, 349;
+  captures Tunis, 350, 375;
+  captures galleys of the Knights, 352-355;
+  at the battle of Lepanto, 363,368-371;
+  his banner, 368;
+  captures the _Capitana_, 370;
+  withdraws and escapes, 371;
+  returns to Constantinople, 373, 375;
+  nominated Admiralissimo, 374;
+  his palace, 375;
+  ailment of "scald-head," 375;
+  death, 376.
+
+Ali Basha, in command of the Turkish forces, 361,
+  at the battle of Lepanto, 367;
+  beheaded, 369.
+
+Ali-Chabelli defeated, 180.
+
+Al-Mehedi, his fortifications of "Africa" blown up, 268.
+
+Amalfi, 287.
+
+Ambracian Gulf, 189.
+
+Amburac, Ibrahim, his plot with Dragut, 253, 256.
+
+Ampasta, Rio de, 83.
+
+An, Rev. Frere Pierre d', on the dangers from the corsairs of
+    Barbary, 20-22, 27.
+
+Andalusia, 4, 15.
+
+Andior, 246.
+
+Andrade, Captain Diego de, 73.
+
+Andros, island of, 187.
+
+Angelo, Michel, 139.
+
+Aponte, Antonio de, "Electo Mayor" of "Africa," 268.
+
+Aragon, Alfonso d', 235.
+
+Aragon, Ferdinand of, acquires Granada, 29,
+  attempts to recover Naples, 99.
+
+Arba, Francisco d', 210, 217.
+
+Archipelago, islands of the, 182,
+  raid on, 187.
+
+Arta, Gulf of, 189, 191, 195, 366.
+
+Aubusson Pierre D', Grand Master of the Knights of St. John, 37,
+    38, 39, 298.
+
+Augustus Caesar, at the battle of Actium, 189, 199.
+
+Austria, Don John of, 23, 230,
+  in command of the forces of the "Holy League," 357;
+  at Barcelona, 357;
+  reception at Naples, 358;
+  dress, 358;
+  appearance, 359, 365;
+  at Messina, 359;
+  his fleet, 364;
+  instructions, 365;
+  at the battle of Lepanto, 366-371;
+  recaptures Tunis, 375
+
+
+Baetio, 141.
+
+Bairan-Ogli, the Reis, in command of the "puissant galleon," 313.
+
+Balearic Islands, 32, 66.
+
+Barbarigo, Prov�diteur, at the battle of Lepanto, 363.
+
+Barbarossa, Hassan, left in charge of Algiers, 312.
+
+Barbarossa, Khoyr-ed-Din, 6, 14, 17, 22, 108,
+  King of the Sea, 24;
+  his birth, 43;
+  title, 45, 51;
+  joins his brother at the island of Jerba, 50;
+  attacks _The Galley of Naples_, 51-54;
+  his wealth, 56;
+  captures Jigelli, 56-58;
+  his embassy to Soliman, 60, 76;
+  character, 67, 75, 114-116, 127, 219;
+  treatment of Hassan, 85-87;
+  defeated by Venalcadi, 87;
+  his allies, 88;
+  fight against Venalcadi, 88;
+  assisted by Spanish captives, 89;
+  captures Algiers, 89;
+  lays siege to the fortress of Navarro, 92-95;
+  his plunder of the Christians, 108;
+  requested to take the command of the Ottoman fleet, 111;
+  voyage to Constantinople, 112-117;
+  his captures, 113, 133;
+  cruelty, 115, 133, 220;
+  entry into Constantinople, 117;
+  gifts to Soliman, 118;
+  reception, 120;
+  at Aleppo, 125;
+  appointed head of the fleet, 127;
+  his age, 127, 190;
+  appearance, 127;
+  speech to the Sultan, 128-130;
+  raids on the coast of Italy, 133-137;
+  sacks Reggio, 133;
+  captures 11,000 Christian slaves, 133;
+  his attempt to capture Julia Gonzaga, 134-136;
+  enters Tunis 138;
+  massacre of the inhabitants, 141;
+  his fame, 142;
+  appeal for help against the Christian hosts, 146;
+  preparations for defence, 152;
+  joined by the tribesmen, 153;
+  defeated, 158;
+  flight, 159;
+  sufferings of his army, 163;
+  at Bona, 164;
+  embarks, 165;
+  retires to Algiers, 168;
+  return of his men, 169;
+  captures the castle of Minorca, 172;
+  recalled to Constantinople, 173, 178, 182;
+  ravages, 182;
+  number of slaves, 182;
+  sets sail, 185;
+  his innovation in the manning of galleys, 185-187;
+  raid on the islands of the Archipelago, 187;
+  his age, 190;
+  hesitates to fight, 193;
+  anchored in the Gulf of Arta, 194-207;
+  at the battle of Prevesa, 208-216;
+  withdraws from the battle, 213, 2l5, 2l7;
+  his death, 220, 250;
+  ransoms Dragut, 248.
+
+Barbarossa, Uruj, 7, 74,
+  his birth, 43;
+  character, 44;
+  first attempt at piracy, 45;
+  taken prisoner, 46;
+  escapes, 47, 48;
+  presented with a ship, 48;
+  winters at Alexandria, 49;
+  at the island of Jerba, 50;
+  joined by his brother, 50;
+  treaty with the Sultan of Tunis, 51;
+  attackes _The Galley of Naples_, 51-54;
+  wounded, 54;
+  attacks on Bougie, 55, 58;
+  loses an arm, 55;
+  appeal from the Algerines, 66;
+  treatment of Kara-Hassan, 66;
+  besieges Navarre's Tower, 67;
+  slaughters the Berbers, 68-70;
+  defeats Don Diego, 71;
+  marches on Tlemcen, 72;
+  blockaded, 73;
+  killed, 73.
+
+Barbary, coast of, 236.
+
+Barbary, corsairs of, their character, 21.
+
+Barbezieux, his attempt to seize Andrea Doria, 104.
+
+Barcelona, 148, 357.
+
+Bazan, Don Alvaro de, General of the Galleys of Spain, at Barcelona, 149,
+  Admiral of Castile, 359.
+
+Beachy Head, battle of, 283.
+
+Beja, 350.
+
+Bengabara, Alcaid, 349.
+
+Berber tribes, their character, 57,
+  number, 57;
+  conspiracy against Uruj Barbarossa, 68;
+  slaughtered, 69.
+
+Bergerac, Jean Marteille de, on the treatment of slaves on board
+    the galleys, 224.
+
+Bianco, Cape, 189.
+
+Biba, island of, 113.
+
+Bizerta, 2, 40,
+  captured, 41;
+  massacre of, 141.
+
+Boabdil el Chico, yields up Granada, 29.
+
+Bona, 153, 164, 350,
+  Cape, 264.
+
+Bonifacio, Straits of, 113, 136.
+
+Borgo, Il, fortress, siege of, 32, 324, 342.
+
+Bosworth, battle of, 215.
+
+Botaybo, Alcaid, 349.
+
+Bougaroni, Cape, 56.
+
+Bougie, 2, 153,
+  attacks on, 55, 58.
+
+Bouillon, Godfrey de, defeats the Saracens, 287.
+
+Bourdeille, Pierre de, 242, 344.
+
+Bragadino, his defence of Famagusta, 362,
+  killed, 362.
+
+Brigantines, 18, 151, 240.
+
+Broglio, Commandeur, at the siege of Malta, 333.
+
+Byzacena, 40.
+
+Byzantine, Empire, fall of the, 33.
+
+
+Cabri, 246.
+
+Cachidiablo, 88, 90.
+
+Cadiz, 4.
+
+Cadolin, defeated, 100.
+
+Cagliari, Bay of, 152, 236.
+
+Calabria, 345.
+
+Calibia, castle of, surrender, 264.
+
+Canale, Girolame, his victory over the Moslems, 177.
+
+Candia, 187.
+
+Ca�ete, Marquis de, Viceroy and Captain General of Navarre, 147.
+
+Cantara, La Bocca de, 272, 274.
+
+Capello, Vicenzo, his age, 190,
+  in command of the Venetian fleet, 191, 215;
+  at Corfu, 191.
+
+_Capitana_, the, captured, 354, 370,
+  retaken, 371.
+
+Capua, Prior of, his designs for the building of St. Elmo fortress, 325.
+
+Caracosa, Marie, 98.
+
+Caramania, coast of, 35, 37, 45, 48.
+
+Caravajal, Don Luys de Marmol, his "Descripcion general de Affrica," 272.
+
+Caravels, 231.
+
+Carouan, 348.
+
+Castel Rosso, Isle of, 47.
+
+Castile, Isabella of, 29.
+
+Castriot, Constantine, his report on the condition of St. Elmo, 337.
+
+Centurion, Adan, fails to attack Barbarossa, 165.
+
+Cephalonia, 313, 363, 366.
+
+Cervantes, Miguel de, his mention of Ali Basha, 345,
+  at the battle of Lepanto, 371;
+  his wounds, 372.
+
+Charabulac, 242.
+
+Charlemagne, Emperor, his renown, 286.
+
+Charles II., King of England, his treaty with Algiers, 377.
+
+Charles V., Emperor, 14, 79,
+  history of, 43;
+  determines to crush the corsairs, 80;
+  total fleet and army, 81,191;
+  caught in a storm, 82;
+  his wrath on the fall of Navarro, 97;
+  acquisitions, 98;
+  suzerain of Genoa, 101;
+  joined by Andrea Doria, 105;
+  his trust in him, 107;
+  preparations for his attack on Barbarossa, 143;
+  at Barcelona, 148;
+  joined by his allies, 148-150;
+  reviews the armada, 150;
+  embarks in the _Galera Capitana_, 150;
+  attack on the fortress of La Goletta, 156;
+  defeats Barbarossa, 159;
+  letter to the potentates, 163;
+  evacuates Tunis, 166;
+  his mistaken policy, 167;
+  at Corfu, 191;
+  orders the destruction of Dragut, 245, 261;
+  orders the capture of "Africa," 265;
+  denunciation of Dragut, 271;
+  concentrates his fleet at Messina, 278.
+
+"Christian Princes, Alliance of," formed, 38,
+  artillery, 39;
+  seize Naples, 40.
+
+Christian slaves, number of, captured, 133.
+
+Citt� Notabile, 308.
+
+Civita Lavinia, 140.
+
+Coeva, Andrea, 98.
+
+Colonna, Camille, taken prisoner, 101.
+
+Colonna, Mark Antony, in command of the Papal fleet, 360, 364.
+
+Colonna, Vespasian, 134.
+
+Columbus, his caravels, 231.
+
+Comares, Marquis de, 80.
+
+Condalmiero, Alessandro, Captain of the _Galleon of Venice_, 192, 194,
+  attacked by the Moslems, 209-213;
+  his victory, 213.
+
+Constantine, 350.
+
+Constantinople, fall of, 33,
+  entry of Barbarossa into, 117.
+
+C�rdoba, Don Martin de, his defence of Oran, 10.
+
+C�rdoba, Gonsalvo de, the "Great Captain," 39,
+  war against Roverejo, 99;
+  besieges the fortress of Rocca Guillelma, 99.
+
+C�rdoba, Mosque at, 64.
+
+Corfu, siege of, 179.
+
+Cornet, Commandeur de, 337.
+
+Cornillan, Pierre de, appointed Grand Master of the Knights of
+    St. John, 298.
+
+Coron, 355.
+
+Coronado, Capt. Juan Vasquez, 273.
+
+Corsairs, Moslem, their iron and rigid discipline, 7.
+  _See_ Moslem
+
+Corsica, coast of, 246.
+
+Corso, Mami, left in charge of Algiers, 349.
+
+Cos, or Lango, island of, fortifications of, 292.
+
+Curtogali, at Bizerta, 40,
+  his depredations, 41;
+  attempt to carry off the Pope, 41, 140;
+  Governor of Rhodes, 42.
+
+Cyprus, island of, 34, 356.
+
+
+Daoud Pasha, Admiral, defeats Grimani, 38.
+
+Dardanelles, 116,
+  fortification of the, 34.
+
+Daru, P., _Histoire de Venise_, 364, 367.
+
+Delizuff, joins forces with Barbarossa, 112,
+  killed, 113.
+
+Diou-Donn�, Gozon de, his mode of killing a serpent, 294-296,
+  praises of his services, 297;
+  appointed Grand Master of the Knights of St. John, 298;
+  his death, 298.
+
+Doria Andrea, 6, 22, 108,
+  his birth, 98;
+  parents, 98;
+  sent to Rome, 98;
+  at the court of Urbino, 99;
+  in the service of the King of Aragon, 99;
+  joins Roverejo, 99;
+  takes service with Lodovico Sforza, 100;
+  appointed General of the Galleys, 100;
+  captures the Fort of the Lantern, 100;
+  defeats Cadolin, 100;
+  appointed Captain-General of the Galleys of France, 101;
+  the treatment of Francis I., 102, 104;
+  letter to him, 103;
+  joins Charles V., 105;
+  honours received from Genoa, 105;
+  Admiralissimo of the Navy, 107, 151;
+  defeats the Turks at Patras, 109;
+  at Barcelona, 148;
+  captures Bona, 166;
+  pursuit of Barbarossa, 166;
+  defeats Ali-Chabelli, 180;
+  wounded, 180;
+  appearance, 180;
+  age, 190;
+  his fleet, 192;
+  anchors outside the Gulf of Arta, 194-207;
+  at Sessola, 207;
+  tactics at the battle of Prevesa, 214;
+  sails away, 216;
+  ordered to capture Dragut, 261, 271;
+  his pursuit of him, 262-264;
+  expedition against "Africa," 265;
+  blockades Dragut at Jerbah, 271-275;
+  allows him to escape, 275.
+
+Doria, David, 99.
+
+Doria, Dominique, 98.
+
+Doria, Franco, 192.
+
+Doria, Jannetin, captures Dragut, 245-247.
+
+Doria, John, 165.
+
+Doria, John Andrea, at the battle of Lepanto, 363, 367, 370.
+
+Doria, Philippin, defeats Moncada, 101.
+
+Dragut-Reis, 10, 14, 22,
+  his birth and parents, 242;
+  career, 242;
+  offers his services to Barbarossa, 243;
+  in command of twelve galleys, 243;
+  his destruction ordered, 245, 261;
+  captured by Jannetin Doria, 245-247;
+  employed as a galley slave, 248;
+  ransomed, 248;
+  increase of power, 250;
+  his desire to capture "Africa," 251;
+  plot with Ibrahim Amburac, 253;
+  preparations for the attack, 254-256;
+  wounded, 257;
+  attack on the city, 257-259;
+  pursued by Andrea Doria, 262-264, 271;
+  his "Horrid Devastations," 264;
+  in the siege of "Africa," 265;
+  escapes, 267;
+  at Constantinople, 269, 276;
+  denounced by Charles V., 270;
+  appointed Sandjak, or governor, of the island of Santa Maura, 271;
+  blockaded at Jerban, 271-275;
+  mode of escape, 275;
+  hatred of the Knights of Malta, 276, 286;
+  autocrat of Tripoli, 309;
+  characteristics, 315;
+  at the siege of Malta, 329-339;
+  mortally wounded, 339;
+  death, 341.
+
+Dupuy, Raimond, joins the Hospice of St. John, 288,
+  appointed Grand Master, 289;
+  forms a military corps, 289.
+
+
+Eginard, 286.
+
+Egypt, Soldan of, his treatment of the Knights of Saint John, 34,
+  besieges Rhodes, 36.
+
+Elmo, St., siege of, 6, 301-305, 323-341,
+  appeal of the garrison to abandon the fortress, 335-337;
+  their use of fireworks, 339;
+  fall, 341.
+
+Escalente, Bernardino de, his "Di�logos del arte militar," 371.
+
+Esquemelin, John, his literary labours, 1.
+
+Etienne, St., Mount, 294.
+
+Eutemi, Selim, besieges Algiers, 65,
+  assassinated, 68.
+
+Exmouth, Lord, bombards Algiers,30.
+
+
+Famagusta, captured, 362.
+
+Ferdinand V., King of Spain, joins the "Alliance of Christian Princes," 38,
+  his death, 65.
+
+_Florence_, the, 236.
+
+Floreta, M. de., 144.
+
+Forfait, on the speed of the galley, 234.
+
+Francis I., 14,
+  appoints Andrea Doria Captain of his fleet, 101;
+  attempts to levy a fine, 102;
+  treatment of him, 102;
+  fortifies Savona, 103;
+  letter from Andrea Doria, 103;
+  attempts to take him prisoner, 104;
+  refuses to join in the war against Barbarossa, 144;
+  treachery, 144.
+
+Fundi, 134,
+  sacked by the corsairs, 136.
+
+
+Galeasse, the, 18,
+  description of a, 233.
+
+_Galera Capitana_, 150,
+  number of flags and banners on board, 151.
+
+_Galleon of Venice_, 192, 194, 208,
+  attacked by the Moslems, 209-213;
+  victory, 213.
+
+Galley, 2, 18,
+  sufferings of the rower, 19, 221;
+  innovation in the manning, 185;
+  mobility, 222;
+  length, 222;
+  number of men on board, 223;
+  treatment of the slaves, 223-229, 379;
+  size, 229;
+  mode of opening fire, 230;
+  speed, 234;
+  obsolete, 236.
+
+_Galley of Naples, The_, attacked by the brothers Barbarossa, 51-54.
+
+Gardampe, Chevalier Abel de Bridiers de la, killed at the siege of
+    Malta, 333.
+
+Gelves, 271.
+
+Genoa, 32,
+  arrangement with the Grand Turk, 34;
+  confers honours on Andrea Doria, 105.
+
+Gerard, the founder of the Order of St. John, 287,
+  death, 288.
+
+Gibraltar, Straits of, 15.
+
+Giou, Chevalier de, 313.
+
+Goialatta, 246.
+
+Goletta, La, 348,
+  attack on the fortress, 156;
+  fall, 157;
+  captured, 313.
+
+Gomez, Alvar, left in charge of Bona, 166.
+
+Gonzaga, Hernando de, his advice at the battle of Prevesa, 198.
+
+Gonzaga, Julia, attempt to capture her, 134-136,
+  escape, 136.
+
+Gozo, island of, Knights of St. John at, 277, 299,
+  sacked, 309.
+
+Granada, fall of, 4, 8, 22,
+  expulsion of the Moors from, 8, 29;
+  revolt in, 347.
+
+Grandenico, Count, 178.
+
+Granvelle, Cardinal, 7, 359.
+
+Gravi�re, Admiral Jurien de la, 17, 54, 127, 214,
+  his description of a Galeasse, 233.
+
+_Great Harry_, 232.
+
+Grimani, Antonio, the Venetian Admiral, defeated at Zonchio, 38.
+
+Grimani, Marco, in command of the Papal contingent, 191, 214,
+  at Corfu, 191;
+  raid on Arta, 191.
+
+Guasto, Marquis de, taken prisoner, 101,
+  his suggestion to Andrea Doria, 104;
+  in command of the army, 156.
+
+Guerare, Sergeant-Major, at the siege of Malta, 332.
+
+Guglielmotti, Alberto, his work "La Guerra dei Pirati," 39, 41, 180.
+
+Guimeran, Commandeur de, success of his ambush, 307.
+
+_Guzmana_, the galley, 371.
+
+
+Hadj-Hossein, his embassy to Selim I., 76-78.
+
+Haedo, Don Fray Diego de, his _History of Algiers_, 96, 348, 353, 374.
+
+Hamid, King of Tunis, character of his rule, 348,
+  conspiracy against, 349;
+  flight, 350.
+
+Hassan Ali, 53,
+  ravages towns and villages, 83;
+  repulsed by Spaniards, 84;
+  flogged and imprisoned, 86;
+  released, 87;
+  attacks Barbarossa, 87.
+
+Hassem, his attack on Oran, 10,
+  retreat, 10.
+
+Henry II., 34.
+
+Henry VII., 215.
+
+Henry VIII., 14.
+
+Herbert, Arthur, concludes a treaty with Algiers, 377.
+
+Himeral, Basha, 114, 125.
+
+Hogue, La, battle of, 283.
+
+Honor� II., Pope, 291.
+
+Horusco, Pero Lopez de, 166.
+
+Hunyadi, John, 14.
+
+Hy�res, island of, 234.
+
+
+Ibrahim, Grand Vizier to Soliman, 9,
+  his mission to Aleppo, 120;
+  advice, 123;
+  impressions of Barbarossa, 126;
+  return from Aleppo, 132;
+  his relations with Soliman, 173;
+  murdered, 176.
+
+Innocent VIII., Pope, 98.
+
+Ionian Islands, 179.
+
+Ionian Sea, 49.
+
+Ithaca, island of, 366.
+
+Iviza, 82.
+
+
+Janissaries, their character as soldiers, 8,
+  institution, 279;
+  system of training, 280;
+  mutiny in Algiers, 355.
+
+Jerbale, 2, 50, 153, 251.
+
+Jerusalem, Hospice of St. John at, 287.
+
+Jigelli, 2, 56,
+  siege of, 57.
+
+John of Jerusalem, St., Knights of, 18.
+  _See_ Knights
+
+Judeo, El, 88.
+
+
+Kara-Hassan, takes possession of Shershell, 66,
+  beheaded, 67.
+
+Khorkud, Governor of Caramania, 48.
+
+Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, or Knights of Malta, their bigotry, 18,
+  take refuge at Limasol, 34;
+  characteristics, 35, 36;
+  fortifications of Rhodes, 35;
+  faith, 36;
+  repulse the Turks, 37;
+  expelled from Rhodes, 42, 277;
+  forced to retreat to Malta, 42, 277, 292;
+  their use of galleys, 229;
+  fight for their "Religion," 277;
+  warfare against the corsairs, 277;
+  history of the Order, 286-291;
+  founded at Jerusalem, 287;
+  Grand Masters, 289-298, 301;
+  crusade against the Infidel, 289;
+  composition of the Order, 289;
+  languages, 290;
+  dress, 290;
+  form of government, 291;
+  in the siege of Malta, 300, 324-342;
+  number of deaths, 300;
+  capture fortresses, 312;
+  capture the "puissant galleon," 313;
+  at Licata, 352;
+  their galleys captured by Ali Basha, 352-355.
+
+Knights Templars, foundation of the Order, 291,
+  code of regulations, 291.
+
+Kustir-Aga, chief Eunuch of the Seraglio, 313.
+
+
+Lamirande, Chevalier, at the siege of Malta, 334,
+  killed, 341.
+
+_Lancaster_, the cruiser, 231.
+
+Lanciani, extract from "The Golden Age of the Renaissance," 139.
+
+Lantern, Fort of the, captured, 100.
+
+Lautrec, Marshal de, 104.
+
+Leo X., Pope, 41,
+  attempt on his life, 140;
+  flight to Rome, 141.
+
+Lepanto, battle of, 6, 23, 362-372;
+  number of killed and wounded, 372.
+
+Lerici, 104.
+
+Leyva, Antonio de, 143.
+
+Leyva, Don Sancho de, Governor of "Africa," 267.
+
+Liazzo, 246.
+
+Licastelli, 345.
+
+Licata, 352.
+
+Limasol, 34.
+
+Loredano, Jacques, 34.
+
+Loredano, Captain, at the battle of Lepanto, 369.
+
+Los Gelues, 112, 271.
+
+Louis XII., 100,
+  joins the "Alliance of Christian Princes," 38.
+
+
+Magliana, Castle of, 140.
+
+Mahan, Rear-Admiral, his books on "Sea Power," 14.
+
+Mahomedi, banished from Constantinople, 43,
+  his sons, 43.
+
+Mahomet, result of his death, 286.
+
+Mahomet II., Caliph, captures Constantinople, 33,
+  fortifies the Dardanelles, 34;
+  defeated Rhodes, 38;
+  death, 38.
+
+Majorca, 172.
+
+Malipier, Captain, at the battle of Lepanto, 369.
+
+Malta, siege of, 6, 22, 299-305, 324-342,
+  number of deaths, 300;
+  position, 315;
+  expedition against, 316;
+  preparations for the siege, 318-321.
+
+Malta, Knights of.
+  _see_ Knights
+
+_Marquesa_, the galley, 371.
+
+Marsa Muzetto harbour, 325, 331.
+
+Marsaquivir, attack on, 10.
+
+Maura, Santa, island of, 207, 271.
+
+Mecca, 4.
+
+Medina-Celi, Juan la Cerda, Duke of, expedition against Tripoli, 311.
+
+Medran, Chevalier Gonzales de, at the siege of St. Elmo, 327, 332, 335.
+
+Mehedia, 251.
+
+Melac, Commandeur Gozon de, 312.
+
+Mendoza, Bernard de, in command of La Goletta, 166.
+
+Mendoza, Don Luis Hurtado de, 143.
+
+Messina, 180, 278, 359.
+
+Minorca, 172.
+
+Mitylene, island of, 43.
+
+Monastir, 2, 250.
+
+Moncada, Don Hugo de, Viceroy of Sicily, 80,
+  escapes to Iviza, 82;
+  defeated and slain, 101.
+
+Mondejar, Marquis de, 143.
+
+Monferrato, Monastery of Nuestra Se�ora de, pilgrimages to, 150, 357.
+
+Monte Cristo island, 113.
+
+Montmorency, Anne de, 281.
+
+Monuc, the eunuch, 206.
+
+Moors, their characteristics, 4,
+  expulsion from Granada, 8, 29;
+  their condition in Algiers, 63.
+
+Morea, the, 355, 366.
+
+Morgan, Sir Henry, his capture of Panama, 24.
+
+Morgan, J., his _Compleat History of Algiers_, 243, 250, 345.
+
+Moriscoes, their persecutions, 5,
+  revolt in Granada, 347.
+
+Mosca, Lodovico del, 39.
+
+Moslem corsairs, their cupidity, 3,
+  driven out of Spain, 4, 29;
+  characteristics, 4, 67, 241;
+  fanaticism, 5, 17;
+  supremacy on the sea, 8;
+  frequent defeats, 10;
+  tyranny, 11;
+  ships, 18;
+  booty, 24;
+  cruel methods, 24, 32;
+  retrogression, 239;
+  mode of commencing their careers, 240;
+  conquer Palestine, 286;
+  at the siege of Malta, 300;
+  number of deaths, 300.
+
+Motte, Chevalier de la, at the siege of St. Elmo, 327.
+
+Mourad-Reis, 201.
+
+Moustafa-Billah, Caliph, 287.
+
+Muley Hamid, negotiations with, 330.
+
+Muley Hassan, King of Tunis, 130, 137,
+  restored to his kingdom, 161;
+  terms of his vassalage, 162.
+
+Mustafa, in command of the land forces against Malta, 316, 322,
+  captures Famagusta, 362.
+
+
+Naples, seized, 40,
+  invasion of, 90;
+  reception of Don John of Austria at, 358.
+
+Navarro, Count Pedro de, seizes the town of Bougie, 55,
+  captures Algiers, 62, 64;
+  his Tower, 64.
+
+Navarro's Tower, siege of, 65, 67, 91-95,
+  captured, 95;
+  pulled down, 97.
+
+Nef, the, 18, 232.
+
+Negropont, Bailli of, at the siege of Malta, 326, 332, 333,
+  killed, 341.
+
+Nunez, Martin, his embassy to the Pope, 163.
+
+
+Occhiali.
+  _See_ Ali Basha.
+
+Ojeda, Captain, rescues the _Capitana_ at the battle of Lepanto, 371.
+
+Omedes, Juan d', Grand Master of the Knights of St. John, 278,
+  warned of the approach of the corsairs, 281;
+  refuses to take alarm, 281, 306.
+
+Oneglia, 98.
+
+Oran, 2, 73,
+  attack on, 10.
+
+Oristano, Gulf of, 236.
+
+Osmanli, their warlike achievements on land, 15.
+
+Ottoman, 292,
+  his siege of Rhodes, 293.
+
+_Our Lady of the Conception_, 45.
+
+
+Palamos, Bay of, 236.
+
+Palermo, 265.
+
+Palestine, conquered by Moslems, 286.
+
+Palma, 172.
+
+Panama, capture of, 24.
+
+Pantellaria, island of, 236.
+
+Pantera, Captain Pantero, "L' Armata Navale," 225.
+
+Parma, Prince of, at the battle of Lepanto, 364.
+
+Paschal II., Pope, 301.
+
+Passaro, Cape, 352.
+
+Patras, Turks defeated at, 109.
+
+_Patrona_ galley, capture of, 275.
+
+Paul III., his scheme of defence for Rome, 139.
+
+Paxo, island of, 180.
+
+Payens, Hugues de, founds the Order of the Knights Templars, 291.
+
+Pedro, Francisco San, 371.
+
+Penne, Barras de la, on the treatment of men on board the galleys, 223.
+
+Peter the Hermit, 287.
+
+Philip II., King of Spain, 274, 311,
+  forms the "Holy League," 357;
+  his fleet, 360.
+
+Piali, Admiral, 10,
+  in command of the fleet against Malta, 316, 322.
+
+Pierre, St., Isle of, 235.
+
+Pius V., Pope, 356, 373,
+  forms the "Holy League," 357.
+
+Portugal, Don Juan, King of, his armada at Barcelona, 148.
+
+Portugal, Prince Luis of, at Barcelona, 148, 150.
+
+Prescott, William Hickling, 4,
+  his description of the Janissaries, 279;
+  of Don John of Austria, 358;
+  of the battle of Lepanto, 364, 368.
+
+Press-gang, methods of the, 226.
+
+Prevesa, battle of, 6, 22, 108, 189, 190, 194-218, 366.
+
+Punta delle Forche, 277, 333.
+
+
+Rabadan, Celebi, 92, 112.
+
+Rabadan, left in charge of Tunis, 351.
+
+Raschid, 130, 137.
+
+Raschid, Caliph Haroun, 287.
+
+Ravenstein, Count Philip of, 39.
+
+_Real_, the, 364.
+
+Reggio, 32,
+  sack of, 133.
+
+Reis, Aisa-, left in charge of "Africa," 261, 264,
+  his defence, 266;
+  captured, 267.
+
+Reis, Dragut-,
+  _See_ Dragut
+
+Requesens, Don Luiz de, disaster to his fleet, 234.
+
+_Revenge_, the, 354.
+
+Rhodes, island of, 242,
+  seized by the Knights of St. John, 35, 292;
+  besieged, 36, 293;
+  serpent at, 294-296;
+  derivation of the name, 297.
+
+Ribera, Don Perisan de, 80.
+
+Ricasoli, 333.
+
+Richard II, 215.
+
+Rio, Juan del, taken captive, 71.
+
+Rivi�re, Chevalier La, 322.
+
+Robeira, Captain, repulses the corsairs, 84.
+
+Rocca Guillelma, fortress of, besieged, 99.
+
+Rodas, Capitan de, 111.
+
+Roderick the Goth, conquered by the Osmanli, 15, 29.
+
+Rome, fortifications of, 139.
+
+Romegas, Commandeur de, 312, 313,
+  his account of the battle of Lepanto, 360.
+
+Rosell, Don Cayetano, his _Historia del combate naval de
+    Lepanto_, 359, 364.
+
+Roverejo, Juan, war with Cordoba, 99.
+
+Roxalana, Sultana, her influence over Soliman, 174,
+  characteristics, 174;
+  jealousy, 174;
+  murders Ibrahim, 176.
+
+
+Salaerrez, 88.
+
+Saleh-Reis, 187.
+
+Salerno, Gulf of, 101.
+
+Sallee, the rovers, 237.
+
+Sandoval, El Maestro Don Fray Prudencio de, his history of
+    Charles V., 43, 70, 71, 108, 142, 144, 150, 155.
+
+Sangle, Claude de la, his death, 309.
+
+Sangullo, Antonio de, 139.
+
+_Santa Ana_, bravery of the, 353.
+
+Santa Cruz, Marquis of, at the battle of Lepanto, 364,
+  rescues the _Capitana_, 371.
+
+_Santa Maria_, the flagship of Columbus, 231.
+
+Sardinia, 136.
+
+Satalie, Gulf of, 47.
+
+Savona, fortification of, 103.
+
+Sceberass, Mount, 301, 307, 325, 342.
+
+Scutari, 38.
+
+Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean,
+  take refuge in Northern Africa, 1;
+  their deeds of terror, 2;
+  cupidity, 3;
+  fanaticism, 5, 17;
+  autocratic rule, 7, 25;
+  equality, 7;
+  aptitude for the sea, 8;
+  defeats, 10;
+  nefarious doings, 15;
+  characteristics of their leaders, 16, 25, 284, 376;
+  ships, 18;
+  character of the men, 26;
+  leagues against, 29;
+  relations with the Turks, 33.
+
+Seignelay, his criticism of Admiral de Tourville, 283.
+
+Selim I., Sultan of Turkey.
+  _See_ Soliman
+
+Selim II., Sultan of Turkey, 356,
+  his character, 356;
+  lays claim to the island of Cyprus, 356.
+
+Serpent, method of killing, 294-296.
+
+Sesse, Duke of, 311.
+
+Sessola, islet of, 207.
+
+Sfax, 2, 250.
+
+Sforza, Lodovico, Duke of Milan, 100.
+
+Shershell, 2, 66.
+
+Shott-el-Jerid, 153.
+
+Sinan-Reis, in command of La Goletta fortress, 156,
+  at the battle of Prevesa, 197;
+  in command of the Janissaries, 279, 281;
+  character as a leader, 285, 307;
+  his expedition against Malta, 306;
+  sacks the island of Gozo, 309;
+  captures Tripoli, 309.
+
+Skiathos, 187.
+
+Skios island, 187.
+
+Slaves, on board galleys, their treatment, 223-229,
+  mutiny at Lepanto, 228.
+
+Smyrna, Basha of, 48.
+
+Soliman the Magnificent, Sultan of Turkey, 9, 14, 109,
+  expels the Knights of St. John from Rhodes, 42, 277, 299;
+  embassy from Barbarossa, 60, 76;
+  sends reinforcements, 61;
+  recalls his ships, 61;
+  his conquest of the Mamelukes, 77;
+  invites the cooperation of Barbarossa, 110;
+  appoints him commander of his fleet, 111, 117, 127;
+  receives gifts from him, 118;
+  his reception of him, 120;
+  relations with Ibrahim, 173;
+  under the influence of Roxalana, 174;
+  declares war against Venice, 179;
+  defeated, 179;
+  preparations for campaigns, 183, 277, 316;
+  his demands from Charles V., 270;
+  loss of his "puissant galleon," 313;
+  lamentations of his people, 314;
+  holds a conference, 316;
+  expedition against Malta, 316;
+  his death, 356.
+
+Spaniards, under Moorish rule, 30,
+  expedition against the Barbarossas, 62;
+  repulse Hassan, 84;
+  captives, assist in the capture of Algiers, 89;
+  restored to liberty, 89.
+
+Spartivento, Cape, 136.
+
+Spezzia, Gulf of, 104.
+
+Susa, 2, 250.
+
+Swertius, Franciscus, his collection of epitaphs, 373.
+
+
+Tabas, 88.
+
+Taranto, 32.
+
+Tarik, 15, 29.
+
+Tenes, 2,
+  fall of, 72.
+
+Thevenot, his Travels, 297.
+
+Tiber, the, 139.
+
+Tineo, Garzia de, kills Uruj Barbarossa, 73.
+
+Tlemcen, 2.
+
+Tlemcen, Sultan of, his flight to Fez, 72.
+
+Toledo, Don Garcia de, 230;
+  in the expedition against Dragut, 265;
+  his character as a ruler, 317.
+
+Toledo, Don Pedro de, 273.
+
+Tours, Viscomte de, sent to Genoa, 102.
+
+Tourville, Admiral de, criticism on, 283.
+
+Traparni, 265.
+
+Tripoli, 2, 153,
+  defence of, 10;
+  capture, 309;
+  fortifications, 311;
+  expedition against, 311.
+
+Trivulce, Theodore, 104.
+
+Tunis, 2,
+  captured by the corsairs, 137, 375;
+  massacre in, 141, 159;
+  fortifications repaired, 146;
+  rebellion in, 348;
+  appeal to Ali Basha, 349;
+  flight of Hamid, 350.
+
+Tunis, Sultan of, his treaties with the Barbarossas, 51, 61,
+  repudiates treaty, 59.
+
+Turks, their character as soldiers, 8, 124,
+  relations with the Sea-wolves, 33;
+  attack on Rhodes, 37;
+  defeated at Patras, 109.
+
+Tuscany, Duke of, 235.
+
+
+Urbain II., Pope, 287.
+
+Urbino, Duke of, 99,
+  at the battle of Lepanto, 364.
+
+
+Vagnor, Chevalier, 333.
+
+Valentia, ravaged by corsairs, 83.
+
+Valetta, position of, 307, 342.
+
+Valette, Jean Parisot de la, Grand Master of the Knights of
+  St. John, 6, 248;
+  his characteristics, 301, 309;
+  creed, 302;
+  personal example in the siege of Malta, 302-305;
+  his high conception of duty, 310;
+  expedition against Tripoli, 311;
+  repulsed, 312;
+  summons help, 318;
+  preparations for the siege, 318-321;
+  address to his brethren, 319;
+  at the siege of Malta, 324-328;
+  reinforcements, 328.
+
+Vargas, Martin de, in command of the fortress of Navarro, 91,
+  besieged, 91-95;
+  wounded and taken prisoner, 95;
+  beheaded, 96.
+
+Vasto, Marquis de, 143.
+
+Vega, Don Alvaro, in command of "Africa," 267.
+
+Vega, Don Juan de, Viceroy of Sicily, 273,
+  in the expedition against Dragut, 265.
+
+Velez, Pe�on de, captured, 312.
+
+Venalcadi, 73,
+  escapes, 86;
+  attacks Barbarossa, 87;
+  fight, 88;
+  beheaded, 88.
+
+_Vengeur_, the, 354.
+
+Venice, 32,
+  treaty of commerce concluded, 34;
+  relations with Soliman, 179;
+  war declared, 179;
+  "Holy League" formed, 357.
+
+Veniero, Sebastian in command of the Venetian fleet, 360, 364.
+
+Vera, Don Diego de, sent to capture Algiers, 70,
+  defeated, 71.
+
+Vercoyran, Chevalier de, at the siege of Malta, 332.
+
+Vertot, M. L'Abb� de, 273, 297, 311.
+
+_Victory_, the, 354.
+
+Villaret, Fulke de, Grand Master of the Knights of St. John, 35,
+  seizes Rhodes, 35, 292.
+
+Villegagnon, Commandeur de, his interview with the Grand Master, 281.
+
+Villeneuve, Helion de, Grand Master of the Knights of St. John, 293,
+  character of his rule, 293;
+  death, 297.
+
+Vittoriosa, 299.
+
+Volo, Gulf of, 187.
+
+
+Ximenes, Fray Francisco, Cardinal Bishop of Toledo, 70.
+
+
+Yamboli, 216.
+
+Yonis Bey, sent to Venice, 178.
+
+
+Zante, island of, 114, 313.
+
+Zara, port of, 227.
+
+Zay, Basha, 114, 125.
+
+Zonchio, battle of, 38.
+
+
+
+
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+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean
+by E. Hamilton Currey
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+
+Project Gutenberg's Sea-wolves of the Mediterranean, by Currey E. Hamilton
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
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+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+Title: Sea-wolves of the Mediterranean
+       The Grand Period of the Moslem Corsairs
+
+Author: Currey E. Hamilton
+
+Release Date: May 14, 2017 [EBook #13689]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SEA-WOLVES OF THE MEDITERRANEAN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Turgut Dincer, as an update to the original
+ebook produced by Robert Connal and the Online Distributed
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+produced from images generously made available by The
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+</pre>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br />SEA-WOLVES OF THE<br />
+MEDITERRANEAN</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"><a name="fp" id="fp">
+<img src="images/frontis.jpg" width="500" height="605" alt="KHEYR-ED-DIN BARBAROSSA--CORSAIR, ADMIRAL, AND KING." /></a>
+<div class="caption">KHEYR-ED-DIN BARBAROSSA&mdash;CORSAIR, ADMIRAL, AND KING.</div>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h1>SEA-WOLVES&nbsp;&nbsp;OF&nbsp;&nbsp;THE<br />
+MEDITERRANEAN</h1>
+
+<p class="center">THE GRAND PERIOD OF THE MOSLEM CORSAIRS<br /><br />
+
+<small>BY COMMANDER</small><br />
+E. HAMILTON CURREY, R.N.<br /><br />
+
+<small><small>WITH PORTRAITS AND ILLUSTRATIONS</small></small><br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="stanza">
+<div class="line i05">“Ships are but boards, sailors but men:</div>
+<div class="line">There be land rats and water rats, land thieves and water thieves,</div>
+<div class="line">I mean pirates.”</div>
+<div class="line i12"><i>Merchant of Venice</i>.<br /><br /></div>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p class="center">LONDON<br />
+JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W<br />
+1910</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="center">TO THAT GRACIOUS LADY<br /><br />
+TO WHOSE COUNSEL AND ENCOURAGEMENT<br /><br />
+I OWE SO MUCH<br /><br />
+MORE
+THAN ANY ONE&mdash;SAVE I&mdash;CAN IMAGINE...<br /><br />
+<big>TO MY WIFE</big><br /><br />
+I DEDICATE THIS BOOK</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>PREFACE</h2>
+
+<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">When</span> the ship is ready for launching there comes a moment of tense
+excitement before the dogshores are knocked away and she slides down the
+ways. In the case of a ship this excitement is shared by many thousands,
+who have assembled to acclaim the birth of a perfected product of the
+industry of man; the emotion is shared by all those who are present. It is
+very different when a book has been completed. The launching has been
+arranged for and completed by expert hands; she like the ship gathers way
+and slides forth into an ocean: but, unlike the ship which is certain to
+float, the waters may close over and engulf her, or perchance she may be
+towed back to that haven of obscurity from which she emerged, to rust there
+in silence and neglect. There is excitement in the breast of one man
+alone&mdash;to wit, the author. If his book possesses one supreme qualification
+she will escape the fate mentioned, and this qualification is&mdash;interest. As
+the weeks lengthened into months, and<span class="pagenum2"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">viii</a></span> these multiplied themselves to the
+tale of something like twenty-four, the conviction was strengthened that
+that which had so profoundly interested the writer, would not be altogether
+indifferent to others. For some inscrutable reason the deeds of sea-robbers
+have always possessed a fascination denied to those of their more numerous
+brethren of the land; and in the case of the Sea-wolves of the sixteenth
+century we are dealing with the very aristocrats of the profession.
+Circumstances over which they had no control flung the Moslem population of
+Southern Spain on to the shores of Northern Africa: to revenge themselves
+upon the Christian foe by whom this expropriation had been accomplished was
+natural to a warrior race; and those who heretofore had been land-folk pure
+and simple took to piracy as a means of livelihood. It is of the deeds of
+these men that this book treats; of their marvellous triumphs, of their
+apparently hopeless defeats, of the manner in which they audaciously
+maintained themselves against the principalities and the powers of
+Christendom always hungering for their destruction.</p>
+
+<p>The quality which Napoleon is said to have ascribed to the British
+Infantry, “of never knowing when they were beaten,” seems to have also
+characterised the Sea-wolves; as witness the marvellous recuperation of
+Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">ix</a></span> when expelled from Tunis by Charles V.; and the
+escape of Dragut from the island of Jerba when apparently hopelessly
+trapped by the Genoese admiral, Andrea Doria. All through their history the
+leaders of the Sea-wolves show the resourcefulness of the real seamen that
+they had become by force of circumstances, and it was they who in the age
+in which they dwelt showed what sea power really meant. Sailing through the
+Mediterranean on my way to Malta in the spring of this year, as the good
+ship fared onwards I passed in succession all those lurking-places from
+which the Moslem Corsairs were wont to burst out upon their prey. Truly it
+seemed as if</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="stanza">
+<div class="line">“The spirits of their fathers might start from every wave,”</div>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p class="noindent">and in imagination one pictured the rush of the pirate galley, with its
+naked slaves straining at the oar of their taskmasters, its fierce,
+reckless, beturbaned crew clustered on the “rambades” at the bow and stern.
+It might be that they would capture some hapless “round-ship,” a
+merchantman lumbering slowly along the coast; or again they might meet with
+a galley of the terrible Knights of St. John or of the ever-redoubtable
+Doria. In either case the Sea-wolves were equal to their fortune, to
+plunder or to fight in the name of Allah and his prophet.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">x</a></span></p>
+
+<p>That which differentiated the Sea-wolves from other pirates was the
+combination which they effected among themselves; the manner in which these
+lawless men could subordinate themselves to the will of one whom they
+recognised as a great leader. To obtain such recognition was no easy
+matter, and the manner in which this was done, by those who rose by sheer
+force of character to the summit of this remarkable hierarchy, has here
+been set forth.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">E. Hamilton Currey.</span>&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">xi</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<table summary="CONTENTS"><tr>
+<td class="tdr" colspan="2"><small>PAGE</small></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Introductory</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdc f12" colspan="2">CHAPTER I</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Crescent and the Cross</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_13">13</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdc f12" colspan="2">CHAPTER II</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Coming of the Corsairs</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_28">28</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdc f12" colspan="2">CHAPTER III</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Uruj Barbarossa</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_43">43</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdc f12" colspan="2">CHAPTER IV</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Death of Uruj Barbarossa</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_59">59</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdc f12" colspan="2">CHAPTER V</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Kheyr-ed-din Barbarossa</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_75">75</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdc f12" colspan="2">CHAPTER VI</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Taking of the Pe&ntilde;on d’Alger; Andrea Doria</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_91">91</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdc f12" colspan="2">CHAPTER VII</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Apotheosis of the Corsair King</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_107">107</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdc f12" colspan="2"><span class="pagenum2">xii</span>CHAPTER VIII</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Raid on the Coast of Italy; Julia Gonzaga</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_123">123</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdc f12" colspan="2">CHAPTER IX</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl"><p class="indent"><span class="smcap">Barcelona, May 1535; the Gathering of the
+Christian Hosts</span></p></td><td class="tdr vertb"><a href="#Page_139">139</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdc f12" colspan="2">CHAPTER X</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Fall of Tunis and the Flight of Barbarossa</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_155">155</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdc f12" colspan="2">CHAPTER XI</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Roxalana and the Murder of Ibrahim</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_172">172</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdc f12" colspan="2">CHAPTER XII</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Prevesa Campaign; the Gathering of the
+Fleets</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_189">189</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdc f12" colspan="2">CHAPTER XIII</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Battle of Prevesa</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_205">205</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdc f12" colspan="2">CHAPTER XIV</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl"><p class="indent"><span class="smcap">The Navy of Oars; the Galley, the Galeasse,
+And the Nef</span></p></td><td class="tdr vertb"><a href="#Page_221">221</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdc f12" colspan="2">CHAPTER XV</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Dragut-Reis</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_238">238</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdc f12" colspan="2">CHAPTER XVI</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Dragut-Reis</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_254">254</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdc f12" colspan="2"><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">xiii</a></span></p>CHAPTER XVII</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Dragut-Reis</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_269">269</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdc f12" colspan="2">CHAPTER XVIII</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Knights of St. John</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_286">286</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdc f12" colspan="2">CHAPTER XIX</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Dragut-Reis</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_306">306</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdc f12" colspan="2">CHAPTER XX</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Siege of Malta</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_324">324</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdc f12" colspan="2">CHAPTER XXI</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Ali Basha</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_344">344</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdc f12" colspan="2">CHAPTER XXII</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Lepanto</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_362">362</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl padt1"><span class="smcap">Authorities Consulted</span></td><td class="tdr padt1"><a href="#Page_383">383</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl padt1"><p class="indent"><span class="smcap">List of the Kings of England, France, Spain,
+Sultans of Turkey, Popes of Rome, and Grand
+Masters of Malta from 1492 to 1580</span></p></td><td class="tdr vertb padt1"><a href="#Page_385">385</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl padt1"><p class="indent"><span class="smcap">Distances in Sea Miles on the Coast of Northern
+Africa</span></p></td><td class="tdr vertb padt1"><a href="#Page_387">387</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl padt1"><span class="smcap">Index</span></td><td class="tdr padt1"><a href="#Page_389">389</a></td>
+</tr></table>
+<hr />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xv" id="Page_xv">xiv-xv</a></span></p>
+<h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+
+<p><small>I wish to record my cordial recognition of the kindness shown to me at
+Malta by Mr. Salvino Sant Manduca. The picture of the carrack opposite to
+page 300 was a gift from him. The galley of the Knights of Malta is a
+reproduction of a picture hanging in his house. I should also like to thank
+him for the time and trouble which he took on my behalf during my stay at
+Malta, and the keen interest he displayed in my subject.</small></p>
+
+<p class="right"><small>R. HAMILTON CURREY.&nbsp;&nbsp;</small></p>
+
+<table summary="LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS"><tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Kheyr-ed-din Barbarossa&mdash;corsair, Admiral, and King</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#fp"><i>Frontispiece</i></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdr" colspan="2"><small><small>FACING PAGE</small></small></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Uruj and Kheyr-ed-din Barbarossa</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_44">44</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl"><p class="indent"><span class="smcap">Andrea Doria, Prince of Oneolia, Admiral to Charles V.</span></p></td><td class="tdr vertb"><a href="#Page_92">92</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Soliman the Magnificent</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_110">110</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Emperor Charles V</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_150">150</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Muley Hassan King of Tunis</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_162">162</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Galeasse under Sail</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_194">194</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Galley under Oars</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_222">222</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Brigantine Chasing Felucca</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_236">236</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Gozon De Dieu-donné Slaying the Great Serpent of Rhodes</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_294">294</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl"><p class="indent"><span class="smcap">Carrack in which the Knights Arrived at Malta, 1530</span></p></td><td class="tdr vertb"><a href="#Page_300">300</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl"><p class="indent"><span class="smcap">Jean Parisot de la Valette, Grand Master of the Knights
+of Malta, at the Siege of that Island by the Turks
+In 1565</span></p></td><td class="tdr vertb"><a href="#Page_324">324</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Death of Dragut at the Siege of Malta</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_340">340</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">A Galley of the Knights of Malta</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_354">354</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Don John of Austria</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_362">362</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Sebastian Veniero</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_364">364</a></td>
+</tr></table>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">1</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="center f16">SEA-WOLVES OF THE<br />
+MEDITERRANEAN</p>
+
+<h2>INTRODUCTORY</h2>
+
+<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">In</span> all the ages of which we have any record there have been men who gained
+a living by that practice of robbery on the high seas which we know by the
+name of Piracy. Perhaps the pirates best known to the English-speaking
+world are the buccaneers of the Spanish Main, who flourished exceedingly in
+the seventeenth century, and of whom many chronicles exist: principally
+owing to the labours of that John Esquemelin, a pirate of a literary turn
+of mind, who added the crime of authorship to the ill deeds of a sea-rover.
+The Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean in the preceding century did not raise
+up a chronicler from among themselves: for not much tincture of learning
+seems to have distinguished these desperate fighters and accomplished
+seamen, descendants of those Spanish Moslems who had, during the Middle
+Ages, lived in a land in which learning and culture had been held in the
+highest estimation. Driven from their homes, their civilisation crushed,
+their religion banned in that portion of Southern Spain in which they had
+dwelt for over seven centuries, cast upon the shores of Northern Africa,
+these men took to<span class="pagenum2"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">2</a></span> the sea and became the scourge of the Mediterranean. That
+which they did, the deeds which they accomplished, the terror which they
+inspired, the ruin and havoc which they wrought, have been set forth in the
+pages of this book.</p>
+
+<p>It was the age of the galley, the oar-propelled vessel which moved
+independently of the wind in the fine-weather months of the great inland
+sea. Therefore to the dwellers on the coast the Sea-wolves were a perpetual
+menace; as, when booty was unobtainable at sea, they raided the towns and
+villages of their Christian foes. During all the period here dealt with no
+man’s life, no woman’s honour, was safe from these pirates within the area
+of their nefarious activities. They held the Mediterranean in fee, they
+levied toll on all who came within reach of their galleys and their
+scimitars. Places unknown to the geography of the sixteenth century became
+notorious in their day, and Christian wives and mothers learned to tremble
+at the very names of Algiers and Tunis. From these places the rovers issued
+to capture, to destroy, and to enslave: in Oran and Tlemcen, in Tenes,
+Shershell, Bougie, Jigelli, Bizerta, Sfax, Susa, Monastir, Jerbah, and
+Tripoli they lurked ready for the raid and the foray. At one time all
+Northern Africa would thrill to the triumph of the Moslem arms, at another
+there would go up the wail of the utterly defeated; but in spite of
+alternations of fortune the Sea-wolves abode in the localities of their
+choice, and ended in establishing those pirate States which troubled the
+peace of the Mediterranean practically until the introduction of steam.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">3</a></span></p>
+<p>The whole record of the sixteenth century is one of blood and fire, of
+torture and massacre, of “punic faith” and shameless treason; the deeds of
+the sea-rovers, appalling as they were, frequently found a counterpart in
+the battles, the sieges, and the sacking of towns which took place
+perpetually on the continent of Europe.</p>
+
+<p>There was so much history made at this period, the stage of world politics
+was occupied by so many great, striking, and dazzling personalities, that
+the Sea-wolves and all they accomplished were to a great extent
+overshadowed by happenings which the chroniclers of the time considered to
+be of greater importance. In this no doubt they were right in the main;
+but, in spite of this opinion which they held, we find that time and again
+the main stream of events is ruffled by the prows of the pirate galleys.
+Such men as the Barbarossas, as Dragut, and Ali Basha could only have been
+suppressed and exterminated had the whole might of Christendom been turned
+against them, for they held in their hands two weapons, the keenest and
+most powerful with which to attain the objects which they had in view.</p>
+
+<p>The first and more powerful of these was the appeal in a rough and warlike
+age to the cupidity of mankind. “Those who are content to follow us,” they
+said in effect, “are certain to enrich themselves if they are men stout of
+heart and strong of hand. All around us lie rich and prosperous lands; we
+have but to organise ourselves, and to take anything that we wish for; we
+can, if we like, gather a rich harvest at comparatively small trouble.”
+Such counsels as these<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">4</a></span> did not fall on deaf ears. Driven from the land of
+plenty&mdash;from glorious Andalusia with its fruitful soil, its magnificent
+cities, its vines and olives, its fruit and grain, its noble rivers and
+wide-spreading <i>vegas</i>&mdash;the Spanish Moslem of the day of the Sea-wolves was
+an outcast and a beggar, ripe for adventure and burning for revenge on
+those by whom he had been expropriated.</p>
+
+<p>Great historians like William Hickling Prescott tell us that, in the course
+of the seven centuries of the Moslem domination in Spain, the Moors had
+become soft and effeminate, that “the canker of peace” had sapped, if it
+had not destroyed, the virile qualities of the race, that luxury and
+learning had dried up at their source those primitive virtues of courage
+and hardihood which had been the leading characteristics of those stark
+fighters who had borne the banner of the Prophet from Mecca even to Cadiz.
+Tom by faction, by strife among themselves, they had succumbed to the arms
+of the Northern chivalry; by its warriors they had been driven out, never
+to return.</p>
+
+<p>When this was accomplished, when the curtain fell on the final scene of the
+tragedy, and the Moors, after the fall of Granada, were driven across the
+sea into Africa, there came to pass a most remarkable change in those who
+had been expropriated. The learning, the culture, the civilisation, by
+which they had been so long distinguished, seemed to drop away from them,
+cast away like a worn-out garment for which men have no further use. In
+place of all these things there came a complete and desperate valour, a
+bitter and headstrong fanaticism.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">5</a></span></p>
+<p>It was one of the attributes of the Moslem civilisation in Spain, and one
+of the most enlightened thereof, that religious toleration flourished in
+its midst. Jew and Christian were allowed to worship at the altars of their
+fathers, no man hindering or saying them nay; one rule, and one alone, had
+to be preserved: none must blaspheme against Mahomet, the Prophet of God,
+as he was considered to be by the Moslems. The penalty for infraction of
+this rule was death; otherwise, complete liberty of conscience was
+accorded.</p>
+
+<p>We have spoken of the two weapons held by the leaders of the Sea-wolves.
+The first, as we have, said, was cupidity; the second was fanaticism, the
+deadly religious hatred engendered, not only by the wholesale expropriation
+of the Moslem population, but also by the persecution to which the
+Moriscoes&mdash;as those Moslems were known who remained in Spain&mdash;were
+subjected by their Christian masters. It requires little imagination to see
+how these two weapons of avarice and intolerance could be made to serve the
+purpose of those dominant spirits who rose to the summit of the piratical
+hierarchy. Not only did they dazzle the imaginations of those who followed
+in their train by promises of wealth uncounted, but they added to this the
+specious argument that, in slaying and robbing the Christian wheresoever he
+was to be found, the faithful Moslem was performing the service of God and
+the act most grateful to his holy Prophet.</p>
+
+<p>Could any rule of life be at the same time more simple and more attractive
+to the beggared<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">6</a></span> Mohammedan cast on the sterile shores of Northern Africa to
+starve?</p>
+
+<p>With the main stream of history, to which we have before referred, we have
+no concern in this book. He who would embark thereon must sail a powerful
+vessel which must carry many guns. Also for the conduct of this vessel many
+qualities are necessary: a commanding intellect, acute perceptions,
+indefatigable industry, complete leisure, are among those things necessary
+to the pilot. These must be supplemented by a genius for research, a
+knowledge of ancient and modern languages, and an unerring faculty for
+separating the few precious grains of wheat from those mountains of chaff
+which he will have to sift with the utmost care. There are, however,
+subsidiary rivulets which feed the onward flow of events, and of such is
+the story of the Sea-wolves of the Mediterranean. On these the adventurous
+mariner can sail his little cockboat, discreetly retiring before he becomes
+involved and engulfed in the main stream. That he cannot altogether avoid
+it is shown by the fact that the men who are here chronicled took part in
+events of first-class importance in the age in which they lived.
+Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa fought the battle of Prevesa against his lifelong
+antagonist, Andrea Doria. Dragut was killed at the siege of Malta, at the
+moment almost of the fall of the castle of St. Elmo; had he lived it is
+more than probable that Jean Parisot de la Valette and his heroic garrison
+would have been defeated instead of being victorious. Ali Basha was the one
+Moslem commander who increased his reputation at the battle of Lepanto,
+because, as was usual in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">7</a></span> all maritime conflicts of the time, the corsairs,
+who had the habit of the sea, were more than a match for soldiers embarked
+to fight on an unfamiliar element.</p>
+
+<p>We shall speak, later on, of the autocratic rule of these leaders who
+possessed so absolute a domination over the men by whom they were followed.
+The fact of this absolute supremacy on the part of the chiefs is very
+curious, as theoretically in the confederacy of the Sea-wolves all were
+equal; we are, in fact, confronted with pure democracy, where every man was
+at liberty to do what seemed best in his own eyes. He was a free agent,
+none coercing him or desiring him to place himself under discipline or
+command. This, be it observed, was the theory. As a matter of fact the
+corsairs, who were extraordinarily successful in their abominable trade,
+abode beneath an iron and rigid discipline. This was enforced by the lash,
+as we shall see later on when it is related how Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa
+flogged one Hassan, a captain who, he considered, had failed in his duty:
+or by the actual penalty of death, which Uruj Barbarossa inflicted on one
+who had dared to act independently of his authority.</p>
+
+<p>The theory of equality obtained among the Mediterranean pirates; but the
+Barbarossas, Dragut, and Ali believed that, in practice, the less
+interference there was with their designs by those, whom Cardinal Granvelle
+denominated in a letter to Philip II. as “that mischievous animal the
+people,” the better it would be for all concerned. The conception held of
+rights and duties of “the mischievous animal” by these militant persons
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">8</a></span>was, that it should behave as did those others recorded of the Roman
+centurion in Holy Writ: if it did not, and difficulties arose, the leaders
+were not troubled with an undue tenderness either towards the individual or
+the theory. Of this we shall see examples as we go on.</p>
+
+<p>This period has been called “The Grand Period of the Moslem Corsairs”
+cause it was in something less than a century, from the year of the
+expulsion of the Moors from Granada in 1492 to the death of Ali Basha in
+1580, that the Sea-wolves were at the height of their power, that the
+piratical States of the Mediterranean were in the making. That subsequently
+they gave great cause of trouble to Christendom is written in characters of
+blood and fire throughout the history of the succeeding centuries; but the
+real interest in the careers of these men resides in the fact that they
+established, by their extraordinary aptitude for sea-adventure, the
+permanent place which was held by their descendants. Time and again in the
+sixteenth century the effort was made to destroy them root and branch: they
+were defeated, driven out of their strongholds on shore, crushed apparently
+for ever. But nothing short of actual extermination could have been
+successful in this; as, no matter how severe had been the set-back, there
+was always left a nucleus of the pirates which in a short time grew again
+into a formidable force. The Ottoman Turk, magnificent fighter as he was on
+land, seemed to lose his great qualities when the venue was changed from
+the land to the sea. The Janissaries, that picked corps trained as few
+soldiers were trained even in that age of iron, who never<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">9</a></span> recoiled before
+the foe but who fought only to conquer or die, seem to have failed when
+embarked for sea-service. That which the hard teaching of experience alone
+could show&mdash;that the man who fights best upon the sea is he who has the
+habit of the sea&mdash;was at this time not generally recognised, and this it
+was that rendered the corsairs so supreme on the element which they had
+made their own. Some among the great ones of the earth there were who
+appreciated this fact, who, like that great statesman Ibrahim, Grand Vizier
+to Soliman the Magnificent, recognised what it was to lay their hands upon
+“a veritable man of the sea”; but the rule was to embark men from the shore
+and to entrust to them the duty of fighting naval actions.</p>
+
+<p>When “the Grand Period” came to an end, as it did about the date already
+indicated, the corsairs had become a permanent institution; they remained
+established at Algiers, Tunis, and other ports on the littoral of Northern
+Africa as a recognised evil. Pirates they remained to the end of the
+chapter, the scourge of the tideless sea; but no longer did they array
+themselves in line of battle against the mightiest potentates of the earth
+allied for their complete destruction. It was the men of the sea who set up
+this empire; it was they who defied Charles V., a whole succession of
+Popes, Andrea Doria and his descendants, the might of Spain, Venice, Genoa,
+Catalonia, and France. It was they who taught the so-called civilised world
+of the age in which they lived that sea-power can only be met and checked
+by those who dispose of navies manned by seamen; that against it the master
+of the mightiest legions of the land is powerless.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">10</a></span></p>
+<p>This contention is by no means invalidated by the fact that frequently the
+corsairs were defeated by land forces embarked on board ship. Thus when
+Dragut was defending Tripoli against an expedition sent against him in 1559
+by the combined forces of Spain, Tuscany, Rome, Naples, Sicily, and Genoa,
+of one hundred sail which embarked fourteen thousand troops, he was
+relieved by Piali, the Admiral of Soliman the Magnificent, who came to his
+assistance with eighty-six galleys, each of which had on board one hundred
+Janissaries, and who gained so striking a victory over the Christians that
+the Turkish Admiral returned to Constantinople with no less than four
+thousand prisoners. But in this case, as in so many others, the actual
+hostilities took place on shore, where the troops had the opportunity of
+displaying their sterling qualities.</p>
+
+<p>There is very little doubt that critics will point out that the corsairs
+were by no means universally successful; that, as in the case of the attack
+by Hassem, the ruler of Algiers in 1563, on Oran and Marzaquivir (a small
+port in the immediate vicinity of Oran), in the end the Moslems were badly
+beaten. This undoubtedly was the case, and there is no desire to magnify
+the deeds of the Sea-wolves or to minimise the heroic defence of
+Marzaquivir by the Count of Alcaudete, or that of Oran by his brother, Don
+Martin de Còrdoba, At the last moment of their wonderful defence they were
+relieved by a fleet sent by the King of Spain, and Hassem had to abandon
+his artillery, ammunition, and stores and beat a hasty retreat to the place
+from whence he had come.</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing remarkable in the fact that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">11</a></span> the corsairs were frequently
+defeated; what is really strange is that they should have achieved so great
+a success&mdash;success vouched for by the concrete instance that they
+established those sinister dynasties on the coast of Northern Africa which
+were the outcome of their piratical activities.</p>
+
+<p>In speaking of them, historians of later date than that at which they
+flourished are apt to hold them somewhat cheaply, to dismiss them as mere
+barbarians of no particular importance in the scheme of mundane affairs; as
+men who caused a certain amount of trouble to civilisation by their inroads
+and their plunderings. That which is certain is that they were for
+centuries a standing shame and disgrace to the whole of Christendom.</p>
+
+<p>To those who may perhaps be called the pioneers&mdash;that is to say, the men
+treated of in this book&mdash;a certain amount of sympathy and understanding may
+be conceded; for they had been driven from the land which had been theirs,
+it was their countrymen and their co-religionists who were being ground to
+powder beneath the fanatical cruelty of the Spanish Inquisition. That which
+they did was doubtless abominable, but it cannot be contended that they had
+not received the strongest provocation both from the material and the
+religious points of view.</p>
+
+<p>Once the “Grand Period” was passed, that period in which such men as the
+Barbarossas, Dragut, and Ali flourished, the chronicle of the Moslem States
+founded by them sinks to the degraded level of sheer robbery and murder; of
+a history of a tyranny established within one hundred miles of the shores
+of Europe, and of great kings<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">12</a></span> and princes bargaining with piratical
+ruffians who held in thrall thousands upon thousands of their subjects. How
+it came about that the Christian States tolerated such an abuse is one of
+those mysteries which can never be explained; and if subsequent centuries
+displayed a greater refinement of manners, a more apt appreciation of all
+that is softer and kindlier in the human relationships of nation towards
+nation and of people towards people, they have not perhaps so much to plume
+themselves upon as had their rude forefathers of the sixteenth century,
+who, seeing the evil and feeling the effects thereof, did their best to
+extirpate those by whom this evil was caused.</p>
+
+<p>The question may be asked, how can it be that the lives and actions of such
+men as these are worth chronicling? It is because, not only that they
+modified profoundly the course of history in the age in which they lived,
+but also because that, hidden deep down, somewhere, in these men stained by
+a thousand crimes, ruthless, lustful, bloodthirsty, cruel as the grave, was
+the germ of true greatness, some dim spark of the divine fire of genius.
+Contending against principalities and powers, they held their own; in the
+welter of anarchy in which they lived they proved that there existed no
+finer fighting men, which alone give them some claim to consideration; but
+that which is most interesting to watch is the absolute domination obtained
+by the leaders over their followers. There is no other record of pirates
+who commanded on so large a scale; there is none which shows men such as
+these bargaining on equal terms with the great ones of the earth.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">13</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER I<br /><br />
+
+<small>THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS</small></h2>
+
+<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">There</span> is, in the deeds of men of action, an interest which is never aroused
+by those persons of brains and capacity by whom the world is really ruled.
+The statesman in his cabinet is the god within the machine; it is he who
+directs the acts of nations, it is he who moves the fleets and armies as if
+they were pieces on the chess-board; to him, as a rule, is the man of
+action subordinate, obeying his behests. Rule and governance are his, power
+both in the abstract and the concrete. Seldom in the history of the world
+do we come across the men who are at one and the same time statesmen and
+soldiers, who, taking their destiny in their own hands, work it out to the
+appointed end thereof. But, as we stray in the by-paths of history, we meet
+with some who, in their day, have influenced not only the age in which they
+lived themselves, but also the destinies of generations yet unborn. It
+would seem incredible that mere pirates, such as the Moslem corsairs of the
+Mediterranean, could be included in this category, and yet, as their story
+is unfolded, we shall see how the Sea-wolves rose from the humblest
+beginnings to trouble the peace of Europe, to found for themselves
+dynasties which endured.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">14</a></span></p>
+<p>Uruj Barbarossa, Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, Dragut Reis, and Occhiali, or All
+Basha, were men who, in the sixteenth century, did much to change the
+conditions of the times in which they lived: it was the time of the
+Renaissance in Europe, a period of splendour in all the arts and sciences.
+These men added nothing to the knowledge of the civilised world as it then
+existed, save and except in one particular, which was, as Kheyr-ed-Din
+explained to Soliman the Magnificent on a certain memorable occasion, that
+he who rules on the sea will rule on the land also. In the present day,
+when all the nations and languages sit at the feet of Captain (now
+Rear-Admiral) Mahan, and acclaim his “Sea Power” series of books, it is
+interesting to find that he was anticipated in the most practical fashion
+possible by a corsair of the sixteenth century.</p>
+
+<p>This period was one in which great men abounded. The Emperor Charles V.,
+Francis I. of France, and Henry VIII. of England, were on the thrones of
+their respective countries; in Hungary was John Hunyadi, at Constantinople
+Soliman the Magnificent held rule, while in Rome the “fatal house of
+Medici” were the successors of Saint Peter. War was a commonplace state of
+the times, but until the Crescent began to sweep the seas it had its
+manifestation in the perpetual quarrels of the nations of Christendom,
+which represented, as a rule, the insatiable ambitions of its rulers. But
+now new men forced themselves to the front, a new power arose which was
+very imperfectly understood, and which practically held the sea at its
+mercy. Gone were the halcyon days<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">15</a></span> of peaceful trade which had been pursued
+for generations by Venetian and Genoese, by Spaniard and Frenchman; gone
+also, apparently never to return, was all sense of security for the
+wretched dwellers on the littoral of the Mediterranean, who lived in daily,
+and particularly in nightly, dread of the falcon swoop of the pirate
+galleys.</p>
+
+<p>It is amusing to read the old chroniclers, sticklers as they were for “the
+dignity of history,” continually having to turn aside from the main stream
+of their narrative of emperors, popes, and kings to descend to the level of
+the Sea-wolves, and to be constrained to set down the nefarious doings of
+these rovers of the sea. Bell, book, and candle were invoked against them
+in vain, and mighty monarchs had to meet them in the stricken field not
+merely once or twice&mdash;to their utter undoing and discomfiture&mdash;but many
+times, while victory inclined first to one side and then to the other.</p>
+
+<p>The Osmanli had ever been warriors since the times of the Prophet, of
+Abu-Bekr, of Othman, and of Ali; but so far their warlike achievements had
+been always on land, their only sea experience being confined to the
+crossing of the Straits of Gibraltar, when in the eighth century, under
+Tarik, they had swarmed into Andalusia, conquered Roderick the Goth, and
+set up that Moslem domination in Southern Spain which lasted until 1492,
+just before the events set forth in this book took place. Piracy in all
+ages is a thing in which a curious shuddering interest has been taken, and
+the deeds of the outlaws of the sea have never lacked chroniclers. There is
+for this a reason apart from the record of robbery and murder,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">16</a></span> which is the
+commonplace of piratical deeds: it resides in the perennial interest which
+men take in individual achievement, in the spectacle of absolute and
+complete domination by one man over the lives and the fortunes of others.
+This intense form of individualism is nowhere so well exhibited as in the
+story of piratical enterprise, where a band of men, outside of the law and
+divorced from all human kind by the atrocity of their deeds, has had to be
+welded into one homogeneous mass for the purpose of preying upon the world
+at large. Therefore he who would hold rule among such outlaws must himself
+be a man of no common description, for in him must be that quality which
+calls for instantaneous obedience among those with whom he is associated;
+behind him is no constituted authority, discipline is personal, enforced by
+the leader, and by him alone. Beneath him are men of the rudest and
+roughest description, slaves to their lusts and their passions, prone to
+mutiny, suspicious, and&mdash;worst of all&mdash;stupid.</p>
+
+<p>It is with these constituent elements that the piratical leader had to
+deal, trusting to the strength of his own arm, the subtlety of his own
+unassisted brain. Some among these leaders have risen to eminence in their
+evil lives, most of them have been the captains of single ships preying on
+commerce in an indiscriminate manner; but this was not the case with the
+Sea-wolves of the Mediterranean, Primarily sea-robbers they were of course,
+but as time and opportunity developed their characters they rose to meet
+occasion, to take fortune at the flood, in a manner that, had they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">17</a></span> been
+pursuing any other career, would most certainly have caused them to rise to
+eminence. Into the fierce and blood-stained turmoil of their lives there
+entered something unknown to any other pirates: this was religious
+fanaticism&mdash;a fanaticism so engrained in character, a belief held to with
+such passionate tenacity, that men stained with every conceivable crime
+held that their passage to Paradise was absolutely secure because of the
+faith which they professed. Tradition, sentiment, discipline, were summed
+up in one trite formula; but though we, at this distance of time, may hold
+it somewhat in derision, it was a vital force in the days of Soliman the
+Magnificent; and there was an added zest to robbery and murder in the fact
+that the pirates, as good Mohammedans, were obeying the behests of the
+Prophet every time that they cut a Christian throat, plundered a Christian
+argosy, or carried off shrieking women into a captivity far worse than
+death.</p>
+
+<p>That a pirate should be a warrior goes without saying, that a pirate should
+be a statesman is a thing almost incredible; but those who will read the
+story of the life of Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa will be forced to admit that
+here, at least, was a pirate who achieved the apparently impossible.
+Admiral Jurien de la Gravière has remarked that the Moslem corsairs of the
+sixteenth century were great men, even when measured by the standard of
+Henry VIII., of Charles V., of Soliman the Magnificent, of Ibrahim, his
+Grand Vizier, or of Andrea Doria, greatest among contemporary Christian
+mariners. To the seaman, of course, there is much that is fascinating in
+the deeds of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">18</a></span> his forerunners, and the ships of the corsairs had in them
+something distinctive in that they were propelled by oars, and were in
+consequence, to a certain extent, independent of the weather. Like the
+sailors of all ages, to the Sea-wolves gales and storms of all sorts and
+descriptions were abhorrent; and in consequence they had a well-marked
+piracy season, which, as we shall see, covered the spring and summer, while
+they carefully avoided the inclement months of autumn and winter.</p>
+
+<p>In a later chapter an attempt has been made to place before the reader
+pictures of the galley, the galeasse, and the nef, which were the names
+attached to the ships then in use; the name brigantine, far from having the
+significance attached to it by the sailor of the present day, seems to have
+been a generic term to denote any craft not included in the names already
+given.</p>
+
+<p>Although the sixteenth century had outgrown the principle of the general
+massacre of the enemy by the victors, still chivalry to the fallen foe was
+far to seek, as all persons captured at sea were, no matter what their rank
+and status, immediately stripped and chained to the rowers’ bench, where
+they remained until ransom, good fortune, or a kindly death, for which
+these unfortunates were wont to pray, should come to their release. To a
+large extent this savagery may be traced to the religious rancour which
+animated the combatants on both sides, as the fanaticism of the Moslem, of
+which we have already spoken, was fully matched on the side of the
+Christians by the bigotry of the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem,
+otherwise known as the Knights of Malta, who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">19</a></span> were vowed to the
+extermination of what they, on their side, called “the infidel.” It was an
+age of iron, when men neither gave nor expected grace for the misfortunes
+which might befall them in the warrior life which they led. It was
+distinguished by many gallant feats of arms on both sides, but pity formed
+no part of the equipment of the fighting man bent on the death or capture
+of his enemy. Honestly and sincerely each side believed that they were
+doing the service of the Almighty in destroying the other party root and
+branch. The amount of human misery and suffering caused by the rise and
+progress of the Moslem corsairs was absolutely incalculable; the slavery of
+the rower in the galley in the time of which we speak was an agony so
+dreadful that in these days it is a thing which seems altogether
+incredible, a nightmare of horror almost impossible even to imagine.</p>
+
+<p>The life of the “gallerian” was so hard that his sufferings in many cases
+were mercifully ended in death in a very short time, as none save those of
+iron constitution could stand the strain imposed by the desperate toil and
+wretched food. Yet there are cases on record of men who had worked at the
+oar for actual decades, so unconquerable in their strength that even such a
+life as this had not the power to break them down.</p>
+
+<p>To the peaceful mariner who wished merely to trade, to the individual whose
+business called him overseas, this epoch must have been one of terror
+unspeakable. The ordinary perils of the deep were quite enough to keep
+timid folk at home in those days of clumsy, ill-found sailing ships, which
+could<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">20</a></span> by no means work to windward, and did not sail remarkably well even
+with the most favouring breezes; when to this we add that every ship which
+started on a voyage in the Mediterranean had before her the chance of being
+captured by the corsairs, it was no wonder that he whose business led him
+oversea should make his last will and testament and bid a fond farewell to
+all his relatives.</p>
+
+<p>There is a record in the Mémoires of the Rev. Frère Pierre d’An, Bachelier
+en Théologie de la Faculté de Paris, etc., who wrote in a most heartfelt
+manner concerning the danger of the sea and the perils to be expected from
+the Barbary corsairs. He says, date 1637:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>“An ancient writer, considering how little assurance can ordinarily be
+placed in the sea, and how hazardous it is to expose oneself and one’s
+goods to its mercy, has remarked, with much reason, that it is
+infinitely preferable to be poor on shore than to be rich at sea. In
+which saying he mocks indeed at those ambitious, avaricious, and
+mercenary men who, in order to gain false glory and the things of this
+world, expose themselves rashly to the manifest perils which are most of
+the time the inevitable lot of the seaman. This same consideration
+causes him also to utter these remarkable words: that he repents himself
+of but one thing, and that is ever to have travelled by sea when it was
+possible to have done so by land. And, to say truth, he has good reason
+to speak as he does, because it is impossible for the most hardy
+navigators not to tremble with fear when it is represented before their
+eyes that they must combat with the winds, the waves, and the foam every
+time that they adventure upon the deep.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">21</a></span></p>
+
+<p>“Because it is indisputable that this is the very Theatre of the storms,
+and the place in the world most capable of all sorts of violence and
+tragic adventure. This, however, does not prevent those who covet the
+perishable goods of this world from straying upon the sea, even in
+unknown and untraversed regions, without ceasing and without rest.</p>
+
+<p>“If, however, they abandon the ocean for a time, it is but to return to
+it again to seek once more war with their ships, in order unjustly to
+make themselves masters of the bodies and of the riches of others.</p>
+
+<p>“Of such it may be remarked to-day are, in all the maritime coasts, the
+implacable Corsairs of Barbary. For, however great may be the dangers of
+which we have just spoken, and no matter now many examples they may see
+of the fury and inconstancy of Neptune, they cease not their irritating
+performances, kindling warfare in all the coasts of the Christian
+nations. It is there that they exercise their infamous piracies, and
+there also that they glory in the most shameful of all commerce&mdash;the
+trade of the brigand.</p>
+
+<p>“Which in all towns that are well policed have always met with a swift
+and just retribution, because the law is ordained against those who
+maintain such practices.</p>
+
+<p>“But such does not happen among these pirates.</p>
+
+<p>“On the contrary, it may truthfully be said that, while in towns in
+which good persons dwell good actions receive the palms and the crown,
+it is among the Corsairs but to the wicked to whom are given recompense
+and praise.</p>
+
+<p>“In effect the most determined among them&mdash;I mean the most unworthy
+robbers who are best versed in all the infamies of their trade and most
+accustomed to the practice of violence&mdash;are those<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">22</a></span> who are covered with
+honours, and who pass in the estimation of their fellows for men of
+heart and courage.</p>
+
+<p>“Indeed experience has taught all Christian merchants that the infidels
+of the coast of Barbary are all brigands.</p>
+
+<p>“Among these those of Algiers carry off the prize for riches, for ships,
+for strength, and for villainy.”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>The bachelor in theology is somewhat sweeping in his criticisms, and his
+meaning is, perhaps, somewhat clearer than his grammar. One thing, however,
+is perfectly plain, that, in the opinion of the reverend brother, those who
+go to sea are to be divided into two categories, rogues and fools, with a
+strong preponderance of the worse Element of the two.</p>
+
+<p>Of the corsairs dealt with in this record of their deeds the two
+Barbarossas were the sons of a Mohammedan father and a Christian mother.
+Dragut Reis was a pure Mohammedan, and Ali Basha was a pure-blooded
+Italian. All these men, as will be seen, raised themselves to eminence in
+the profession of piracy; in each and every separate case starting at the
+very bottom rung of the ladder and rising, by sheer stress of valour and
+character, to the very top. Each in turn became Admiralissimo to the Grand
+Turk at Constantinople. Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa commanded the Ottoman fleet
+at the great battle of Prevesa, at which he met with his life-long
+competitor at sea, the famous Genoese Admiral, Andrea Doria. Dragut Reis
+was killed at the siege of Malta in 1565, and Ali Basha was the only Moslem
+commander who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">23</a></span> increased his reputation at the battle of Lepanto in 1571,
+when Don John of Austria shattered the power of the Moslem at sea for the
+time being.</p>
+
+<p>Although the “renegado” was very much in evidence in the vessels of the
+Moslem corsairs, still of course the bulk of the fighting men, by which the
+galleys were manned, were Mohammedans, the descendants of the warriors who
+had swept through Northern Africa like a living flame in the early days of
+the Mohammedan conquest.</p>
+
+<p>Cut adrift from the homes which had been theirs for over seven
+centuries&mdash;as we shall see in the next chapter&mdash;there was nothing left for
+the erstwhile dwellers in Andalusia but to gain their living by the strong
+hand. The harvest of the sea was the one which they garnered&mdash;a harvest of
+the goods of their mortal enemies strung out in lines of hapless
+merchant-vessels throughout the length and breadth of the tideless sea.</p>
+
+<p>It booted not that the great Powers of Europe sent expedition after
+expedition against them; these they fought to the death with varying
+fortune, ready, when the storm had passed over their heads, to start once
+more on the only career which promised them the chance of acquiring riches.
+Their whole history is a study of warfare, waged as a rule on the petty
+scale, but rising at times, as in the cases already mentioned, into events
+of first-class historical importance.</p>
+
+<p>The deeds of the buccaneers of the next century in the Spanish Main sink
+into comparative insignificance when compared with what was accomplished by
+such a man as Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, who was known, and rightly known, by
+his contemporaries,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">24</a></span> and for many generations of Moslem seamen yet to come,
+as “the King of the Sea.” The capture of Panama by Sir Henry Morgan in
+January 1671 was possibly as remarkable a feat of arms as was ever
+accomplished, but it cannot rank in its importance to civilised mankind on
+the same plane as those memorable battles in the Mediterranean of which
+mention has been made as having been fought by the Moslem corsairs.</p>
+
+<p>Fighting for their own hand, the booty reaped by these men was incredible
+in its richness. Sea-power was theirs, and they took the fullest advantage
+of this fact, fearing none save the great community of the Knights of Saint
+John of Jerusalem, which, vowed to the destruction of the infidel, neither
+gave nor accepted quarter.</p>
+
+<p>We have said that the real interest in the lives of the corsairs arose from
+the fact that it was personal ascendancy, and that alone, which counted in
+the piratical hierarchy. Against Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa plots arose again
+and again, only to be defeated by the address of the man against whom they
+were directed.</p>
+
+<p>It was one of the cruellest of ages, and rough cruelty was the principal
+means adopted to ensure success; sheer terror was the weapon of the leader.
+Thus when one Hassan, a subordinate of Kheyr-ed-Din, failed to take a
+Spanish ship because she made too stout a resistance, his chief caused him
+to be soundly flogged and then thrown into prison. Such methods naturally
+raised up hosts of enemies in the wake of the piratical commanders, ready
+at any time to do them a mortal injury, and it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">25</a></span> is little short of
+miraculous that they should throughout a long period of years have been
+able not only to maintain, but to increase, their supremacy over the wild
+spirits of which their following was composed. It was, however, the golden
+age of autocracy, when men surrendered their judgment to some great leader,
+content to follow where he led, to endorse his policy at the cost of their
+lives.</p>
+
+<p>It is the autocrat who is made by the circumstances of his life who
+ultimately becomes supreme. The leaders among the corsairs were tried by
+every test of prosperity and of adverse fortune; they emerged from the ruck
+in the first instance because it was in them to display a more desperate
+valour than did their contemporaries, and it was only when they emerged
+triumphant from this, the first test, that they could begin to impose their
+will upon others. It was then that their real trials began, as the
+undisciplined are ever prone to suspicion, much given to murmuring against
+a leader who is not perpetually successful.</p>
+
+<p>As a rule, however, there were but few to criticise, as the office of
+critic was one fraught with far too much danger to be alluring. In
+maintaining their authority the leaders stopped at nothing, and the heads
+of the recalcitrant were apt to part with amazing suddenness from their
+bodies if they repined overmuch. The Moslem leader was, it is true, merely
+<i>primus inter pares</i>, and was distinguished by no outward symbol of the
+power which he possessed; but life and death lay in his hands, and life was
+cheap indeed.</p>
+
+<p>We have spoken hitherto of the leaders, but what of the men of which their
+following was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">26</a></span> composed? Rough, rude, and reckless, these latter lived but
+to fight and to plunder; to them any other life would have seemed
+impossible, and indeed this was practically the fact. In the communities in
+which they lived the adult male had no other means of gaining a livelihood.
+Since their expulsion from their ancient homes no ordered and peaceful
+method of existence had been possible for them. In the surroundings in
+which their forefathers had lived the arts of peace had been carried on in
+a civilisation to which there had been none comparable in the world as it
+then existed; on all this the Moslem had now to turn his back, and to earn
+a precarious living by the strong hand. War, sanguinary and incessant, was
+henceforward to be his lot, and it must be said that he turned to this
+ancient avocation with a zest which left but little to be desired from the
+point of view of those by whom he was led. In the new life of bloodshed and
+adventure he seemed to delight. Like the free-lance in all ages, he seems
+to have squandered his booty as soon as it was acquired, and then to sea
+once more, to face the desperate hazard of an encounter with the knights,
+to raid defenceless villages, to lie <i>perdu</i> behind some convenient cape,
+dashing out from thence to plunder the argosy of the merchantman.
+Intolerable conditions of heat and cold he endured, he suffered from
+wounds, from fever, from hunger and thirst, from hope deferred, from
+voyages when no plunder came his way.</p>
+
+<p>His reward was the joy of the fight, the delight of the ambush skilfully
+laid, to see the decks of the enemy a dreadful shambles, with the Crescent
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">27</a></span>flag of the Prophet above the detested emblem of the Cross. Then the return to
+Algiers laden with spoil: to tow behind him some luckless Christian ship,
+while aboard his own war-worn galley the drums beat and the trumpets
+sounded, and the banners floated free to the stainless Mediterranean sky.
+Then the procession of the captives through the crowded streets laden with
+what a short time before had been their own property&mdash;a mournful <i>cortège</i>
+of men doomed to an everlasting slavery and of women destined for the
+harems of the Bashas.</p>
+
+<p>Thus was his life lived, and when death came it came as a rule from the
+slash of a sabre or the ball from an arquebus or a bombard; and then what
+matter, for had not Hassan Ali or Selim fallen in strife against the
+enemies of his faith, and did not the portals of heaven open wide to
+receive the man who had lost his life testifying to the fact that there was
+but one God, and that Mahomet was the Prophet of God?</p>
+
+<p>True in substance and in fact is that which was said by the Frère Pierre
+d’An that “it is indisputable that the sea is the Theatre of the storms and
+the place in the world most capable of all sorts of violence and tragic
+adventure.” Those who “coveted the goods of others straying on the sea,”
+called by the reverend brother “the implacable, corsairs of Barbary,” were
+to make life intolerable on that element for centuries to come, and if the
+Crescent did not supersede the banner of the Cross in the blue waters of
+the Mediterranean Sea, it remained as a portent and a dread symbol of human
+misery and unutterable suffering.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">28</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER II<br /><br />
+
+<small>THE COMING OF THE CORSAIRS</small></h2>
+
+<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">The</span> rise and progress of the Moslem corsairs of the Mediterranean is a most
+curious and interesting historical fact. The causes which led to results so
+deplorable to commerce, civilisation, and Christianity are set forth in
+this chapter in order that some idea may be formed of the state of affairs
+in that region at the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the
+sixteenth centuries, and also that the reflex action of the great triumph
+of the Christian armies in Spain may be more fully understood.</p>
+
+<p>The maritime Christian States of the Mediterranean at this epoch were at
+the height of their power and prosperity, but were faced by the might of
+the Ottoman Empire, against which they waged perpetual warfare. Bitter and
+unceasing was the strife prosecuted by the Cross against the Crescent, and
+by the Crescent against the Cross; and riding, like eagles on the storm
+came the corsairs in their swift galleys ready to strike down the luckless
+argosy of the merchantman wheresoever she was to be met. But this was not
+all, as the shore as well as the sea yielded up to them its tribute in the
+shape of slaves and booty, and Christian mothers trembling in the
+insecurity of their homes would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">29</a></span> hush their wailing children with the terror
+of the names of Barbarossa, of Dragut, or of Ali Basha.</p>
+
+<p>Popes and emperors, kings and princes, found themselves compelled to form
+leagues against these Sea-wolves who devoured the substance of their
+subjects, and great expeditions were fitted out to fight with and destroy
+the corsairs. Had Christendom been united no doubt the object would have
+been attained; but, as will be seen at the end of this chapter, an
+“Alliance of Christian Princes against the Turks”&mdash;which generic term
+included the corsairs&mdash;was not always used in the manner best calculated to
+injure those common enemies.</p>
+
+<p>When in 1492 Granada was yielded up to “Los Reyes Catolicos,” Ferdinand of
+Aragon, and Isabella of Castile, by that luckless monarch known as Boabdil
+el Chico (or “the little”), the last remnant of the power of the Moors in
+Spain had gone never to return. On that small hill on the way to the coast
+still known as “el ultimo suspiro del Moro” (the last sigh of the Moor),
+Boabdil, as he looked for the last time on his lost capital of Granada, is
+said to have burst into tears. His fierce mother Ayesha had, however, no
+sympathy for her fallen son: “Thou doest well to weep like a woman for that
+which thou daredst not defend as a man,” was her biting&mdash;and totally
+unjust&mdash;comment, and the cavalcade pursued its miserable journey to the
+coast, from whence it embarked for the kingdom of Fez.</p>
+
+<p>Great was the jubilation in Christendom; for more than seven centuries the
+followers of the Prophet had dwelt in the land from which Tarik had
+expelled Roderick the Goth in the eighth<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">30</a></span> century. There they had dwelt and
+held up a lamp of learning and comparative civilisation which shone
+brightly through the miasmatic mists of cruelty and bloodshed in the Middle
+Ages, and none can question that, under Moorish rule in Spain in those
+centuries, the arts of peace had flourished, and that science, agriculture,
+art, and learning had found generous and discriminating patronage in the
+courts of Còrdoba and Granada.</p>
+
+<p>And now all was over the iron chivalry of the North had broken in pieces
+the Paynim hosts. They were expelled for ever from Christian soil, or else
+were forced to live in a state of degrading servitude, sore oppressed by an
+alien rule, in the land which their forbears had won and kept by the sword.</p>
+
+<p>There was jubilation, as has been said, in Christendom, but the knights and
+nobles who flocked from all parts of Europe to join the standard of the
+Catholic monarchs had no prevision of the consequences, no idea of the
+legacy that they were leaving to their descendants.</p>
+
+<p>It is of this legacy that we have to speak, and there has been none more
+terrible, none fraught with more awful suffering for the human race. The
+broken hosts of the Moslem chivalry became the corsairs of the
+Mediterranean: ruthless pirates freed from all restraint of human pity,
+living only to inflict the maximum of suffering upon their Christian foes,
+who, having sown the wind at the taking of Granada, reaped in the coming
+centuries a whirlwind of blood and agony which continued down to the
+bombardment of Algiers by Lord Exmouth in 1816, and even later than that
+date.</p>
+
+<p>Warriors to a man, the hosts of Boabdil crossed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">31</a></span> the Straits of Gibraltar
+into Africa; warriors but now broken men, from whom had been reft not only
+their lands and houses but even the chance of remaining in their native
+country. Religious toleration had been the rule of the Moslem States in
+Spain. In the name of religion they had been expropriated; therefore
+toleration was slain, and to exalt the Crescent above the Cross became the
+duty of every fighting Mohammedan. Into all the ports and harbours of the
+North African littoral the Moslems intruded themselves, their one
+preoccupation to revenge themselves upon the Christians, of no matter what
+race or nationality. There was at this date but small opposition from the
+rulers of the Pagan States who held in their weak and inefficient hands
+such strong places of arms as Algiers and Tunis.</p>
+
+<p>Very soon the Moslems acquired the habit of the sea, and very soon the
+Christian States discovered how different was the Mohammedan dwelling at
+peace in Andalusia, or at worst fighting with his co-religionists, to the
+desperate corsairs created by their own act who now ravaged the shores of
+the tideless sea.</p>
+
+<p>In the years succeeding to the conquest of Granada the corsairs became the
+scourge of the Mediterranean. France, Spain, Genoa, Venice, were all at
+odds with them; as the trading vessels, which had hitherto passed to and
+fro unmolested, were now captured, haled into North African ports, their
+cargoes sold, and their hapless crews forced to labour, naked and chained
+to the benches of the pirate galleys, until death came and mercifully put
+an end to their sufferings.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">32</a></span></p>
+<p>From Reggio to Genoa, from Venice to Taranto, the cry of rage and fear went
+up; it was re-echoed from the coasts of France and of the Balearic Islands,
+while Southern Spain seethed with disaffection, and the Moriscoes, as those
+Moors who remained in the country were known, were ever on the lookout to
+assist their bold brethren, the rovers of the sea. Christendom was
+completely bewildered: hitherto the relations between the nations and the
+Kings of Tunis, Tlemcen, Fez, and others of the North African potentates,
+had been of the most agreeable description. Both parties had denounced
+piracy, and had as far as in them lay done all in their power to discourage
+this form of robbery. But now all was changed, and, as has been said in the
+previous chapter, a situation arose analogous to that of the Spaniards in
+the West Indies a century and a half later when Morgan and the buccaneers
+were at the height of their maleficent prowess. The situation was
+analogous, but whereas Morgan, Scott, L’Ollonais, and others terrorised
+only such forces as Spain possessed in far-distant colonies, the corsairs
+were a terror to all the great nations of the world.</p>
+
+<p>Granada fell, as has been said, in 1492 amid the rejoicings of the
+Christian States; but it had been well for Christendom as a whole if the
+Caliphs of Còrdova and Granada had never been defeated, and they and their
+subjects driven from their homes: to form the nucleus of those piratical
+States which existed from this date until well into the nineteenth century,
+as the scourge and the terror of all those who, during those ages, desired
+to “pass upon the seas on their lawful<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">33</a></span> occasions.” The capture of Granada
+was separated from the fall of the Byzantine Empire by a period of
+thirty-nine years, as it was in the year 1453 that Constantinople was
+captured by the Caliph Mahomet II. Byzantium fell, and perhaps nothing in
+the records of that Empire became it so well as that last tremendous
+struggle; and when on May 29th, 1453, the Ottoman legions were victorious,
+the body of the last Emperor of Byzantium was found beneath a mountain of
+the slain only recognisable by his purple mantle sewn with golden bees. The
+Cross which Constantine the Great had planted on the walls 1125 years
+before was replaced by the Crescent, and the Christian Cathedral became
+that Mosque of St. Sophia which still endures.</p>
+
+<p>From the earliest days of the Moslem corsairs of the Mediterranean they
+were in close communication with their co-religionists of the Ottoman
+Empire; and this for a very good reason, which was that the Turk had not
+the habit of the sea, but was essentially a land warrior, and, as the story
+of the Sea-wolves progresses, we shall see how in a sense the Grand Turk
+and the pirates became interdependent in the ceaseless wars which were
+waged in the epoch of which we treat.</p>
+
+<p>The fall of Constantinople resounded throughout Christendom as though it
+had been the crack of doom, and all men held their breath wondering what
+next might portend. So stunned were the maritime States that they took no
+action, letting “I dare not wait upon I would.” Their indecision was fatal.
+Had the Venetians, the Genoese, and the Catalans at this juncture formed an
+alliance,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">34</a></span> they might have chased the Turks from off the face of the waters;
+but to mutual jealousy and indecision was added fear&mdash;fear of this new and
+mighty power which had arisen and had swept away one of the landmarks of
+Europe. So it fell out that Genoa entered into an arrangement with the
+Grand Turk, and Venice concluded a treaty of commerce on April 18th, 1454.
+It was the Caliph Mahomet who first fortified the Dardanelles, where he
+mounted thirty heavy guns before which Jacques Loredano, the Venetian
+admiral, recoiled, reporting to the Republic that henceforward none could
+pass the Straits. We have, however, nothing to do with the Grand Turk in
+these pages, save, and except in so far, as he had an effect on the lives
+of the corsairs. This effect will develop itself as we proceed.</p>
+
+<p>There is one body of men, however, concerning whom it may be as well to
+treat of briefly in this place, as the lives which they led and the deeds
+which they performed were inextricably entangled with those of the
+corsairs. These men were the members of that association first known as the
+Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem, later as the Knights of Malta. Between
+them and the corsairs it was war to the death; and not only with these
+robbers, but also with any ship which sailed beneath the insignia of the
+Crescent.</p>
+
+<p>In 1291 the Soldan of Egypt chased the Knights Hospitallers, as they were
+also known, from the soil of the Holy Land; Philip IV. of France welcomed
+them in the island of Cyprus, and gave them the town of Limasol as an
+asylum. This for the time the knights were bound to accept,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">35</a></span> but they were
+impatient of charity, resentful of tutelage, proud and independent.
+Considering their own order as the greatest and most stable bulwark of the
+Christian faith, they bowed before neither King nor Kaiser; and the only
+boon they asked of great potentates, when allied temporarily with them in
+their eternal warfare, was that on all occasions theirs should be the post
+of the greatest danger.</p>
+
+<p>This, indeed, they did not ask as a favour, but claimed as a right. It is
+easily understood that such desperate warriors, who fought only to conquer
+or die, were allies sought for eagerly by all professing the same faith.</p>
+
+<p>Fulke de Villaret, Grand Master of the order in 1310, seized upon Rhodes,
+which, though nominally belonging to Greece, was at this time a refuge for
+bad characters of all nationalities. This island was in the most
+advantageous position, as it commanded the sea-route from Constantinople to
+Egypt and the ports of Asia Minor, and was also in close proximity to the
+coast of Caramania, from whence the order could draw the necessary timber
+for the building of their galleys and incidentally their motive power&mdash;in
+the shape of slaves&mdash;for the oars by which they were propelled.</p>
+
+<p>The knights fortified the island until it was practically unassailable in
+that age. In the meanwhile their navy grew so rapidly that, in 1436, they
+were actually in a position to fight the Turks in line of battle. To Rhodes
+came the younger sons of noble families from every nation in Europe, all
+aflame with ardour to fight for “the religion”; and the great nobles
+themselves did not disdain to take service in so chivalrous an order.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">36</a></span></p>
+<p>Their former enemy, the Soldan of Egypt, made a descent on the island in
+1440, and in 1444 besieged the place in form; but he was beaten off, after
+forty-two days’ ceaseless fighting, with great slaughter.</p>
+
+<p>“Soldier and sailor too” were the bold Knights of Saint John; for them no
+toil was too arduous, no danger too great. In heat and cold, in storm and
+tempest, they plied their trade of war, their holy crusade to extirpate the
+infidel from off the face of the waters. They looked for no material
+reward, and riches and honours they contemptuously rejected. Strong in
+their marvellous faith that on their shoulders rested the propagation of
+Christianity in these latter days, they swept the seas with a calm
+assumption of victory which caused it to be half assured before the fight
+began. And when the battle was joined, where could be found such paladins
+as these men who claimed it as an inalienable right to head the hurricane
+rush of the boarders from the decks of their galleys, to be ever the
+leaders when the forlorn hope should mount the breach? Life for the
+knights of this order was looked at literally with a single purpose&mdash;the
+advancement of Christianity and the downfall of that pestilent heresy which
+proclaimed that Mahomet was the prophet of God. Against all who bowed the
+knee in the mosques of the false prophet their lives were vowed, and it is
+but the barest justice to them to record that on the altar of this their
+faith these were ungrudgingly poured forth.</p>
+
+<p>Naturally reprisals were the order of the day. Equally fanatical was he who
+held to the Moslem<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">37</a></span> faith; in consequence many were the attempts to stamp
+out, once and for all, the prime enemies of the Ottoman Empire. In 1480 a
+Turkish fleet of one hundred and forty ships issued from the Dardanelles,
+an army awaited it on the coast of Caramania which was rapidly embarked,
+and on May 23rd the fleet anchored a few miles from the town of Rhodes.
+Here, then, was a trial of strength in which the Hospitallers delighted.
+After repeated attacks in detail, on July 28th a grand assault was made
+which the Turks considered would be absolutely decisive: it was decisive,
+but not in the fashion which they anticipated.</p>
+
+<p>The standard of the Janissaries already floated on the first curtain of the
+rampart when Pierre D’Aubusson rallied the knights for one last desperate
+effort. “Shall it be said in days to come that ‘the Religion’ recoiled
+before a horde of Moslem savages; that the banner of Saint John was soiled
+by their infamous touch? But this is no time for talk. Ye have swords,
+Messires; use them!”</p>
+
+<p>Thus the Grand Master; and then the knights, in their battered armour and
+with their hacked and dinted swords, flung themselves once more upon the
+foe. The Janissaries closed in around them; but these fine troops were not
+what they had been two months before, and the close contact with the
+Hospitallers, which had endured sixty-five days, had been to them a lesson
+fraught with disaster: they had already lost six thousand men, and their
+adversaries were still absolutely undismayed. His helmet gone, his banner
+held<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">38</a></span> aloft over his head, Pierre D’Aubusson was ever in the thickest of the
+fray unconquered, unconquerable; and pressing close behind him came the
+knights, each jealous for the glory of his “Auberge.” French, Venetian,
+Catalan, Genoese German, none can tell who fought best that day; but the
+Janissaries were beaten, and three thousand of their corpses cumbered the
+ditch into which they were hurled by their foes; there were besides fifteen
+thousand wounded in the Turkish camp.</p>
+
+<p>The heart was out of that great army which had embarked to the sound of
+trumpets and the blessings of the Mullahs but ten weeks before, and they
+sailed away a beaten force. Mahomet II. swore to avenge his defeat, but his
+days were numbered, and he died at Scutari on May 3rd, 1481, at the age of
+fifty-two, and in the thirteenth year of his reign.</p>
+
+<p>In the year 1499 Daoud Pasha, Admiralissimo to Bajazet, the successor to
+Mahomet II., defeated Antonio Grimani the Venetian admiral in that combat
+known to the Republic as “La deplorabile battaglia del Zonchio.” The
+populace of Venice demanded that Grimani should be instantly beheaded, but
+he not only escaped their vengeance but lived to be nominated as Doge
+on June 6th, 1521, at the age of eighty-seven: certainly a curious record
+for an unsuccessful admiral of that date.</p>
+
+<p>In 1500 was formed the “Alliance of Christian Princes” at the initiative of
+the Borgia Pope Alexander VII. Louis XII., King of France, and Ferdinand V.
+of Spain announced their adherence to this effort against the Turk, and
+Pierre<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">39</a></span> D’Aubusson, the veteran Grand Master of the Knights of Saint John,
+was nominated as Captain-General of the Christian armies. For the purposes
+of this war the admiral of the Papal galleys in the Mediterranean, Lodovico
+del Mosca, purchased from Ferdinand, King of Naples, all his artillery, of
+which a description is given by the Padre Alberto Guglielmotti, a Dominican
+friar, author of a work entitled, “La Guerra dei Pirati e la Marina
+Pontifica dal 1500 al 1560 <span class="smcap lowercase">A.D.</span>” “There were thirty-six great bombards,
+with eighty carts pertaining to them; some drawn by horses, some drawn by
+buffaloes harnessed singly, or two, four, or even six together; two waggons
+laden with arquebuses for ships’ boats; nine with about forty smaller
+bombards (<i>bombardelles</i>) placed three, four, or even six on each waggon;
+twelve with ordinary pieces of artillery; as many more for the service of
+twelve big guns; thirty-seven carts of iron balls; three with gunpowder;
+and finally five laden with nitre, darts, and bullets. Splendid artillery
+of most excellent workmanship and great power escorted by two thousand men
+under arms, without mentioning the companies who marched before and after
+each waggon.”</p>
+
+<p>The French king had prepared a fleet and army under Count Philip of
+Ravenstein; the Spaniards were under the command of Gonsalvo de Còrdoba,
+the “Great Captain.” The history of the “Alliance of Christian Princes” is
+illustrative of the methods of those potentates at that time. After one or
+two unimportant skirmishes with the Turks, in which no great harm was done
+on either side, the French and Spaniards joined together, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">40</a></span> seized the
+Kingdom of Naples: the prudent king of this territory, having sold his
+artillery to Lodovico del Mosca, did not await the coming of his Christian
+brethren.</p>
+
+<p>In the territory known to the Romans as Byzacena, which stretched from
+Algiers to the confines of Tripoli, there was reigning at this period one
+Abu-Abd-Allah-Mahomed, a Berber Moslem of the dynasty of Hafsit. Between
+this dignitary and Genoa a treaty of commerce had been arranged and signed.
+But treaties on the shores of the Mediterranean were capable of very
+elastic interpretation; they never reckoned with the corsairs, and these
+latter were in the habit of intruding themselves everywhere, and upsetting
+the most carefully laid plans. Curtogali, a corsair who had collected a
+great following, was now a power with which to reckon, and high in the
+favour of the Grand Turk at Constantinople. This robber presented himself
+at Bizerta&mdash;one of the ports of Abd-Allah-Mahomed&mdash;with a squadron of
+thirty ships, and demanded hospitality. As Curtogali disposed of thirty
+ships and some six thousand fighting men it would probably have been
+impossible for Abd-Allah to have refused his request in any case; but he
+was far from wishing to do so, as, by a convenient interpretation of the
+Koran, the pirate had to deliver up one-fifth part of all the booty which
+he reft from the Christians to the ruler of the country in whose harbours
+he sheltered. There was no place so convenient for the purposes of the
+pirate as Bizerta: from here he could strike at Sicily, at the Balearic
+Islands, at Rome, Naples, Tuscany, and Liguria,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">41</a></span> while at the same time he
+held the trade slowly sailing along the North African littoral at his
+mercy. Great were the depredations of Curtogali, and even Pope Leo X.
+trembled on his throne, while Genoa, Venice, and Sicily seethed with
+impotent fury.</p>
+
+<p>In the meanwhile who so happy as Abu-Abd-Allah-Mahomed? We cannot do better
+than to take the description of his position from the pages of the good
+Padre Alberto Guglielmotti. The Franciscan says: “He [that is, Abd-Allah]
+desired peace with all and prosperity for his own interests. Friendly to
+the merchants in their commerce; friendly to the corsairs in their spoils.
+Let all hold by the law: the former contentedly paying customs dues, the
+latter cheerfully handing over a fifth part of their robberies, and
+Abd-Allah&mdash;their common friend&mdash;would ever continue at peace with them all.
+Outside his ports the merchants and the pirates might fall by the ears if
+they would: that was no reason for him to trouble his head. On the
+contrary, he would joyfully await them on their return either with customs
+dues or tribute of the fifth as the case might be.”</p>
+
+<p>However well this state of affairs may have suited Abd-Allah, the Genoese
+held that the situation was far from satisfactory. In consequence they sent
+an army against Curtogali, and on August 4th, 1516, they captured Bizerta,
+set free a number of Christian captives, and plundered the town. But they
+did not capture Curtogali, who, only five weeks after, made a daring
+attempt to carry off the Pope in person from the sea-shore in the
+neighbourhood of Rome. Curtogali ended his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">42</a></span> days as the Governor of Rhodes,
+from which the Knights of Saint John were finally expelled by Soliman the
+Magnificent on December 22nd, 1522. This was the greatest blow which the
+fraternity ever received. On December 24th the Turks made a triumphal entry
+into the town, and it was said that “Sultan Soliman was not insensible to
+the sorrowful position of his vanquished enemies, and when he saw the
+Christian Commander, Prince Philippe Villiers L’Isle Adam, he remarked: ‘It
+weighs upon me somewhat that I should be coming hither to chase this aged
+Christian warrior from his house.’” At the beginning of the following year
+the knights left the island, never to return. On the day of this desolate
+embarcation the herald blew upon his trumpet the “Salute and Farewell” and
+the identical instrument upon which this call was sounded is still
+preserved in the armoury at Malta, to which barren island the knights were
+forced to retreat.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">43</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER III<br /><br />
+
+<small>URUJ BARBAROSSA</small></h2>
+
+<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">In</span> the year 1457 an obscure Roumelian or Albanian renegado named Mahomedi
+was banished from Constantinople by the Grand Turk; he established himself
+in the island of Mitylene and there married a Christian widow named
+Catalina, by whom he had two sons, Uruj and Khizr. The father had been a
+sailor and both sons adopted the same profession. It is from the pages of
+El Maestro Don Fray Prudencio de Sandoval that we glean these bare facts
+concerning the birth and parentage of these men who, in after-years, became
+known to all the dwellers on the shores of the Mediterranean as the
+“Barbarossas,” from their red beards. Sandoval, Bishop of Pampluna,
+published in the year 1614 his monumental history of the Emperor Charles
+V., and through his splendid volumes the deeds of the Moslem corsairs run
+like the scarlet thread which is twisted through a Government rope. It is
+evident that the fact of having to deal with such rascals annoys the good
+Bishop not a little, as his severe and caustic comments frequently display.
+There was incident and accident enough in the life of the famous “Carlos
+Quinto” without the historian having to turn aside to chronicle the deeds
+of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">44</a></span> pirates; but their exploits were so daring, the consequences thereof
+were so far-reaching, that the ominous crimson thread had to be woven into
+any narrative of the times in despite of the annoyance of the man by whom
+the rope was twisted.</p>
+
+<p>Of Mahomedi we possess no record save the remark concerning him to the
+effect that “el qual fue gran marinero”: in what way he displayed his gifts
+as a seaman we are not told. We have remarked before on the curious fact of
+how the “renegado,” or Christian turned Mohammedan, became the most
+implacable foe of his former co-religionists. We see in the case of the two
+Barbarossas that they had no drop of Moslem blood in them, as both parents
+came from Christian stock: and yet no greater scourges ever afflicted the
+people from whom both their father and mother originally sprang than did
+Uruj and Khizr Barbarossa.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/i_fp045.jpg" width="500" height="619" alt="URUJ AND KHEYR-ED-DIN BARBAROSSA." />
+<div class="caption">URUJ AND KHEYR-ED-DIN BARBAROSSA.</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The characters of the two brothers were widely different. The elder was no
+doubt a “first-class fighting man,” a fine seaman, a born partisan leader;
+but here his qualities came to an end. Rough, cruel, imperious, brutal, he
+imposed himself upon those who became his followers; but in him were to be
+found none of the statesmanlike qualities which distinguished his far
+greater younger brother. His was the absolutely finite intellect of the
+tactician as opposed to the strategist, who, seeing his objective, was
+capable of dealing with circumstances as they immediately arose; but,
+partly no doubt from defective education, but principally from the lack of
+intellectual appreciation of the problems of the time in which he lived,
+could never<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">45</a></span> rise to the heights which were scaled by Khizr, better known by
+the title conferred upon him later on by the Grand Turk as “Kheyr-ed-Din,”
+or “The Protector of Religion.”</p>
+
+<p>The sons of Mahomed, that “gran marinero,” naturally took to the sea, and
+as a young man Uruj became possessed of a ship&mdash;how we do not know, and it
+were better perhaps not to inquire. In this small craft he repaired to the
+coast of Caramania to make war upon the Christians; or, in other words, to
+begin an independent piratical career. Uruj in these days was young and
+inexperienced, or he would not have chosen this locality for his first
+venture, as this coast was in close proximity to the island of Rhodes, from
+whence the great galleys of the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem set
+forth to exterminate the enemies of their faith.</p>
+
+<p>So it came about that Uruj, sailing out in his little ship from under the
+shadow of a wooded point, came in full sight of <i>Our Lady of the
+Conception</i>. There was nothing for it but immediate flight, and Uruj put
+his helm up and scudded before the breeze; but the great galley
+“goose-winged” her two mighty lateen sails, and turned in pursuit. The ship
+which carried Uruj and his fortunes was both fast and handy, and for a time
+she held her own; but it was only for a time, as those on board <i>Our Lady
+of the Conception</i>, finding that they were not gaining on the chase, put
+forth their oars and soon changed the aspect of affairs. The galley of the
+knights carried twenty-seven oars a-side, and each of these oars was manned
+by nine Moslem slaves. The sea was smooth and favourable for rowing, and
+soon the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">46</a></span> ravening pursuit closed in on the doomed corsair. As the interval
+between chaser and chased became less and less, those on board the pirate
+ship could see for themselves the fate which was awaiting them, as on the
+central gang-plank, which separated the rowers’ benches, the boatswain and
+his mates were unmercifully flogging the bare backs of the straining
+oarsmen to urge them to greater exertions. He who was captured at sea in
+those days was set to row until he died, and the calculating mercy which
+causes a man to feed and treat his beast well in order that it may do the
+better work was not to be relied upon here, as life was cheap and slaves
+were plentiful. Very soon the beak of the galley overhung the stern of the
+little ship. Escape was impossible, to fight would have meant the massacre
+of all on board; the choice was instant submission or a watery grave. Uruj
+lowered his sail, and he and his little company were ironed and flung into
+the depths of the galley until such time as they should be wanted to take
+their turn at the oars. In this ignominious fashion ended his first attempt
+at independent piracy.</p>
+
+<p>But a storm was brewing, and a heavy sea got up. The sails of the galley
+were lowered, her beak was put head-on to the wind, and she made for the
+shore. In this noisome confinement Uruj could hear above the crash of the
+seas and the whistling of the wind the shrieks of the hapless slaves as the
+whips of their taskmasters bit through skin and flesh: the galley-slave
+rowed stark naked chained to his bench. This was to be his fate, and he was
+well aware of the fact.</p>
+
+<p>At last, after nightfall, the galley anchored under<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">47</a></span> the Isle of Castel
+Rosso, at the entrance of the Gulf of Satalie. It still blew hard, but, in
+the comparative peace of the anchorage, sounds hitherto hidden by the war
+of the elements now made themselves manifest. There were the snores of the
+sleepers, the clank of the leg-chains as the wretched slaves shifted their
+positions in the attempt to gain an easier place on the bench, there was
+also the sound of men carousing with loud laughter in the stern of the
+vessel; but above them all rose the hollow groaning as of one in mortal
+agony. This proceeded from a slave who was quite close to Uruj. There came
+a spell in the laughter and loud voices in the stern, and presently an
+imperious voice spoke: “That noise disturbs me; see that it ceases at
+once.” An obsequious answer came from out of the prevailing darkness: “It
+shall cease at once, Excellency.” Then came men with lanterns, who
+unshackled the wretch who groaned and&mdash;flung him overboard.</p>
+
+<p>The night grew worse, the wind backed, and the galley began to drag her
+anchors. The slaves were roused, and the oars got ready to shift her from
+her dangerous position on what had now become a lee-shore. Uruj had managed
+to slip his shackles, a defective bolt having given him his liberty; for
+him it was now or never, and he was a bold swimmer. He had seen enough and
+heard enough of <i>Our Lady of the Conception</i>, and, as the great oars
+plunged once more into the sea, the corsair, preferring the mercy of the
+elements to that of the knights, slipped over the side unobserved and swam
+for the shore. He reached dry land by a miracle, and from Satalie he found
+his way to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">48</a></span> Egypt, where he took service as a mariner in a ship of the
+Soldan of Egypt which was bound for the coast of Caramania, from which
+province the Egyptians, as well as the knights, drew the timber which they
+required for shipbuilding. But again this neighbourhood proved disastrous
+to Uruj, as the ship in which he sailed was attacked by a Christian galley,
+and he once more had to save himself by swimming on shore. There was no
+lack of incident in the life of a corsair of the sixteenth century.</p>
+
+<p>This time he presented himself to Khorkud, the Governor of Caramania,
+brother to Sultan Selim, the Grand Turk. The Governor, recognising him as
+an intrepid mariner, ordered the Basha of Smyrna to furnish him with a ship
+fitted for that <i>guerre de course</i>, which he desired to pursue against the
+Christians. The value of the corsair as an auxiliary was beginning to be
+recognised among the high Turkish officials. For the complaisance of
+Khorkud there were two reasons: in the first place, he was acting in the
+interests of his brother in sending to sea any really capable man to make
+head against his enemies, and the fact that Uruj was a pirate pure and
+simple did not weigh for a feather in the balance; in the second place, it
+was a decidedly good mercantile speculation as he ordered his inferior, the
+Basha of Egypt, to bear the expense of fitting out the necessary
+ship&mdash;which came to some 5,000 ducats&mdash;and doubtless received a handsome
+percentage on all captures from his grateful protégé.</p>
+
+<p>This latter, as may easily be imagined, had had quite enough of the
+Caramanian coast, which had turned out a veritable nest of hornets; also,
+he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">49</a></span> had no desire at present to cultivate the further acquaintance of the
+knights, and therefore put the whole width of the Ionian Sea between
+himself and them, and succeeded in taking several rich prizes. He avoided
+Mitylene and returned to Egypt, wintering at Alexandria. It may here be
+remarked that the corsairs, as a rule, regarded the winter as a close
+season, as in those early days the mariner did not, if he could avoid it,
+risk his ship by sailing her at this period of storm and tempest. In
+consequence there was nothing to tempt the pirates to range the seas during
+these months, and if they had had a successful summer and autumn, as they
+generally did, they could well afford to lay up and await the coming of
+spring.</p>
+
+<p>But when storm and rain gave way to the smooth waters and balmy breezes,
+the Sea-wolves were certain of their prey, as the whole length and breadth
+of the tideless sea was sure to be filled with the ships of the detested
+Christians trafficking in every direction. In the ethics of the Moslem all
+ships which sailed under the banner of the Cross, no matter to what nation
+they belonged, were fair game, even supposing that her insignia were the
+Crescent&mdash;well, supposing the spot to be sufficiently remote, dead men tell
+no tales, and the pirates were to be trusted to see to it that none
+escaped.</p>
+
+<p>But, however this might have been, it is quite certain that no qualms of
+conscience troubled Uruj concerning those others: Genoese, Neapolitans,
+Catalans, Andalusians, French, or the dwellers of the Balearic Islands,
+were all fish sent by a bountiful Providence to be enclosed in his net,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">50</a></span> and
+he seized upon them without distinction. When in the full tide of his
+success there was but one thing which preoccupied the mind of the corsair,
+which was to find a ready market for his spoils and a convenient place in
+which to rid himself of an embarrassing number of captives. This, however,
+did not present an insuperable difficulty, as we have already seen in the
+case of Curtogali, and a similar arrangement was carried out by Uruj
+Barbarossa and his brother.</p>
+
+<p>Uruj now established himself at the island of Jerba, on the east coast of
+Tunis, which formed an admirable base from which to “work” the
+Mediterranean from the piratical point of view. Jerba had originally been
+conquered and occupied by the Spaniards in 1431, but the occupation had
+been allowed to lapse, and the island was lying derelict when the
+Barbarossas made it their headquarters. Here Uruj was joined by his younger
+brother Khizr, destined to become so much the more famous of the two; he
+had already made himself some reputation in piratical circles, and now
+brought his cool judgment and wise counsel to the assistance of that fiery
+fighting man his elder brother. The first question to be decided was that
+which we have already mentioned, namely, the disposal of spoil from
+prospective captures, and with this end in view the corsairs approached the
+Sultan of Tunis. This potentate made a gracious response to their
+overtures, and wished them all success in their enterprises. He promised
+them succour and support on the same terms which Curtogali had obtained,
+namely, one-fifth of all the spoil landed in his dominions.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">51</a></span></p>
+<p>The price to be paid was a stiff one, and was so regarded by the active
+partners in this arrangement; they were, however, young and unknown, and
+had not the least intention of holding to their bargain when more
+favourable circumstances presented themselves. Now they held fair speech
+with the puppet princes of North Africa; the day was to come when they
+should chase them from their insecure thrones. It was at this time, shortly
+after the treaty with the Sultan of Tunis was concluded, that the younger
+Barbarossa received from the Grand Turk the glorious name of Kheyr-ed-Din,
+or “The Protector of Religion.” It was a somewhat remarkable title for a
+pirate, but perhaps its bestower was slightly deficient in a sense of
+humour.</p>
+
+<p>Sailing from Tunis in the spring of the year 1512, the brothers, with three
+galleys, fell in with <i>The Galley of Naples</i>, an enormous nef with a crew
+of three hundred. They instantly attacked, but were repulsed, night falling
+without either side having gained an advantage. This audacious proceeding
+illustrates the hardihood of the Moslem corsairs at this time. They were
+amply strong enough to range the Mediterranean and to capture, with no risk
+to themselves, the weak and unprotected argosies plying their trade in this
+sea; but this was not the method of the Barbarossas. Villains they may have
+been according to modern standards, pirates they were unquestionably; but
+they were grim, hard-bitten, fighting men, who shrank from no dangers in
+the pursuit of their prey, who reckoned that the humiliation and defeat of
+their Christian antagonists was as sweet a morsel as the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">52</a></span> booty reft from
+their hands. All night the three Moslem galleys and the great nef lay
+becalmed awaiting the conflict which was to come with the break of day; and
+it is easy to imagine that there was not much quiet sleep on board of
+either the Moslem or the Christian ships, for both on the one side and the
+other the issues loomed large. The corsairs had, so far, made no such
+important capture as this, which, could it be accomplished, would add
+enormously to their prestige, in addition to such spoils as they might
+acquire; but the combatants were fairly evenly matched in the matter of
+numbers, and the fight was one to a finish. The advantage on the side of
+the corsairs lay in the fact of their being three to one, and their being
+thus enabled to attack in three separate places at the same time. Terrible
+must have been that night of waiting for the unfortunates on board <i>The
+Galley of Naples</i>; there was no escape, and on board of her among her
+passengers were many women, whose fate was too terrible to contemplate
+should the day go against them. The first assault had been beaten off, it
+is true, but the struggle had been hard and bitter; would they be equally
+successful when the assault was renewed?</p>
+
+<p>Even such a night as this, however, comes at last to an end, and the
+prospect of action must have been welcomed by the men on both sides; of the
+women with so horrible a fate impending one can hardly bear to think. The
+ghostly fingers of the dawn touched the grey sea with a wan yellow light,
+outlining the nef and the slender, wicked-looking galleys with their banks
+of oars;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">53</a></span> over the surface of the deep a slight mist hovered, as though some
+kindly spirit of the sea would hide, if such a thing were possible, the
+deeds which were to come. The three galleys lay close together, and Uruj
+and his brother held a few last words of counsel.</p>
+
+<p>“It is agreed, then,” said the elder; “you, my brother, attack the
+starboard side and I on the port side, while Hassan Ali [indicating the
+captain of the third galley] will await the time when we are fully engaged,
+and will then board over the stern.”</p>
+
+<p>“It is agreed,” answered Kheyr-ed-Din, and Hassan Ali.</p>
+
+<p>As the strong sun of a perfect May morning in the Mediterranean leapt above
+the horizon, Uruj loosed his hounds upon their prey; the oars of the
+galleys churned the clear blue waters into foam, and the air was filled
+with the yells of the corsairs. “Allah! Allah!” and “Barbarossa!
+Barbarossa!” they cried. It was a war-cry that was destined to re-echo over
+many a conflict, both by land and sea, in the years that were to come.</p>
+
+<p>In a simultaneous, and as we have seen a concerted attack, the beaks of the
+galleys crushed into the broadsides of <i>The Galley of Naples</i>, and, ever
+foremost in the fray, Uruj and Kheyr-ed-Din were the first two men to
+board. Then, when men were hand to hand and foot to foot, when Moslem
+scimitar rang on Christian sabre, and the air was filled with the oaths and
+shouts of the combatants, the third remaining pirate craft grappled <i>The
+Galley of Naples</i> by the stern, and a tide of fresh, unwounded men burst
+into the fray. This was the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">54</a></span> end; the Christians were both outnumbered and
+outfought, for among them were many who were not by profession warriors,
+whereas no man found a footing among the Sea-wolves, or was taken to sea as
+a fighting man, unless he had approved himself to the satisfaction of his
+captain that he was a valiant man of his hands. We have no record or list
+of the dead and wounded in this battle, but among the latter was Uruj, who
+was severely hurt. Not so Kheyr-ed-Din, who escaped scatheless and took
+command now that his brother was incapacitated. The dead were flung
+overboard with scant ceremony, and the wounded patched up as best might be,
+and then <i>The Galley of Naples</i> was taken in tow, and the corsairs returned
+in triumph to Tunis. Faithful to their treaty, so far, they laid one-fifth
+of their spoils at the feet of the Sultan.</p>
+
+<p>A great procession was formed of Christian captives marching two and two.
+Four young Christian girls were mounted on mules, and two ladies of noble
+birth followed on Arab horses sumptuously caparisoned. These unfortunates
+were destined for the harems of their captors. The Sultan was greatly
+pleased at the spectacle, and as the mournful procession defiled before him
+cried out, “See how heaven recompenses the brave!” Jurien de la Gravière
+remarks: “Such was the fortune of war in the sixteenth century. A man
+leaving Naples to go to Spain might end his days in a Moorish bagnio and
+see his wife and daughters fall a prey to miscreants of the worse
+description.”</p>
+
+<p>It was not till the following spring that Uruj was fit once more to pursue
+his chosen calling, so severe<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">55</a></span> had been his wounds; but once he was whole
+and sound again he put to sea accompanied by Kheyr-ed-Din, and this time he
+had conceived a singularly bold and desperate enterprise. Two years before
+the famous Spanish captain, Pedro de Navarro, had seized upon the coast
+town of Bougie, and had unfortunately left it in the hands of a totally
+insufficient garrison. This departure from the sound rules of warfare had
+already been punished as it deserved, as the garrison was perpetually
+harassed and annoyed by the surrounding Arab tribes. The idea of Uruj was
+to seize upon Bougie by a <i>coup de main</i>. The corsair, however, was a far
+finer fighter than he was a strategist, and was possessed of a most
+impatient temper. All went well to begin with, as he managed to intercept
+and to capture a convoy of Spanish ships sent to revictual the place, and
+had he been content to wait he might have counted with certainty on
+reducing the garrison by starvation, as it depended on this very convoy for
+its supplies. In vain the wary and cool-headed Kheyr-ed-Din counselled
+prudence and delay, but these words were not to be found in the vocabulary
+of his elder brother. “What had to be done,” he replied, “had better be
+done at once,” and at the head of only fifty men landed and assaulted the
+still uncompleted ramparts of Bougie.</p>
+
+<p>But if Uruj were rash and headstrong, so was not the commander of the
+Spanish garrison, who, massing his men for the repulse of the assault,
+waited till the last moment, and then received them with a volley of
+arquebuses, which laid many of them low, and so badly wounded their leader
+that he had to have his arm amputated<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">56</a></span> on the spot: it says much for his
+constitution that he survived the operation.</p>
+
+<p>For the time being the brothers had had enough of shore enterprises, and
+confined themselves strictly to their piratical business at sea, which
+prospered so exceedingly that they became exceedingly rich and their fame
+and power increased day by day. As time went on and the wealth of the
+brothers and partners increased, there entered into the calculating brain
+of Kheyr-ed-Din the idea that the payment of one-fifth share to the Sultan
+of Tunis was but money thrown away. Twenty per cent, was eating into the
+profits of the firm in an unwarrantable manner, he considered, and now that
+the active partners therein had established so good a business connection,
+they were quite strong enough to dispense with a sleeping partner. Times
+had changed for the better, and Kheyr-ed-Din was anxious to take full
+advantage of the fact; if possible he determined to seize upon and hold
+some port, in which, not only would they be exempt from tribute, but also
+in which he and his brother Uruj should be the supreme arbiters of the fate
+of all by whom it might be frequented.</p>
+
+<p>Of Bougie and its stout Spanish garrison the brothers had had quite enough
+for the present: they sought, in consequence, for some harbour which
+presented equal advantages of situation, and their choice fell upon
+Jigelli, then belonging to the Genoese, who occupied a strong castle in
+this place.</p>
+
+<p>Jigelli lies well outside the confines of the kingdom of Tunis, about
+equi-distant from Bougie and Cape Bougaroni, some forty miles from each. It
+would appear that on this occasion it was the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">57</a></span> younger of the two brothers
+who took charge of the enterprise, and there were no slap&mdash;dash,
+unconsidered methods employed. By this time the fame of the Barbarossas had
+gone abroad from Valencia to Constantinople, from Rome to the foot&mdash;hills
+of the Atlas Mountains, and, to circumvent the Genoese garrison of Jigelli,
+Kheyr-ed-Din called to his aid the savage Berber tribes of the hinterland
+of this part of Northern Africa.</p>
+
+<p>Turbulent, rash, unstable as water, were these primitive dwellers of the
+desert; but they were fighters and raiders to a man, and ready for any
+desperate encounter if only it held out the promise of loot: they were as
+veritably the pirates of the land as were the Barbarossas pirates of the
+sea.</p>
+
+<p>Small chance, indeed, had the five hundred Genoese soldiers by which
+Jigelli was garrisoned when attacked from the sea by the Barbarossas and by
+land by an innumerable horde of Berbers who were reckoned to be as many as
+20,000. Invested by land and sea, the garrison did all that it was possible
+for men to do. Provisions and water ran short, ammunition was failing, the
+ring of their enemies was encircling them day by day closer and ever
+closer. From the land nothing could be expected but an augmentation of
+their foes, and day by day the commander of the garrison strained his eyes
+seaward to watch if haply the proud Republic, to which he and his men
+belonged, would send succour, or the redoubtable Knights of Saint John
+would come to his aid.</p>
+
+<p>But the days lengthened into weeks, and the soldiers were gradually
+becoming worn out by the perpetual strain imposed upon them. There was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">58</a></span> one
+chance left, and one alone, which was to cut their way out through the
+besieging lines. Massacre to a man was their fate in any case, and thus it
+was that the commander, whose name has not come down to us, mustered his
+men for the last supreme effort. At dead of night the garrison, having
+destroyed as far as possible all that might be of use to the enemy, sallied
+out to their doom. They fought as men fight who know that the end has come;
+but valour could not avail against the numbers arrayed on the side of the
+enemy, and they were wiped off the face of the earth. The tribes looted the
+castle of everything portable, and then retired from whence they had come.
+For this Kheyr-ed-Din cared nothing; they were welcome to the poor
+possessions of some hundreds of half-starved Italian soldiers&mdash;let them
+take the shell, for him remained the kernel in the shape of a strong place
+of arms.</p>
+
+<p>Hardly, however, had the brothers succeeded in this enterprise when that
+tireless fighter Uruj again attempted the capture of Bougie; but his second
+attempt was even more disastrous than his first, and he lost half his
+flotilla. Then he asked for succour from Tunis; but the Sultan, much
+offended at the idea of the brothers setting up in a piratical business in
+which he was no longer a sleeping partner, angrily refused.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">59</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER IV<br /><br />
+
+<small>THE DEATH OF URUJ BARBAROSSA</small></h2>
+
+<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">The</span> events recorded in the last chapter bring us down to the end of the
+year 1515, and while every endeavour has been made to present affairs in
+chronological sequence, it must be remembered that the dates of piratical
+expeditions are often impossible to obtain: the wrath of the chroniclers at
+the nefarious deeds of the corsairs greatly exceeding their desire for a
+meticulous accuracy in the matter of the exact time of their occurrence.
+Uruj, as has been seen, had by his headstrong folly once again placed his
+brother and himself in a decidedly awkward situation. By the losses which
+he had incurred in his second ill-advised attempt on Bougie he had so
+weakened the piratical confederation that the countenance of some potentate
+had again become necessary for their continued existence, and the Sultan of
+Tunis had now repudiated all connection with these ingrates.</p>
+
+<p>But, if craft and subtlety were not to be found in Uruj there was one who
+never failed to exhibit these qualities when they became necessary, and
+Kheyr-ed-Din once more came to the front. The Russian peasantry have a
+saying that “God is high and the Czar is far away.” In the sixteenth
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">60</a></span>century the Grand Turk was in every sense “far away” from the struggling
+corsairs on the littoral of Northern Africa, and was a sovereign of such
+great and mysterious might that any man with a less fine instinct into the
+psychology of the times in which he lived than Kheyr-ed-Din would have
+hesitated long and anxiously before addressing him directly; would probably
+in the end not have done so at all. But desperate diseases require
+desperate remedies, and the politic corsair well knew that even the moral
+support of such an one as the Sultan of Constantinople was worth more than
+even material aid from a Sultan of Tunis.</p>
+
+<p>Consequently, greatly daring, he sent an embassy to the Sublime Porte with
+one of his most trusted captains at its head to lay the homage of the
+corsairs at the feet of Selim I. Very naturally these ambassadors did not
+go empty-handed, but took with them rich presents and numerous slaves.
+Selim was much pleased at the attention, coming as it did from such a
+distance&mdash;we have to remember that the coast of North Africa was an immense
+journey from Constantinople in those days&mdash;and the insight of Kheyr-ed-Din
+was triumphantly vindicated. Not only did the Sultan send a gracious reply
+in return, but&mdash;what was far more to the purpose&mdash;he sent a reinforcement
+of fourteen vessels to the corsairs bidding them to go on and prosper in
+their efforts to spread the true faith among the Christian heretics.</p>
+
+<p>There is nothing more curious in the history of the corsairs than the
+perpetual ups and downs of their lives. Thus in the present instance the
+ill-advised attack of Uruj on Bougie had reduced<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">61</a></span> them to terrible straits;
+immediately afterwards the action of the Grand Turk once more set them upon
+their feet and enabled them to pursue an unchecked career of devastation.
+Aided by the reinforcements sent by Selim, their depredations assumed ever
+larger proportions, and, had they continued to receive this assistance, the
+course of history itself might have been changed. Ground to powder beneath
+the iron heel of their ruthless conquerors, the Moriscoes of Southern Spain
+were ever waiting the chance to rise and shake off the yoke by which they
+were so sore oppressed; from far and near reports were coming to hand of
+the continued successes of the corsairs, and all Andalusia seethed with
+passionate hope that the day of deliverance was at hand.</p>
+
+<p>But, alas for the vanity of human wishes! in the opening months of the year
+1516 Selim recalled his ships and the chance was gone, never again to
+arise.</p>
+
+<p>It may have been that “the sorrowful sighing of the captives” never reached
+the ears of the successor of Othman in his palace on the shores of the
+Golden Horn; in any case, the Sultan was preparing for the conquest of
+Egypt, and in consequence recalled the ships which he had lent to assist
+the corsairs. The Moriscoes were thus left without hope, but so far as the
+corsairs were concerned they were enabled to strike another bargain with
+the Sultan of Tunis. This monarch had now got over his fit of the sulks,
+and discovered that customs dues from the peaceful trading mariners,
+although desirable enough, were not by any means so lucrative a form of
+revenue as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">62</a></span> was the one-fifth share of the booty of the pirates. Uruj and
+Kheyr-ed-Din for their part, although they had captured Jigelli, were
+totally unable to hold it: the capture had indeed been principally due to
+the assistance which they had received from the Berber tribesmen, but these
+nomads had disappeared into the deserts from whence they came, once the
+looting of the town and fortress had been completed.</p>
+
+<p>The corsair had to be armed at all points, in the moral as well as the
+material sense, as he was the enemy of all men, and all were vowed to his
+destruction. Every cruise which he took raised up against him fresh hatred
+and a more bitter animus, and we must remember that it was not only men
+individually, but Principalities and Powers that were arrayed in line of
+battle for his destruction. At the present juncture Spain was specially
+hostile, for not only had her possession of Bougie been twice attacked by
+the Sea-wolves, but a valuable convoy had been captured. An expedition, in
+consequence, was sent by the Spaniards against the Barbarossas, but this
+effort did not result in much damage being done to the offenders. The
+Spaniards destroyed four piratical vessels which had been abandoned by
+their crews at Bizerta, and pushed a strong reconnaissance into the Bay of
+Tunis itself. Here shots were exchanged between the Spanish fleet and the
+forts&mdash;under which Kheyr-ed-Din had drawn up his ships&mdash;and the Spaniards
+then abandoned the enterprise and returned from whence they had come.</p>
+
+<p>In the year 1510 the Spaniard, Count Pedro Navarre, had seized upon
+Algiers, which town was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">63</a></span> at this time one of the principal refuges of the
+Moorish fugitives, who had been driven from Granada, from Còrdoba, and from
+Southern Spain generally by Ferdinand and Isabella eighteen years
+previously. To say that the condition of these people was desperate is to
+speak but the bare truth, for what could exceed the misery of the situation
+in which they were left after the successful incursion of their Christian
+foes? What we are apt to lose sight of in the light of present-day
+circumstances is the fact that these Spanish Moors were a most highly
+civilised people, far more so indeed than their Christian contemporaries;
+that they had been driven with fire and sword from the land in which they
+and their forefathers had dwelt for over seven centuries, and that they now
+had been cast out literally to starve on the inhospitable shores of
+Northern Africa. So it came about that the common people exchanged the life
+of the peaceful and prosperous artisan or husbandman for that of the
+hand-to-mouth pirate, and the case of knight and noble among them was no
+better&mdash;perhaps rather worse&mdash;than the meanest among those who had been
+expropriated.</p>
+
+<p>Those who know the region in which these unhappy folk lived are aware of
+the material monuments which still exist and testify to the glorious past;
+and, seeing what they have seen, it is no great stretch of the imagination
+to picture to themselves the comfort, the elegance, and the luxury with
+which the inhabitants of Granada and Còrdoba lived surrounded. Over there,
+away across some few leagues of shining blue water, were the ruined homes
+of which many of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">64</a></span> banished people still possessed the keys, awaiting the
+day when Allah and the Prophet should vouchsafe to them that return which
+they so naturally and ardently desired. To this day the key of the great
+Mosque at Cordoba is preserved at Rabat as a sacred relic of former dignity
+and power&mdash;a symbol to the Moslem of his perpetual banishment. If Cordoba
+with its mosque&mdash;still one of the wonders of the world, with its eleven
+hundred marble columns&mdash;were the principal shrine and holy of holies to
+these people, there were in addition hundreds of other temples of their
+faith now for ever desecrated in their eyes by the misfortune which had
+placed them in Christian hands. In Andalusia were the dishonoured graves of
+their kinsfolk, and, last and worst of all, in this land still dwelt
+thousands upon thousands of their co-religionists held in a degrading
+bondage by their implacable enemies.</p>
+
+<p>The capture of Algiers by Count Pedro Navarro was a crowning misfortune for
+the exiles, and when this commander seized upon the place he extracted from
+the inhabitants an oath of fidelity to the Spanish crown; he further
+erected a strong tower to overawe the town, and to keep its turbulent
+inhabitants in order. But such an oath as this, extracted at the point of
+the sword, was writ in water; it meant, of course, the suppression of
+piracy, and it also meant the starvation of most of those persons who dwelt
+in the vicinity. How the Moslem population existed for the six years after
+the incursion of Navarro is a mystery; but they probably moved their
+galleys, of which they possessed some twenty, further along the coast<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">65</a></span> out
+of the range of the guns from Navarro’s Tower, and secure from the
+observation of those who held it for the Spanish king.</p>
+
+<p>In the year in which Selim descended upon Egypt the King of Spain,
+Ferdinand V., died, and grave troubles immediately broke out in Spain. This
+was an opportunity too good to be missed, as no reinforcements could
+possibly be expected for the garrison in Algiers as long as these
+disturbances lasted, and the Algerines took counsel together as to the best
+means of driving out their enemies. It is a commentary on the detestation
+in which they held the Spaniards that they should have allied themselves
+for this purpose with the savages of the hinterland. This, however, was
+what they did. As in the case of Jigelli, these people could always be
+relied upon to go anywhere in search of booty, and one Selim Eutemi entered
+the town at the head of his tribe. But sheer, stark, savage valour could
+make no impression on Navarro’s Tower and the ordnance that was mounted on
+its walls. The result was a stalemate, as the Spaniards could by no manner
+of means get out, and neither could their enemies, who swarmed innumerable
+in the town and the surrounding country, get in. In time, of course, they
+might hope to bring the garrison to surrender by starvation; but time
+pressed, and no man knew when the troubles in Spain might be adjusted and
+help come to the beleaguered. In the meanwhile Selim Eutemi and his men,
+who had been taught some rude lessons in the power of firearms, kept out of
+range of the cannon, while the Algerines held yet another council of war,
+the result of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">66</a></span> which was that they decided to ask help from Uruj and
+Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, and to them they appealed. By this time their fame
+was known to all men, and they could supply that which was lacking&mdash;namely
+ships, artillery, a first-class fighting force, and last, and best of all,
+the moral support which would stiffen and put heart into the motley horde
+which at present surged around the gates of the fortress of Navarro.</p>
+
+<p>The Algerines did not appeal in vain, and an instant promise of succour was
+forthcoming. Kheyr&mdash;ed&mdash;Din was away at sea, but Uruj, that indomitable
+fighter, started at once. From whence we are not told, but he must have
+been somewhere in the neighbourhood, as he and his men marched along the
+shore; while, keeping pace with them, came a fleet of eighteen galleys and
+three barques laden with stores.</p>
+
+<p>But before proceeding to the assistance of the Algerines Uruj had a
+personal matter to which to attend, and he wished to combine pleasure with
+serious business. One of his old companions had seceded from his command
+and had established himself at Shershell, where he lived the life of an
+independent corsair within easy striking distance of the Balearic Islands
+and the coast of Spain, his following composed of a horde of those broken
+men of whom mention has been made. Shershell was an unfortified town, and
+surrendered unconditionally upon the arrival of Uruj and his army.
+Kara-Hassan, for such was the name of this independent corsair, came out to
+greet his old-time chief; he was met with violent reproaches, and the
+altercation ended by Uruj having him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">67</a></span> beheaded on the spot. It was ill to
+quarrel with the Barbarossas.</p>
+
+<p>Freed from this rival, the Mitylene corsair had now uncontested supremacy
+on the coast, a supremacy none was likely to contest in the future, as he
+brooked no opposition, and had come to consider that independent piracy in
+the Mediterranean was in some sort an infringement of the rights of himself
+and his brother. One of the most salient peculiarities of the corsairs at
+this time was the apparent recklessness with which they assailed others who
+were participants in their nefarious business. Self-interest and policy
+would seem, to the observer in the present day, to have dictated quite a
+different course of action; but we shall see, when we come to deal with the
+life-history of Kheyr-ed-Din, that this infinitely wiser and more
+intellectual man apparently allowed himself to be swayed by gusts of
+passion, in which he savagely maltreated those with whom he was associated,
+and from whom dangerous hostility was certainly to be feared if they
+escaped with their lives. At this distance of time it is impossible to
+gauge the motives by which men such as these were actuated, more
+particularly in the case of Kheyr-ed-Din, whose character was a blend of
+the deepest subtlety and calculated ferocity.</p>
+
+<p>Having settled with Kara-Hassan, Uruj continued his march along the coast.
+Arrived at Algiers, he opened in form a siege of Navarro’s Tower; but,
+being unable to make any impression on its defences, he abandoned the siege
+after twenty days’ fruitless fighting, during which he lost a number of men
+in his assaults. Baffled and furious, he turned on the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">68</a></span> Berber chieftain,
+the luckless Selim Eutemi, and caused him to be assassinated, regarding him
+as being responsible for the failure. The Spanish chroniclers relate, with
+some wealth of detail, how Uruj personally fell upon Selim Eutemi, when
+that chieftain was in his bath, and strangled him with his own hands.
+However this may have been, the Spanish records of the deeds of the
+corsairs cannot well be taken <i>au pied de la lettre</i>; there is no doubt
+that Selim was murdered, and from that time the Berbers recognised that he
+who had come to help was now remaining to plunder. Uruj now established
+himself in the town, and set to work making raids into the adjoining
+country, carrying off sheep, cattle, and slaves. For the Berbers this was a
+true awakening. He who now oppressed them had come in the guise of a
+champion to assist them in the sack and plunder of Navarro’s Tower; they
+had exchanged King Log, who dwelt securely locked up, for a King Stork of
+the most active description. Although we cannot sympathise with such
+people, it is quite possible to understand their very natural annoyance at
+the turn which things had taken, and it does not surprise us (in this age
+of “punic faith”) that a conspiracy was set on foot between the dwellers of
+the hinterland and the Spaniards of the fortress.</p>
+
+<p>Uruj was informed of all that was going on through his own spies, and,
+although he kept his finger on the pulse of the conspiracy, he acted as
+though the tribesmen were still his very faithful friends and allies. The
+corsair was more patient than his wont. In this affair he wished for ample
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">69</a></span>proof of delinquency, and also for a vengeance adequate to the occasion
+when he should discover all the guilty parties; and so some weeks went by
+while the plot was maturing, apparently, from the point of view of the
+conspirators, to a successful conclusion. But Uruj had bided his time with
+a subtlety and <i>finesse</i> which would have done credit to Kheyr-ed-Din
+himself.</p>
+
+<p>It was the custom of the corsair and his chief adherents to attend the
+principal mosque on Fridays; and therefore, when the conspirators were
+cordially invited to attend on the following Friday, and, after the service
+was over, to attend Uruj to his dwelling and there confer with him, they
+went, nothing doubting, to their deaths. As the discourse of the Mullah
+came to an end a crash resounded throughout the building: six stalwart
+swordsmen had flung the great gates of the mosque together, and barred all
+exit. Excepting the conspirators, twenty-two in number, the remainder of
+the edifice was filled with the galley’s crews of the corsair, men who, had
+he given the order, would have cheerfully set alight to the sacred building
+itself and roasted the Mullahs themselves in the flames.</p>
+
+<p>To the corsairs, after they were seated in the mosque, the word had been
+passed that the Berber tribesmen had meditated this treachery against them,
+which, had it succeeded, would have meant the death or enslavement of them
+all. It was therefore a trap of a singularly deadly description into which
+the countrymen of Selim Eutemi walked on this Friday morning.</p>
+
+<p>The doors being closed, the conspirators were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">70</a></span> one by one dragged before
+Uruj, who, bitterly reproaching them, gave order for their instant death.
+They were haled out through rows of jeering pirates, and beheaded in the
+street immediately in front of the principal entrance of the mosque. When
+the slaughter of the twenty&mdash;two was accomplished Uruj strode from the
+mosque over the weltering corpses of the traitors amid the plaudits of his
+own men, ever ready to acclaim deeds of blood and cruelty. After this there
+were no more plots against the corsair in Algiers. News of all these
+desperate doings in Algiers had by this time filtered across into Spain,
+and El Maestro Don Fray Prudencio de Sandoval recounts how, when the
+tidings came to Fray Francisco Ximenes, the Cardinal Archbishop of Toledo,
+that that prelate, much scandalised that the might of Imperial Spain should
+be flouted by a mere pirate, sent Don Diego de Vera with some fifteen
+thousand men to recapture the town, and relieve the beleaguered garrison in
+the tower. This was in the month of September 1516.</p>
+
+<p>Don Diego landed “en el dia de San Hieronymo,” and threw up entrenchments
+within gunshot of the town. Great things were expected of this expedition,
+as Sandoval notes that in 1513 Don Diego de Vera, in the war against the
+French, had gained the approval of Count Pedro Navarro (“avia bien aprovado
+con el Conde Pedro Navarro”), and it was not expected that a mere pirate
+rabble would ever make head against the Spanish troops. De Vera opened fire
+on the walls of the town from his entrenchments, but hardly had he done so
+when Uruj, leading his corsairs, which formed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">71</a></span> the spearhead to an
+innumerable army of Berbers and Arabs, made a sortie.</p>
+
+<p>“Upon them one day did Barbarossa make an onslaught, and when he saw
+that the Spanish soldiers were ill commanded, he flung his forces upon
+them with loud cries. And so great was the fear inspired by Barbarossa
+that they were routed almost without loss to the Moors; and with much
+ease did these latter slay three thousand men and capture four hundred
+on the day of San Hieronymo in this year.”</p>
+
+<p>(“Salio un dia à el Barbarossa y como vio los soldados Españoles
+desmandados diò en ellos con gran gritos. Y fue tan grande el miedo que
+vieron que Barbarossa los desbaratò casi sin daño y con mucho facilidad
+mato tres mil hombres y cautivo quatro cientos dia de San Hieronymo
+deste año.”)</p>
+
+<p>This quotation is given in full to set out the amazing fact that in this
+battle over three thousand were killed while only four hundred were
+captured, which shows that it must have been in the nature of an
+indiscriminate massacre; the only captive of any note was the captain, Juan
+del Rio. Diego de Vera had had enough of the corsairs, and sailed away with
+the remainder of his force. Of what became of him or of them there is no
+record, but he must have been a singularly incompetent commander when he
+could not make head against a rabble of pirates and Moors with the army at
+his disposition. Sandoval does not attempt to minimise the defeat, which,
+of course, would have been impossible; he contents himself with the
+following delightfully quaint reflection: “But many, many times Homer nods;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">72</a></span>this disaster must have come upon us for our sins, upon which it is most
+important that we should always think and meditate.”</p>
+
+<p>Who so triumphant now as Uruj Barbarossa? It is true that the fortress of
+Pedro Navarro still remained in the hands of its splendid and undaunted
+garrison, and was destined so to remain for some years to come; but they
+were impotent for harm, and the conqueror of Don Diego now turned his arms
+in another direction. Kheyr-ed-Din was at Jigelli when he heard of the
+victory gained by his brother, and sailed at once with six ships to his
+support. The town of Tenes fell into the hands of the brothers, with an
+immense booty, and then Uruj marched on Tlemcen. The Sultan of Tlemcen, the
+last of the royal race of the Beni-Zian, did not await the coming of the
+corsair. All through the northern coasts of Africa the name of Barbarossa
+was a synonym of terror; the sad fate of Selim Eutemi, of Kara-Hassan, of
+the twenty-two conspirators of the mosque, had been noised abroad, and the
+superstitious tribesmen firmly believed that these red-bearded corsairs
+were the accomplices of Shaitan, even if they did not represent him
+themselves in their own persons. Who were these men, they asked one another
+tremblingly, who feared neither God nor devil, and who caused even the
+redoubtable Spaniards to fly before them like the leaves in front of an
+autumn gale?</p>
+
+<p>When men begin to talk and to think like this there is not much fight left
+in them, and so it came about that, after the most feeble of resistances,
+the Sultan of Tlemcen fled to Fez. Thus,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">73</a></span> almost without striking a blow,
+Uruj found himself master of a province from which the Spaniards were
+accustomed to draw the necessary provisions for the upkeep of the garrison
+of Oran. But Tlemcen is but some seventy miles from Oran, and Oran is so
+close to Spain as to be easily reinforced; in consequence Uruj was soon
+blockaded by the Spaniards, and remained so for seven months. But no
+blockade could keep Uruj Barbarossa for long within stone walls; sortie
+after sortie did the gallant corsair lead against the foe, and it was in
+one of these that he characteristically came by his death. Ever rash and
+impetuous, he allowed himself to be drawn too far away from possible
+shelter or support; and, as there was something dramatic in the whole life
+of this man, so also was there in the manner of his death. They had him
+trapped at last, this grim Sea-wolf, and he stood at bay in a stone corral
+used for the herding of goats.</p>
+
+<p>As the wolves in winter circle round the leaguer on the heath,
+So the greedy foe glared upward panting still for blood and death.</p>
+
+<p>By his side was his faithful lieutenant Venalcadi. In a breathless mêlée
+Christian sword and Moslem sabre clashed and rang. His turban gone, his
+great curved scimitar red to the hilt, the undaunted corsair fought his
+last fight as became the terror of his name. Almost had he succeeded in
+breaking through the ring of his foes when Garzia de Tineo, <i>alferez</i> (or
+lieutenant) to Captain Diego de Andrade, wounded him severely with a pike.
+Uruj<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">74</a></span> stumbled, was struck on the head with another weapon; he reeled and
+fell. The fight was over, and one of the Barbarossas bit the dust. Garzia
+de Tineo leaped upon the fallen man and cut off his head. It is recorded
+that Garzia de Tineo was wounded in the finger by Uruj in the course of the
+combat, and that for the rest of his life he proudly exhibited the scar as
+a sign that it was none other than he who had killed the famous corsair.</p>
+
+<p>Uruj Barbarossa was undoubtedly a remarkable man. At a time when the
+Mediterranean swarmed with warriors none was more feared, none was more
+redoubtable than he. By sheer valour and tenacity he had fought his way to
+the front, and the son of the obscure renegado of Mitylene died a king. It
+is true that his sovereignty was precarious, that it was maintained at the
+edge of the sword; none the less, in that welter of anarchy in which he
+lived he had forced himself to the summit, and, pirate, sea-wolf, and
+robber as he was, we cannot withhold from him a meed of the most hearty
+admiration.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">75</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER V<br /><br />
+
+<small>KHEYR-ED-DIN BARBAROSSA</small></h2>
+
+<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">Uruj</span> had arrogated to himself the title of King of Tlemcen, but with his
+death this shadowy sovereignty came to an end, and the Spaniards seized
+upon the province. This, however, did not avail them much, as the Sultan of
+Fez sent against them an innumerable army, and they in their turn were
+dispossessed. It was in the year 1518 that Uruj fell beneath the pike of
+Garzia de Tineo, and now the first place in the piratical hierarchy was
+taken by Kheyr-ed-Din. In this man the genius of the statesman lay hidden
+beneath the outward semblance of the bold and ruthless pirate; ever
+foremost in the fight, strong to endure, swift to smite, he had by now long
+passed his novitiate, had established an empire over the minds of men which
+was to endure until the end of his unusually prolonged life. With a brain
+of ice and a heart of fire, he looked out, serene and calm, upon the
+turbulent times in which he lived, a monstrous egotist desiring nothing but
+his own advancement, all his faculties bent upon securing more wealth and
+yet more power.</p>
+
+<p>He played a lone hand, for he brooked even less than did his truculent
+brother any approach to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">76</a></span> an equality with himself among the men who followed
+in his train. Absolute supremacy was his in the life which he lived, but
+none knew better than he upon what an unstable basis his power rested. He
+now called himself the King of Algiers, but still that lean, sun-dried
+garrison held with desperate tenacity to the tower of the redoubtable
+Navarro, and any moment a fresh Spanish relieving force might be upon him
+and chase him forth even as Uruj had been chased from Tlemcen. He saw that
+he must consolidate his power, must for the present, at any rate, have some
+force at his back which would provide that material and moral backing which
+was essential to his schemes. Once before he had successfully approached
+the Grand Turk, the Padishah, the head of the Mohammedan religion, and from
+him he had received that which he had asked; on this former occasion,
+however, he had not been in the same position as he now occupied.</p>
+
+<p>The corsair must have meditated long and anxiously on the best way in which
+to approach the autocrat of Constantinople; in the end he probably hit upon
+the best solution of the problem by again sending an ambassador with
+precise instructions as to the manner in which he was to act. For this
+important service his choice fell upon one of his captains, Hadj-Hossein by
+name, and to him he imparted all that he was to say, and&mdash;what was almost
+as important&mdash;what he was not to say.</p>
+
+<p>The duty of the ambassador was to magnify the importance of his master, but
+to do so in such a manner that the Padishah was not to imagine<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">77</a></span> that a rival
+to his own greatness had arisen at Algiers. Selim was at this time in
+Egypt, where he had just completed the conquest of the Mamelukes, and
+thither did Hadj-Hossein repair. He laid at the feet of the conqueror the
+respectful homage of the King of Algiers, who, he assured Selim, desired
+nothing better than to become the vassal of the Commander of the Faithful.
+Also, he informed him, that in the name of Selim public prayer was offered
+in the mosques on Fridays, that his image and superscription were struck on
+the coins, that in every manner possible recognition was made of the fact
+that he, and he alone, was the chosen of God upon earth. This manner of
+stating the situation was both delicate and politic. A less wise man than
+Kheyr-ed-Din might have assumed a note of equality from one Moslem
+potentate to another, but the corsair was perfectly conscious of his
+limitations&mdash;he knew exactly how the Grand Turk could be useful to him, and
+he was not going to mar his chance by the display of an untimely arrogance.</p>
+
+<p>Hadj-Hossein proved himself to be a tactful and successful ambassador. The
+Sultan accepted the homage offered, and made many inquiries concerning the
+war prosecuted by Hossein’s master against the enemies of the true faith in
+the distant region of Algiers. His queries were all answered with deep
+submission and the most subtle of flattery, much of which latter was no
+doubt a perfectly honest expression of opinion. As to the average
+Mohammedan of this period the Padishah was a being set apart by Heaven to
+fulfil the decrees of the Prophet.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">78</a></span></p>
+<p>The ambassador, when he rejoined his master, must have been a proud man, as
+so well had he fulfilled his mission that he carried back with him to
+Algiers not only a gracious message, but the insignia of the Sanjak,
+Scimitar Horse and Tambour, conferred upon that loyal Moslem Kheyred-Din
+Barbarossa, who, in the words of the Padishah, “abandoning a sterile
+independence, sought in all the bloody hazards of his life nought but the
+glory of God and His Prophet” To us this hyperbole, addressed to a pirate,
+seems merely ridiculous, but in those days of fanaticism the beliefs of
+men, both Christians and Moslems, are something which it is impossible for
+us to realise. On either side the way of salvation was the path of
+conquest, and the man who was heretic to the faith which you professed was
+rightly served if you could cut him and his off from among the
+congregation.</p>
+
+<p>It was well for the corsair to make as many friends as possible, as among
+his enemies he counted all the kings of Christendom; and, looking back on
+his career, it seems but little short of a miracle that he was not crushed
+out of existence, not once but a hundred times. But, as has been said
+already, the root of true statesmanship was in Kheyr-ed-Din. He watched
+with eager eye the quarrels of the great kings on the continent of Europe;
+he saw his life-long rival at sea, the greatest of all Christian mariners,
+Andrea Doria, the Genoese admiral, transfer his allegiance from the French
+King Francis I. to the Emperor Charles V. He noted and took full advantage
+of the perpetual squabbles between the Genoese and Venetian<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">79</a></span> Republics, and
+all the time was in touch with the Sea-wolves, who swarmed on the coasts of
+Africa, and lurked in every creek and harbour of the Ionian Sea. “In all
+the bloody hazards of his life,” to quote once again the words of the Grand
+Turk, “he could, in the end, depend more or less on the corsairs, whether
+they ostensibly sailed beneath his banner or whether they did not, as when
+danger threatened what name was so potent as that of Barbarossa, which his
+followers asserted to be worth ten thousand men, when shouted on the day of
+battle!”</p>
+
+<p>That which is most extraordinary in the life of Kheyr-ed-Din is the
+perpetual danger and stress in which it was lived. Time and again the heavy
+menacing clouds gathered around his head; strenuous and unceasing were the
+efforts made by his enemies to destroy his power, to capture the person of
+this militant robber who flung an insolent defiance to the whole of
+Christendom. The storms gathered and broke with various effects, which
+sometimes sent the corsair flying for his life a hunted fugitive, as others
+saw him once more victorious. But no reverses had the power to damp his
+ardour, or to render him less eager to arise, like some ill-omened phoenix,
+from the ashes of defeat: to vex the souls of those who held themselves to
+be the greatest men on earth.</p>
+
+<p>It was shortly after the death of his brother Uruj that the storm arose
+which bade fair to sweep, not only Kheyr-ed-Din but all the corsairs of the
+North African coast, clean out of their strongholds, for the Emperor
+Charles V., at this time<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">80</a></span> young, eager, and enthusiastic, gave orders for
+their destruction. These robbers troubled the peace of Europe; they did
+more than this, they insulted the Majesty of the Emperor, and Charles
+regarded their perpetual incursions in the light of an affront to his
+personal dignity. The divinity which hedged such a monarch as the grandson
+of “Los Reyes Cathòlicos,” Ferdinand and Isabella, was a very real thing,
+and, if offended, was likely to find concrete expression in the most
+vigorous form. Charles, much annoyed at the necessity for chastising a band
+of robbers, determined that he would make an end of them once and for all.
+To Don Hugo de Moncada, the Viceroy of Sicily, to Don Perisan de Ribera at
+Bougie, to the Marquis de Comares at Oran, orders were sent to prepare
+their forces for an attack on Algiers.</p>
+
+<p>There was no lack of good-will on the part of the Christian princes,
+nobles, and governors. The Spanish veterans in Sicily were rusting for want
+of employment, the levies on the African littoral welcomed anything in the
+way of war as a distraction from the deadly monotony of their lives. The
+soldier in these days who rested too long upon his arms became in time
+practically useless for the purpose for which he existed; but such rulers
+as Charles V. gave their fighting men but small cause of complaint in the
+matter of want of employment. The Pope sent his blessing and a contingent,
+and, to show how serious was the purpose of the Emperor, who took the
+command in person, let us set forth the total of the expedition which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">81</a></span> was
+to utterly destroy and root out the corsairs and their leader:</p>
+
+<table summary="FLEETS" border="0"><tr>
+<td class="tdc" colspan="2">FLEET.</td><td class="tdc" colspan="2">SAILING SHIP TRANSPORT.</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl">Galleys of the Pope</td><td class="tdr">4</td>
+<td class="tdl">The Frigate of Malta</td><td class="tdr">1</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;of Malta</td><td class="tdr">4</td>
+<td class="tdl">Division of Spezzia</td><td class="tdr">100</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;of Sicily</td><td class="tdr">4</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;of&nbsp;Fernando&nbsp;Gonzaga</td><td class="tdr">150</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;of Antony Doria</td><td class="tdr">6</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;of Spain</td><td class="tdr">200</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;of Naples</td><td class="tdr">5</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;of Monaco</td><td class="tdr">2</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;of&nbsp;Marquis&nbsp;of&nbsp;Terra&nbsp;Nova</td><td class="tdr">2</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;of Vicome de Cigala</td><td class="tdr">2</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;of&nbsp;Fernando&nbsp;de&nbsp;Gonzaga</td><td class="tdr">7</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;of Spain</td><td class="tdr">15</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;of Andrea Doria</td><td class="tdr bb">&nbsp;14</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td class="tdr bb">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl">Total Galleys</td><td class="tdr">65</td><td class="tdl">Total Transports</td><td class="tdr bb2">451</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl">Add Transports</td><td class="tdr bb">451</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl">Total Fleet</td><td class="tdr bb2">516</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr></table>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">82</a></span></p>
+<p>We now come to the military side of the expedition, which consisted of:</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<table summary="EXPEDITION"><tr>
+<td class="tdl">The Household of the Emperor</td><td class="tdr">200</td></tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl">Noblesse</td><td class="tdr">150</td></tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl">Knights of Malta</td><td class="tdr">150</td></tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl">Servants</td><td class="tdr">400</td></tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl">German Corps</td><td class="tdr">6,000</td></tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl">Italians</td><td class="tdr">5,000</td></tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl">Spanish from Naples and Sicily</td><td class="tdr">6,000</td></tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl">Soldiers from Spain</td><td class="tdr">400</td></tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl">Adventurers</td><td class="tdr">3,000</td></tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl">Italian Cavalry</td><td class="tdr">1,000</td></tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl">Spanish Cavalry from Sicily</td><td class="tdr">400</td></tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl">Light Cavalry</td><td class="tdr bb">700</td></tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl">Total Army</td><td class="tdr bb2">23,900</td></tr></table>
+
+<p><br />We next come to the Armament of the Fleet:<br  /><br  /></p>
+
+<table summary="ARMAMENT"><tr>
+<td class="tdl">Soldiers of the Galleys (50 in each)</td><td class="tdr">3,250</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl">Galley Slaves (average 70 in each)</td><td class="tdr">4,500</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The Frigate of Malta</td><td class="tdr">80</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl">540 sailing ships of all sorts, mostly
+small (at an average of 10 each)</td><td class="tdr">4,500</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl">Total <i>Personnel</i> of the Fleet</td><td class="tdr">12,330</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl">Add Army</td><td class="tdr bb">28,900</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl">Total <i>Personnel</i> of the Expedition.</td><td class="tdr bb2">36,230</td><td class="tdl bb0">men.</td></tr></table>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>It was late autumn when the expedition at last set sail, and the imperious
+temper of Charles was such that he refused to be governed by the advice of
+the seasoned mariners, such as Andrea and Antony Doria, and others who
+dreaded the effect of the gales which the armada was likely to encounter on
+the coast of Africa. The Emperor was not to be gainsaid, and the fleet set
+sail. They arrived, says Sandoval, “en el dia de San Hieronymo,” Saint
+Bartholomew’s day; and there then arose such a storm as the Mediterranean
+seldom sees. Some of the army had landed, some were still afloat, the
+corsairs accounted for the luckless soldiers ashore, the elements destroyed
+many left in the ships: 26 ships and 4,000 men were lost.</p>
+
+<p>Bitterly mortified, Charles, who had personally displayed valour and
+conduct of unusual distinction in this disastrous expedition, returned to
+Europe to turn his attention to his everlasting quarrels with the King of
+France. Meanwhile Don Hugo de Moncada had escaped with a remnant of his
+forces to Iviza, in the Balearics, where he wintered,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">83</a></span> and where his men
+mutinied because he was unable to pay them.</p>
+
+<p>As there was depression almost amounting to despair in the camps of
+Christendom, so was there concurrently the widest rejoicing in the tents
+and on board of the galleys which flew the Moslem flag. What mattered it
+that it was the elements which had saved Kheyr-ed-Din from annihilation?
+was it not a cause the more for jubilation, as had not the Prophet of God
+himself come to the assistance of those who were upholding his holy
+standard? Were not his favours made manifest in that he had sent, to lead
+his votaries to victory, such an one as Kbeyr-ed-Din Barbarossa?</p>
+
+<p>Pope and Emperor, King, Duke, and Viceroy had tried conclusions with the
+pirates, and their fleet and army had melted away as the mists melt in the
+hot sunshine on the Mediterranean; truly were the descendants of the
+dispossessed Moors of Còdoba and Granada taking a terrible revenge on
+those by whom they had been expropriated.</p>
+
+<p>Barbarossa was never one to let the grass grow under his feet; he had the
+Christians on the run, and he intended to take full advantage of this
+pleasing circumstance. Accordingly he despatched a trusted lieutenant, one
+Hassan, with instructions to harass the coast of Valentia, to ravage with
+fire and sword all those unfortunate towns and villages which he could
+reach. This corsair entered the Rio de Ampasta and destroyed all before
+him, the inhabitants fleeing as the news was carried by escaped fugitives
+and by the red glare of the villages flaming to heaven in the night.
+Satiated with blood, laden with spoil, and burdened with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">84</a></span> many wretched
+captives, Hassan put to sea once more in triumph.</p>
+
+<p>It may here be mentioned how terrible was the damage wrought by the
+piratical fraternity in the Mediterranean, and the manner in which it has
+been brought to light in somewhat remarkable fashion quite recently. Since
+the French occupation of Tunis it was charged against them that they had
+taken away from the natives of the country those fertile lands which lay
+upon the shores of the sea, and had given them to French subjects. The
+facts of the case were that for centuries these lands had been entirely out
+of cultivation, the reason being that, until the complete suppression of
+piracy in the Mediterranean took place, none dared to dwell within raiding
+distance of the sea for fear of being carried off into slavery.</p>
+
+<p>But to return to Hassan. That warrior, having cleared the Spanish coast,
+got separated from three of his consorts during the night. The next day, at
+dawn, he sighted a Spanish sailing-vessel, which he thought to make an easy
+prize. The wind was light, and the galleys&mdash;that is to say, the one on
+which Hassan was aboard and his remaining consort&mdash;were soon churning up
+the waters in pursuit as fast as their oars could carry them. Hassan
+reckoned on an easy capture, as he made certain she was but a peaceful
+trader with some score or so of throats to cut. He was, however, badly out
+of his reckoning, as on board of her was a veteran company of Spanish
+infantry, stark fighters to a man, who feared no odds, and who were
+skilfully commanded by Captain Robeira, grown<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">85</a></span> grey in the Moorish wars.
+With bloodcurdling yells the galleys swept alongside with the fighting men
+massed on the high poops and forecastles of their vessels. Behind the high
+bulwarks of the “round ship” (as the sailing craft of the day were
+denominated to distinguish them from the long ships, or galleys) crouched
+the Spaniards, their muskets in their hands. Captain Robeira had them
+perfectly in hand, and not a piece was discharged until the beaks of the
+galleys crashed into her sides.</p>
+
+<p>Robeira then gave the order to fire, and at the short range into packed
+masses of men the volley did terrible execution. Completely surprised, the
+corsairs attempted to board, but were repulsed and driven back with more
+slaughter. His men becoming demoralised, Hassan withdrew amidst the
+ferocious taunts of the Spaniards, who had escaped almost unscathed. Sore
+and angry, the corsairs continued their voyage for another three days, at
+the expiration of which they arrived at Algiers. Hassan, who had acquired
+quite a considerable booty, expected a warm reception; this he received,
+but hardly in the way that he expected. He told his tale to Kheyr-ed-Din,
+which that commander received in frowning silence; when he had finished the
+storm burst.</p>
+
+<p>“O miserable coward! dost thou dare to stand in my presence and to confess
+that thou hast been whipped like a dog by those sons of burnt fathers, the
+Spaniards?”</p>
+
+<p>The miserable Hassan attempted to justify himself by reference to the booty
+which he had obtained and the number of captives with which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">86</a></span> he had
+returned; but this, far from assuaging the wrath of Barbarossa, only made
+it worse.</p>
+
+<p>“Dastard and slave! thou boastest that, thou hast destroyed defenceless
+villages and brought back many captives, but that shall avail thee nothing.
+No profit shalt thou derive from that. Let the captives be brought before
+me.”</p>
+
+<p>This was done, and to the horror even of those hardened men of blood who
+followed in the train of Barbarossa, they were all executed. Even this
+wholesale massacre did not assuage the wrath of the corsair. Standing and
+surveying the weltering shambles which tainted the air, he pulled
+ferociously at his red beard, and commanded that they should whip Hassan
+till the blood ran; when this was done thoroughly and to the satisfaction
+of the despot, he gave orders that he should be chained and thrust into the
+prison of the fortress.</p>
+
+<p>Terror stalked abroad in Algiers. No man knew when his turn might come
+after this awful example of what it meant to incur the wrath of Barbarossa.
+The corsair gave orders for the execution of Venalcadi, who, it will be
+remembered, was with Uruj when that warrior came by his death; but
+Venalcadi was popular among the pirates, and they connived at his escape.</p>
+
+<p>For so cool and politic a man as Kheyr-ed-Din this outburst is wholly
+inexplicable. Judged by our standards, the flogging of Hassan was not only
+brutal but silly, as raising up to himself enemies of the most bitter
+description in the midst of his own followers; and yet cruelty was so
+engrained in this man that he never forewent his revenge. It is a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">87</a></span> standing
+miracle that he escaped assassination in the age in which he lived, and the
+only explanation would appear to be that men were too much afraid of him to
+make the attempt.</p>
+
+<p>The immediate result of the flogging of Hassan and the attempted murder of
+Venalcadi was that the latter collected a following and made war upon
+Kheyr-ed-Din, who, with incredible folly, then released Hassan, and sent
+him with five hundred men to fight against Venalcadi. The result was what
+might have been anticipated: Hassan joined forces with Venalcadi, and
+together they attacked the tyrant and drove him out of his stronghold.</p>
+
+<p>Kheyr-ed-Din had the one supreme merit of never knowing when he was beaten.
+Driven from the shore, there was for him always the sea to which to retire;
+so on this occasion he embarked his family and such of his riches as were
+portable, and took to the sea once more. “Yendo a buscar nuevos asientos y
+nuevos amigos” (seeking a new home and new friends), says Sandoval.</p>
+
+<p>It was well for the corsairs that the Christians had selected the previous
+year for their attack, as, had they fallen upon them when Barbarossa was no
+longer in power at Algiers and the pirates were fighting among themselves,
+the latter would have been wiped out of existence. It was ill fighting with
+Kheyr-ed-Din, whether you professed the religion of Christ or that of
+Mahomet, and this the revolting corsairs were very soon to discover.
+Barbarossa sailed away from Algiers a hunted fugitive, only to return again
+as a conqueror.</p>
+
+<p>Eastward the dispossessed ruler of Algiers took his course, and very soon
+discovered that which he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">88</a></span> sought&mdash;allies to assist him against the revolted
+Venalcadi and the recalcitrant Hassan. Lurking in the neighbourhood of
+Bizerta, he discovered El Judeo (the Jew), Cachidiablo (Hunt the Devil),
+Salaerrez, Tabas, and other corsairs, who collectively composed a
+formidable force. These were all old acquaintances and some old followers
+of Kheyr-ed-Din, and to them did he relate the piteous tale of the
+cowardice of Venalcadi, whom he accused of having deserted his brother Uruj
+in his direst necessity, thereby causing his death; the abominable conduct
+of Hassan, who had turned and bitten the hand that fed him. With tears in
+his eyes did this accomplished actor reluctantly reveal the base
+ingratitude of which he had been the recipient; so much did he contrive to
+work upon the feelings of his auditors that they one and all vowed to stand
+by him, and to replace him as ruler of Algiers, from which he had been
+thrust by men whose shameful treachery was only equalled by their
+ingratitude.</p>
+
+<p>Forty sail in strength, they set out to avenge the wrongs of the gentle and
+long-suffering Kheyr-ed-Din, that master of craft in every sense of the
+word. Reaching Algiers, they disembarked artillery and stores and began an
+attack in form; but Venalcadi, whose forces were equal, in fact slightly
+superior, to those of his antagonists, made a sally, and battle was joined
+in the open. A most sanguinary combat ensued, in which the forces of
+Kheyr-ed-Din were decidedly worsted. For a considerable period his fate
+hung in the balance. Then occurred one of those singular and remarkable
+things only possible in such an age of anarchy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">89</a></span> and bloodshed. Barbarossa
+had in his train sixty Spanish soldiers captured by him from the force of
+Don Hugo de Moncada. Well did the corsair know their value: there were no
+finer fighting men in all the Christian armies. Hastily summoning them, he
+promised them their freedom if they would now throw in their lot with him
+and assist in the downfall of Venalcadi.</p>
+
+<p>The offer was no sooner made than accepted, and the Spanish veterans, fresh
+and unwearied, threw themselves into the heart of the fray. Shoulder to
+shoulder and blade to blade in their disciplined valour, they broke through
+all opposition; they fought for liberty as well as life, to exchange the
+noisome confinement of the piratical galley for the free air of their homes
+and their country. Soon the soldiers of Venalcadi turned and fled back to
+the city; the day was once again with Kheyr-ed-Din. For four days longer
+did Algiers hold out, and then a traitor betrayed Venalcadi into the hands
+of his enemies. Instantly his head was struck off, placed on a pole, and
+paraded in full sight of the garrison, who were promised their lives on
+condition of surrender.</p>
+
+<p>The city opened its gates once more, and Barbarossa entered in triumph. The
+corsair was as good as his word to his Spanish captives, and restored to
+them their liberty. He went even further, and was liberal in his <i>largesse</i>
+to those who had fought so well for him. If he can be credited with such an
+emotion as gratitude, he must have felt it for Moncada’s stout infantrymen,
+as, had it not been for them, it would have been his head and not that of
+Venalcadi which would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">90</a></span> have decorated the pole. The Spaniards departed to
+their own country&mdash;that is to say, such of them as desired to do so; but
+one Hamet, a Biscayan, declared that life was so intolerable for a common
+man such as he in his own country that he desired to throw in his lot with
+Barbarossa. Thirty-nine others followed his example, abjuring the Christian
+faith and becoming renegadoes.</p>
+
+<p>Those of the garrison left alive were glad enough to return once more to
+their allegiance to their former master. The episode of the mutiny of
+Venalcadi and Hassan was a lesson not only to them: the fame of it spread
+far and wide throughout the Mediterranean. Who now could be found to combat
+Barbarossa? and all along the coasts of the tideless sea echo shudderingly
+answered&mdash;Who?</p>
+
+<p>With the new accession to his strength Kheyred-Din had no difficulty in
+making himself master of Tunis, and he sent Cachidiablo with seventeen
+galleys to harry once more the coast of Spain.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">91</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER VI<br /><br />
+
+<small> THE TAKING OF THE PEÑON D’ALGER; ANDREA DORIA</small> </h2>
+
+<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">Although</span> Kheyr-ed-Din had made himself master of Algiers, there still
+remained the fortress of Pedro Navarro in the hands of the Spaniards. This
+strong place of arms had now been in their practically undisputed
+occupation for twenty years; from out of its loopholed walls and
+castellated battlements the undaunted garrison had looked forth while the
+tide of war both by land and sea had swept by. They had been unmolested so
+far, but now their day was to come.</p>
+
+<p>In command of the Peñon d’Alger, as it was called by the Spaniards, was a
+valiant and veteran cavalier, by name Martin de Vargas. For twenty years,
+as we have said, the gold-and-crimson banner of Spain had floated from its
+crenulated bastions; since the days of Pedro Navarro it had held its own
+against all comers. It must have been with a sinking heart that Martin de
+Vargas and his brave garrison beheld the town fall once again into the
+hands of Kheyr-ed-Din; they knew, as by this time did all the Mediterranean
+and the dwellers on the coasts thereof, the implacable enmity of the
+corsair to the Christians, and how<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">92</a></span> short a shrift would be theirs should
+they fall into his hands.</p>
+
+<p>On his side Kheyr-ed-Din looked with longing eyes on this remnant of the
+power of Spain in Africa. Could he but dislodge Martin de Vargas, he had
+the whole of Northern Africa practically at his disposal; Algiers would
+then be really his, to fortify for all time against the inroads of his
+foes. He was master by land and sea, the time was propitious; the corsair
+decided that the hour had come. He had seen the repulse of his brother
+Uruj, none knew better than did he the temper of the men by whom the Peñon
+was held, or the valiance and the unswerving fidelity of that caballero of
+Spain, Martin de Vargas. He tried to induce that officer to surrender to
+him, offering every inducement to the Spanish commander to come to terms.
+He was met with a haughty refusal, couched in the most contemptuous
+language. He tried the most blood-curdling threats, which were no empty
+menaces, as his adversary well knew: these were received in silence.</p>
+
+<p>One more embassy he tried, and to this he received the following answer:</p>
+<blockquote>
+<p>“I spring from the race of the De Vargas, but my house has never made it
+a practice to boast of the glory of their long descent: they professed
+merely to imitate the heroism of their ancestors. Spurred forward by
+this worthy desire, I await with calmness all your efforts, and will
+prove to you, with arms in my hands, that I am faithful to my God, my
+country, and my king.”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/i_fp093.jpg" width="500" height="633" alt="ANDREA DORIA, PRINCE OF ONEGLEA, ADMIRAL TO CHARLES V." />
+<div class="caption">ANDREA DORIA, PRINCE OF ONEGLEA, ADMIRAL TO CHARLES V.</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Barbarossa summoned to his palace his kinsman and trusted adherent Celebi
+Rabadan, and they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">93</a></span> mutually decided that there was nothing they could do
+save take up arms against this most insolent and uncompromising warrior. In
+the meanwhile they would try what craft would do; and accordingly two young
+Moors were introduced into the Peñon, under the pretext that they had seen
+the error of their ways and were anxious to embrace the Christian religion.
+Martin de Vargas, like all Spanish caballeros, was an ardent proselytiser,
+and he ordered the two young men to be taken into his own house and
+instructed by the chaplain of the garrison. The next day was Easter Day,
+and the two young Moors, while the entire garrison were at Mass, signalled
+to their co-religionists a prearranged sign indicating that now was the
+time to attack. Unfortunately for them, a woman in the employment of De
+Vargas saw them, and they were immediately hanged from the battlements in
+full view of Barbarossa. That potentate was filled with fury at what he
+considered an insult to the Mohammedan religion, and again consulted with
+Celebi as to the feasibility of another assault. It was true, he said, that
+his messengers had been hanged, but they had made the prearranged signal.
+Still, the walls were hardly sufficiently breached, he thought, and his own
+men were singularly disheartened by the ill success of their previous
+efforts. Did Celebi Rabadan think another attempt desirable?</p>
+
+<p>That person was in a quandary, because he could not gather what it was that
+Barbarossa wished him to say. He knew that if he recommended an assault,
+and that it proved once again<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">94</a></span> unsuccessful, that the full fury of the
+tyrant would fall upon his head; at the same time he was almost equally
+afraid to broach the idea which had been prevalent in Algiers for some time
+that Martin de Vargas must assuredly be in league with Shaitan, or he could
+never have held out in the way that he had done. In consequence he
+temporised and hesitated, while Barbarossa pulled at his famous red beard
+and regarded him with scowling brows.</p>
+
+<p>The situation was saved for Celebi Rabadan by an accident. There swam off
+to the ship a traitor from the Spanish garrison, and this man informed them
+that his whilom comrades were positively at their last gasp, ammunition all
+but exhausted, and the food-supply barely sufficient to last another two
+days.</p>
+
+<p>“To such an end come those who deny the Prophet of God,” exclaimed
+Barbarossa, and gave orders that this news be communicated to all his men,
+who were to prepare for the final assault on the morrow. He further offered
+a reward for the capture of Martin de Vargas alive.</p>
+
+<p>On May 16th, 1530, the corsairs once again advanced to the assault. By this
+time the walls had been battered until a practicable breach had been
+formed, and over this swarmed thirteen hundred of the starkest fighters of
+the Mediterranean, In the breach, bareheaded, his armour hacked and dinted,
+stood the undaunted chieftain of the Spaniards: over his head floated that
+proud banner which had never cast its shadow on a worthier knight of Spain.
+The garrison, worn to a shadow by their hardships and their hunger,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">95</a></span> most of
+them wounded, and all of them sore spent, were in no case to resist this,
+the most formidable attack to which they had been subjected. It was all
+over in a very short time, and a dreadful massacre ensued.</p>
+
+<p>Martin de Vargas, though sorely wounded, was taken alive and conducted to
+the presence of Barbarossa. Wounded, shaken, bruised, his fortress in the
+hands of his enemy, the dying shrieks of his murdered garrison still
+ringing in his ears, the amazing spirit of the man was still utterly
+unsubdued. “It is to the treason of a ruffian that you owe your triumph,”
+he said to his captor, “and not to your valour: had I received the smallest
+relief I could still have repulsed and kept you at bay. You have my maimed
+and mutilated body in your possession, and I hope that you are satisfied.
+But my body is accustomed to pain, and I therefore defy you and your
+dastardly cruelty.”</p>
+
+<p>To do Barbarossa justice he admired the undaunted spirit of his prisoner,
+and he replied:</p>
+
+<p>“Fear nothing, De Vargas, I will do all in my power to ease your hurts if
+you will do that which I ask of you.”</p>
+
+<p>De Vargas replied:</p>
+
+<p>“As an earnest of your faith, I demand the punishment of the traitor
+through whose information you were enabled to take the citadel.”</p>
+
+<p>Barbarossa ordered the soldier to be brought before them, and, having
+nearly flogged him to death, had him beheaded. He then presented the head
+to De Vargas, saying:</p>
+
+<p>“You observe my complaisance. I now ask you to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">96</a></span> embrace the Mohammedan
+faith; then I will overwhelm you with benefits and honours, and make you
+the Captain-General of my guards.”</p>
+
+<p>De Vargas looked at him in indignation and replied:</p>
+
+<p>“Dost thou believe that I, who but now demanded the just punishment of a
+man who had forsworn himself, could stoop to such an act of baseness as
+this? Keep your ill-gotten riches; confer your dignities on others; insult
+not thus a caballero of Spain.”</p>
+
+<p>There was a breathless pause. None had ever used such language to
+Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa and lived to tell the tale. Nor was it to be so in
+this case.</p>
+
+<p>“You and yours have caused me too much trouble,” he answered indifferently.
+He made a sign to the executioner who had beheaded the soldier, and the
+next moment the head of De Vargas was swept from his body.</p>
+
+<p>The gallant Spaniard, it is to be hoped, came by his end in the way just
+narrated; but the chroniclers disagree among themselves, and “El Señor Don
+Diego de Haedo, Arcobispo de Palermo y Capitan General del Reyno de Sicilia
+por El Rey Felipe nuestro señor,” states that Barbarossa kept De Vargas in
+confinement for three months and then had him beaten to death. One can only
+sincerely hope that the first account is the true one; but Haedo was nearer
+to the time of the occurrence, and, as he wrote in the reign of Philip II.,
+is more likely to have known the facts. But however this may have been,
+there was an end for all time of Spanish domination on the north coast of
+Africa,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">97</a></span> and from this we may date the permanent establishment of those
+piratical States in that part of the world.</p>
+
+<p>The star of Kheyr-ed-Din was once more in the ascendant. Not only had he
+crushed out the incipient mutiny of Venalcadi and taken his life, but he
+had consolidated his power by the taking of the Peñon d’Alger. He
+celebrated this occasion in the most practical manner possible: a stop was
+put to the indiscriminate massacre of the garrison, and five hundred of the
+Spaniards were captured alive; it was their dreary fate to pull down
+entirely the tower of Pedro Navarro, which they had defended so gallantly
+and to utilise the material in making a causeway from the Peñon to the
+shore. Barbarossa was determined that on no future occasion should his
+enemies have the chance of dominating his town of Algiers. He was now a
+sovereign in fact and in deed, regarding even so mighty a monarch as
+Charles V. with comparative equanimity. Terrible was the wrath of the
+latter when the news of the fall of the Peñon, the massacre of the
+garrison, and the death of his trusty servant De Vargas, was brought to
+him. The Sea-wolves seemed to exist but to exasperate him, and this latest
+news came just at one of the most prosperous epochs of his career.</p>
+
+<p>The titles of “Carlos Quinto,” as recorded by Sandoval, read like the roll
+of some mighty drum. Nor were these titles mere vain and empty boastings,
+as was so often the case at that time among the minor rulers of the earth.
+On February 22nd, 1580, just before the fall of the Peñon, he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">98</a></span> had placed on
+his own head the iron crown of Lombardy; his viceroys ruled in Naples and
+Sicily, his dukes and feudatories in Florence and Ferrara, in Mantua and in
+Milan; there was no more Italy. All these recent acquisitions had been
+rendered possible by the defection of Andrea Doria, the Genoese seaman,
+from Francis I. of France to the side of the Emperor. From henceforward it
+was against this modern Cæsar that Barbarossa had to contend; the monarch
+under whose banner swarmed the terrible Schwartz-Reiters of Germany, for
+whose honour marched the incomparable infantry of Spain, for whom the
+fleets of the gallant Genoese sailed in battle-array under the orders of
+the greatest admiral of the day, Andrea Doria. All these disciplined
+legions of Christendom were arrayed against the corsair king; banded
+together for the destruction of that daring pirate whose flag floated in
+insolent triumph above the white walls of Algiers.</p>
+
+<p>As from this time onwards we shall hear much concerning Andrea Doria, it is
+fitting that some account should here be given of this great patriot, great
+soldier, and still greater seaman. Andrea Doria, of the family of the
+Princes of Oneglia, of Genoa, was born at Oneglia on November 30th, 1468,
+and was the son of Andrea Coeva and Marie Caracosa, both of the family of
+Doria. At the death of his mother the young Andrea, then nineteen years of
+age, was sent to Rome, where his kinsman Dominique Doria, of the elder
+branch of the family, was captain of the Papal Guard of Pope Innocent VIII.
+Here he rose rapidly: owing to his extraordinary address in all military
+exercises, he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">99</a></span> was marked out for preferment, and would probably have
+succeeded his kinsman as grand officer, had it not been for the death of
+Innocent VIII. The successor to Innocent, Alexander VI., was not favourable
+to the claims of the Dorias; so young Andrea, acting on the advice of
+Dominique, repaired to the court of Duke Urbino, then regarded as the best
+school for young nobles desirous of following a military career. After some
+time spent at the court of Urbino, Dominique counselled that Andrea should
+enter some other service, as there was no glory to be obtained under a
+prince who was never at war. Accordingly Andrea passed into the service of
+the King of Aragon, who, having invaded Naples, was giving plenty of
+employment to all would-be warriors.</p>
+
+<p>In the record of his early days we find that in the year 1495 he made a
+journey to Jerusalem to visit the holy places, and that he then returned to
+Italy, where Ferdinand of Aragon was attempting to recover the kingdom of
+Naples. “The Great Captain,” Gonsalvo de Cordoba, was warring against
+Doria’s kinsman, Juan Roverejo; this commander had rendered a great service
+to the Dorias by rescuing David Doria from imprisonment at Ancona, and
+Andrea decided to throw in his lot with him. He accordingly armed
+twenty-five cavaliers at his own expense, and joined Roverejo, who put him
+in charge of the fortress of Rocca Guillelma. In this place Andrea was
+besieged by Gonsalvo de Cordoba, the first warrior of the age; here he
+displayed such extraordinary ability in defence that, on the occasion of a
+truce, Gonsalvo urged upon Andrea to join the Spaniards.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">100</a></span> Andrea made answer
+that honour bound him to Roverejo, but, could he be released from his
+arrangement with him, he might then consider the proposition of “The Great
+Captain.” Roverejo refused, but, as Charles VIII. immediately afterwards
+evacuated Italy, Andrea was free to follow his own inclinations, and took
+service with Lodovico Sforza, Duke of Milan.</p>
+
+<p>From this time onward until 1503 Andrea was constantly employed in war, and
+made for himself such a reputation that in this year the Republic of Genoa
+requested him to take command of their navy. This offer he refused, as he
+said that he knew nothing about the sea. They pressed him, saying that to a
+man of his genius nothing was impossible, and in the end he gave a somewhat
+reluctant consent. He soon proved his competence in his new sphere of
+activity, as his first act was to capture the Fort of the Lantern, in the
+neighbourhood of Genoa, which was then held by the French for Louis XII.
+The Republic confirmed his appointment as General of the Galleys with many
+compliments, and he put to sea and captured three of the war-galleys of the
+corsairs, also two Turkish ships laden with valuable merchandise. He fitted
+out the galleys for his own service, sold the merchantmen, and made an
+immense sum of money.</p>
+
+<p>His next act was to defeat the corsair, Cadolin, who had eight galleys to
+Doria’s six; these he added to his own fleet, which now consisted of
+fourteen vessels, he having begun with three. As Cadolin was one of the
+most famous corsairs of the day, this capture made an immense sensation,
+and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">101</a></span> all men, Moslems as well as Christians, were asking one another, “Who
+was this Doria?”</p>
+
+<p>They had their answer, as time passed, in the career of this astonishing
+warrior, who in his time played so many parts, who served under so many
+flags, and yet who remained consistently a patriot all the time. As this is
+not a history of Doria, we have no space to trace out his life step by step
+as it was lived; suffice it to say that, disapproving of the government of
+his native Republic under the family of the Adorno, Andrea offered his
+sword and his fleet to the King of France, Francis I. His offer was
+received with joy, and he was made Captain-General of the Galleys of
+France. In his new capacity he sailed for the coast of Provence, which was
+being devastated by the fleet of Charles V. He sank several of the Spanish
+vessels, captured others, and secured sufficient booty to pay his soldiers
+and sailors&mdash;a fact most welcome to Francis, who was in desperate straits
+for money.</p>
+
+<p>Eventually, however, a dispute arose between Francis and Doria, which was
+to have disastrous effects for the King. At this time Charles V. was
+suzerain of Genoa, which was held for him by the Adorno. Philippin Doria,
+nephew of the admiral, met at sea with Hugo de Moncada outside the Gulf of
+Salerno; a battle ensued, in which Philippin was victorious and Moncada was
+slain. Amongst others who were captured was the Marquis de Guasto and
+Camille Colonna; these high officers, together with three of the captured
+galleys, were sent by Philippin to his uncle at Genoa.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime some malcontents reached the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">102</a></span> Court of France and complained
+to the King that Andrea Doria had not captured Sicily, which they averred
+he could easily have done. These men were backed up by a certain number of
+the courtiers, who were bitterly jealous of the fame of Doria and the
+esteem in which he had been held by Francis. The monarch, easily swayed by
+any determined and persistent attack, decided to levy a fine on the
+inhabitants of Genoa as a punishment for the supineness of their
+countryman, who was his Captain-General of the Galleys; his argument being
+that they must pay him for the plunder Doria had missed by not taking
+Sicily when he should have done so.</p>
+
+<p>This was worse than a crime&mdash;it was blunder of the very first magnitude,
+and such a blunder as could only have been made by a very stupid as well as
+a very arrogant man. Doria by this time was a warrior of European
+celebrity, and one to whom even kings used the language of persuasion; to
+attempt to browbeat him was to court disaster.</p>
+
+<p>Francis sent the Vicomte de Tours to Genoa to levy the fine, but the
+Vicomte did not prosper on his mission. Outside of Genoa he was met by the
+outraged admiral on horseback at the head of some fifty Genoese nobles and
+a numerous company of foot-soldiers. De Tours reported that the name and
+authority of the King of France was held in derision by the fierce old
+admiral, who so alarmed the envoy himself that he thought it prudent to
+retire to Florence, from whence he wrote a long letter to his master
+complaining of his reception by Doria.</p>
+
+<p>This attempt to levy a fine on Genoa was not,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">103</a></span> however, the only deadly blow
+which the King of France was aiming at her. The children of Francis were at
+this time in Madrid, as hostages for the good behaviour of their father,
+and that monarch was in treaty secretly with Charles to restore Italy to
+the <i>status quo ante bellum</i>, which would have had the effect of handing
+over Genoa to Antony Adorno. He also began the fortification of Savona, in
+order that from there he might be in a position to strike at the
+Genoese&mdash;from a military point of view, if necessary&mdash;but in any event to
+cripple the trade of that city. Andrea Doria, as soon as he became aware of
+this latter action on the part of Francis, was thoroughly roused, and wrote
+him the letter quoted below, which illustrates the fact that he was quite
+aware of his own great importance in Europe. It was not a time in which men
+held such language as did Doria on this occasion unless they were very sure
+of themselves and their followers.</p>
+<blockquote>
+<p class="noindent">“GREAT PRINCE,</p>
+
+<p>“It is an ill use of power to reverse order in human affairs. Genoa has
+always been the capital of Liguria, and posterity will see with
+astonishment that your Majesty has deprived it of this advantage with no
+plausible pretext. The Genoese are well aware how inimical to their
+interests are your projects with regard to Savona. They beg of you that
+these may be abandoned, and that you will not sacrifice the general good
+to the views of a few courtiers. I take the liberty to add my prayers to
+theirs, and to ask of you this grace as the price of the services I have
+rendered to France. Should your Majesty have been put<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">104</a></span> to
+expense, I shall join to my request the sum of forty thousand gold
+crowns.</p>
+
+<p class="right">“With the humble duty of<span class="smcap"> Andrea Doria</span>,&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="right">Captain-General of the Galleys of France.”&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
+
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>Theodore Trivulce, who held Savona for the King of France, was roundly told
+by Doria that “the people of Genoa would never suffer the taking of Savona
+by the King of France, as it had from time immemorial belonged to them,”
+and added, “for myself I will sacrifice the friendship of the King in the
+interests of my fatherland.”</p>
+
+<p>The last straw came, however, when the Marshal de Lautrec demanded from
+Andrea the prisoners taken by Philippin Doria at Salerno. To this Doria
+returned a curt negative, whereupon Francis sent one Barbezieux to
+supersede Doria and to seize upon the person of the veteran admiral. But
+that seaman, now sixty years of age, was not to be taken by any king or
+soldier. He moved his twelve galleys from Genoa to Lerici, on the east
+coast of the Gulf of Spezzia, and when Barbezieux arrived he sarcastically
+told him to take the galleys. Barbezieux had no better fortune than his
+predecessor, the Vicomte de Tours, and retired discomfited and boiling over
+with rage to report matters to the King.</p>
+
+<p>It has been said that among the prisoners of Philippin Doria was the
+Marquis de Guasto. This nobleman had been an interested spectator of the
+quarrel, and now approached Doria suggesting that he should throw in his
+lot with Charles. The admiral, who all through had been acting in the
+interests of his native country, seeing its ruin<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">105</a></span> approaching from the
+ambitions of Francis, consented, and wrote to his nephew Philippin telling
+him of his decision, and his reasons for that which he proposed to do.
+Philippin therefore rejoined his uncle at Lerici with his eight galleys.
+The negotiations were short, sharp, and decisive, and were conducted
+through the medium of De Guasto. Charles offered the admiral sixty thousand
+ducats a year; this was accepted. The only other stipulation made by the
+Emperor was natural enough, which was that all the Spanish galley-slaves in
+the fleet of Andrea should be released and their places taken by men of
+other nationalities. This was of course conceded, and the transaction was
+complete. Henceforward the most formidable force at sea on the Christian
+side was at the disposal of the Spanish King.</p>
+
+<p>This transference took place in the year 1528, and it was in the same year
+that the citizens of Genoa, in recognition of the unexampled services of
+the admiral to the State, elected him perpetual Doge.</p>
+
+<p>This honour Doria declined, declaring that it was more glorious to have
+deserved than to possess the honour, and that he considered he could be of
+more use to his fellow citizens by gaining for them the protection of great
+princes than by remaining as chief judge in his own country.</p>
+
+<p>The Senate of Genoa, astonished by his noble modesty, hailed him as the
+father and liberator of his country, ordered that a statue of him should be
+erected in the public square, that in the same place a palace should be
+built for him at the public expense, and that it should be called Plaza
+Doria;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">106</a></span> further, that he and his posterity should be for ever exempted from
+taxation, and that a device should be engraved on a plate of copper and
+attached to the walls of the palace, where it could be seen of all men,
+announcing to posterity the services that this great man had rendered to
+his fellow citizens, to be for ever a memorial of their gratitude.</p>
+
+<p>The chronicler of these events draws a parallel between Doria and
+Themistocles, who, when discontented with the Athenians, passed into Persia
+and offered his services to Xerxes, to the great joy of that monarch, who
+cried aloud, “I have Themistocles, I have Themistocles.”</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">107</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER VII<br /><br />
+
+<small>THE APOTHEOSIS OF THE CORSAIR KING</small> </h2>
+
+<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">If</span> Charles V. made no such outward manifestation of his joy as did the
+Persian monarch, he possibly was no less pleased than Xerxes; this he
+showed by his acts, and the value that he attached to the services of Doria
+was instanced in the directions which he gave. He ordered the Governors of
+all his possessions in Italy to do nothing without first consulting the
+admiral; to lend him prompt aid, whether he demanded it in his own name or
+in that of the Republic of Genoa. He made him Admiralissimo of his navy,
+with power to act as he liked without even consulting him, as his Emperor.
+It will be seen that Charles had in him sufficient greatness to trust
+whole-heartedly when he trusted at all; the faith which he reposed in the
+Genoese seaman was amply justified by events, and no action of his during
+the whole of his singularly dramatic reign was ever to result so entirely
+to his profit. When in after-life Charles had received from the Pope the
+Imperial Crown, and when, on his return, he put into Aigues-Mortes in
+Doria’s galley, he there met with Francis, who, in a burst to confidence,
+advised the Cæsar never to part with his admiral.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">108</a></span></p>
+<p>On that stage, which was the blue waters of the tideless sea, we shall,
+from this time forward, watch the fortunes of those two great sea-captains,
+Andrea Doria and Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa. With them the ebb and flow of
+conquest and defeat alternated. Great as was the one, it cannot be said
+that he was greater than the other; but when the supreme arbitrament was
+within the grasp of both, as it was at the naval battle of Prevesa, neither
+the Christian admiral nor the Moslem corsair would reach out his hand and
+grasp the nettle of his fate. Hesitation at this moment, when, in the
+fulness of time, the rivals stood face to face with arms in their hands,
+was the last thing that would have been expected of such dauntless
+warriors, such born leaders of men! and the battle of Prevesa presents a
+psychological problem of the most baffling and perplexing description. We
+are, however, anticipating events which will fall into their proper
+sequence as we proceed.</p>
+
+<p>Kheyr-ed-Din, now firmly established in Algiers, devoted his energies to
+the undoing of his Christian foes by the systematic plunder of their
+merchant-vessels. At this period he, personally, seems to have remained
+ashore, and sent his young and aspiring captains to sea to increase his
+wealth by plunder, his consequence by the hordes of slaves which they swept
+into the awful bagnios of Algiers; and Sandoval, that quaint and delightful
+historian, is moved to indignation and complains with much acrimony of “las
+malas obras que este corsario hizo a la Christiandad” (the evil deeds done
+to Christianity by this corsair). These were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">109</a></span> on so considerable a scale at
+this time that he had to devote to them far more space than he considered
+consonant with the dignity of history.</p>
+
+<p>But if all were going on well on the coast of Africa for the Crescent, such
+was far from being the case in the northern waters of the Mediterranean;
+for Andrea Doria, serving His Most Catholic Majesty at sea, had defeated
+the Turks at Patras and again in the Dardanelles, which unpleasant fact
+caused no little annoyance to Soliman the Magnificent. On land the Sultan
+was sweeping all before him; at sea this pestilent Genoese was dragging
+into servitude all the best mariners who sailed beneath the banner of the
+Prophet. There was wrath and there was fear at Constantinople, and the
+captains of the galleys which sailed from the Golden Horn felt that their
+heads and their bodies might at any moment part company&mdash;the Grand Turk was
+in an ill humour, which might at any moment call for the appeasement of
+sacrifice; so it was that men trembled.</p>
+
+<p>It was at this time, in 1533, that Soliman bethought himself of
+Kheyr-ed-Din. There was no better seaman, there was no fiercer fighter,
+there was no man whose name was so renowned throughout the length and
+breadth of the Mediterranean, than was that of the corsair king who was
+vassal to the Sublime Porte. Soliman was confronted with a new, and, to
+him, an almost mysterious thing, for the onward conquering step of the
+Moslem hosts was being checked by that sea-power so little understanded of
+the Turk, and the imperious will of the Sultan seemed powerless to prevent
+the disasters conjured from the deep.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/i_fp111.jpg" width="500" height="700" alt="SOLIMAN THE MAGNIFICENT." />
+<div class="caption">SOLIMAN THE MAGNIFICENT.</div>
+</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">110</a></span></p>
+<p>Soliman the Magnificent, who was not inaptly described by this title, for
+he was successful as both warrior and statesman, meditated both long and
+anxiously on the new development of affairs before he made up his mind to
+the step of calling to his assistance the corsair king. But he possessed
+that truest attribute of greatness in a ruler, the faculty of discerning
+the right man for any particular post. Brave and reckless fighters he
+possessed in super-abundance, but somehow&mdash;somehow&mdash;none of these fiery
+warriors had that habit of the sea which enabled them to make head against
+such a past-master in the craft of the seaman as Andrea Doria. The Genoese
+was chasing the Turkish galleys from off the face of the waters.
+Constantinople itself was a sea-surrounded city; it was necessary that a
+check should be administered to the arms of the Christians on this element.
+It is easy to imagine the preoccupations of the Turkish monarch. The despot
+rules by force, but he also holds his power by the address with which it is
+wielded, and he can by no means afford to disregard his personal popularity
+if he is to make the best use of his fighting men in such a turbulent epoch
+as was the first half of the sixteenth century. Soliman had the wit to know
+that he had no mariner who was in any way comparable to Doria; he was also
+aware that Kheyr-ed-Din had risen from nothing to his present position by
+his sheer ability as a seaman. It would appear, therefore, a very natural
+thing that he should invite the co-operation of the King of Algiers, but
+that with which he had to reckon was the furious jealousy that such an
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">111</a></span>appointment must inevitably arouse among his own subjects.</p>
+
+<p>It says much for the steadfast moral courage of the man that he eventually
+decided to take the risk; it says even more for the absolute correctness of
+his judgment that he never afterwards repented of the step which he then
+took.</p>
+
+<p>Once the mind of the Grand Turk was made up he hesitated no longer. The
+Capitan de Rodas, one of his personal guard, was sent to Barbarossa to
+request him to come to Constantinople and take command of the Ottoman
+fleet. There were no conditions attached; the honour was supreme.
+Barbarossa loaded the messenger with rich gifts, and overwhelmed him with
+honours. For Kheyr-ed-Din this was in a sense the apotheosis of his career.
+The Grand Turk, the head of the Mohammedan religion, had not only
+recognised his kingship, but had conferred on him an honour unprecedented,
+unlooked for, and one of the highest value to a man of such an insatiable
+ambition. Into the cool and crafty brain of this prince among schemers
+instantly sprang the thought that now at last his kingdom was secure, that
+in future the whole of the Barbary coast would own no other lord than he.</p>
+
+<p>Preparations for the voyage were immediately begun, and, as an earnest of
+the new importance which he derived from the advances of Soliman, the
+corsair actually sent presents to the King of France and proffered him his
+aid against his enemies. To such a pass as this had one of the most
+powerful monarchs in Christendom been reduced by the defection of Andrea
+Doria. Algiers<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">112</a></span> he left in the keeping of his son Hassan, and in charge of
+Hassan his kinsman Celebi Rabadan and a captain of the name of Agi. In the
+middle of August, 1533, Barbarossa left Algiers, his fleet consisting of
+seven galleys and eleven fustas. Sailing northward, he fell in with a fleet
+which he at first feared was that of Doria, but which, fortunately for him,
+was that of a corsair named Delizuff from Los Gelues. Courtesies were
+interchanged between the two leaders, and Barbarossa succeeded in
+persuading Delizuff to accompany him to Sicily, where it was possible they
+might fall in with Doria, and with their combined forces inflict defeat
+upon the Christian admiral. Delizuff was nothing loath to join forces with
+so noted a commander as Kheyr-ed-Din, as he had no desire to tackle Doria
+single-handed, and at the same time wished to extend the sphere of his
+plunderings, which had been cruelly restricted recently by the wholesome
+fear instilled into the Sea-wolves by the new admiral of Charles V.</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly, reinforced by the fifteen fustas and one galley of Delizuff,
+the Algerian fleet once more proceeded on its voyage. Although bound for
+Constantinople at the request of Soliman, at a time when it would have been
+thought that delay was not only dangerous but impolitic, and although the
+corsair was endeavouring to merge the pirate in the king who dealt on terms
+of equality with those whom he now regarded as his brother monarchs, still
+the old instinct of robbery was too strong to be resisted; the lust of gain
+and the call of adventure were still inherent in the man whose famous beard
+was now far more white<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">113</a></span> than red. Advancing age had not tamed the spirit nor
+weakened the frame of this leader among the Moslems.</p>
+
+<p>Sailing through the Straits of Bonifacio, they touched Monte Cristo, a
+small island where they found a slave who had formerly belonged to
+Delizuff. This man was base enough to betray his own native island of Biba
+into the hands of the corsairs, who sacked it thoroughly and carried off
+its inhabitants; they also captured thirteen large ships going to Sicily
+for wheat, and burnt them, making slaves of their crews. In the fight with
+these vessels Delizuff was killed. Shortly after this, some disagreement
+arising between the crews of the ships of Barbarossa and the men in
+Delizuff’s fleet, the Algerian commander seized a man out of one of
+Delizuff’s galleys and had him summarily shot. The death of Delizuff
+naturally caused some confusion in his command, and the high-handed
+proceeding of Kheyr-ed-Din caused great resentment, not unmixed with fear,
+as the terror inspired by the Barbarossas was a very real sentiment. Under
+their command no man knew when or at how short notice his life might not be
+required of him; but the glamour of success was ever around them, and they
+never, in consequence, lacked for followers. But the taking out and
+shooting of one of their comrades was too much for the pirates from the
+islands of Los Gelues, from whence Delizuff was in the habit of
+“operating.” In the words of Sandoval, “they were not used to such tyranny
+and cruel usage.” In consequence they concerted among themselves and one
+dark night sailed off, leaving Kheyr-ed-Din<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">114</a></span> to continue his voyage with his
+original following.</p>
+
+<p>That warrior, nothing disconcerted, pursued his way to the island of Zante,
+where he fell in with a Turkish “flota,” under the command of the Bashas
+Zay and Himeral. To these officers of the Grand Turk Barbarossa used most
+injurious language, bitterly reproaching them with not having sought out
+and destroyed Andrea Doria, which he declared they ought to and should have
+done. This is yet another instance of the extraordinary character of the
+man. These persons were the highest officers in the fleet of the Ottoman
+Empire; it was more than possible that they would be placed under the
+command of Barbarossa as soon as his new position as Admiralissimo was
+adjusted at Constantinople; and yet, in spite of these facts, the corsair
+had taken the very first opportunity which presented itself grossly to
+insult these men. It is true, as we shall see, that his injurious words
+came home to roost in the future; but arrogant, conquering, contemptuous,
+Barbarossa seems to have shouldered his way through life, fearing none and
+feared by all.</p>
+
+<p>The fact of his known cruelty accounts for much of the dread which he
+inspired, but it was something far more than this which caused the son of
+the Albanian renegado to ride roughshod as he did over all with whom he was
+brought into contact. Men felt, in dealing with Barbarossa, that here was a
+rock against which they might dash themselves in vain. In all his
+enterprises he spared not himself. He asked no man to do that which he was
+not prepared to do, but if any failed him there<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">115</a></span> was no mercy for that man;
+and, although in deference to modern susceptibility no mention is made of
+the tortures he so frequently caused to be inflicted on his victims, they
+were none the less a daily spectacle to those who lived under his rule. He
+possessed, it is true, the rough geniality of the fighting man, a certain
+“Hail fellow, well met!” manner in greeting old comrades, and yet none of
+these men there were who did not tremble in an agony of fear when the bushy
+brows were bent, when the famous red beard bristled in one of his
+uncontrollable furies. The real secret of his success must have been that,
+no matter how uncontrollable did his passions appear to be, the man was
+always really master of himself. Further, he possessed a marvellous insight
+as to where his own interests lay. He used as his tools the bodies and the
+minds of the men who were subject to him, and he carried his designs to an
+assured success by the aid of that penetrating, far-seeing mental power
+with which, above all else, he must have been gifted. He could drive men,
+he could lead them, he could invariably persuade when all else failed him.
+In this we have had an instance when he was chased from Algiers by the
+combined efforts of Venalcadi and Hassan, whom he had flogged; for no
+sooner did he meet with other corsairs than he persuaded them to take up
+his quarrel&mdash;which, it must be understood, was none of theirs&mdash;and to
+replace him on that precarious throne from which he had been so rudely
+thrust. We have already said that he was a man who never knew when he was
+beaten, and in the years which we have yet to chronicle this characteristic
+appears again and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">116</a></span> again; for age had no effect apparently, either mentally
+or physically, on this man of iron who had by this time reached the age of
+seventy-seven.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving the high officers of his future master, the Grand Turk, smarting
+under the opprobrium which he had heaped upon their heads, Barbarossa fared
+onward with his fleet to Salonica, capturing a Venetian galley on the
+voyage: from thence he made his way to the Dardanelles, where he anchored
+and remained several days, to make ready his fleet for the spectacular
+entry which he intended to make into Constantinople.</p>
+
+<p>The city on the Golden Horn was all agog for the arrival of Barbarossa; no
+matter what private opinions the inhabitants might have had concerning him,
+of which we shall hear more presently, they were none the less all curious
+to a degree to catch sight of this man, so famous in his evil supremacy on
+that distant shore of Northern Africa.</p>
+
+<p>Kheyr-ed-Din, among his other qualities, possessed in the highest degree
+that of a successful stage-manager; no pageant which he undertook was ever
+likely to fail from the want of the striking and the dramatic. It was now
+his business to impress the citizens of Constantinople with an idea of his
+greatness, and none knew better than he that it is the outward and visible
+sign which counts among the orientals, more perhaps than the inward and
+spiritual grace: he may also possibly have felt that he did not possess the
+latter to any overwhelming extent.</p>
+
+<p>Even before he left Algiers this entry to the chief city of the Ottoman
+Empire had been in the mind of Barbarossa, who had caused to be embarked<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">117</a></span> a
+quantity of flags and pennons for the decoration of his grim war-galleys
+when they should stream into the Golden Horn. There were also bands of
+music, which, it is to be presumed, utilised the delay in the Dardanelles
+to attain to something like “a concord of sweet sounds,” as the incidents
+of the voyage from Algiers, so far, had hardly been conducive to much time
+to spare for band-practice. The galleys were scrubbed and gaily painted;
+round the ship of Kheyr-ed-Din ran a broad streak of gold on the outer
+planking to denote the presence of a King of Algiers, and at last all was
+ready. The fleet weighed anchor, and, with banners flying and bands
+playing, entered the harbour. The shores were black with spectators; even
+the Sultan himself deigned to look forth on the coming of the man from whom
+he expected such great things.</p>
+
+<p>Ceremonial was the order of the day. Soliman the Magnificent was too wise a
+man not to know what was being said in his capital that day; it was his
+part to accustom the minds of men to the fact that he, Soliman, had chosen
+Barbarossa to command his fleet, and that there could be no looking back.
+The decree had been signed, the invitation had been sent, the man had
+arrived, there could be no possible retreat from the situation. The anchors
+splashed into the placid waters close to the shore, and the ships were soon
+so surrounded by boats as to be almost unapproachable; then came official
+persons from the Sultan with greetings to the famous seaman; also came
+Bashas and officers (“con carga de guerra,” says Sandoval), to offer a
+welcome and to stare in undisguised curiosity at the man chosen by their
+sovereign to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">118</a></span> make head against the famous Andrea Doria. This preliminary
+courtesy completed, there came the next act in the drama, which consisted
+in the immemorial custom of the East in the offering of gifts from
+Barbarossa to the Sultan, from the vassal to his suzerain. The Janissaries,
+splendid in scarlet and gold, tall above the ordinary stature of man,
+bristling with weapons inlaid in gold and silver, cleared the common vulgar
+from the streets approaching the palace of the Sultan; they formed the
+spearhead of the procession clearing a way for the King of Algiers, who,
+mounted on a splendid bay stallion, the gift of the Sultan on his arrival,
+headed the captives who bore the gifts. Of these the exact number is not
+stated, but the procession was headed by two hundred women and girls, each
+of whom carried in her hand a gift of gold or silver; one hundred camels
+were loaded with silks and golden ornaments, and other “curious riches”
+(“con otras mil cosas de que hizo ostentacion”), says Sandoval. There were
+also lions and other animals, brocades and rich garments.</p>
+
+<p>All of this reads no doubt somewhat too like the tales in the “Arabian
+Nights”; but we have to remember that, if you have led a long and eminently
+successful life as a robber, you have necessarily accumulated a store of
+riches. In the case of Barbarossa he had begun in extreme youth, and was
+now an old man; he had been quite in the wholesale way as a thief, and now
+desired to pay a good price for that which he coveted, namely, the post of
+Admiralissimo to the Grand Turk. It may be objected that he had already
+been offered and had already accepted the post;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">119</a></span> this is quite true, but
+there were certain conventions to be fulfilled on the side of the recipient
+of the bounty of the Sultan quite understood on both sides, although no
+word had passed on the subject. In those days the man who desired the
+favour of an Eastern potentate never dreamed of approaching him
+empty-handed, and the more liberal that he was in the matter of gifts the
+greater was the favour with which he was regarded. Therefore the principle
+acted upon by Kheyr-ed-Din on this occasion was both wise and politic; that
+is to say, he placed certain of his riches in a perfectly sound investment,
+certain to yield him an admirable percentage, not only in added personal
+prestige, but also in the placing under his command of such a force as he
+had never before commanded, with unlimited opportunities of preying on the
+detested Christian on a far larger scale than it had ever been his good
+fortune to do before.</p>
+
+<p>The Sultan Soliman was not called “the Magnificent” without just cause; his
+life was splendid in its social prodigality, as it was in war and in
+statesmanship; yet even he was somewhat astonished at the amazing richness
+of the gifts which were laid at his feet by a man whom he knew to be, in
+spite of the kingly title which he had assumed, merely a rover of the sea.
+Therefore, in spite of himself, he was impressed. To him, it is true, in
+his splendour and magnificence, the intrinsic value of that which was
+brought to him by Barbarossa mattered but little; but the fact that the
+corsair was in a position to do so opened the eyes of the Sultan to the
+manner of man with whom he had to deal. Hitherto he had but known<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">120</a></span> of him by
+hearsay, as the one Moslem seaman who was likely to be capable of making a
+stand against the terrible Doria, who had now become the plague of the
+Sultan’s existence. He now knew that the man who disposed of such
+incredible riches must be, no matter what his moral character, a man who
+stood a head and shoulders over any commander in the Ottoman fleet sailing
+out of the Golden Horn.</p>
+
+<p>Both materially and psychologically this man somewhat bewildered the
+despot: and his <i>alter ego</i>, the Grand Vizier, happening to be away on a
+mission to Aleppo, Soliman had no one with whom to confer in a strictly
+confidential manner; for, after the manner of autocrats, he had but few
+familiars, in fact it may be said none at all save the statesman mentioned.
+His reception of the corsair lacked, however, nothing in cordiality. He
+inquired after the incidents of the voyage, interested himself graciously
+in all that he was told concerning Africa and the conflicting claims of
+Christian and Moslem in that region, and was generally courteous to his
+distinguished visitor. He placed at his disposal a palace and attendants on
+a scale commensurate with the state of a reigning sovereign, and sent his
+most distinguished generals to confer with Kheyr-ed-Din. The latter, for
+the first time in his life, was thoroughly out of his element. His had been
+the life of the seaman and the soldier to begin with, and of later years
+that of a rude and unquestioned despot on a savage coast, surrounded by
+myrmidons to whom his voice had been as the voice of a god. Never had it
+been his lot before to dwell within the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">121</a></span> limits of such a comparative
+civilisation as that which obtained in Constantinople at this date; never
+before had it been necessary for him to restrain that naturally fiery and
+impetuous temper of his and to speak all men fairly.</p>
+
+<p>The strain must have been great, the effort enormous, and he knew, as he
+was bound to know, that his coming had unloosed jealousies and
+heart-searchings innumerable, with which he could not deal in the usual
+drastic fashion common to him. The winter was coming on, which was, as we
+have before remarked, very much of a close season both for the pirate and
+the honest merchant seaman. In consequence there was not very much chance
+against the foes of Soliman for the present. When that opportunity offered
+he promised himself that the courtiers and the soldiers of the Grand Turk
+would very soon discover that the fame of Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa was no
+empty matter, and that there existed no seaman in all the Ottoman dominions
+with whom they could compare the “African pirate,” as he had reason to
+believe that he was scornfully called behind his back.</p>
+
+<p>A weaker man would have been daunted by his surroundings, by the manifestly
+unfriendly atmosphere in which he lived, and by the dread that perhaps,
+after all, Soliman might go back upon his word. There were no lack of
+counsellors, he knew very well, who would advise the Sultan to his undoing,
+if that monarch gave them the opportunity; and, as time passed, so his
+anxiety grew. Soliman also could not have felt particularly comfortable at
+this juncture, with a sullen spirit possessing his men “con carga de
+guerra,” bitterly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">122</a></span> resenting the step which he had taken, and the
+appointment which he had made. For the present, however, he made no sign,
+treating Kheyr-ed-Din with distinguished courtesy, but making no reference
+to the future. Soliman was revolving the problem in his acute mind,
+doubtless weighing the unpopularity of the step which he had taken against
+the services likely to be rendered to him by his strange guest. And thus
+several weeks passed at Constantinople, probably amongst the most trying of
+all those in the unusually prolonged life of Kheyr-ed-Din.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">123</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER VIII<br /><br />
+
+<small>THE RAID ON THE COAST OF ITALY; JULIA GONZAGA</small></h2>
+
+<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">The</span> Grand Turk had spoken, the appointment had been made, Barbarossa had
+arrived; but though autocrats can cause their mandate to be obeyed, they
+cannot constrain the inward workings of the minds of men. In spite of the
+awe in which Soliman the Magnificent was held, there were murmurs of
+discontent in the capital of Islam. The Sultan had been advised to make
+Barbarossa his Admiralissimo by his Grand Vizier Ibrahim, who was, as we
+have said, his <i>alter ego</i>. This great man had risen from the humblest of
+all positions, that of a slave, to the giddy eminence to which he had now
+attained by the sheer strength of his intellect and personality. The Grand
+Vizier it was who had pointed out to his master that which was lacking in
+the Ottoman navy: brave men and desperate fighters he had in plenty, but
+the seaman who cleared the Golden Horn and made his way through the
+archipelago into the open sea beyond had forces with which to contend
+against which mere valour was but of small avail. Out there, somewhere
+behind the blue line of the horizon, did Andrea Doria lie in wait; and if
+the Moslem<span class="pagenum2"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">124</a></span> seaman should escape the clutches of the admiral of the
+Christian Emperor, were there not those others, the Knights of Malta, who,
+under the leadership of Villiers de L’lsle Adam, swept the tideless sea in
+an unceasing and relentless hostility to every nef, fusta, and galley which
+flew the flag of the Prophet?</p>
+
+<p>It had come to a pass when the Ottoman fighting man was by no means anxious
+to go to sea. He was still as brave as those marvellous fanatics of seven
+centuries before, who, in the name of God and of His Prophet Mahomet, had
+swept all opposition aside from the path of Islam, had conquered and
+proselytised in a manner never paralleled in the world before. At the call
+of the Padishah, for the honour of the Prophet, the sons of Islam were as
+ready to march and to fight as had ever been the warriors of the earlier
+Caliphs. But they had ever been soldiers; the habit of the sea was not
+theirs, and they found that, time after time, such sea-enterprises as they
+did undertake were shattered by the genius of Doria, or broken into
+fragments by the reckless, calculating assaults of the knights. And so it
+came about that there was but little heart in the navy of the Padishah, and
+those who served therein had but slight confidence in those by whom they
+were led. To use a metaphor from the cricket-field, it was time “to stop
+the rot” by sending in a really strong player. He was not to be found
+within the confines of orthodox Islam, and must be imported from outside.</p>
+
+<p>The man had been found; could he be forced on an unwilling and discontented
+populace?</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">125</a></span></p>
+<p>Who, it was asked in Constantinople, was this man who had been
+called in to command the ships of the Ottomans at sea? They answered their
+own question, and said that he was a lawless man, a corsair: were there not
+good seamen and valiant men-at-arms like the Bashas Zay and Himeral, who
+should be preferred before him; this man who had come from the ends of the
+earth, and of whom nobody knew anything good? Again, could he be trusted?
+Something of the history of the Barbarossas had penetrated to the capital
+of Turkey, and it was known that scrupulous adherence to their engagements
+had not always characterised the brothers: who should say that he might not
+carry off the galleys of the Grand Turk on some marauding expedition
+designed for his own aggrandisement? There was yet more to be urged against
+him: not only was he infamous in character, but he was no true Mussulman,
+for had not his father been a mere renegado, and&mdash;worst of all&mdash;had not his
+mother been a Christian woman?</p>
+
+<p>It was thus that the talk ran in that blazing autumn in Constantinople.
+Naturally there were plenty of persons who carried reports to Kheyr-ed-Din,
+and that astute individual soon made up his mind as to the most
+advantageous course for him to pursue. With the full concurrence of the
+Sultan, he left Constantinople and journeyed to Aleppo to see Ibrahim. The
+latter was both cunning and tenacious. Removed from the capital, the tide
+of gossip and discontent only reached him at second-hand; but he was not to
+be deterred by popular clamour even had he been in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">126</a></span> the midst of it. None
+knew better than he who and what was Barbarossa; in fact, it may be
+confidently asserted that none in Constantinople had anything like the same
+knowledge of this man and all that concerned him. Ibrahim had not named
+Barbarossa to his sovereign without weighing all the pros and cons of the
+matter, and that which was now happening in the capital had been fully
+anticipated by him. It pleased the Grand Vizier very much that Kheyr-ed-Din
+should take this long journey to see him; not from any ridiculous idea that
+this was an act of homage due to the dignity of his position&mdash;Ibrahim was
+far too great a man for such pettiness&mdash;but because it enabled him to see
+for himself what manner of man was this redoubtable pirate on whom he was
+relying to defeat the enemies of the Sublime Porte at sea. The corsair must
+have made the most favourable impression possible on the Grand Vizier, as
+that statesman wrote to Soliman:</p>
+<blockquote>
+<p>“We have put our hands on a veritable man of the sea. Name him without
+hesitation Basha, Member of the Divan, Captain-General of the Fleet.”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>The Grand Turk had no intention of going back upon the appointment already
+made, but he was none the less pleased to receive from his Vizier so strong
+an endorsement of his policy; and now the time had come to stop the mouths
+of the murmurers and scandal-mongers of Constantinople. Accordingly he
+formally recalled Barbarossa from Aleppo,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">127</a></span> gave him, with his own hand, a
+sword and a royal banner, and invested him with plenary power over all the
+ports of his kingdoms, over all the islands owning his jurisdiction,
+command of all ships, vessels, and galleys, and of all soldiers, sailors,
+and slaves therein. The die was cast, the erstwhile corsair, the son of the
+renegado of Mitylene and his Christian wife was henceforward the supreme
+head of the Ottoman fleet.</p>
+
+<p>The following description of the famous corsair may be found interesting at
+this juncture.</p>
+
+<p>Barbarossa was at this time seventy-seven years of age. Courageous and
+prudent, he was as far-seeing in war as he was subtle in peace. A tireless
+worker, he was, above all things, constant in reverse of fortune, for no
+difficulties dismayed him, no dangers had power to daunt his spirit. His
+ruddy skin, his bushy eyebrows, his famous red beard, now plentifully
+streaked with white, his square, powerful frame, somewhat inclined to
+stoutness, above all, his penetrating and piercing eyes, gave to his aspect
+a certain terror before which men trembled and women shrank appalled.</p>
+
+<p>All this harmonised well with his reputation as a chief so resolute, so
+pitiless, that it was the boast of his followers that his very name shouted
+in battle put to flight the Christian vessels. His smile was fine and
+malicious, his speech facile, revealing beneath the rude exterior of the
+corsair the subtle man of affairs, who, from nothing, had made himself King
+of Algiers, and was now, by the invitation of Soliman the Magnificent,
+Admiralissimo of the Ottoman navy.</p>
+
+<p>Well may Jurien de la Gravière say that “in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">128</a></span> sixteenth century even the
+pirates were great men.”</p>
+
+<p>It has been stated that in speech Barbarossa was facile. He was not only
+so, but he possessed a power of addressing such a man as Soliman in terms
+which, while delicately flattering that mighty monarch, gave him also a
+lead which he might follow in the future disposition of such power as he
+possessed at sea.</p>
+
+<p>On his return from Aleppo Kheyr-ed-Din was received in audience by the
+Sultan. We must be pardoned if we give the long speech which he addressed
+to his new master in its entirety; and we have to remember that the man who
+made it was now an old man who, all his life, had been absolutely free and
+untrammelled, owing allegiance to no one, following out his own caprices,
+and sweeping out of his path any whom he found sufficiently daring as to
+disagree with him. That this ruthless despot should have been able so to
+change the whole style and manner of his address so late in life is only
+one proof the more of the marvellous gifts which he possessed.</p>
+
+<p>It was in the following words that the corsair addressed the Sultan:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>“Dread Sovereign, fortune itself has made it a law to second you in all
+your enterprises because that you are always ready to declare war upon
+the enemies of Mahomet the Prophet of God, on whom be peace. You have
+extended the limits of your vast possessions, you have vanquished and
+slain the King of Hungary, you have humiliated Charles V., this Emperor
+with whom the Christians dare hold you in comparison. These have been
+the recompenses<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">129</a></span> received by you for the pure flame with which
+your zeal for the religion of Mahomet has ever burned.</p>
+
+<p>“But these successes and these triumphs are not capable of contenting
+that thirst for glory with which your being is animated, and I am humbly
+desirous of indicating to you the means of culling fresh laurels.
+Experience has taught me the way, and I can assert, without fear of
+being accused of vanity, that in this matter I can be of great
+assistance to your Majesty.</p>
+
+<p>“That which fortune has done for me in the past that will it continue to
+do for me in the future. Age has not enfeebled me, continual exercise
+has but rendered me stronger; I can therefore promise to you the most
+ready service both by land and sea. The desire which has always been
+mine to persecute the Christians caused me to conceive the idea of
+serving in your sea-army.</p>
+
+<p>“If Heaven is favourable to my vows, the Spaniards will soon be chased
+from Africa; the Carthaginians, the Moors, will soon be your very
+submissive subjects; Sardinia, Corsica, Sicily, will obey your will. As
+for Italy, it will soon be desolated by famine when I attack it in
+formidable force, without fearing that the Christian Princes will come
+to its aid.</p>
+
+<p>“Mahomet II., your illustrious grandfather, formed the project of
+conquering this country; he would have succeeded had he not been carried
+off by death. If I counsel you, dread Sovereign, that you should carry
+war into Europe and Africa, it is not that I desire your arms should be
+turned back in Asia from against the Persians, the ancient enemies of
+the Ottomans. I require but your sea-army, which is no use against the
+Persians. While you shall be conquering Asia I shall be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">130</a></span>
+subduing Africa. The first enterprise which I shall undertake will be
+against Muley Hassan, the King of Tunis; he has all the vices and
+possesses not one single virtue. He is a man of sordid avarice, of
+unexampled cruelty; he has rendered himself odious to the entire human
+race.</p>
+
+<p>“He had twenty-two brothers, all of whom he has caused to be murdered.
+That which is a common failing among tyrants is his: he dare not place
+himself at the head of his troops. He prefers to endure the outrages
+which he suffers at the hands of the Moors to taking up arms and
+inflicting upon them a salutary vengeance. He had the baseness to enter
+into an alliance with the Spaniards, and to favour their conquests in
+Africa. It will be all the easier for me to exterminate this wild beast
+because I have with me his brother, who prayed me to save him from the
+cruelty of Muley Hassan.</p>
+
+<p>“When I besiege Tunis I shall present him to the inhabitants, who love
+him as much as they hate Muley Hassan. They will open their gates to me,
+and I shall gain the town without the loss of a single man: it will be
+then you who will be master. On my way thither I will do what harm I can
+to the Christians; I will endeavour to defeat Andrea Doria, who is my
+personal enemy and my rival in glory: should I succeed in defeating him
+your Majesty will possess the empire of the sea. Be then persuaded,
+great Prince, by me, and believe that he who is master of the sea will
+very shortly become master on land.”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>It is somewhat difficult to fathom the reasons which induced Barbarossa to
+treat Soliman to his sanctimonious diatribe concerning the King of Tunis;
+coming, as it did, from a pirate, it was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">131</a></span> merely ludicrous, and could not
+for one instant have deceived the remarkably shrewd person to whom it was
+addressed. The corsair stated the facts correctly, but the reasons which
+led to an Eastern autocrat disposing of his family in this manner were so
+obvious at the time that, if Soliman felt any emotion at all concerning the
+event, it was probably one of admiration! Regarded from the practical,
+apart from the sentimental side, what the proposition amounted to was that
+Barbarossa should attack a king with whom the Grand Turk had no sort of
+quarrel, and that, once his territory had been reft from him, that it
+should be handed over to the ruler of Constantinople for the greater glory
+of the Sublime Porte. What mental reservations there were on the part of
+the corsair we are not told, but had Soliman known him better he would have
+been aware that never had Barbarossa pulled any chestnuts from the fire of
+life which were not intended for his own eating; and that it was extremely
+unlikely, at his time of life, that he was now going to alter the habits of
+his long and strenuous career.</p>
+
+<p>There was one thing, however, that Kheyr-ed-Din was not; he was no bragger
+or boaster, and, whatever may have been his mental reservations in his
+interview with the Sultan, that which he stated he would do, that he did.
+And now the time had come when the grim old Sea-wolf had done with intrigue
+and the unaccustomed atmosphere of a Court and went back to his native
+element, the sea.</p>
+
+<p>Soliman, it must be said to his credit, was no man to deal in
+half-measures, and when once he had given his trust he gave it
+whole-heartedly,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">132</a></span> generously. In consequence he gave Barbarossa eighty
+galleys, eight hundred Janissaries, eight thousand Turkish soldiers, and
+eight hundred thousand ducats for expenses (some three hundred thousand
+pounds sterling of our money). All the necessary preparations were carried
+out under the orders of Barbarossa, who was given a roving commission to do
+what seemed best to him for the advancement of the glory of his master and
+the discomfiture of his Christian foes. The commission which he now
+received was practically that which had been given by Charles V. to Doria,
+the most flattering with which any man can be entrusted, as in his hands
+were left issues of peace and war usually only vested in the sovereign.</p>
+
+<p>All through the early summer of 1534 the dockyards and the arsenals of
+Constantinople hummed with the note of preparation; Ibrahim had returned
+from Aleppo and threw himself, heart and soul, into these activities, which
+meant the sailing of the Ottoman fleet under the command of “that veritable
+man of the sea,” Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa. Stilled were the murmurs of the
+year before; the corsair, invested with plenary powers by the Sultan
+himself, was now in a position to make his authority felt; added to this,
+the more sensible of the malcontents had been won round by the Grand Vizier
+to the view that as, so far, the Ottoman navy had been conspicuously
+unsuccessful at sea, it was just as well to make use of the most capable
+Moslem seaman upon whom they could lay their hands. As to his moral
+character, that they could afford to discount, and as to the question of
+his faithfulness or the reverse, it was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">133</a></span> pointed out with irresistible logic
+by Ibrahim, that never before had the Sea-wolf had such glorious
+opportunities of plunder as now, when he could count ten ships for every
+one that had followed in his wake before.</p>
+
+<p>It was in July 1534 that the Ottoman fleet left Constantinople, and
+Kheyr-ed-Din began operations by a descent upon Reggio, which he sacked. On
+August 1st he arrived at the Pharos of Messina, where he burnt some
+Christian ships and captured their crews; then he worked north from Reggio
+to Naples, ravaging the coast and depopulating the whole littoral, burning
+villages, destroying ships, enslaving people. In this expedition he is said
+to have captured eleven thousand Christian slaves. There is perhaps nothing
+more amazing in the whole history of this epoch than the number of the
+slaves captured by the corsairs, and the damnable cruelties exercised upon
+them; these were, of course returned by the Christians with interest
+whenever possible. As an instance of the treatment to which the slaves were
+subjected it is only necessary to mention the course taken by Barbarossa
+when he left Algiers in the previous year. There were at that time seven
+thousand Christian captives in his power; immediately before starting he
+had the entire number paraded before him, and, under the pretext of having
+discovered a plot, which in no circumstances could possibly have existed,
+owing to the supervision of the slaves, he caused twenty of them to be
+beheaded on the spot in order to strike terror into the remainder during
+his absence.</p>
+
+<p>Back to the Golden Horn streamed ship after<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">134</a></span> ship laden with plunder and
+with slaves. “The veritable man of the sea” was proving the correctness of
+the choice of the Sultan, the acumen of the Grand Vizier who had
+recommended his appointment. Barbarossa was determined to leave nothing
+undone to prove to Soliman that his choice had indeed been a worthy one
+when he had selected him as admiral of his fleet: also he had in his mind
+those others who spoke slightingly of him as “the African pirate”; they
+should know as well as their master of what this pirate was capable.
+Northward the devastating host of Barbarossa took its way; the fair shores
+of Italy smoked to heaven as the torches of the corsairs fired the
+villages. Blood and agony, torture and despair, followed ever on the heels
+of the Sea-wolves of the Mediterranean. And now a fresh pack had been
+loosed, as it was, of course, in enormously increased strength that
+Barbarossa returned to the scene of so many of his former triumphs.</p>
+
+<p>Plunder and slaves were all very well in their way, and acceptable enough
+on the shores of the Golden Horn; but Kheyr-ed-Din had a pet project in
+view on this particular cruise, which was to capture Julia Gonzaga and to
+present her to Soliman for his harem. The lady destined by him for this
+pleasant fate was reported to be the loveliest woman in Europe, a fitting
+gift for such an one as the Grand Turk. The fame of her surpassing
+loveliness had reached even the corsairs. She was the widow of Vespasian
+Colonna, Duchess of Trajetto, and Countess of Fundi; she had now been a
+widow since 1528, and lived at Fundi, some ninety miles north-east of
+Naples. Barbarossa laid<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">135</a></span> his plans with his accustomed acuteness, and it was
+only through an accident that they miscarried.</p>
+
+<p>There was one undeniable advantage in the system which swept off into
+slavery the whole of the inhabitants of a country-side, and that was, if at
+any time you required a guide at any particular point on the coast, he was
+sure to be forthcoming from one of the vessels in the fleet. Now Barbarossa
+did not exactly know where Julia Gonzaga was to be found, so he set his
+captains to work to discover the necessary slave. This was soon
+accomplished, and there was really no occasion for a slave on this
+occasion, as a renegado of Naples knew the castle in which Julia Gonzaga
+was residing at the time, and readily agreed to act as guide to the
+expedition sent to accomplish her capture. Kheyr-ed-Din had made a sudden
+dash along the coast with some of the swiftest of his galleys for the
+purposes of this capture. In consequence the people in Naples and the
+neighbourhood were not even aware that the piratical squadron was on the
+coast before they anchored, as near as it was practicable to do, to the
+residence of the Duchess of Trajetto. The fleet actually arrived after
+dark, having kept out to sea and out of sight during the day.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as the anchors were down a party of two thousand picked men were
+landed and marched silently and with all expedition to the castle of Fundi.
+The escape of the Duchess was really providential. She had already gone to
+bed, and the fierce marauders were actually within the grounds of the
+castle before her distracted people became aware of their presence. But
+fortunately<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">136</a></span> some among them kept their heads, and it also so happened that
+her bed-chamber was the opposite side of the castle to that by which the
+pirates approached. A horse was brought round under the window of the room,
+and, in her night-dress with nothing but a shawl wrapped around her, was
+Julia Gonzaga lowered out of her window on to the back of her horse. As she
+galloped for dear life down the avenue of her home she heard the shrieks of
+her miserable household murdered in cold blood by the furious pirates who
+had thus been balked of their prey.</p>
+
+<p>Dire was the vengeance taken by the corsairs. They sacked Fundi and burned
+the town; they killed every man on whom they could lay their hands, and
+carried off the women and girls to the fleet.</p>
+
+<p>Kheyr-ed-Din was furious with anger and disappointment. “What is the value
+of all this trash?” he demanded, with a thundering oath, of the commander
+of the unsuccessful raiders, surveying as he spoke the miserable, shivering
+women and girls. “I sent you out to bring back a pearl without price, and
+you return with these cattle.”</p>
+
+<p>Thus balked of his prey, Barbarossa swung his fleet round to the southward
+and westward and sailed for Sardinia, where, from the Straits of Bonifacio
+to Cape Spartivento, he left no house standing that would burn, or man
+alive who was not swept in as a captive. The descent of the corsairs in
+force, such as Kheyr-ed-Din now had at his disposal, was one of the most
+awful calamities for a country that it is possible to imagine. When
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">137</a></span>Sardinia had ceased to yield up either booty or slaves the fleet sailed for
+Tunis, where it arrived before Bizerta on August 15th. The arrival of the
+corsairs was totally unexpected, and caused the greatest consternation. The
+story which Barbarossa had told to Sultan Soliman concerning the reigning
+King Muley Hassan was correct in every detail, and there is no doubt that
+he was a bloody and cruel tyrant of the worst description.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore when the wily Barbarossa sent on shore and informed the sheiks
+and ulemas of the place that he had come in the name of the head of the
+Mohammedan religion to free them from this monster by whom they were
+oppressed, and that he intended to place on the throne the brother of Muley
+Hassan, Raschid, who had miraculously escaped from the fate which had
+overtaken all the other members of his house, the townspeople were inclined
+to listen to his advances and to admire the picture which he drew of the
+peace and prosperity which would accrue to them should Raschid, and not
+Muley Hassan, be on the throne of their country. That which he inferred in
+all his dealings with these people was that he had Raschid with him ready
+to step into the shoes of his unpopular brother as soon as the latter
+should be deposed by a justly indignant populace. The fact of the matter
+was that Kheyr-ed-Din had taken the fugitive prince with him to
+Constantinople, thinking to make use of him, and that, when he was sailing,
+Soliman had absolutely forbidden him to remove Raschid from his capital.</p>
+
+<p>Completely deceived, the townspeople allowed the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">138</a></span> landing of eight hundred
+Janissaries. The tyrant, who was, as Barbarossa had told the Sultan, a
+craven coward, waited for no further demonstration of force, but
+incontinently fled into the interior with such valuables as he could carry.
+As soon as this was reported to Barbarossa he landed in force and entered
+the town, and then the townspeople noticed that the soldiers were all
+shouting for Soliman and for Barbarossa. They then demanded that Raschid
+should be produced according to promise, but naturally he was not
+forthcoming. Those who had acclaimed the soldiers of Soliman as liberators
+now began to arm against them, and they very shortly discovered, from some
+Tunisians who had come in the fleet from Constantinople, that Raschid had
+been left behind in that city.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">139</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER IX<br /><br />
+
+<small>BARCELONA, MAY 1535; THE GATHERING OF THE CHRISTIAN HOSTS</small></h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Some</span> idea of the terror inspired by the actions of the Sea-wolves at this
+date is contained in the following extract from “The Golden Age of the
+Renaissance,” by Lanciani:</p>
+<blockquote>
+<p>“The Bastione del Belvedere, which towers in frowning greatness at the
+north-east end of the Vatican Garden and commands the approach to the
+Borgo from the upper-end valley of the Tiber, was begun by Antonio de
+Sangullo the younger, and finished by Michel Angelo after the death of
+Antonio, which took place on September 30th, 1546. This great piece of
+military engineering must not be considered by itself, but as a part of
+a great scheme of defence conceived by Paul III, to protect the city
+against a hostile invasion from the sea. The Pope could not forget that,
+in August 1534, the fleet of infidels commanded by Barbarossa had cast
+anchor at the mouth of the Tiber to renew its supply of water, and that
+if its leader had thought fit they could have stormed, sacked, and
+plundered the city, and carried off the Pope himself into slavery
+without any possibility of defence on the Christian side. This point has
+not been taken into due consideration by modern writers; the
+fortifications of Rome, designed or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">140</a></span> begun or finished at the time of
+Paul III., have nothing to do with the sack of 1527, with the Connétable
+de Bourbon, or with the Emperor Charles V. All the bastions, that of the
+Belvedere excepted, point towards the sea-coast, which was perpetually
+harried and terrified by Turkish or Barbary pirates. These would appear
+with lightning-like rapidity in more than one place at a time, and carry
+off as many unfortunate men, women, and children as they could
+collect.... To prevent the recurrence of such disasters the sea-coast
+was lined with watch-towers, the guns of which could warn the peasants
+of the approach of suspicious vessels.”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>That Paul III. had good warrant for the precautions which he designed to
+take is not only instanced by the fact of Barbarossa anchoring in the mouth
+of the Tiber on the occasion of the raid with which we are at present
+concerned, but from what had occurred to his predecessor on the Papal
+throne in 1516. Pope Leo, son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, was accustomed to
+leave Rome in the autumn for hunting, and fishing in the sea, of which
+latter pastime he was particularly fond. One of his favourite resorts was
+the castle of Magliana, five miles from Rome, on the banks of the Tiber. On
+September 18th, 1516, he left Rome and proceeded to Civita Lavinia, on the
+Laurentian coast. Here he was waited for by the corsair Curtogali, who,
+with fifteen ships off the coast and an ambush on shore, was ready to carry
+him off. Curtogali is supposed to have derived his information as to the
+movements of the Pope from some traitor about the Papal Court who desired
+the downfall of “the fatal House of Medici.”</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">141</a></span></p>
+<p>Some one, however, warned the Pope, who fled, accompanied by his retinue,
+at a headlong gallop to Rome, never drawing bridle until he reached the
+safe seclusion of the Vatican.</p>
+
+<p>We must now return, however, to that eagle who fluttered so sorely the
+dovecotes, both Christian and Moslem, and whose loudly proclaimed faith in
+the Prophet never permitted his religion to stand inconveniently in the way
+of his material advancement in the world. The soldiers and sailors of the
+corsair entered Bizerta shouting for Soliman and Barbarossa. There was no
+mention of Raschid, that Prince of the Hafsit dynasty, whom Kheyr-ed-Din
+had declared to the townspeople he had come to restore to the throne of his
+ancestors. Too late the town sprang to arms, under a chief named Abdahar,
+and in the first instance accomplished a considerable success. Barbarossa’s
+men were unprepared, and a number of them were slain. Driven into a bastion
+of the walls, a party of the corsairs were desperately defending
+themselves, when one Baetio, a Spanish renegado, discovered that a cannon
+behind them pointing seawards was loaded. He succeeded, with the assistance
+of others, in slewing it round and discharged it at close quarters into the
+packed masses of the enemy. This caused a frightful demoralisation to set
+in; the corsairs rallied and soon swept all before them. The massacre
+turned from the one side to the other, and it is said that no less than
+three thousand of the unfortunate townspeople were slain. Barbarossa only
+called off his men when they were wearied out by the slaughter.</p>
+
+<p>Kheyr-ed-Din now graciously accepted the submission<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">142</a></span> of the townsfolk; that
+is to say, such of them as were left, and took charge of the entire kingdom
+as governor for the Sultan of Turkey. He sent out ambassadors to the
+neighbouring Arab and Berber chieftains of the hinterland, repaired
+fortifications, appointed magistrates&mdash;all ostensibly in the name of that
+phantom prince whom the Tunisians were destined never to see, and who never
+returned to his native country.</p>
+
+<p>King of Algiers, <i>de facto</i> King of Tunis, Admiralissimo to Soliman the
+Magnificent, his name a portent in Christendom, his fame reaching from
+Spartel to Tunis, and from the shores of France to the foothills of the
+Atlas, Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa was at the height of his power. Never before
+had a corsair risen to such eminence, never again was there destined to be
+so magnificent a sea-robber. Thus it was that the year 1535 opened gloomily
+for all those Powers whose coasts were washed by the tideless sea. Italy,
+torn and bleeding, her strong men slain, her fairest matrons and maids
+carried off into the most odious captivity, was lamenting the terrible fate
+to which she had been exposed by the raids of the pirate admiral. In
+Catalonia, in Genoa, in Venice, along what is now known as the Riviera, men
+trembled and women wept; for who could say that it might not be upon them
+that the next thunderbolt might fall? In Venice taxation was raised to the
+breaking strain to provide galleys wherewith to combat the foe, while the
+Genoese fortified their coasts and poured out money like water upon arms,
+armaments, and ammunition. Says Sandoval:</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">143</a></span></p>
+<p>“Desde el Estrecho de Meçina hasta el de Gibraltar ninguno de la parte
+de Europa pudiera tomer comida ni sueño seguro de lo que viviera en las
+riberas del mar.” (From the Straits of Messina to those of Gibraltar
+none living in Europe on the shores of the sea were able to eat in peace
+or to sleep with any sense of security.)</p>
+
+<p>The Emperor Charles V. was roused to action, stung by the intolerable
+humiliation of the position into which he had been placed by a mere
+corsair.</p>
+
+<p>King of Sicily, Naples, and Spain, as well as Emperor of Germany, in any
+direction he might turn he would find a trail of blood and fire over the
+fair face of his dominions in the Mediterranean. Although it might gall his
+pride to admit that his enemy was formidable, Charles was too wise a man,
+too experienced a warrior to underrate his foe. He repaired the
+fortifications of Naples and Sicily at great cost: he wrote letters to the
+Pope, to Andrea Doria, to the Viceroys of Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia, to
+the Marquis de Vasto, and Antonio de Leyva to collect all the arms and
+munitions necessary for the attack on Barbarossa. He sent orders to Don
+Luis Hurtado de Mendoza, Marquis de Mondejar, Captain-General of the
+Kingdom of Granada, to collect money and to have men ready in the ports of
+Andalusia. He gave orders for eight thousand German soldiers to hold
+themselves in readiness; these were to be joined by the veterans of Coron
+and Naples, which body counted four thousand more; in Italy he also raised
+another eight thousand men. All this was done under the seal of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">144</a></span> secrecy,
+which the Emperor most peremptorily ordered was to be observed.</p>
+
+<p>But news travelled in the first half of the sixteenth century, although
+newspapers, war correspondents, and telegraphs were not; when all the
+feudatories of the greatest king in Christendom were busy it was impossible
+for the matter to remain hidden. Even had it been within the range of
+possibility to conceal what was going on there was one circumstance which
+would have rendered all effort to this end nugatory. Charles had invited
+Francis of France to join in this holy war against the scourge of
+Christendom: not only did Francis refuse to join, but he had the incredible
+baseness to betray the scheme to Barbarossa. It would be pleasanter to
+think that some mistake had been made in this matter, but unfortunately it
+is beyond dispute, as the facts have been placed on record by Sandoval,
+whose history, it must be remembered, was published in 1614. In this matter
+he is quite precise, as he states that a “Clerigo Francese,” one Monsieur
+de Floreta, was sent with despatches from Francis to Barbarossa at Tunis,
+and that this treacherous envoy from Christendom gave the corsair king all
+the available information that he had been able to collect before starting.</p>
+
+<p>This was typical of that “Golden Age of the Renaissance” in which it took
+place; when real devotion to all arts, sciences, and amenities of a higher
+civilisation went hand in hand with crime of the vilest and treachery of
+the basest description. Well might Barbarossa, and such as he, laugh to
+scorn the pretension that his Christian enemies<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">145</a></span> were one whit better than
+were they, when they could point to the fact that, to serve a private
+revenge, a great Christian king could betray his co-religionists to their
+Moslem foes. Shamelessly did the Sea-wolves seek their prey wherever it was
+to be found; their methods were villanous and seemingly without excuse,
+but, after all, there was some colour, some shadow of right in what they
+did, for their argument was that they were merely getting back from
+Christendom that which had been reft from them in the near past in the
+kingdoms of Còrdova and Granada. But who shall find excuse for the
+Christian kings, governors, and princes at this epoch? They sought their
+prey no less ravenously than did the pirates, and with just about the same
+amount of justification: witness the sacking of Rome by Charles V. in 1527,
+and the unexampled act of treachery just recorded of Francis of France.</p>
+
+<p>Kheyr-ed-Din had lived all his turbulent life among wars and rumours of
+wars: the head of the tiller, the hilt of the scimitar, the butt of the
+arquebus, had been in his hand since early youth; bloodshed and strife were
+the atmosphere in which he lived and breathed. Desperate adventures by land
+and sea had been his ever since he could remember; there was no hazard that
+he had not run, no peril which he had not dared. But now even he, the
+veteran of far more than one hundred fights, was grave and preoccupied when
+he considered the greatness, the imminence of his peril. The “Clerigo
+Francese” had put him in possession of the fact that Carlos Quinto was
+exerting all his strength for the combat which was to come; and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">146</a></span> Barbarossa
+was far too old a fighter, far too wise a warrior, to underrate by one
+soldier or by one galley the forces that the Emperor could put into line
+against him; from far and near his foes were gathering for his destruction,
+and he did not deceive himself in the least as to what the fate of his
+followers and himself would be should the Christian hosts be victorious.</p>
+
+<p>But, nevertheless, such an emergency as this found the man at his best:
+ready to take fortune at the flood when she smiled upon him, he was perhaps
+at his very greatest in adversity; and when all around him trembled and
+paid one of their infrequent visits to the Mosque to implore the aid of the
+Prophet, the veteran corsair was coolly reviewing the situation, seeking a
+way to weather the tempest before which lesser men shrank appalled,
+declaring that the end had come. The storm was coming in a squall of such
+violence as even he had never before experienced, but, thanks to his friend
+the King of France, he had been forewarned. He sent at once to his master,
+Soliman the Magnificent, at Constantinople, to impart to him the direful
+intelligence; then the bagnios were thrown open, and, under pitiless lash
+and scourge, the Christian captives toiled from dawn till dark to repair
+the fortifications of Tunis. Silent and unapproachable, conferring with
+none, the grim old Sea-wolf sat in his palace overlooking the bay and
+considered the question of whether he should give battle by land or sea
+when the time came. If it were possible, he came to the conclusion that it
+should be the latter; he had been evicted from his kingdom on land once
+before, but he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">147</a></span> knew that in the open ocean few cared to face Barbarossa,
+and he might fall on Doria first and the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem
+second if matters turned out favourably for him. In any case, he must
+summon all the aid that was possible.</p>
+
+<p>East and west flew the galleys of Kheyr-ed-Din, scudding before the wind if
+that were favourable, or churning the surface of the sea with straining,
+strenuous oars should the wind be foul or a calm prevail.</p>
+
+<p>It was an appeal for aid to the Moslem corsairs from Algiers, from Tlemcen,
+from Oran, from Los Gelues (or Jerbah), and from all the countless islands
+of the Archipelago, where they lurked to seize their prey&mdash;Tunis, which
+flew the Crescent flag of the Prophet, was in danger&mdash;let them rally
+against the grandson of the man who expelled the Moors from Spain.</p>
+
+<p>Grim and sinister, the corsairs came flocking to the standard of
+Barbarossa. Well they knew that, should he fall, it was but a matter of
+time for them all to be chased from off the face of the waters. Of cohesion
+there was but little among them, and, in spite of the bond of a common
+religion and a common hatred of the Christian, they were swayed far more by
+a lust for plunder than by such considerations as these. In times of
+imminent danger, however, men naturally crave for a leader, and in
+piratical circles all was now subordinated to the instinct of
+self-preservation.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, in Christendom their great enemy was maturing his plans. To the
+Marquis de Cañete, Viceroy and Captain-General of the Kingdom of Navarre,
+Charles wrote, confiding to his care the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">148</a></span> charge of the Empress, with
+instructions that her orders were to be implicitly obeyed during his
+absence. Having done this he journeyed to Barcelona, at which city he
+arrived on April 8th, 1535. Here he was immediately joined by the armada of
+Portugal&mdash;twenty caravelas raised, armed, and paid for by the King, Don
+Juan of Portugal. This fleet was commanded by the Infante Don Luis, brother
+to the Empress, and carried on board the vessels of which it was composed a
+whole host of nobles and gentlemen of quality, who had come to fight under
+the approving eyes of the Cæsar of the modern world.</p>
+
+<p>On May 1st came Andrea Doria with twenty-two galleys, and those already in
+the harbour crowded the sides of their vessels to watch the arrival of the
+famous Genoese seaman.</p>
+
+<p>Four abreast in stately procession the great galleys swept into the
+harbour. With that love of “spectacle” so inherent in the southern nature,
+everything was done to ensure the military pomp and circumstance of the
+coming of the first sea-commander of the Emperor. At first with furious
+haste, and then slowing down to make the approach more stately, the fleet
+of Andrea moved on. From mast and yard and jackstaff of the galleys of the
+admiral floated twenty-four great banners of silk and gold embroidered with
+the arms of the Emperor, with those of Spain, of Genoa, and of the Dorias,
+Princes of Oneglia. The principal standard bore upon it a crucifix,
+broidered at the sides with pictures of Saint John and the Virgin Mary;
+another represented the Virgin with her Son in her arms. With the sound of
+trumpets,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">149</a></span> clarions, chirimias, and atambours the fleet moved to within a
+short distance of the Portuguese and saluted them; then, as the thunder of
+the guns ceased and the light wind blew away the smoke, they circled round
+and stopped abreast of the royal vessel on which Charles had embarked. Once
+again the guns barked a royal salute, while knights and nobles, seamen and
+soldiers hailed their Emperor with frenzied shouts of “Imperio! Imperio!”</p>
+
+<p>Then Andrea Doria stepped into his boat and was rowed across the shining
+water to visit the Emperor, who received him, we are told, “with great
+honour and many tokens of love.”</p>
+
+<p>On May 12th arrived Don Alvaro de Bazan, General of the Galleys of Spain.
+This magnificent caballero made an entrance in much the same state and
+circumstance as did Doria, and during the remainder of the stay of the
+armada in Barcelona there was much banqueting and feasting and drinking of
+healths to the Emperor and confusion to the Moslem foe. It was once again
+as it had been in those days in which Ferdinand and Isabella had descended
+upon the doomed city of Granada, and had built, in full sight of its
+defenders, the town which they called Santa Fe (or the Holy Faith) as an
+earnest that they would never leave until that symbol of their faith had
+triumphed. To witness this victory the best blood of Europe had flocked,
+and now, forty-three years later, when the audacious Moslem had raised his
+head once more, the descendant of the warriors who had followed “Los Reyes
+Católicos” rallied to that standard which Carlos Quinto, their grandson,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">150</a></span>had set up on the shores of Catalonia. Sandoval devotes pages of his work
+to the names, styles, and titles of the noble caballeros who joined the
+army for the destruction of Barbarossa.</p>
+
+<p>On May 16th Charles embarked in the <i>Galera Capitana</i> of Andrea Doria,
+accompanied by many grandees and caballeros of the Court, as well as
+illustrious foreigners like Prince Luis of Portugal, and held a review of
+the armada. There was much expenditure of powder in salutes to the Emperor,
+and all vied with one another in shouting themselves hoarse in honour of
+the great monarch who deigned to lead in person the hosts of Christendom
+against the infidel, who had defied his might and dared to offer him
+battle. On May 28th the Emperor travelled some leagues inland, starting
+before dawn, to visit the Monastery of Nuestra Señora de Monferrato, in
+which was kept a singularly holy image of the Virgin. Here he confessed and
+received the sacrament, and then returned to Barcelona.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/i_fp151.jpg" width="500" height="605" alt="THE EMPEROR CHARLES V." />
+<div class="caption">THE EMPEROR CHARLES V.</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>On May 30th he embarked in the Royal Galley, the <i>Galera Bastarda</i>, which
+had been prepared for him by Andrea Doria, his Captain-General of the
+Galleys. This vessel seems to have somewhat resembled the barge of
+Cleopatra in the magnificence of its appointments, as its interior was
+gilded, and it was fitted up with all the luxury that could be devised at
+this period. Silken carpets and golden drinking-vessels, stores of the most
+delicate food and of the rarest wines, were embarked to mitigate, as far as
+possible, the inevitable hardships of a sea-passage, and there were not
+lacking instruments of music wherewith to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">151</a></span> beguile the Cæesar with concord
+of sweet sounds. Perhaps that which strikes the modern seaman most in this
+recital of all the useless matters with which the vessels of the great were
+burdened at this period is the extraordinary number of flags and banners
+with which they went to sea.</p>
+
+<p>The catalogue of those in the <i>Galera Bastarda</i> makes one rather wonder how
+there was room for anything else of more practical usefulness when it came
+to fighting. There were in this galley twenty-four yellow damask banners,
+inscribed with the imperial arms; a pennon at the main of crimson taffeta
+of immense length and breadth, with a golden crucifix embroidered thereon.
+Two similar ones bore shields with the arms of the Emperor, and there was a
+huge flag of white damask sewn with representations of keys, communion
+chalices, and the cross of Saint Andrew, in crimson, with a Latin
+inscription. There were yet two others of scarlet damask “of the same
+grandeur,” embroidered round the edge with “Plus Ultra,” the device of
+Spain. Among a further varied assortment was one which bore the
+inscription: “Send, O God, thine angel to guard him in all his goings.”</p>
+
+<p>The fleet under the command of Andrea Doria numbered sixty-two galleys and
+one hundred and fifty nefs. There were also a miscellaneous assortment of
+small craft, known in those days as “brigantines,” employed in the carriage
+of stores and ammunition. We have seen, on a former occasion, what terrible
+losses attended one of these armadas when really bad weather was
+encountered, and therefore it is not surprising that, on his second
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">152</a></span>venture, Charles should have selected the finest season of the year for his
+descent upon the coast of Africa. They were brave men, these Mediterranean
+seamen, and the risks which they ran in their strangely formed, unseaworthy
+craft were of course much enhanced when they were loaded to the gunwale
+with stores, provisions, horses, banners, and last, but by no means least,
+a mob of seasick soldiery.</p>
+
+<p>Into this armada were crowded twenty-five thousand infantry and six hundred
+lancers with their horses.</p>
+
+<p>Cagliari, in Sardinia, was the last rendezvous of the expedition, and here
+it arrived in the early part of June, where a week was spent in making the
+final preparations; and at last, on June 10th, a start was made for the
+coast of Africa.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile in Tunis Kheyr-ed-Din was working double tides. He was kept well
+informed by his spies of all that was going on, and his preparations for
+defence were as adequate as they could be made; the corsairs, as we have
+said, had come flocking in at his call. He had withdrawn as many of his
+fighting men from Algiers as he deemed prudent. Knowing that the attack was
+directed against him personally, he had not much fear that it would be
+diverted at the last moment. It would have been true strategy on the part
+of Charles to have done this, but the Emperor considered that his honour
+required that the attack should be an absolutely direct one, and so Algiers
+was left on one side, to the ultimate upsetting of his plans. We say this
+because, although in this case he was to take Tunis and to restore to the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">153</a></span>throne of that country the puppet King Muley Hassan, and although he was to
+rescue some twenty thousand Christian captives, he did not capture
+Barbarossa, who was to live for many years to continue and to carry on his
+unceasing war against the Christians.</p>
+
+<p>There was no artifice left untried by the despot of Tunis. To the African
+princes, Moors as well as Arabs and Berbers, did Kheyr-ed-Din send
+embassies. For these he chose cunning men well versed in the means of
+exciting the furious passions of these primitive and ferocious peoples, and
+it was their mission to represent Muley Hassan as an infamous apostate who
+was prompted by ambition and revenge, not only to become the vassal of a
+Christian king, but to conspire with him to extirpate the Mohammedan faith.
+The subtle policy inflamed these ignorant and bigoted Mohammedans to the
+point of madness, and from far and near they threw in their lot with the
+man who represented himself to be the rallying-point for all those in
+Africa who desired not only to preserve their holy religion but also their
+personal liberty. From Tripoli and Jerba, from Bougie and Bona, from the
+shores of Shott-el-Jerid, through all the dim hinterland that stretches
+from thence north-westwards to Algiers, the tribesmen came flocking in. The
+wild riders of the desert had been rounded up, and it is said that no less
+than twenty thousand horsemen, in addition to an innumerable crowd of
+infantry, responded to the call of the master schemer who was but using
+these guileless savages to further his own personal ends. The land-pirates
+of the desert, those stormy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">154</a></span> petrels whose lives only differed from those of
+the followers of Kheyr-ed-Din in that they carried on their depredations on
+the land instead of on the sea, camped in their thousands in the environs
+of Tunis and boasted of the deeds which they were about to perform.
+Kheyr-ed-Din stimulated their enthusiasm with presents of the most costly
+description. Ever wise and politic, he knew when it was necessary to pay
+royally, and on this occasion surpassed himself in prodigality. For all
+this he himself cherished no illusions; he had the measure of the fighting
+men of his foes at his fingers’ ends, and the most that he expected from
+these wild irregulars was that they might, perchance, stay an onset and
+worry the imperial army with dashing cavalry raids. But that they should
+hold their own with the incomparable infantry of Spain, or make head
+against the stolid valour of the German men-at-arms, was not contemplated
+by Barbarossa. In his Janissaries, in his hard-bitten fighting men from the
+galleys, he could expect much; but there were but some few thousands of
+these, while the disciplined host against which he was called upon to
+combat was at the least twenty-five thousand&mdash;the flower of the imperial
+forces. The situation was unique, one on which the world had never looked
+before&mdash;all the might of Christendom going up against one who, no matter by
+what titles he might choose to describe himself, was no more than a vulgar
+robber. He was, however, a robber on such a scale as had never before been
+equalled&mdash;a force which remained unsubdued during the whole of his
+extraordinary and unusually protracted career.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">155</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER X<br /><br />
+
+<small>THE FALL OF TUNIS AND THE FLIGHT OF BARBAROSSA</small></h2>
+
+<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">Autocracy</span> in the sixteenth century was a very real and concrete fact. The
+orders of great kings were, as a rule, implicitly obeyed, and, when they
+were not, there was likely to be trouble of the worst description for those
+by whom they had been contravened. It is this that causes us to regard as
+most extraordinary one of the happenings in the armada which sailed from
+Barcelona for the coast of Africa. A most peremptory order was issued that
+no women, no boys, no one, in fact, save fighting men of approved worth,
+should find a place in the ships. Says Sandoval, “No se consintiesen en la
+armada mugeres ni muchachos ni otra gente inutil, mas de aquellos solos que
+eran para pelear.” (There were not allowed in the armada women, boys, or
+useless persons, but only those who were capable of fighting.) It appears,
+however, that the women paid no sort of attention to this ordinance, and
+the historian gravely relates that “it was no use turning them out of the
+ships as, as soon as you sent them down one side they returned and climbed
+up the other,” It seems almost incredible, but is none the less a fact,
+that<span class="pagenum2"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">156</a></span> four thousand women accompanied the expedition and landed at Tunis.
+The autocracy of the Emperor apparently stopped short where women were
+concerned, or else he was indifferent whether they came or not.</p>
+
+<p>On June 16th the armada arrived before Tunis, and the army disembarked to
+attack the fortress known as La Goletta. Into this strong place of arms
+Barbarossa had sent some six thousand of his best men, mostly Turkish
+soldiers, under the command of Sinan-Reis, a renegado Jew, and one of the
+fiercest and most faithful of his followers. To the camp of the Emperor
+came the fugitive King, Muley Hassan, in whose cause the armada had
+nominally been assembled&mdash;how nominal this was we shall see later by the
+light of the treaty concluded between him and the Emperor. Charles had
+complete command of the sea for the time being, and, in consequence, the
+ex-Sultan was amazed at the profusion and luxury which reigned in the camp
+of the Christians; and he concluded that these indeed must be the lords of
+the earth, as luxury and profusion was hardly the note of such courts as
+then existed in the northern portion of the African continent.</p>
+
+<p>Although the army was landed, and with it artillery for the bombardment of
+the Goletta, there remained, of course, “the army of the sea,” under the
+orders of the redoubtable Doria; and while the Marquis del Guasto, who was
+in supreme command on shore, prepared to batter down the defences of the
+fortress on the land side, the attack was carried on simultaneously from
+the sea by the galleys. The actual presence of the Emperor<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">157</a></span> stimulated the
+various nationalities under his eyes to vie with one another in deeds of
+daring, and they contended among themselves for the posts of the most
+honour and danger. The attacks of the African horsemen were brushed on one
+side by the disciplined valour of the Andalusian cavalry, while the great
+guns thundered from land and sea against the walls of the doomed Goletta.
+Sinan and his Ottoman soldiers performed prodigies in the way of repairing
+breaches in the walls as soon as they were made; but Kheyr-ed-Din from the
+city watched the progress of the bombardment gloomily, as he saw and knew
+that the fall of the Goletta was but a matter of days. All this time he was
+far from idle; sortie after sortie did the dauntless old warrior lead in
+person against those engaged in the task of bombardment. Time and again he
+heartened the Arab and Berber levies to attack, but the sallies were
+repulsed, and the lightly armed Africans were driven like chaff before the
+wind when they swooped down on the lines of investment.</p>
+
+<p>But the time came at last when Sinan and his gallant Turks could hold the
+place no longer; the walls were breached in six or seven places, and
+Spaniards, Germans, and Italians made a simultaneous attack. Sinan fighting
+to the last, evacuated the fortress, and retired actually through the water
+across a shallow part of the bay to the city, with the remnant of his once
+magnificent force; and now Barbarossa knew that the end was come, and that
+Tunis must pass from his hands to those of the Christian Emperor. It was
+not only the fall of the Goletta that troubled him, but the equally
+important<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">158</a></span> fact that by this the fleet of the enemy was enabled to lay hands
+upon his own fleet, consisting of eighty-seven galleys and galliots,
+together with his arsenal, and no less than three hundred cannon, mostly
+brass guns of excellent construction, mounted on the walls and planted on
+the ramparts. The surprising amount of this artillery gives a measure of
+the strength of the fortress and the efforts it must have cost the
+besiegers with such a man as Sinan in command.</p>
+
+<p>That the end was near was known to all, and not the least of their
+embarrassments was the presence within the city walls of some twenty
+thousand Christian captives. The city was large, the defences were spread
+out over a great area, it was abundantly evident that it could not be held,
+and, in consequence, Barbarossa summoned his principal officers and
+communicated to them his decision.</p>
+
+<p>“We will not remain here to be slain like rats in a trap by the accursed
+of God by whom we are attacked. No, rather will we perish, sword in
+hand, as our fathers have done before us; but first there is a danger
+against which we have to guard. Within these walls are twenty thousand
+prisoners who will rise against us at the first opportunity; let us,
+then, first put them to death, and then we will leave this place and
+show our enemies how the true Moslems can die.”</p>
+
+<p>Even those hardened men of blood shrank before the horror which was
+proposed to them by their chief, and Sinan-Reis took up his parable and
+spoke the minds of all when he said that follow him to the death they would
+cheerfully do, but stain themselves<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">159</a></span> with so awful a massacre was to place
+themselves outside the pale of humanity for ever. It was seldom that they
+crossed his mood, and Barbarossa listened in frowning silence, accepting as
+a partial excuse that time pressed, and to put to death twenty thousand
+persons would occupy longer time than they could spare. On the morrow a
+battle was fought which, as Kheyr-ed-Din anticipated, ended in the complete
+rout of the Moslems. Everywhere the Corsair King was in the forefront of
+the battle, and it is said that he disposed of fifty thousand men on this
+occasion; but this is probably an exaggeration, and in any case the bulk of
+his forces consisted of those African levies which, in a pitched battle
+against European troops, were practically useless owing to their want of
+discipline and cohesion. Very soon the hosts of the Emperor had prevailed,
+and the Arabs and Berbers had fled back into the wilderness from whence
+they had come and whither it was useless to pursue. Barbarossa, at the head
+of such of his corsairs and Turks as were left&mdash;a number estimated at some
+three to four thousand&mdash;burst through all opposition and also escaped,
+travelling so rapidly that pursuit was abandoned almost at once. And then
+the event happened which the Moslem leader had foreseen: some of the
+Christian captives managed to get free from their shackles within the city
+and released others; they overpowered those left to guard them, and threw
+open the gates to the soldiery of the Emperor.</p>
+
+<p>Then occurred one of those awful horrors of which this time was so
+prolific: before Charles or his generals could prevent them the soldiery
+had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">160</a></span> swept into the town and commenced to slay, to plunder, and to ravish,
+without distinction of age, sex, or nationality. Ostensibly these Christian
+warriors had come to rescue the inhabitants of Tunis from the oppression of
+Barbarossa, but while that chieftain was in full flight across the
+mountains to Bona, those by whom he had been defeated entered the town,
+which they had come to save, and perpetrated a massacre so awful that it is
+said that no less than thirty thousand people perished. It is a terrible
+blot on the escutcheon of the Emperor; as, although he and his generals
+deprecated the massacre&mdash;and indeed to do them justice tried to prevent
+it&mdash;this is no excuse for allowing their men to get out of hand, when they
+must have been aware of the inevitable result: as the Moslem corsairs at
+their worst were equalled in their iniquities by the European soldiery,
+once the strong hand of discipline had relaxed its grip.</p>
+
+<p>It may have been that the Emperor was displeased with this excess of zeal
+on the part of his army; but, if it were so, the chroniclers are silent
+concerning the matter, being far too busy singing the praises of the Cæsar
+to think of such a trifle as the massacre of most of the persons whom he
+had come to deliver. The wretched inhabitants of Tunis must have found it
+somewhat difficult to distinguish between the corsair, who killed three
+thousand of their fellow townsmen, and the Christian Emperor, who had
+massacred ten times that number. Charles, however, reaped great glory from
+an expedition which had but one good result, which was, that he succeeded
+in rescuing twenty thousand captives; these men, very naturally, on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">161</a></span> their
+return to their homes in every corner of Europe, magnified the wonderful
+deeds of that prince who had been instrumental in securing their release,
+and the massacre of the Tunisians was conveniently ignored. Charles had
+defeated Barbarossa and expelled him from Tunis; he had now displayed his
+magnanimity and altruism by the terms which he imposed on the miserable
+Muley Hassan. As far as that individual was concerned, he certainly
+deserved nothing better; but, as a <i>finale</i> to an expedition blessed by the
+Pope, and looked upon almost in the light of a modern crusade, it certainly
+displays a remarkably keen eye for the main chance.</p>
+
+<p>The preamble of the treaty runs as follows:</p>
+<blockquote>
+<p>“That the King of Tunis, recognising that he had been expelled from his
+kingdom by Barbarossa, and that the Emperor in person, with a powerful
+armada, had come and expelled this tyrant, taking from him the fortress
+and town of Tunis and restoring them to the King Muley Hassan: that this
+monarch is most grateful for so magnificent a service, and in
+recognition thereof contracts to liberate all Christian captives who may
+be in his realm, to give them a free passage to their homes, and from
+this time forward binds himself to extend to all Christians kind and
+generous treatment.”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>There can be no exception taken to this, which was the least which the
+Emperor had the right to expect; but this was only, as we have said, the
+preamble.</p>
+
+<p>Muley Hassan was further made to contract to hold his kingdom in fee to the
+Spanish Crown, to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">162</a></span> covenant that no corsair should use his ports for any
+purpose whatsoever, that the Emperor should not only retain the Goletta but
+that all other fortified seaports should be put into his hands, that the
+King of Tunis should in future pay twelve thousand crowns per annum ‘for
+the subsistence of the Spanish garrison of the Goletta, that he should
+enter into no alliance with the enemies of the Emperor, and should annually
+present, as an acknowledgment of his vassalage, six Moorish horses and six
+hawks.</p>
+
+<p>Muley Hassan had exchanged the comparatively dignified position of a prince
+in exile, who has been expropriated by the strong hand, for that of the
+puppet of one of the greatest enemies of his religion. Neither he nor his
+people were one whit the better for the change, and, as far as vassalage
+was concerned, they would in all probability, in the state of religious
+feeling at the time, have sooner been subordinate to the Moslem corsair
+than to the Christian King.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/i_fp163.jpg" width="500" height="773" alt="MULEY HASSAN, KING OF TUNIS." />
+<div class="caption">MULEY HASSAN, KING OF TUNIS.</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Barbarossa, as we have seen, frankly acknowledged that he sought his own
+advantage, and, when he possessed himself of Tunis, made no pretence of any
+altruistic motive. The Emperor, on the other hand, having come in the guise
+of a Christian reformer, simply stole the kingdom from Barbarossa and kept
+it for himself. Incidentally he released the captives, which enabled him to
+pose once more as the great champion of the oppressed. But, however this
+may have been, there is no doubt that he had performed a notable feat of
+arms, and even the most mighty monarch then in Europe felt uplifted by the
+fact that he had defeated the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">163</a></span> greatest of the corsairs: accordingly, on
+July 25th Charles wrote to England, France, Portugal, Milan, Florence,
+Venice, Genoa, Siena, Mantua, and Naples: “De manera que en pocas dias se
+supo in toda Europa su buena fortuna.” (So it was in a few days the whole
+of Europe was acquainted with his good fortune.)</p>
+
+<p>Martin Nunez, “Caballero de Toledo,” was sent on a special embassy to the
+Pope to acquaint the Pontiff at first hand of all that happened, and the
+success which had attended the arms of the Emperor, and also to thank his
+Holiness for the assistance which he had rendered by sending the Papal
+galleys. Jorge de Melo, a Portuguese caballero, was sent to his own country
+with despatches, and other nobles and high officials were despatched to the
+Emperor’s Viceroys in the various parts of his dominions. In the long
+circular letter which Charles addressed to all these potentates&mdash;and which
+is reproduced in its entirety by Sandoval&mdash;he says “that the Christian
+captives found in Tunis amounted to something like eighteen to twenty
+thousand, that Barbarossa had escaped with some five thousand Turks,
+corsairs, and renegadoes, of which three thousand were on horseback and two
+thousand afoot; that, as they suffered from great scarcity of provisions,
+and the almost total lack of water, many were falling by the way, and many
+others were being murdered by their quondam allies for such goods as they
+possessed, or for the value of their arms and clothing.”</p>
+
+<p>We must now return to Kheyr-ed-Din. What the sufferings of that chieftain
+and the remnant of his gallant army must have been in their flight to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">164</a></span> Bona
+they alone knew. It was the height of summer, and burning tracks of desert
+and rugged mountain passes had to be surmounted; naturally they could have
+carried but very little food, and water they had to find on the way. In
+addition to this, as we have seen in the despatch of Charles, the tribesmen
+turned against them, cutting off stragglers and murdering and plundering as
+opportunity offered. Barbarossa himself was an old man, so old that it
+seems nothing short of a miracle that he should have survived the hardships
+of this awful march. Not only did he do this, but apparently arrived at
+Bona in condition to continue his journey by sea at once, had he cared to
+do so. He had lost his newly acquired kingdom, he had lost nearly his
+entire fleet, his arsenal and stores were in the hands of his enemies; if
+ever a man was completely crushed it was he on this memorable occasion. As
+we have said before, however, it was in times of the greatest stress when
+the indomitable character of this man rose to meet the occasion, and, while
+his foes were congratulating one another that at last there was an end of
+the scourge of the Mediterranean and the bugbear of Christendom, the hunted
+fugitive was merely preparing himself for fresh acts of aggression.</p>
+
+<p>The real fact of the matter was that he was above all and before all a
+seaman. The defeat of Kheyr-ed-Din meant merely the transference of his
+malign activities from one sphere to another&mdash;from the sea to the land, or
+from the land to the sea. King he called himself, and king <i>de facto</i> he
+was both in Algiers and Tunis, reigning with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">165</a></span> unexampled cruelty, a
+prototype of those other corsair kings by whom he was succeeded. But the
+real source of his power lay, not in stone walls and fortifications, nor in
+ill-trained levies of African tribes, but in his own genius for command at
+sea, and the manner in which he was able to inspire with his own dauntless
+and desperate spirit those hardy mariners who followed in his train, the
+descendants of the “Moriscoes” who hailed from the ancient Moorish kingdoms
+of Cordoba and Granada.</p>
+
+<p>Thus it was in the present instance. He had been unable to withstand the
+might of Cæsar and his legions, but Tunis was not the whole of Northern
+Africa, nor had quite all his eggs been kept in that one basket. He had
+kept fifteen galleys in reserve at Bona, and, in consequence, on his
+arrival there, was able to embark at once. This he did, and hardly had he
+done so when there appeared upon the scene fifteen galleys commanded by
+Adan Centurion and John Doria. Kheyr-ed-Din had had enough of fighting just
+for the present; his men and he were wearied out by the hardships of their
+flight, and accordingly he drew up his galleys under the fort at Bona and
+awaited an attack, should the enemy care to deliver one. But Adan
+Centurion’s heart failed him; to cut out the old Sea-wolf from under one of
+his own batteries was more than he had the stomach for, and he accordingly
+sailed away. “Fue sin duda la perdida grande” (this no doubt was a great
+pity), is the comment of Sandoval, who goes on to say that, had the Genoese
+been the men that they had been aforetime, this would never have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">166</a></span> been, and
+that they would have gone in and burnt or disabled the galleys of the
+corsair, slain their leader, or driven him ashore. Hot on the tracks of
+Adan Centurion and his nephew John came the veteran Andrea Doria with forty
+galleys, but he was too late, and the bird had flown; had it been he who
+had arrived in the first instance, then it is more than probable that
+matters would have turned out differently, and Kheyr-ed-Din had then and
+there terminated his career. It is true that Andrea possessed himself of
+Bona, and the Corsair King was shorn of yet another of his land-stations,
+but for the time he had cut himself adrift from the land, and had gone back
+to that element in which he was particularly at home.</p>
+
+<p>Doria left Bona in the charge of Alvar Gomez and a company of Spanish
+troops and then sailed away, if possible to find and capture Barbarossa,
+thus to set the seal of completeness on the victory which had been won by
+his master the Emperor. Another stronghold of the corsairs was now in most
+competent hands, as Alvar Gomez Zagal was one of the most renowned
+caballeros of Spain, son of that Pero Lopez de Horusco on whom the Moors
+themselves had bestowed the title of “Al Zagal,” or “The Valiant,” on
+account of his extraordinary bravery.</p>
+
+<p>On August 17th Charles re-embarked his army and evacuated the country,
+leaving, however, one thousand Spanish veterans, under the command of
+Bernard de Mendoza, in charge of the Goletta, as a permanent memorial of
+the expedition, and as a guarantee that the wretched Muley Hassan should
+fully comply with the treaty obligations<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">167</a></span> which had been imposed upon him.
+It is true that Barbarossa had not been captured, but his city had been
+taken, his fleet had been destroyed, and he himself was now a fugitive,
+unable any further to trouble the peace of Christendom or the dignity of
+the Emperor by whom he had been so soundly chastised. In consequence the
+Cæsar departed well pleased with himself and with those who had been acting
+under his orders, to whom he distributed orders and titles, as a memento of
+the occasion upon which they had finally broken up the power of those by
+whom his peace had so long been troubled.</p>
+
+<p>One of the difficulties in dealing with the career of Kheyr-ed-Din
+Barbarossa is that, in times when he was unsuccessful, or when, as on the
+present occasion, he had received a severe setback, it is next to
+impossible to find out what he was doing or where exactly he was preparing
+for his next coup. In this case, in particular, the old-time historians
+were thanking God that the Emperor had rid the world of a particularly
+pestilent knave, and ceased to trouble themselves much about him until he
+forced himself once more upon their notice. Had Charles at this time
+recognised the greatness of the man whom he had just so signally defeated
+he might have changed the course of history. Had he, instead of sailing
+back to Europe, content with that which he had accomplished in Tunis,
+pushed his attack home on Algiers, he might have made himself master of the
+whole of Northern Africa, as, in the disorganised state in which the
+corsairs now found themselves, they could certainly have offered no
+effective resistance.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">168</a></span> But to the Emperor these rovers of the sea presented
+themselves merely in the light of robbers. Robbers, it is true, on a
+somewhat large scale, but still not persons of sufficient importance to
+detain him from the infinitely more pressing affairs which awaited him on
+the opposite shores of the Mediterranean Sea.</p>
+
+<p>In addition to the fifteen galleys which Kheyr-ed-Din picked up at Bona he
+had in reserve at Algiers some fifty others. Escaping the attention of Adan
+Centurion and John Doria, and the infinitely more formidable squadron of
+Andrea, he headed once more for Algiers, and for a time seems to have
+remained quiet, no doubt recuperating from the fatigues, disappointments,
+and physical hardships which he had so recently undergone. He was
+apparently undisturbed during the winter by his Christian enemies, and was
+in consequence able to think out his future plans of campaign and to
+collect and put heart into his scattered followers, who, in ones and twos,
+were gradually, such of them as were left, finding their way back to the
+headquarters of piracy and its indomitable chieftain.</p>
+
+<p>That cool calculator of the chances of life knew that this must be so; the
+power of the corsairs generally had received the worst blow it had ever
+encountered since the dispossessed Moriscoes had taken to the sea for a
+living; those of them who remained alive were without ships&mdash;that is to
+say, without their only means of making a livelihood&mdash;and that they should
+gravitate towards Algiers and its master was as nearly a certainty as
+anything human could be. And, as was anticipated<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">169</a></span> by the chief, so it came
+to pass. Into the city straggled broken, starving, sullen men who had lost
+their all, for whom the future held nothing but misery and despair unless
+they could get to sea once more.</p>
+
+<p>It was on occasions such as this that the intellectual eminence of
+Barbarossa was so marked. Rough and cruel as he was, he possessed
+nevertheless a magnetic power over the minds of men, on which, when it so
+pleased him, he could play with the most extraordinary effect. And now,
+when the rank and file of the corsairs were ragged, hungry, and smarting
+under defeat, he dealt with them tenderly and graciously; and the sum of
+his teaching was to the effect that they had but to follow him once more
+and all the evils from which they were suffering would be presently
+remedied. So it came about that men who, before the defeat, had commanded
+ships of their own, were glad enough to become units on board the galleys
+of Kheyr-ed-Din, animated by the pleasing hope that soon again, under the
+leadership of this man, they might regain all, nay more, than they had
+lost. It must be remembered that Barbarossa argued from sound premises when
+he held out such hopes as these to the desperate remnant of the corsairs in
+Algiers in that sad winter of 1535. He was the greatest of them all, and
+they, as well as he, knew this to be a fact: if they had lost their all in
+the past battles, they had been fighting in a common cause to preserve
+their own lives and their liberty to plunder the Christian at sea. And now
+there was work and there was bread to eat for those who once again would
+throw<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">170</a></span> in their lot with their old leader; and, although it may be said that
+these men had no alternative, still they threw themselves with heartiness
+into that which the master mind decreed should be their work, and this was
+none other than the preparation of the galleys for another campaign against
+the Christian.</p>
+
+<p>“What matter, comrades?” said the veteran on one occasion when he was
+superintending the fitting out of the galleys. “These dogs have gone back
+from whence they came, and they have left that creature, Muley Hassan, to
+do their will in Tunis. It is true that there is Mendoza and his thousand
+Spaniards in the Goletta, but did not Martin de Vargas hold the Peñon here?
+And where is De Vargas, and in whose hands is the Peñon now? We know from
+whence the garrisons of Spain draw their supplies, and believe me that
+there will be hungry men in the Goletta in this coming year. Once we get to
+sea again, there will be more than enough for every good man who believes
+in the Prophet, and who has the sense to follow Barbarossa. For every ducat
+that you have lost see, in the coming year, if you do not gain ten; the
+Christians are off their guard now, and they think that they have done with
+me because they have captured Tunis.” He laughed his great, jovial laugh.
+“By the beard of the Prophet&mdash;upon whom be peace!&mdash;they have yet to find
+out the man with whom they have to deal.”</p>
+
+<p>It took a master mind to instil heart of grace into men who so recently had
+had so bad a beating as these; but in the end they began to cheer up,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">171</a></span> and
+to recollect how Barbarossa had sooner or later always risen from defeat as
+strong or stronger than before; also they recalled the fact that he was the
+chosen of the Padishah, and that that potentate, the representative of the
+Prophet on earth, would assuredly come to his assistance now that Tunis,
+which had been taken in his name, had been reft from Barbarossa by the
+Christians. Gradually hope took the place of despair, and when the corsairs
+took to the sea in the early part of the following year it was with renewed
+confidence in both themselves and their leader.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">172</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XI<br /><br />
+
+<small>ROXALANA AND THE MURDER OF IBRAHIM</small></h2>
+
+<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">At</span> the coming of spring Barbarossa was at sea again with thirty-two ships
+ready for any eventuality, his crews aflame with ardour for revenge against
+those by whom they had been so roughly handled. He chose for the scene of
+operations a place on the coast of Majorca some fifteen miles from Palma;
+from here he commanded the route of the Spaniards from their country to the
+African coast, and it was against this nation that he felt a great
+bitterness owing to recent events. Eagerly did the corsair and his men
+watch for the Spanish ships, the heavier vessels lying at anchor, but the
+light, swift galleys ranging and questing afar so that none might be
+missed. Very soon the vigilance of the Moslems was rewarded by the capture
+of a number of vessels, sent by Bernard de Mendoza laden with Turkish and
+Moorish slaves, destined to be utilised as rowers in the Spanish galleys.
+These men were hailed as a welcome reinforcement, and joyfully joined the
+forces of Kheyr-ed-Din when he moved on Minorca, captured the castle by a
+surprise assault, raided the surrounding country, and captured five
+thousand seven hundred Christians, amongst whom were<span class="pagenum2"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">173</a></span> eight hundred men who
+had been wounded in the attack on Tunis&mdash;all these unfortunates were sent
+to refill the bagnio of Algiers.</p>
+
+<p>This private war of revenge was, however, destined soon to come to an end,
+as Soliman the Magnificent in this year became involved in disputes with
+the Venetian Republic, and recalled “that veritable man of the sea,” as
+Barbarossa had been described by Ibrahim, to Constantinople.</p>
+
+<p>In this city by the sea there had taken place a tragedy which, although it
+only involved the death of a single man, was nevertheless far-reaching in
+its consequences; for the man was none other than that great statesman
+Ibrahim, Grand Vizier, and the only trusted counsellor of the Padishah. He
+who had been originally a slave had risen step by step in the favour of his
+master until he arrived at the giddy eminence which he occupied at the time
+of his death. It is a somewhat curious commentary on the essentially
+democratic status of an autocracy that a man could thus rise to a position
+second only to that of the autocrat himself; and, in all probability,
+wielding quite as much power.</p>
+
+<p>Ibrahim had for years been treated by Soliman more as a brother than as a
+dependent, which, in spite of his Grand Viziership, he was in fact. They
+lived in the very closest communion, taking their meals together, and even
+sleeping in the same room, Soliman, a man of high intelligence himself, and
+a ruler who kept in touch with all the happenings which arose in his
+immense dominions, desiring always to have at hand the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">174</a></span> man whom he loved;
+from whom, with his amazing grip of political problems and endless
+fertility of resource, he was certain of sympathy and sound advice. But in
+an oriental despotism there are other forces at work besides those of <i>la
+haute politique</i>, and Ibrahim had one deadly enemy who was sworn to compass
+his destruction. The Sultana Roxalana was the light of the harem of the
+Grand Turk. This supremely beautiful woman, originally a Russian slave, was
+the object of the most passionate devotion on the part of Soliman; but she
+was as ambitious as she was lovely, and brooked no rival in the affections
+of Soliman, be that person man, woman, or child. In her hands the master of
+millions, the despot whose nod was death, became a submissive slave; the
+undisciplined passions of this headstrong woman swept aside from her path
+all those whom she suspected of sharing her influence, in no matter how
+remote a fashion. At her dictation had Soliman caused to be murdered his
+son Mustafa, a youth of the brightest promise, because, in his intelligence
+and his winning ways he threatened to eclipse Selim, the son of Roxalana
+herself.</p>
+
+<p>This woman possessed a strong natural intelligence, albeit she was totally
+uneducated; she saw and knew that Ibrahim was all-powerful with her lover,
+and this roused her jealousy to fever-heat. She was not possessed of a cool
+judgment, which would have told her that Ibrahim was a statesman dealing
+with the external affairs of the Sublime Porte, and that with her and with
+her affairs he neither desired, nor had he the power, to interfere.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">175</a></span> What,
+however, the Sultana did know was that in these same affairs of State her
+opinion was dust in the balance when weighed against that of the Grand
+Vizier.</p>
+
+<p>Soliman had that true attribute of supreme greatness, the unerring aptitude
+for the choice of the right man. He had picked out Ibrahim from among his
+immense entourage, and never once had he regretted his choice. As time went
+on and the intellect and power of the man became more and more revealed to
+his master, that sovereign left in his hands even such matters as despots
+are apt to guard most jealously. We have seen how, in spite of the
+murmurings of the whole of his capital, and the almost insubordinate
+attitude of his navy, he had persevered in the appointment of Kheyr-ed-Din
+Barbarossa, because the judgment of Ibrahim was in favour of its being
+carried out. This, to Roxalana, was gall and wormwood; well she knew that,
+as long as the Grand Vizier lived, her sovereignty was at best but a
+divided one. There was a point at which her blandishments stopped short;
+this was when she found that her opinion did not coincide with that of the
+minister. She was, as we have seen in the instance of her son, not a woman
+to stick at trifles, and she decided that Ibrahim must die.</p>
+
+<p>There could be no hole-and-corner business about this; he must die, and
+when his murder had been accomplished she would boldly avow to her lover
+what she had done and take the consequences, believing in her power over
+him to come scatheless out of the adventure. In those days, when human life
+was so cheap, she might have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">176</a></span> asked for the death of almost any one, and her
+whim would have been gratified by a lover who had not hesitated to put to
+death his own son at her dictation. But with Ibrahim it was another matter;
+he was the familiar of the Sultan, his <i>alter ego</i> in fact. It says much
+for the nerve of the Sultana that she dared so greatly on this memorable
+and lamentable occasion.</p>
+
+<p>On March 5th, 1536, Ibrahim, went to the royal seraglio, and, following his
+ancient custom, was admitted to the table of his master, sleeping after the
+meal at his side. At least so it was supposed, but none knew save those
+engaged in the murder what passed on that fatal night; the next day his
+dead body lay in the house of the Sultan.</p>
+
+<p>Across the floor of jasper, in that palace which was a fitting residence
+for one rightly known as “The Magnificent,” the blood of Ibrahim flowed to
+the feet of Roxalana. The disordered clothing, the terrible expression of
+the face of the dead man, the gaping wounds which he had received, bore
+witness that there had taken place a grim struggle before that iron frame
+and splendid intellect had been levelled with the dust. This much leaked
+out afterwards, as such things will leak out, and then the Sultana took
+Soliman into her chamber and gazed up into his eyes. The man was stunned by
+the immensity of the calamity which had befallen him and his kingdom, but
+his manhood availed him not against the wiles of this Circe. Ibrahim had
+been foully done to death in his own palace, and this woman clinging so
+lovingly around his neck now was the murderess. The heart’s blood<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">177</a></span> of his
+best friend was coagulating on the threshold of his own apartment when he
+forgave her by whom his murder had been accomplished. This was the
+vengeance of Roxalana, and who shall say that it was not complete?</p>
+
+<p>The Ottoman Empire was the poorer by the loss of its greatest man, the
+jealousy of the Sultana was assuaged, the despot who had permitted this
+unavenged murder was still on the throne, thrall to the woman who had first
+murdered his son and then his friend and minister. But the deed carried
+with it the evil consequences which were only too likely to occur when so
+capable a head of the State was removed at so critical a time. Renewed
+strife was in the air, and endless squabbles between Venice and the Porte
+were taking place. With these we have no concern, but, in addition to other
+complaints, there were loud and continuous ones concerning the corsairs.
+Venice, “The Bride of the Sea,” had neither rest nor peace; the pirates
+swarmed in Corfu, in Zante, in Candia, in Cephalonia, and the plunder and
+murder of the subjects of the Republic was the theme of perpetual
+representations to the Sultan. The balance of advantage in this guerilla
+warfare was with the corsairs until Girolame Canale, a Venetian captain,
+seized one of the Moslem leaders known as “The Young Moor of Alexandria,”
+The victory of Canale was somewhat an important one as he captured the
+galley of “The Young Moor” and four others; two more were sunk, and three
+hundred Janissaries and one thousand slaves fell into the hands of the
+Venetian commander. There being an absence of nice feeling on the part of
+the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">178</a></span> Venetians, the Janissaries were at once beheaded to a man.</p>
+
+<p>The whole story is an illustration of the extraordinary relations existing
+among the Mediterranean States at this time. Soliman the Magnificent,
+Sultan of Turkey, had lent three hundred of his Janissaries, his own picked
+troops, to assist the corsairs in their depredations on Venetian commerce.
+Having done this, and the Janissaries having been caught and summarily and
+rightly put to death as pirates, the Sultan, as soon as he heard of what
+had occurred, sent an ambassador, one Yonis Bey, to Venice to demand
+satisfaction for the insult passed upon him by the beheading of his own
+soldiers turned pirates. The conclusion of the affair was that the
+Venetians released “The Young Moor of Alexandria” as soon as he was cured
+of the eight wounds which he had received in the conflict, and sent him
+back to Africa with such of his galleys as were left. There was one rather
+comical incident in connection with this affair, which was that when Yonis
+Bey was on his way from Constantinople to Venice he was chased by a
+Venetian fleet, under the command of the Count Grandenico, and driven
+ashore. The Count was profuse in his apologies when he discovered that he
+had been chasing a live ambassador; but the occurrence so exasperated
+Soliman that he increased his demands in consequence.</p>
+
+<p>Barbarossa, who had spent his time harrying the Spaniards at sea ever since
+the fall of Tunis, was shortly to appear on the scene again. He received
+orders from the Sultan, and came as fast as a favouring wind would bring
+him. Kheyr-ed-Din<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">179</a></span> had been doing well in the matter of slaves and plunder,
+but he knew that, with the backing of the Grand Turk, he would once again
+be in command of a fleet in which he might repeat his triumph of past
+years, and prove himself once more the indispensable “man of the sea.”</p>
+
+<p>Soon after his arrival his ambitions were gratified, and he found himself
+with a fleet of one hundred ships. Since the death of Ibrahim, and the
+incident which terminated with the despatch of Yonis Bey to Venice, the
+relations between the Grand Turk and the Venetian Republic had become
+steadily worse, and at last the Sultan declared war. On May 17th, 1537,
+Soliman, accompanied by his two sons, Selim and Mohammed, left
+Constantinople. With the campaign conducted by the Sultan we are not
+concerned here; it was directed against the Ionian Islands, which had been
+in the possession of Venice since 1401. On August 18th Soliman laid siege
+to Corfu, and was disastrously beaten, re-embarking his men on September
+7th, after losing thousands in a fruitless attack on the fortress. He
+returned to Constantinople utterly discomfited. It was the seventh campaign
+which the Sultan had conducted in person, but the first in which the
+ever-faithful Ibrahim had not been by his side.</p>
+
+<p>This defeat at the hands of the Venetians was not, however, the only
+humiliation which he was destined to experience in this disastrous year;
+for once again Doria, that scourge of the Moslem, was loose upon the seas,
+and was making his presence felt in the immediate neighbourhood of Corfu,
+where the Turks had been defeated. On<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">180</a></span> July 17th Andrea had left the port of
+Messina with twenty-five galleys, had captured ten richly laden Turkish
+ships, gutted and burned them. Kheyr-ed-Din was at sea at the time, but the
+great rivals were not destined to meet on this occasion. Instead of
+Barbarossa, Andrea fell in with Ali-Chabelli, the lieutenant of Sandjak Bey
+of Gallipoli. On July 22nd the Genoese admiral and the Turkish commander
+from the Dardanelles met to the southward of Corfu, off the small island of
+Paxo, and a smart action ensued. It ended in the defeat of Ali-Chabelli,
+whose galleys were captured and towed by Doria into Paxo. That veteran
+fighter was himself in the thickest of the fray, and, conspicuous in his
+crimson doublet, had been an object of attention to the marksmen of
+Chabelli during the entire action. In spite of the receipt of a severe
+wound in the knee, the admiral refused to go below until victory was
+assured. He was surrounded at this time by a devoted band of nobles sworn
+to defend the person of their admiral or to die in his defence. His
+portrait has been sketched for us at this time by the Dominican Friar,
+Padre Alberto Gugliel-motto, author of “La guerra dei Pirati e la marina
+Pontifica dal 1500 al 1560.” The description runs thus: “Andrea Doria was
+of lofty stature, his face oval in shape, forehead broad and commanding,
+his neck was powerful, his hair short, his beard long and fan-shaped, his
+lips were thin, his eyes bright and piercing.”</p>
+
+<p>Once again had he defeated an officer of the Grand Turk; and it may be
+remarked that Ibrahim was probably quite right in the estimation,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">181</a></span> or rather
+in the lack of estimation, in which he held the sea-officers of his master,
+as they seem to have been deficient in every quality save that of personal
+valour, and in their encounters with Doria and the knights were almost
+invariably worsted. For the sake of Islam, for the prestige of the Moslem
+arms at sea, it was time that Barbarossa should take matters in hand once
+more.</p>
+
+<p>The autumn of this year 1537 proved that the old Sea-wolf had lost none of
+his cunning, that his followers were as terrible as ever. What did it seem
+to matter that Venetian and Catalan, Genoese and Frenchman, Andalusian and
+the dwellers in the Archipelago, were all banded together in league against
+this common foe? Did not the redoubtable Andrea range the seas in vain, and
+were not all the efforts of the Knights of Saint John futile, when the son
+of the renegado from Mitylene and his Christian wife put forth from the
+Golden Horn? What was the magic of this man, it was asked despairingly,
+that none seemed able to prevail against him? Had it not been currently
+reported that Carlos Quinto, the great Emperor, had driven him forth from
+Tunis a hunted fugitive, broken and penniless, with never a galley left,
+without one ducat in his pocket? Was he so different, then, from all the
+rest of mankind that his followers would stick to him in evil report as
+well as in the height of his prosperity? Men swore and women crossed
+themselves at the mention of his name.</p>
+
+<p>“Terrible as an army with banners,” indeed, was Kheyr-ed-Din in this
+eventful summer: things had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">182</a></span> gone badly with the crescent flag, the Padishah
+was unapproachable in his palace, brooding perchance on that “might have
+been” had he not sold his honour and the life of his only friend to gratify
+the malice of a she-devil; those in attendance on the Sultan trembled, for
+the humour of the despot was black indeed.</p>
+
+<p>But “the veritable man of the sea” was in some sort to console him for that
+which he had lost; as never in his own history&mdash;and there was none else
+with which it could be compared&mdash;had the Corsair King made so fruitful a
+raid. He ravaged the coasts of the Adriatic and the islands of the
+Archipelago, sweeping in slaves by the thousand, and by the end of the year
+he had collected eighteen thousand in the arsenal at Stamboul. Great was
+the jubilation in Constantinople when the Admiralissimo himself returned
+from his last expedition against the infidel; stilled were the voices which
+hinted disaffection&mdash;who among them all could bring back four hundred
+thousand pieces of gold? What mariner could offer to the Grand Turk such
+varied and magnificent presents?</p>
+
+<p>Upon his arrival Barbarossa asked permission to kiss the threshold of the
+palace of the Sultan, which boon being graciously accorded to him, he made
+his triumphal entry. Two hundred captives clad in scarlet robes carried
+cups of gold and flasks of silver behind them came thirty others, each
+staggering under an enormous purse of sequins; yet another two hundred
+brought collars of precious stones or bales of the choicest goods; and a
+further two hundred were laden with sacks of small coin. Certainly if
+Soliman the Magnificent had lost<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">183</a></span> a Grand Vizier he had succeeded in finding
+an admiral!</p>
+
+<p>All through the earlier months of 1538 the dockyards of Constantinople
+hummed with a furious activity, for Soliman had decreed that the maritime
+campaign of this year was to begin with no less than one hundred and fifty
+ships. His admiral, however, did not agree with this decision; to the
+Viziers he raged and stormed. “Listen,” he said, “O men of the land who
+understand naught of the happenings of the sea. By this time Saleh-Reis
+must have quitted Alexandria convoying to the Bosphorus twenty sail filled
+with the richest merchandise; should he fall in with the accursed Genoese,
+Doria, where then will be Saleh-Reis and his galleys and his convoy? I will
+tell you: the ships in Genoa, the galleys burned, Saleh-Reis and all his
+mariners chained to the rowers’ bench.”</p>
+
+<p>The Viziers trembled, as men did when Barbarossa stormed and turned upon
+them those terrible eyes which knew neither fear nor pity. “We be but men,”
+they answered, “and our lord the Sultan has so ordained it.”</p>
+
+<p>“I have forty galleys,” replied the corsair; “you have forty more. With
+these I will take the sea; but, mark you,” he continued, softening
+somewhat, “you do right to fear the displeasure of the Sultan, and I also
+have no wish to encounter it; but vessels raised and equipped in a hurry
+will be of small use to me. In the name of Allah the compassionate and his
+holy Prophet give me my eighty galleys and let me go.”</p>
+
+<p>In Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa sound strategical instinct went hand in hand
+with the desperate<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">184</a></span> valour of the corsair. To dally in the Golden Horn while
+so rich a prey was at sea to be picked up by his Christian foes was
+altogether opposed to his instincts: never to throw away a chance in the
+game of life had ever been his guiding principle.</p>
+
+<p>Soliman, great man as he undoubtedly was, had not the adamantine hardness
+of character which enabled his admiral to risk all on the hazards of the
+moment; or possibly the Grand Turk was deficient in that clearness of
+strategical instinct which never in any circumstances forgoes a present
+advantage for something which may turn out well in a problematical future.
+Soliman, sore, sullen, and unapproachable, dwelt in his palace brooding
+over the misfortunes which had been his lot since the death of Ibrahim.
+Barbarossa, who so recently had lost practically all that he possessed, and
+who had reached an age at which most men have no hopes for the future, was
+as clear in intellect, as undaunted in spirit, as if he had been half a
+century younger: to be even once more with those by whom he had been
+defeated and dispossessed was the only thing now in his mind. The capture
+of Saleh-Reis and his convoy would be a triumph of which he could not bear
+to think. Further, it would add to the demoralisation of the sea forces of
+the Sultan, which were sadly in need of some striking success after the
+defeats which had so recently been their portion. The Sultan had decided
+that one hundred and fifty ships were necessary; his admiral thought
+otherwise. There was too much at stake for him to dally at Constantinople;
+his fiery energy swept all before it, and in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">185</a></span> the end he had his way. On
+June 7th, 1538, he finally triumphed over the hesitations of the Viziers
+and put to sea with eighty sail.</p>
+
+<p>The Sultan, from his kiosk, the windows of which opened on the Bosphorus,
+counted the ships.</p>
+
+<p>“Only eighty sail; is that all?” he asked.</p>
+
+<p>The trembling Viziers prostrated themselves before him.</p>
+
+<p>“O our Lord, the Padishah,” they cried, “Saleh-Reis comes from Alexandria
+with a rich convoy; somewhere lurking is Andrea Doria, the accursed; it was
+necessary, O Magnificent, to send succour.”</p>
+
+<p>There was a pause, in which the hearts of men beat as do those who know not
+but that the next moment may be their last on earth.</p>
+
+<p>The Sultan stared from his window at the retreating ships in a silence like
+the silence of the grave. At last he turned:</p>
+
+<p>“So be it,” he answered briefly; “but see to it that reinforcements do not
+lag upon the road.”</p>
+
+<p>If there had been activity in the dockyards before it was as nothing to the
+strenuous work that was to be done henceforward.</p>
+
+<p>Before starting on this expedition Kheyr-ed-Din had made an innovation in
+the manning of some of the most powerful of his galleys, which was of the
+utmost importance, and which was to add enormously to the success of his
+future maritime enterprises. The custom had always been that the Ottoman
+galleys had been rowed by Christians, captured and enslaved; of course the
+converse was true in the galleys of their foes. There were, for the size of
+the vessels, an enormous number of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">186</a></span> men carried in the galleys of the
+sixteenth century, and an average craft of this description would have on
+board some four hundred men; of these, however, the proportion would be two
+hundred and fifty slaves to one hundred and fifty fighting men. That which
+Kheyr-ed-Din now insisted upon was that a certain proportion of his most
+powerful units should be rowed by Moslem fighting men, so that on the day
+of battle the oarsmen could join in the fray instead of remaining chained
+to their benches, as was the custom with the slaves. It is, however, an
+extraordinary testimony to the influence which the corsair had attained in
+Constantinople that he had been able to effect this change in the
+composition of some of his crews; it must have been done with the active
+co-operation of the Sultan, as no authority less potent than that of the
+sovereign himself could have induced free men to undertake the terrible
+toil of rower in a galley. This was reserved for the unfortunate slave on
+either side owing to the intolerable hardship of the life, and results, in
+the pace at which a galley proceeded through the water, were usually
+obtained by an unsparing use of the lash on the naked bodies of the rowers.</p>
+
+<p>This human material was used up in the most prodigal manner possible, as
+those in command had not the inducement of treating the rowers well, from
+that economic standpoint which causes a man to so use his beast of burden
+as to get the best work from him. In the galley, when a slave could row no
+more he was flung overboard and another was put in his place.</p>
+
+<p>The admiral, however, even when backed by the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">187</a></span> Padishah, could not man a
+large fleet of galleys with Moslem rowers, and, as there was a shortage in
+the matter of propelling power, his first business was to collect slaves,
+and for this purpose he visited the islands of the Archipelago. The lot of
+the unhappy inhabitants of these was indeed a hard one. They were nearer to
+the seat of the Moslem power than any other Christians; they were in those
+days totally unable to resist an attack in force, and in consequence were
+swept off in their thousands.</p>
+
+<p>Seven islands cover the entrance to the Gulf of Volo. The nearest to the
+coast is Skiathos, which is also the most important; it was defended by a
+castle built upon a rock. This castle was attacked by Barbarossa, who
+bombarded it for six days, carried it by assault, and massacred the
+garrison. He spared the lives of the inhabitants of the island, and by this
+means secured three thousand four hundred rowers for his galleys. He had to
+provide motor-power for the reinforcements which he expected. In July he
+was reinforced from Constantinople by ninety galleys, while from Egypt came
+Saleh-Reis, who had succeeded in avoiding the terrible Doria, with twenty
+more; the fleet was thus complete.</p>
+
+<p>Barbarossa ravaged Skios, Andros, and other islands, putting them under
+contribution, and in this manner raised some eight thousand ducats; from a
+pen of guinea-fowl to a king’s ransom, nothing escaped the maw of this most
+rapacious of corsairs. Candia and some other islands yielded up some small
+spoil, but the sufferings of such insignificant folk as the wretched
+islanders were soon lost to the sight of the Christian world in the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">188</a></span>magnitude of the events which were now impending.</p>
+
+<p>Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, Corsair, Admiral, and King, the scourge of the
+Mediterranean, and Andrea Doria, Prince of Oneglia, Admiral of the modern
+Cæsar, Charles V., Emperor and King, were at last to meet face to face.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">189</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XII<br /><br />
+
+<small>THE PREVESA CAMPAIGN; THE GATHERING OF THE FLEETS</small></h2>
+
+<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">Some</span> thirty-five miles to the south-eastward of Cape Bianco (the
+southernmost point of the island of Corfu) lies Prevesa, at the entrance of
+the Gulf of Arta, or, as it was known in classic times, the Ambracian Gulf.
+In these seas, in the year 31 <span class="smcap lowercase">B.C.</span>, was fought one of the most memorable
+battles of antiquity, for it was here that Octavius, afterward Augustus
+Cæsar, defeated the forces of Antony and Cleopatra. There have been many
+controversies of late years as to whom the original idea of breaking the
+line in naval combats is due: anyhow, it can claim a respectable antiquity,
+as it was practised at the battle of Actium by Octavius, who by a skilful
+manoeuvre caused Antony to lengthen his line, which he then cut through and
+attacked the ships of Cleopatra, which were in support: this was too much
+for the lady, who fled with her sixty ships, followed by Antony, to his
+eternal disgrace. The remainder of his fleet fought bravely for a time, but
+was eventually defeated, the land army also surrendering to Octavius. The
+date of the actual battle of Actium was September 2nd, 31 <span class="smcap lowercase">B.C.</span>: it was in
+September 1538<span class="pagenum2"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">190</a></span> that the battle of Prevesa between Andrea Doria and
+Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa took place, and the conditions of the battle were
+almost exactly similar.</p>
+
+<p>To this very place came, 1569 years later, the Christian and the Moslem,
+the Crescent and the Cross, each under its most renowned leader, each side
+burning with an inextinguishable hate. It was one of the peculiarities of
+this warfare that into it entered so much actual personal feeling, each
+side hating the other for the love of God in the most poisonous fashion.
+Save and except the battle of Lepanto in 1571 (with which we shall deal
+later in the story of Ali Basha, or Occhiali as he was called by his
+Christian opponents) the contest at Prevesa was far the most important ever
+fought by those strange oar-propelled vessels known as galleys. It was
+memorable in many ways, but particularly so for the ages of the men in
+chief command. Andrea Doria was at this time seventy years of age; in fact,
+Guglielmotti gives the date of his birth as 1466, thus making him two years
+older. That amazing veteran Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, who died in his bed at
+Constantinople on July 4th, 1546, at the age of ninety, must have been
+eighty-two. Vicenzo Capello was sixty-eight, as the epitaph on his tomb at
+Venice in the church of Santa Maria Formosa says that he was seventy-two in
+the year of his death, 1542.</p>
+
+<p>Once again Christendom was nerving itself for a supreme effort against the
+corsairs, and, during the time that Barbarossa was raiding and ravaging
+among the islands of the Archipelago, the Christian fleet was gradually
+assembling. At first it numbered<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">191</a></span> some 150 galleys, 81 Venetian, 36
+Pontifical, and 30 Spanish; Charles V. sent, at the last moment, 50 ships
+on which were embarked 10,000 troops. The force totalled altogether 59,000
+to 60,000 men, 195 ships, and 2,594 cannons. This was no doubt a most
+formidable armada, but the policy of those by whom it was composed was not
+all directed to the same end. While Charles desired, above all things, to
+exterminate the corsairs for good and all, which was, in the circumstances,
+the only sound view of the matter, the Venetians were for fighting
+defensive actions to maintain their supremacy in the Ionian Islands, and
+were disposed to let the future take care of itself. There was not, in
+consequence, that absolute unanimity among the various commanders of the
+expedition as was necessary for its complete success.</p>
+
+<p>The concentration of the Christian fleet took place at Corfu. The Venetians
+arrived first, with Vincenzo Capello in command; Marco Grimani brought
+thither the Papal contingent; they anchored and waited, but Andrea Doria
+did not appear. Days lengthened into weeks, and Grimani and Capelli chafed
+and fumed; provisions were running low and the dignity of Venice and of the
+Pope were flouted by this strange remissness on the part of the Admiral of
+the Emperor. At last, furious with impatience, Grimani made a raid into the
+Gulf of Arta, which was defended at the entrance by the fortress of
+Prevesa. The only result of this ill-timed attack was that two Papal
+captains and a number of soldiers were killed. Grimani then returned to
+Corfu, to find Capello irritated to the last extent by the non-appearance
+of Doria.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">192</a></span></p>
+<p>At last, on September 5th, the Imperial fleet hove in sight. It was
+composed of forty-nine galleys, but these were supplemented by a great
+number of sailing ships; the sailing craft, however, did not arrive till
+September 22nd. These vessels were gradually making way among the Spaniards
+since the discovery of the new world.</p>
+
+<p>At this time the Venetians possessed fourteen nefs. Doria had augmented
+these by twenty-two of his own, and the total number of thirty-six was
+commanded by Franco Doria, a nephew of the admiral. The Venetian nefs were
+commanded by Alessandro Condalmiero, captain of the <i>Galleon of Venice</i>.
+This was the most formidable fighting vessel in the Mediterranean; she was
+reckoned an excellent sailor, she was by far the most heavily armed sailing
+ship then afloat; in fact, in the opinion of contemporary seamen, she was
+“an invincible fortress.”</p>
+
+<p>Doria, Grimani, and Capello had now nearly 200 ships carrying nearly 60,000
+men. Such a force, in all ages, has been considered great. William the
+Conqueror conquered Britain with a less number; it is almost half the total
+of the personnel of the British fleet in the present day which has to
+defend a country with 40,000,000 inhabitants, and all this force had been
+raised, armed, and equipped to combat with a Moslem corsair.</p>
+
+<p>Barbarossa had succeeded in assembling 122 ships. He was accompanied by all
+the most famous corsairs of the day, among whom was Dragut, who fell at the
+siege of Malta, and of whom we shall have more to say in due time. Far and
+wide<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">193</a></span> ranged the swift galleys of the Ottoman fleet, for the plan of the
+commander of the Moslems was to locate and destroy his enemies in detail if
+possible. At last news came to him that Grimani’s ships had been sighted in
+the Gulf of Arta. Not one moment did he lose; he would fall upon the Papal
+contingent with his whole force and destroy it utterly. Such, at least, was
+his plan when he sailed for Prevesa; but, notwithstanding his haste, he was
+too late. Happily for himself, Grimani had returned to Corfu before the
+arrival of his enemy.</p>
+
+<p>At this juncture Barbarossa hesitated; had he not done so, and had he
+followed Grimani to Corfu, he might have destroyed both him and Vincenzo
+Capello in detail before the arrival of Doria. The Prevesa campaign is a
+curious study of hesitation on both sides, and the idea naturally occurs
+were not the corsair and the Christian commanders-in-chief too old for the
+work on which they were engaged? Men of over seventy are not impetuous, but
+grave and deliberate as a rule; but there is no rule without its
+exceptions, and Doria and Barbarossa were not as other leaders. Up to the
+present their dash and initiative had been unimpaired. There was no
+question that Barbarossa not only made a mistake in hesitating, but that by
+it he lost the game. Instead of striking at once he did what he had never
+done before in the whole of his career, which was to send to Constantinople
+for instructions. Some of his galleys had captured a fishing-boat off
+Corfu, the crew of which had seen Doria’s fleet. The Moslem leader sent the
+fishermen themselves to report to Soliman exactly what they had seen, and
+to ask for and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">194</a></span> bring back instructions from that potentate. What Barbarossa
+had discovered was that the odds were very much against him; so much, in
+fact, that he would have to act on the defensive. In consequence, he
+steered for Prevesa and entered the Gulf of Arta, which is approached by a
+long narrow strait, dominated by the castle of Prevesa. Once inside he
+anchored his galleys in such a position that they could fire direct out to
+sea, thus overwhelming with their fire any vessel attempting to enter.</p>
+
+<p>Barbarossa now occupied the same position as did Octavius in his combat
+with Antony. The rôle of the latter general was now taken by Doria. Antony,
+like Doria, had heavy ships which could not advance to the attack owing to
+their too great draught. Octavius, with his light-draught ships, could both
+attack and retreat into safety if overmatched.</p>
+
+<p>On September 22nd Doria, having collected all his ships, gave orders to
+fill up with wood, water, and fresh provisions. On the 25th, to the sound
+of the trumpet, the Commander-in-Chief, with his fleet of two hundred sail,
+weighed anchor and sped before the wind rapidly southwards. Grimani
+commanded the advance-guard, Doria was in the centre, Vincenzo Capello,
+with his Venetians, brought up the rear. Formed in two columns, the nefs
+followed the galleys; the <i>Galleon of Venice</i>, commanded by Condalmiero, a
+squadron in herself, preceded them.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/i_fp195.jpg" width="500" height="356" alt="GALEASSE UNDER SAIL." />
+<div class="caption">GALEASSE UNDER SAIL.</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>From the anchorage at Corfu to the entrance of the Gulf of Arta is about
+fifty-eight miles, and, traversing this distance during the hours of
+daylight, the fleet anchored, as night fell, under Cape<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">195</a></span> Prevesa. The
+Galleon which acted as what we should now call the guide of the fleet,
+anchored in sixteen feet of water, which was barely sufficient to keep her
+afloat.</p>
+
+<p>The Gulf of Arta, in which, as we have said, the fleet of the Moslems were
+now anchored, presents very curious physical peculiarities: it is
+twenty-two miles in length from east to west, and fifteen miles in breadth
+from north to south. This sheet of water is formed into an immense bay by
+the configuration of the land, and its depth, in places, is from one
+hundred and thirty to two hundred feet. Inside it all the navies in the
+world might ride at anchor, were it not for the fact that the entrance is
+closed by a bar upon which the depth varies from six and a half to thirteen
+feet. With his light-draught ships Barbarossa occupied the interior
+position, while the heavy ships of Doria must in any event remain outside.
+A strong sea-breeze was blowing on shore; all night the nefs and the
+galleys were nearly rolling their gunwales under. In these packed and
+crowded vessels the misery and discomfort of their crews may be imagined.
+On the morning of the 26th, however, the west wind dropped, and a light
+wind sprang up from the northward.</p>
+
+<p>The position at this time was one of surpassing interest. Here at long last
+the two most renowned sea-captains of the time were face to face. Each was
+aware that his antagonist was worthy of his steel, also that great issues,
+political and national, hung upon this conflict; which was no mere affair
+of outposts, but a struggle to the death as to whether the Crescent or the
+Cross was in time to come<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">196</a></span> to be supreme in the tideless sea. And yet&mdash;such
+is the irony of fate&mdash;this battle proved indecisive, and it was not until
+thirty years later, at the battle of Lepanto, that this momentous question
+was set at rest for a time.</p>
+
+<p>Would Doria, greatly daring, go in and risk all in attacking a fortified
+position; or would Barbarossa make a sally and fight it out to the death on
+the element on which he was so supremely at home?</p>
+
+<p>But Doria had no mind to attack a fleet anchored under the guns of a
+fortress; Barbarossa would not risk all in an encounter with a foe
+possessed of great numerical superiority without orders from
+Constantinople. On Doria’s side nothing but a disembarkation and a
+land-attack would offer a fair security for success, Kheyr-ed-Din, who
+held, as we have said, the interior position, was well aware of this fact,
+and in this supreme moment of his career was not disposed to give away any
+advantage. The situation occupied by Kheyr-ed-Din at the battle of Prevesa
+was, in a sense, different from any which he had held before, as he was in
+this case hampered by his sense of responsibility as Admiralissimo to the
+Grand Turk. What happened on the distant shores of Africa mattered but
+little to that monarch, and he had been content to allow his admiral an
+entirely free hand; here in Europe, on the shores of Greece, so close
+relatively to his own capital city, it was a very different matter, and
+Soliman was kept in touch with the happenings of his fleet as far as was
+possible in those days. But if the great corsair did not add to his
+reputation in this eventful campaign he still displayed an aptitude in
+realising the situation which, it is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">197</a></span> safe to say, was shown by none of
+those under his command.</p>
+
+<p>Prevesa illustrates for us more than any other action the difficulties with
+which the path of the partisan leader in these days must always have been
+filled; and how it was that personal ascendancy was the only force to which
+such a leader had to trust Sheer dominance of the minds, the wills, and the
+bodies of others had placed Kheyr-ed-Din where he was; all his life he had
+commanded undisciplined pirates, and yet now, when he was the properly
+accredited officer of a mighty monarch, when he might have expected far
+more discipline and subordination than had ever been his lot in the past,
+he was met with a contumaciousness which he was unable to quell, and was
+forced into taking steps which, in his own unequalled knowledge of war, he
+knew to be doomed to disaster.</p>
+
+<p>Around him the Reis, or captains of the Moslem galleys, clamorously
+demanded that he should take precautions against a land-attack. It was true
+that the raid which had been made by Grimani had been easily repulsed, but
+in present circumstances there was no question of a mere raid, as, should
+the Christian admiral so decide, he could land twenty thousand men. Sinan
+Reis, an old Osmanli warrior, furious with jealousy that the chief command
+should be in the hands of a corsair, sustained his opinion in a manner
+which augured ill for the hearty co-operation of all the Turkish forces.
+Sinan was just one of those blindly valiant fighters from whom the politic
+Ibrahim had desired to deliver his master when he had urged the appointment
+of Kheyr-ed-Din: brave as a lion, keen as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">198</a></span> the edge of his own good
+scimitar, fanatical, as became a Hodja who had visited the Holy Places,
+Sinan was a type of the Turkish sea-officer: devoid of strategical instinct
+and tactical training, his one idea was a headlong attack, then victory or
+the houris of Paradise. It will be seen that Barbarossa had not only Doria
+and the Christian fleet and army against which to contend on this occasion.</p>
+
+<p>The peril conjured up by Sinan Reis on this occasion was not altogether an
+imaginary one: the idea of a disembarkation had, in point of fact, been
+seriously discussed that very morning by Andrea Doria and his council of
+war, at which Hernando de Gonzaga, Generalissimo of the troops embarked,
+had advised a landing. His argument, embodied in a long and technical
+harangue, may be reduced to the following:</p>
+<blockquote>
+<p>“If we cannot go straight at the enemy and force our way through the
+entrance under his cannon why should we not reduce the fortress of
+Prevesa by a siege? Once masters of this height, we could close the
+strait by sinking in it vessels laden with stones, and we then have the
+Ottoman fleet at our mercy.”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>But Doria the sailor was not to be led by Gonzaga the soldier. He said:</p>
+<blockquote>
+<p>“The advice seems sound, but in reality it would prove most dangerous if
+followed. Barbarossa must have landed some of his men, the cavalry which
+defeated Grimani’s raid will no doubt come again from the interior, if
+necessary. If we deprive our ships of their soldiers we expose ourselves
+to a sea-fight under most disadvantageous<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">199</a></span> conditions. But most,
+important of all is the fact that time presses; the season is far
+advanced; at any time the fleet may be driven off these shores by a
+storm, in which case what would become of the troops left on shore?
+Again, if it comes on to blow a tempest from the westward we may lose
+not only our troops, but our ships, in fact the whole expedition.”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>At the battle of Actium, Octavius occupied the shore upon which Hernando
+Gonzaga wished to land and assault; but notwithstanding this fact Octavius
+did not attempt the passage of the gulf but waited for his enemy outside.
+Doria was therefore all the more justified in not sacrificing ships and men
+in attempting to force an entrance now that this same shore was in the
+hands of the enemy. He was asked, he said, to thrust his head into the
+mouth of the wolf, and this he was determined not to do.</p>
+
+<p>In the meanwhile Barbarossa was using much the same language to his
+captains as was Doria.</p>
+
+<p>“My brothers,” said he, “you wish to transport cannon and raise redoubts on
+this uncovered shore because you think that the Christians will disembark
+and seize it: if you attempt this I tell you that the guns of the enemy
+will annoy you terribly., Not only this, supposing that Doria, profiting by
+the moment that our vessels are empty of troops, should attack in force, we
+cannot with five thousand men repulse twenty thousand. The fort of Prevesa
+will defend itself quite sufficiently well with its own garrison; our
+business is to think of the fleet and not to weaken in any way our means of
+attack and defence, If the infidels force, or attempt to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">200</a></span> force, an entry
+into the port, they will be most likely merely losing time and ammunition
+in cannonading us. You know that it is principally in this that these
+accursed dogs do trust, whereas we, O men of Islam, will place our
+confidence in God, in Mahomet his Prophet, in the strength of our right
+arms, in the keenness of our scimitars; we will carry them by boarding,
+therefore we must keep our crews on board,”</p>
+
+<p>But Barbarossa had not that absolute domination of the forces under his
+command which should be the prescriptive right of any leader. Sinan-Reis,
+the implacable be-turbaned old Osmanli, held him in bitter scorn. “Your
+advice may be good,” he retorted, “but we think our plan the better.”</p>
+
+<p>The admiral suggested a reconnaissance of the site, which was merely a ruse
+to gain time. This was carried out under his own supervision, and confirmed
+him in the idea that disembarkation was folly; but Sinan-Reis and the
+Janissaries held obstinately to their opinion, while the “Joldaks,” or
+Turkish soldiers in the galleys, grumbled among themselves that
+Kheyr-ed-Din must indeed be full of vanity to reject the counsels of one
+like Sinan-Reis.</p>
+
+<p>Both commanders-in-chief, Christian and Moslem, seem on this occasion to
+have taken an absolutely correct view of the problem as it was presented;
+but whereas Andrea Doria was a real commander-in-chief, Barbarossa was
+forced to consider and to defer to the opinions of men whom he knew to be
+in the wrong.</p>
+
+<p>It was against his better judgment that Kheyr-ed-Din<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">201</a></span> at last yielded; the
+men were backing up their officers, a spirit of disaffection was abroad in
+the armada: such a thing as this a wise chief must gauge at its true value,
+and stop before it goes too far. The Osmanli were murmuring against “the
+corsair”; it was time to let them see whether they or their war-worn leader
+possessed the greater wisdom.</p>
+
+<p>According to Moslem chroniclers the valour of Kheyr-ed-Din was only
+equalled by his piety; consequently he murmured a prayer into that famous
+beard of his, which was now so much nearer to white than red, and gave
+orders that the cannon shall be immediately disembarked. “Let the will of
+God and of His Prophet be accomplished; that which is written is that which
+will take place,” exclaimed this pious man as he watched the preparations
+being carried out under the supervision of Mourad-Reis.</p>
+
+<p>That which “took place” was precisely and exactly what the Commander-in-Chief
+had predicted from the first: no sooner had Mourad-Reis landed upon
+the exposed beach, and attempted to open a trench, than he was met by a
+furious and concentrated fire from the galleys and nefs of the Christian
+fleet. To entrench themselves was impossible in the circumstances, as they
+had been told by the Admiral before they started on this harebrained
+adventure. There could be only one result, which was that, after a cruel
+and perfectly useless slaughter, the soldiers of Mourad-Reis had to retreat
+before the hail of shot poured upon them, and to return ignominiously to
+their vessels.</p>
+
+<p>It is not on record what Kheyr-ed-Din said to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">202</a></span> Sinan, Mourad, and those
+other tacticians who had recommended the landing; which perhaps is a pity.</p>
+
+<p>Doria then made a tentative movement against the strait by a detachment of
+galleys; Barbarossa told off an equal number to oppose them, and they
+mutually cannonaded and skirmished during the day. There was much noise and
+excitement, but practically no advantage was gained by either side, as
+Doria’s men could not risk passing the guns of the fort, nor could those of
+Barbarossa the chance of being cannonaded by the heavy vessels lying in
+wait-for them outside. And so the day closed down with no success on either
+side, but with a decisive demonstration to the Moslems that, if they
+desired victory, to their admiral had better be left the organisation by
+which it was to be obtained.</p>
+
+<p>Whether Doria really desired a pitched battle can never be known; that
+which is certain is that, during the whole time the fleets were in touch,
+all his dispositions make it appear there was nothing of which he was so
+much afraid. And yet it was the opportunity of his life; he had superiority
+in numbers, he had valiant and experienced leaders, and sixty thousand men
+thirsting for battle, under his command. Also he had his opportunity,
+which, had he seized upon, must have ended in victory, did those who were
+under his orders only fight as he had every reason to believe that they
+would. As it was, he threw away the gift of fortune, and left to the
+Osmanli the practical dominance of the Mediterranean Sea until that great
+day in 1571 when Don John of Austria, the natural son of Charles<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">203</a></span> V., proved
+to the world at Lepanto that the Turk was not invincible upon the waters.</p>
+
+<p>It is true that Doria was awkwardly situated; Kheyr-ed-Din held the
+interior position, and that leader was a great believer in the adage that
+“if Brag is a good dog, Holdfast is a better.” He was well aware of his
+numerical inferiority, and in consequence refused to listen to the frenzied
+appeals of the excited Moslems to be led against the Christian dogs. It may
+seem a contradiction in terms to speak of the moral courage of a pirate;
+but if ever that quality were displayed to its fullest extent it was
+exhibited by Barbarossa in the Prevesa campaign. In his intellectual
+outlook on all that was passing, both inside and outside of the Gulf of
+Arta, in this September of 1538, we see Kheyr-ed-Din at his best. Ever a
+fighter, he knew when to give battle and when to refrain, when to sweep
+headlong upon the foe, but also when to hold back and to baffle by waiting
+till the psychological moment should arrive. Around him Sinan-Reis,
+Mourad-Reis, and half a hundred others of their kidney were clamouring;
+they hurled insults at his head, they heaped opprobrium on “the corsair,”
+they practically incited their troops to mutiny in their mad appeals to be
+led against the foe.</p>
+
+<p>But “the corsair” kept his head, and kept his temper, and saved the Ottoman
+fleet for his master from his great rival, Doria. That noble Genoese seaman
+was for once in his life “letting I dare not wait upon I would”; he would
+not order the attack for which his men were waiting, and no provocation,
+apparently, could tempt Barbarossa<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">204</a></span> to play Antony to the Octavius of Doria;
+the Christian admiral was tempting Providence at that advanced season of
+the year in keeping the sea on an hostile coast on which at any time he
+might be driven by a tempest. His old and experienced antagonist was well
+aware that the winds and the waves might save him the trouble of destroying
+the fleet of the enemy; an equinoctial gale would do that far more
+effectually than could he. If Doria had an uneasy consciousness that he
+might at any time see the shore littered with oarless galleys and dismasted
+nefs, while the sea was filled with drowning men, the same vision had been
+vouchsafed to his imperturbable adversary. Had it been left to the entire
+initiative of Barbarossa, his Fabian tactics would assuredly have prevailed
+in the end; but as it was he was surrounded by a clamouring host of men,
+soldiers by trade, who, understanding nothing of the happenings of the sea,
+merely derided as cowardice any postponement of what they regarded as the
+inevitable battle. The admiral of the Sultan held out as long as it was
+possible, but at last, owing to a new factor in the case, was forced,
+against his better judgment, to offer the battle which it was in his power
+to have withheld.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">205</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIII<br /><br />
+
+<small>THE BATTLE OF PREVESA</small></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><small>How Alessandro Condalmiero fought the <i>Galleon of Venice</i>&mdash;<br />
+“The King of the Sea is dead.”</small></p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">There</span> is something almost pathetic in the spectacle of a really great
+leader badgered and importuned by lesser men to adopt a course which he,
+with a superior insight, knows to be unsound. In the matter of the landing
+Barbarossa had demonstrated that it was he whose knowledge of war was
+superior to those who were so ready to thrust upon him their opinions;
+this, however, did not content them, and they now desired to close with the
+foe waiting for them outside. If ever a commander was justified in waiting
+on events it was Barbarossa at this juncture; the business of a
+commander-in-chief is to ensure victory, and if he sees, as did the Moslem
+admiral on this occasion, that more is to be gained by delay than by
+fighting, then he is justified in refusing battle: particularly is this the
+case when the enemy is in greatly superior force blockading on an open and
+dangerous coast at an inclement season of the year. Every day that Doria
+was kept at sea added to his difficulties, as fresh water and provisions
+would be running short, and the energies of the human engines by which his<span class="pagenum2"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">206</a></span>
+galleys were propelled would be weakened; naked men chained to a bench were
+suffering from the blazing heat of the days, the cold and drenching dews of
+the nights. All these things had the veteran seaman weighed in his mind,
+they all inclined him to wait still longer in that secure anchorage where
+he could not be touched by his foe.</p>
+
+<p>There was one counsellor, however, whom even Kheyr-ed-Din could not resist,
+and who had hitherto kept silence; this was the eunuch Monuc, legal
+counsellor to Soliman, who had accompanied the armada. He now brought the
+weight of his influence to bear upon the side of Sinan-Reis and his
+colleagues.</p>
+
+<p>“Are you going,” he asked the admiral, “to allow the infidels to escape
+without a battle? Soliman can find plenty of wood to build new fleets,
+plenty of captains to command them; he will pardon you if this fleet is
+destroyed: that which he will never pardon is that you should allow Doria
+to escape without fighting. You have brave men in plenty; why not lead them
+to the attack?”</p>
+
+<p>The patience of the veteran gave way at last; none who knew Barbarossa had
+ever seen him shrink from fighting&mdash;to this his whole career bore witness.
+He had delayed the issue from the soundest of strategical reasons, which
+those under his command were too stupid and too prejudiced to understand:
+what cared they for reason in their blind valour?&mdash;they wished only to do
+or die heedless of the fact that their lives might be spent in vain. Truly
+it was no thanks to the subordinates of Kheyr-ed-Din that this campaign did
+not end in disaster to the arms of the Ottoman Porte. Such<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">207</a></span> backing as the
+admiral had came from among his own men, the corsairs whose lives had been
+spent at sea, but their opinions were but dust in the balance once the
+all-powerful Monuc ranged himself on the side of the malcontents.</p>
+
+<p>“Let us then fight,” said the admiral to Saleh-Reis, “or this fine talker
+who is neither man nor woman will accuse us before the Grand Turk and we
+shall all probably be hanged.”</p>
+
+<p>The Christian fleet during the night of September 26–7th had made some
+thirty miles to the southward; just before daybreak the wind freshened and
+drew right ahead; Doria approached the island of Santa Maura and anchored
+under the small islet of Sessola.</p>
+
+<p>Barbarossa had now decided to leave his anchorage, but the veteran seaman
+did not disguise from himself the risks which he ran: a greater sea captain
+than he once said “only numbers can annihilate,” and it was at annihilation
+that both the Moslem and the Christian aimed: in this case, however, he
+knew that he could but hope for a hard-won victory, and only that if Allah
+and his Prophet were unusually favourable to his cause. He assembled his
+captains, many of whom had served with him during long periods of his
+career, and directed them to form line: he said, “I have but one order to
+give, follow my movements attentively and regulate your own accordingly.”</p>
+
+<p>With fustas, brigantines, galleots, and galleys, the Ottoman fleet amounted
+in all to one hundred and forty sail. With shouts of joy the soldiers
+hailed the command to weigh the anchors, and in a very short time all were
+slowly moving seaward.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">208</a></span></p>
+<p>The die was cast: Doria from his anchorage at Sessola saw the sea white
+with the sails of the enemy, the blue water churning to foam beneath the
+strokes of his oars; the Ottoman fleet was issuing from the Gulf of Arta
+manoeuvring with precision and deploying into a single line abreast; which
+line being slightly concave, either from accident or design, resembled the
+form of a crescent. In advance came six great fustas commanded by Dragut;
+the left wing hugged the shore as closely as possible; the Ottoman
+commander-in-chief intended to commence operations on the first principles
+of strategy by flinging his whole force on a portion of that of the enemy.</p>
+
+<p>Andrea Doria remained undecided: he was on a lee shore, and that shore was
+the coast of the enemy; although his foes were advancing to the attack it
+seemed as if he had no mind to fight: whether he had or had not he
+displayed a most remarkable sluggishness, hesitating for three hours before
+getting up his anchors; these he only weighed at last under pressure from
+the bellicose Patriarch of Aquilea, Vincenzo Capello, and the Papal
+captain, Antonio Grimani. Doria had counted on the support of the <i>Galleon
+of Venice</i> and the nefs; but the galleon was becalmed four miles from the
+land and ten miles from Sessola, where Doria was at the beginning of the
+action.</p>
+
+<p>Condalmiero sent a light skiff from the <i>Galleon of Venice</i> to the
+commander-in-chief demanding orders and help from the galleys.</p>
+
+<p>“Begin the fight,” answered the admiral, “you will be succoured.”</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">209</a></span></p>
+<p>The position of Condalmiero was that of a modern battleship which is
+disabled and surrounded by foes in full possession of their motive power;
+the great galleon floated inert upon the waters while the galleys could
+fight or fly as they wished. The captain of the galleon, however, had no
+alternative save to surrender or fight; but there was no hesitation on his
+part, for a more gallant officer never trod the decks of a warship of the
+proud Republic to which he belonged.</p>
+
+<p>The Moslem galleys were now close upon him, although as yet out of
+gun-shot; around him they wheeled and circled like a flight of great
+sea-birds, their ferocious crews shouting their war-cries calling upon
+Allah and the Prophet to give them the victory for which they craved; many
+a brave Venetian who heard for the first time the name of Barbarossa
+shouted in battle must have braced himself for the coming conflict, knowing
+all that was imported by that terrible name. The sun shone in a cloudless
+sky, the galleon lay becalmed in the middle of furious and ravening foes,
+the succour promised by Doria was ten miles away; they saw no movement
+which indicated help, and the odds against them were heavy indeed. But all
+the nervousness was not on one side, for the <i>Galleon of Venice</i> was
+something new in the naval warfare of the time; she carried engines of
+destruction in the shape of great guns which the corsairs could by no means
+equal. Of this they were well aware, and the attack was delayed while the
+oarsmen in the galleys rested on their oars out of range to allow them
+breathing time before the supreme moment arrived. But the hounds<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">210</a></span> were only
+held in leash; there came a signal which was answered by a concentrated
+yell of fury and of hate; then from right ahead, right astern, on the port
+side and the starboard, the galleys were launched to the attack. But all on
+board the great Venetian vessel was as still as that death which awaited so
+many of the combatants in this supreme struggle.</p>
+
+<p>Condalmiero had caused the crew of the galleon to lie down upon her decks,
+and stood himself, a gallant solitary figure in his shining armour, a mark
+for the hail of shot so soon to be discharged. It came, and with it the
+mast of the galleon bearing the Lion Standard of St. Mark crashed over the
+side into the water; renewed yells of triumph came from the Moslems, but
+still that ominous silence reigned on board the galleon. Untouched,
+unharmed, the Osmanlis came on firing as rapidly as possible until they
+were absolutely within arquebuss range. Closer they came and closer; then
+the sides of the galleon burst into sheeted flame, and the guns levelled at
+point-blank range tore through the attacking host. Condalmiero was throwing
+away no chances; he had directed his gunners to allow their balls to
+ricochet before striking rather than to throw them away by allowing them to
+fly over the heads of the enemy.</p>
+
+<p>The first broadside did terrible execution; a ball one hundred and twenty
+pounds in weight, fired by the chief bombardier, Francisco d’Arba in
+person, burst in the prow of a galley so effectually that all her people
+flew aft to the poop to prevent the water rushing in; but the vessel was
+practically<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">211</a></span> split in twain, and sank in a few moments. All around were dead
+and dying men, disabled galleys, floating wreckage; the <i>Galleon of Venice</i>
+had taken a terrible toll of the Osmanli; the order to retreat out of range
+was given, and never was order obeyed with greater alacrity.</p>
+
+<p>With accuracy and precision the galleon played upon such vessels as
+remained within range, doing great execution. But she was now to be
+subjected to an even severer test than the first headlong attack. She had
+demonstrated to the Moslem leaders that here was no vessel to be carried by
+mere reckless valour; a disciplined and ordered offensive was the only plan
+which promised success; the Osmanli must use their brain as well as their
+courage if that tattered flag, rescued from the water, and nailed to the
+stump of the mast of the galleon, was ever to be torn down. There was
+something daunting in the very aspect of the solid bulk of the huge
+Venetian, something weird in the manner in which her crew never showed,
+save only the steadfast figure of her captain immovable as a statue of
+bronze, where he stood on her shot-torn poop.</p>
+
+<p>This Homeric conflict was a triumph of discipline and gunnery on the part
+of the Venetians; alert, accurate, and cool, the gunners of the galleon
+threw away none of their ammunition: inspired by the heroic spirit of their
+captain, great was the honour which they did on this stricken field to the
+noble traditions of their forbears and the service to which they belonged.</p>
+
+<p>The first attack had been most brilliantly repulsed, but this was only
+preliminary to a conflict<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">212</a></span> which was to last all through the day; the Moslem
+galleys withdrew out of gunshot and re-formed; then a squadron of twenty
+advanced, delivered their fire, and retired; their place was then taken by
+a second squadron, which went through the same performance, and then came
+on a third. In this manner the attack, which began one hour after noon, and
+which was continued until sunset, was conducted. The galleon had thirteen
+men killed, and forty wounded; no doubt the slaughter would have been much
+greater had it not been for the enormous thickness of her sides and for the
+fact that the guns carried by the galleys were necessarily light.
+Notwithstanding, the galleon suffered terribly, she was a mass of wreckage;
+twice fire had broken out on board of her, she was cumbered by fallen
+masts, battered almost out of recognition, but still Condalmiero and her
+gallant crew fought on imperturbably with no thought of surrender. Covered
+with blood, wounded in the face and the right leg by flying splinters, her
+captain preserved his magnificent coolness, and his decimated crew
+responded nobly to his call. At eventide the fire from the galleon was
+almost as deadly as it had been at the first onslaught, and many galleys of
+the Turks were only saved from sinking by the activity and bravery of their
+carpenters, who, slung over their sides in “boatswains’ chairs,” drove home
+huge plugs of wood with their mallets into the shot-holes made by the
+Venetian guns.</p>
+
+<p>At the hour when the sun dipped below the horizon all the Turkish fleet
+seemed assembled to assault the colossus which so long had resisted their
+attack; there was a pause in the combat, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">213</a></span> the firing died down.
+Condalmiero and his men braced themselves for the assault which they felt
+to be inevitable: for now the darkness was swiftly coming, in which they
+could no longer see to shoot, and under cover of which their numerous foes
+could assail them by boarding in comparative safety. Now the moment had
+come for the last act in this terrible drama of the sea. They had held
+their own at long odds throughout the whole of a hot September day, and as
+the level beams of the setting sun shone on their shattered ship they were
+prepared to die, fighting to the last man for the honour of Venice and the
+glory of St. Mark.</p>
+
+<p>Stiff and worn, wearied almost to the breaking strain, there was no man on
+board who even dreamt of surrender; all the guns were charged to the muzzle
+with bullets and broken stone, the artillerists match in hand stood grimly
+awaiting the order to fire, straining their eyes and their ears in the
+gathering darkness; in a few minutes at most they knew that the fate of the
+<i>Galleon of Venice</i> must be decided.</p>
+
+<p>On board his galley, decorated for this occasion with scarlet banners,
+Barbarossa himself directed the assaulting line. Never before when the
+battle was joined had the gallant corsair been known to draw back; and yet
+on this occasion he not only hesitated but actually hauled off. The
+Venetians saw to their amazement that the expected attack was not to be
+pushed home; for Barbarossa and his captains fell upon some lesser vessels:
+the <i>Galleon of Venice</i> was victorious.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Doria was displaying his mastery of tactics when it was hard
+fighting that was wanted;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">214</a></span> he pretended that he wished to draw the Ottoman
+fleet into the high seas in order that he might destroy their galleys by
+means of the broadsides of his nefs; consequently he executed useless
+parade movements when he should by all the rules of warfare have closed
+with his enemy who was in distinctly inferior force; as he had a fair wind
+there is only one conclusion to be drawn, and that is that he did not want
+to fight.</p>
+
+<p>His manoeuvres certainly mystified the Turks, who viewed his tactics with
+mistrust, thinking them the outset of some deeply laid scheme; it never
+entered into their calculations for one moment that the great Andrea Doria,
+the terror of the Mediterranean sea, and the victor in scores of desperate
+engagements, was anxious to avoid a fight.</p>
+
+<p>Grimani and Capello, docile to the orders of their admiral, followed him
+full of uneasiness and distrust; they were fighting men of the most fiery
+description; to them the issue seemed of the simplest: there was the enemy
+in inferior force to themselves, they had the weather gauge, why delay the
+attack?</p>
+
+<p>“For much less than this,” says Admiral Jurien de la Gravière, “the English
+shot Admiral Byng in 1756.” The conduct of Doria on this occasion has
+certainly never been explained; the two other leaders went on board and
+remonstrated with their commander-in-chief; they were neither of them men
+who could be treated as negligible quantities on the field of battle; both
+belonged to that brilliant Venetian nobility so renowned in commerce and in
+war. Marco Grimani was in command of the Papal galleys, in itself a mark of
+the highest esteem and confidence from a potentate second to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">215</a></span> none in his
+influence in the civilised world. To Vincenzo Capello, Henry the Seventh of
+England confided his royal person and the command of his fleet when he
+crossed the Channel to encounter Richard the Second at Bosworth field. Five
+times had he filled the office of Providiteur in Venice, twice had he been
+commander-in-chief of her fleet, he was in perpetuity Procureur of St.
+Mark, to him Venice owed her naval discipline. He wore on this day the
+mantle of crimson silk with which the Republic invested her generals.
+Bitter was the rage in his heart, and bitterly must he have spoken to
+Doria, who, in spite of all remonstrances, continued his futile
+manoeuvrings.</p>
+
+<p>There was glory won on this day, but it was gained neither by Andrea Doria
+nor Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa. The <i>Galleon of Venice</i> with Alessandro
+Condalmiero and his gallant crew had shown to all a splendid example of
+disciplined valour unexcelled in sixteenth-century annals.</p>
+
+<p>Barbarossa had captured a Venetian galley, a Papal galley, and five Spanish
+nefs, but he had recoiled from the assault on Condalmiero when the prize
+was actually within his grasp. For the rest it was a day of manoeuvring and
+tactics; tactics when sixty thousand men had been embarked on board two
+hundred ships for a specific and definite object on the side of the
+Christians and under the command of their most celebrated admiral; and yet
+the balance of advantage was actually gained by the inferior force. No
+subsequent glories can ever wipe this stain from the scutcheon of Doria, or
+can excuse the fact that at the most supreme moment of his career he failed
+to fight the battle that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">216</a></span> he was in honour, in conscience, and in duty bound
+to deliver. Next day the wind came fair for Corfu, and Doria, his ships
+untouched, unscathed, unharmed, put his helm up and sailed away followed by
+his fleet.</p>
+
+<p>Sandoval records the fact that Barbarossa, roaring with laughter the while,
+was accustomed to say that Doria had even put out his lanterns in order
+that no one might see whither he had fled. This was an allusion to the
+fact&mdash;or supposition&mdash;that Doria extinguished on that night the great poop
+lantern carried by him as admiral.</p>
+
+<p>When Soliman the Magnificent heard of the result of this battle he caused
+the town of Yamboli, where he was at the time, to be illuminated, and in
+the excess of his joy he added one hundred thousand aspres to the revenues
+of the conqueror; there were processions to the Grand Mosque, and all Islam
+rejoiced and sang the praises of the invincible admiral who had humbled to
+the dust the pride of the Christian and caused the dreaded Doria to fly
+from before the fleet of the Sultan.</p>
+
+<p>This, the most historical, if not the greatest feat in the life of
+Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, was for him a triumph indeed; with a vastly
+inferior force he had driven from the field of battle his “rival in glory,”
+as he himself had denominated Andrea Doria, and he had accomplished this
+feat notwithstanding the almost mutinous condition of his own forces. In
+spite of this it is with Condalmiero and with him alone that the glory of
+this day must rest; alone, absolutely unsupported as we have seen, he
+fought one of those fights which bring the heart into the mouth when we
+read of them; the stern pride of the Venetian noble, who despised as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">217</a></span>
+canaille the pirate hosts by whom he was assailed, had its counterpart in
+the sturdy valour of Chief Bombardier Francisco d’Arba and the other
+nameless heroes of which that good company was composed; to them we render
+that homage which so justly is their due.</p>
+
+<p>The whole campaign of Prevesa, as we have said, is a curious study in
+hesitation, in dilatoriness, in absolute lack of initiative and virility on
+the part of the two chief actors in the drama: that Doria should fly from
+the field of battle in an untouched ship is only one degree less incredible
+than that Barbarossa should have relinquished his attack on the <i>Galleon of
+Venice</i>. It would almost seem as if on this occasion each of the great
+rivals was hypnotised by the presence of the other; all their lives they
+had been seeking honour and riches on the sea, they knew, of course, that
+all men in both the world of Islam and that of Christendom looked upon them
+in the light of the special champions of the opposing sects, that the eyes
+of the entire world were fastened on this meeting of theirs in the classic
+waters of the Ambracian Gulf. In consequence neither man was at his best;
+indeed, we might go further than this, and say that on this occasion both
+lamentably failed. There is no fault to be found with the strategic
+preliminaries to the final conflict, each admiral acting with prudence and
+wisdom in the situation in which he found himself placed. That the
+perfectly correct idea of not giving battle to a superior force when he
+held so strong an interior position was given up by Barbarossa, was, as we
+have seen, not his fault; and when he issued from his anchorage, in
+deference to a sentiment among those under his command which he could no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">218</a></span>
+longer resist, his dispositions seem to have been made with his usual
+skill. Where he failed, however, was where, from all his previous history,
+we should least have expected failure, in his abandonment of the attack on
+the <i>Galleon of Venice</i>; this, of course, was inexcusable, and can only be
+set down to failure of nerve at the supreme moment. The ship had been
+battered by artillery all day long, a huge percentage of her company were
+dead and wounded, and the remainder worn out with fatigue. On the Moslem
+side we have seen that there were squadrons of galleys able to relieve one
+another with no interference from Doria, who was persisting in his futile
+manoeuvring miles away. Had the galleon been boarded, as she might and
+should have been, at nightfall, nothing could have saved Condalmiero and
+his crew: so strenuous, however, had been their resistance, that the
+Turkish seamen feared the issue; in consequence the battle between them and
+the Venetians was a drawn one, with all the honours on the Christian side.</p>
+
+<p>It is here that we shall take leave of Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, as although
+he was yet to live another eight years before he died in his bed at
+Constantinople in July, 1548, there are no further happenings of any great
+importance in his career.</p>
+
+<p>“Valorous, yet prudent, furious in attack, far-seeing in preparation, he
+ranks as the first sea-captain of his time;”<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">1</a> as the story of his life
+has unfolded itself in these pages we have seen what manner of man it was
+who terrified Europe, who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">219</a></span> made for himself a reputation which stands out
+clear and distinct among all the great men of which this century was so
+prolific. One of the surest methods of estimating a strenuous man of action
+is to seek for the names of those by whom he was surrounded: the men
+selected by him to assist in the carrying out of the work of his life; thus
+in reading of Napoleon Bonaparte we interest ourselves in his marshals, in
+reading of Nelson we note the captains by whom he was supported. In the
+case of Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, a great man of action if one ever lived,
+we find no trace of devoted adherents on that high plane of command we have
+indicated in the cases cited above. That he had devoted followers enough is
+absolutely certain, but of high officers we very seldom find a trace, and
+these he treated with contumely and offence on many occasions; witness the
+treatment meted out to Hassan and to Venalcadi. There is practically no
+trace of his domestic life to be found, we cannot discover that he
+possessed any intimate friend. There is none other in all history to whom
+he can be satisfactorily compared; there are few who in their generation
+have wielded such enormous powers, who have climbed so high from the sheer
+unassisted force of their own intellect and their own character.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p class="noindent"><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">1</span></a> Stanley Lane Poole.</p></div>
+
+<p>Physical strength such as is vouchsafed to one man in a million, a
+constitution nothing could impair, endurance incomparable, were his bodily
+attributes: an intellect cold, clear, and penetrating was his, joined to an
+imperturbability of temperament which enabled him to accept with a cheerful
+philosophy blows by which weaker men were absolutely<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">220</a></span> prostrated; his
+outlook on life was not dimmed by any affections, and pity was a sensation
+which to him was entirely alien. In this record of his deeds the reader has
+been spared all mention of the atrocious tortures he was in the habit of
+inflicting on his victims for any or no provocation, and many of them are
+as incomprehensible as they are sickening. That in which he was supreme was
+his craft as a seaman in an age when real seamen were rare; on land he was
+frequently defeated, at sea there seems to be no record of such an
+occurrence. To sum up, he appears to us in the light of history as a body,
+a brain, and an intellect, without any trace of a heart. His path through
+life was one unending trail of blood and fire, moistened by the tears of
+his countless victims, followed by the curses of those whom he despoiled.
+Yet, in spite of this, it is impossible not to admire the man who, by his
+own superhuman energy, ever swept all obstacles from his path, and caused
+the whole of the civilised world to quail at the name of Barbarossa.</p>
+
+<p>He died peacefully in his bed at Constantinople in July, 1546, to the grief
+of the world of Islam and the inexpressible joy of Christendom. “The king
+of the sea is dead,” expressed in three Arabic words, gives the numerical
+value 953, the year of the Hegira in which he died.</p>
+
+<p>For many years after his death no Turkish ship ever left the Golden Horn
+without her crew repeating a prayer and firing a salute over the tomb of
+Beshiktsah, where lie the bones of the first and greatest of Turkish
+admirals, the corsair who was at one and the same time admiral, pirate, and
+king.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">221</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIV<br /><br />
+
+<small>THE NAVY OF OARS. THE GALLEY, THE GALEASSE, AND THE NEF</small></h2>
+
+<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">In</span> the sixteenth century the vessel of war in the Mediterranean was
+essentially that oar-propelled craft known to us as the galley. As time
+went on she was gradually superseded by the sailing man-of-war which was
+able to carry that heavy ordnance which the light scantling of the galley
+did not permit of her mounting; but for the use of the corsairs who lived
+by means of raids and surprise attacks, whose business it was to lie perdu
+on the trade routes, the mobility of the galley was of prime importance,
+and they could not afford to trust to the wind alone as a motive power. The
+galley was analogous to the steam vessel in that it was independent of the
+wind to a large extent: human bone and muscle supplied the part of engines,
+and those who fought upon the sea caused themselves to be moved over the
+face of the waters by the exertions of their enemies. It is true that upon
+one occasion, as we have seen, Kheyred-Din Barbarossa did possess a fleet
+of galleys the rowers of which were all Moslems, which crew upon battle
+being joined dropped their oars, seized their weapons and assisted in the
+conquest of the foe.<span class="pagenum2"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">222</a></span> But this was an isolated instance, as it was almost
+impossible at any time and in any circumstances to procure free men ready
+to undertake a life of such intolerable suffering as that of a rower on
+board a galley; in consequence these men were almost invariably slaves, or
+else in later times condemned felons whose judges had sent them to work out
+their sentences upon the rowers’ bench. The great characteristic of the
+galley was her mobility, and in a comparative degree her speed, as for a
+short burst, when her crew of rowers were fresh, their trained muscles were
+capable of tremendous exertion; for any length of time, however, it is
+obvious that her speed must have declined as the rowers became exhausted.
+She was long, narrow, of extremely low freeboard, and slight depth of hold;
+a galley of 125 feet between perpendiculars would perhaps be 180 feet over
+all taking in the poop and the prow. A galley of this length would only
+have a beam of 19 feet and a depth of hold of 7 feet 6 inches. The sailing
+ship of contemporary times would for the same length have had a beam of
+about 40 feet and an extremely high freeboard; she was in consequence
+necessarily slow and incapable of sailing on a wind.</p>
+
+<p>So distinct at this time was the line drawn between the sailing vessel and
+the galley that the actual terminology used was entirely different; that is
+to say, the names of such things as masts, sails, rudder, tiller, stern,
+stempost, cutwater, etc., were not the same words; the sailor who used
+sails could not understand his brother mariner who used oars, and <i>vice
+versa</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/i_fp223.jpg" width="500" height="342" alt="GALLEY UNDER OARS." />
+<div class="caption">GALLEY UNDER OARS.</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>What was necessary of course in the galley was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">223</a></span> many oars and many hands to
+use them; the vessel was most skilfully constructed for this purpose so as
+to get the fullest power from her human engines; the result was that men
+were crowded on board of her to such an extent that there was scarcely room
+to breathe, such a craft as the one of which the dimensions have been given
+having on board some four hundred men.</p>
+
+<p>Barras de la Penne, a French officer who in 1713 first went on board a
+galley, thus describes what he saw:</p>
+<blockquote>
+<p>“Those who see a galley for the first time are astonished to see so many
+persons; there are an infinite number of villages in Europe which do not
+contain an equal number of inhabitants; however, this is not the
+principal cause of one’s surprise, but that so many men can be assembled
+in so small a space. It is truth that many of them have not room to
+sleep at full length, for they put seven men on one bench; that is to
+say, on a space about ten feet long and four broad; at the bows one sees
+some thirty sailors who have for their lodging the floor space of the
+rambades (this is the platform at the prow of the galley) which consists
+of a rectangular space ten feet long by eight in width. The captain and
+officers who live on the poop are scarcely better lodged, and one is
+tempted to compare their grandeur with that of Diogenes in his tub.</p>
+
+<p>“When the unpitying Libyan Sea surprises these galleys upon the Roman
+coasts, when the Norther lashes to foam the Gulf of Lyons, when the
+humid east wind of Syria is driving them off shore, everything combines
+to make life on board a modern galley a hell of misery and discomfort.
+The creaking of the blocks and cordage, the loud cries of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">224</a></span>
+sailors, the horrible maledictions of the galley slaves, the groaning of
+the timbers, mingled with the clank of chains and the bellowings of the
+tempest, produce sentiments of affright in the most intrepid breasts.
+The rain, the hail, the lightning, habitual accompaniments of these
+terrific storms, the waves which dash over the vessel, all add to the
+horror of the situation, and although devotion is not as a rule very
+strongly marked on board a galley, you will hear these folk praying to
+God, and others making vows to the Saints; these would do much better
+not to forget God and his Saints when the danger is past.</p>
+
+<p>“Calm itself has also its inconveniences, as the evil smells which arise
+from the galley are then so strong that one cannot get away from them in
+spite of the tobacco with which one is obliged to plug one’s nostrils
+from morning till night.”</p>
+
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>The gallant officer here goes into further details concerning the vermin on
+board which it will be as well to spare the reader.</p>
+
+<p>“Jean Marteille de Bergeraq, who died at Culenbourg in 1777, was condemned
+to serve on board the galleys in 1707 “in his quality of Protestant”; he
+must indeed have been a man of iron constitution as he lived to the age of
+ninety-five. This is his description of the life of a <i>forçat</i>:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>“They are chained six to a bench; the benches are four feet wide covered
+with sacking stuffed with wool over which are thrown sheepskins which
+reach to the floor. The officer who is master of the galley slaves
+remains aft with the captain to receive his orders; there are two under
+officers, one amidships and one at the prow; all of these are armed with
+whips, with which they flog the absolutely naked bodies<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">225</a></span> of the
+slaves. When the captain gives the order to row, the officer gives the
+signal with a silver whistle which hangs on a cord round his neck; the
+signal is repeated by the under officers and very soon all the fifty
+oars strike the water as one. Imagine six men chained to a bench as
+naked as they were born, one foot on the stretcher the other raised and
+placed on the bench in front of them, holding in their hands an oar of
+enormous weight, stretching their bodies towards the after part of the
+galley with arms extended to push the loom of the oar clear of the backs
+of those in front of them who are in the same attitude. They plunge the
+blades of the oars into the water and throw themselves back, falling on
+to the seat which bends beneath their weight. Sometimes the galley
+slaves row thus ten, twelve, even twenty hours at a stretch, without the
+slightest relapse or rest, and on these occasions the officer will go
+round putting into the mouths of the wretched rowers pieces of bread
+soaked in wine to prevent them from fainting. Then the captain will call
+upon the officers to redouble their blows, and if one of the slaves
+falls fainting upon his oar, which is a common occurrence, he is flogged
+until he appears to be dead and is then flung overboard without
+ceremony.”</p>
+
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>The Italian captain, Pantero Pantera, of the <i>Santa Lucia</i> galley, in his
+work on “L’Armata Navale” published in 1614, gives it as his opinion that
+although soldiers and sailors could be obtained for service in the galleys
+if good pay were given, still no money could tempt any free man to
+adventure himself as a rower for any length of time owing to the
+intolerable sufferings which the “gallerian” was called upon to endure. As,
+however, in the opinion of the captain it was most necessary that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">226</a></span> the
+galleys should be manned, he thought that all judges should in future send
+criminals aboard; those who had committed murder as “lifers,” those who had
+committed lesser crimes <i>pro rata</i>. Those who by the nobility of their
+birth or their physical incompetence were unable to handle the oar should
+be called upon to pay for substitutes to act for them; these were called
+“Buone-Voglie.”</p>
+
+<p>There was not much difference after all between the methods used by the
+seventeenth-century Italian to those actually in force in England at a much
+later date when the Press Gang swept the honest and the dishonest into its
+net in its midnight raids.</p>
+
+<p>“The galley slaves,” observes Pantera, “cherish repose and sincerely wish
+to avoid fatigue; in order to incite them to do their duty it is necessary
+to use the whip as well as the whistle; by using it with severity the
+officers will find that they are better obeyed, and it will in consequence
+be good for the service, for fear of the whip is the principal cause of
+good behaviour among the gallerians.” Further on he observes that it is
+well not to flog them too severely and without reason, “for this irritates
+the gallerians, as I have frequently observed: this may cause them to
+despair and to wish for death as the only sure way out of their troubles.”
+The excellent Pantera a little later on even says that he cannot agree that
+the attempt to cure a sick gallerian “is all nonsense, as is maintained by
+some persons,” as sick men are a source of danger on board. He apparently
+was not prepared to throw them overboard alive, but urges that the best way
+to avoid such pestilences among them as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">227</a></span> killed forty thousand Venetians at
+the port of Zara in 1570 is to embark sound and good victuals.</p>
+
+<p>It is interesting to have a contemporary view of the correct treatment of
+the galley slave from those who had to do with him. In the case of the
+corsairs and their adversaries the gallerians were as a rule prisoners of
+war, but as time went on and wars became less frequent than they were
+throughout the sixteenth century, another source of supply was tapped by
+sending to the galleys the criminals of any country which desired to fill
+up the rowers’ benches. In consequence there was always one thing which was
+feared above all others on board a galley, and that was a rising of the
+slaves.</p>
+
+<p>If they were not your enemies officially, they were a set of desperate
+criminals ripe for any mischief should they get loose, and chained,
+starved, beaten, frozen with the cold, baked by the summer heats, tortured,
+murdered, they had nothing earthly for which to hope except escape. If in
+the heat of battle there should occur a rising of the slaves, then their
+masters knew that victory would declare itself surely on the side of the
+enemy. Therefore that they should be securely chained was the first and
+most important thing to which the boatswain of a galley and his mates had
+to see. If by a bold stroke they once freed themselves from their shackles
+it was a fight to the death for those who erstwhile had been in command, as
+the gallerians, outnumbering them and caring nought for their lives in
+comparison to their liberties, were far the most formidable foes that they
+could be called upon to encounter. When men are so treated that their daily
+life is one long martyrdom they become the most dangerous force<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">228</a></span> in
+existence, and on the occasions which sometimes happened that the slaves
+got the upper hand, there were none left of the fighting men of the galley
+to tell the tale of their discomfiture.</p>
+
+<p>In time of battle the gallerians were of course equally exposed to death
+and wounds from the projectiles of the enemy as were the orthodox fighting
+men; but to them came no rejoicing at the sound of victory; rather they
+prayed for the defeat of their masters, as it frequently happened that
+those against whom they were arrayed were their own countrymen and friends
+by whom they hoped for release. Thus at Lepanto, the Christian slaves,
+seeing the right wing of the Turkish fleet thrown into disorder by the
+galleys of the Allies, broke out into furious mutiny, succeeded in
+shattering their fetters and chains, attacked their masters the Turks in
+the rear with incredible energy with any weapons upon which they could lay
+their hands, and thus contributed in no small measure to the ultimate
+triumph of the Christian arms.</p>
+
+<p>The Captain Pantero Pantera and Barras de la Peine have written
+exhaustively on the galley, her crew, her armament, her manner of
+provisioning, her masts, sails, rigging, etc., and Admiral Jurien de la
+Gravière has given a most painstaking exposition concerning the
+technicalities of these craft. But to enter into too much detail would be
+to weary the reader unnecessarily, who, it is apprehended, merely desires
+that a general idea should be given of the way in which these vessels were
+handled and fought.</p>
+
+<p>It would appear that during the whole time that oar-propelled vessels were
+used as warships their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">229</a></span> form did not differ to any material extent, as
+certain limitations of size were obviously imposed on them by the mere fact
+that they had to be moved by so finite and feeble a force as human muscles,
+hearts, and lungs. No cruelty, however ghastly, could extract from the
+gallerians more than a certain amount of work, and the Captain Pantero
+Pantera, as we have seen, even advocates that a certain minimum of
+consideration should be shown to them in order that better work might be
+obtained. It was probable, however, that in the case of the Christian
+slaves captured by the corsairs even this minimum was to seek, as the
+numbers swept off by them were so enormous that they could be used up and
+replaced without inconveniencing these rovers of the sea, to whom
+compassion for suffering was absolutely unknown.</p>
+
+<p>The Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, or the Knights of Malta as they were
+also called, used the galley in their unceasing warfare with the Moslem.
+The General of the Galleys was a Grand Cross of the Order; the captains
+were knights, and the second officer, or first lieutenant, was known as the
+Patron. The crew of a galley of the knights had twenty-six rowing benches
+and carried two hundred and eighty rowers and two hundred and eighty
+combatants; the armament consisted of one bow cannon which discharged a
+forty-eight pound ball, four other small guns, eight pounders, and fourteen
+others which discharged stones.</p>
+
+<p>“The Religion,” as the Knights were in the habit of describing themselves,
+had certain definite stations assigned to each knight, seaman, or officer
+during action. It is to be imagined, however, that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">230</a></span> these were merely for
+the preliminary stages of the fight, as it was seldom that time allowed for
+more than one discharge, or at the most two, of the artillery, before the
+opposing galleys met in a hand-to-hand conflict which must have immediately
+become an indiscriminate mêlée.</p>
+
+<p>The manner in which the galley should engage is thus contained in an answer
+to a question of Don John of Austria, the victor of Lepanto. He wrote to
+Garcia de Toledo, fourth Marquis of Villafranca, and General of the Galleys
+of Sicily, to ask his opinion as to what distance it was most efficacious
+to open fire in a naval action. Toledo replied that “one cannot fire more
+than twice before the galleys close. I should therefore recommend that the
+arquebussiers should hold their fire until they are so close to the enemy
+that his blood will leap into the face of him who discharges his piece.
+I have always heard it said, and this by captains who are well skilled in the
+art of war, that the last discharge of the cannon should be coincident with
+the noise made by the breaking of the spurs carried in the prows of the
+galleys; in fact that the two noises should be as one; some propose to fire
+before the enemy does: this is by no means my advice.”</p>
+
+<p>Artillery, it will be seen from this, played a comparatively unimportant
+part in the combats between galley and galley; that in these craft men
+still relied on the strength of their right arm and the edge of their
+swords; there was still a certain contempt for villainous saltpetre, which
+was looked upon as a somewhat cowardly substance, preventing the warrior
+from settling his disputes in the good old fashion of his forbears. In any
+case, when you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">231</a></span> practically had to push the muzzle of your gun against your
+enemy’s body in order to hit him, it was not a weapon upon which much
+reliance was to be placed.</p>
+
+<p>There were, in addition to the galley, the nef and the galeasse; the former
+of these was a sailing vessel pure and simple like those remarkable
+caravels in which Columbus discovered America.</p>
+
+<p>What these caravels were exactly like it was the good fortune of the writer
+to see in the year 1893. This was the date of the great exhibition of
+Chicago, and the American Government were most anxious to have, and to
+exhibit if possible, an exact replica of these historic craft. They
+accordingly communicated with the Spanish Government and inquired if by any
+chance they possessed the plans and specifications of the caravels of
+Columbus? Search was made in the archives of Cadiz Dockyard and these
+priceless documents were discovered. From them the ships were built in
+every respect the same as the wonderful originals and then towed across the
+Atlantic by the United States cruiser <i>Lancaster</i>. On their way they were
+brought to Gibraltar, where the writer’s ship was then stationed, and were
+anchored inside the New Mole. The <i>Santa Maria</i>, the flagship of Columbus,
+was a three-masted vessel with a very high “forecastle” and “sterncastle”
+and very deep in the waist; she had three masts, the foremast carrying one
+square sail, the mainmast having both mainsail and main-topsail, the mizzen
+was rigged with a lateen sail, on the mainsail was painted the Maltese and
+on the foresail the Papal cross, and on deck she carried a brick-built
+cooking galley. A most beautiful<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">232</a></span> model of this vessel is to be seen in the
+Science and Art Department of the South Kensington Museum.</p>
+
+<p>The nef in its later manifestations became a much more seaworthy vessel
+than this, with four masts, the two foremost ones square-rigged and
+carrying courses and topsails, the two after ones carrying lateen sails;
+the latter from their small size and their proximity to one another could
+not have had much effect on the sailing qualities of the ship. The nefs in
+the fleet of Don John of Austria in 1571 were rigged in this fashion and
+comprised vessels of eight hundred, nine hundred, and even one thousand
+tons, while a contemporary English vessel, the <i>Great Harry</i> or <i>Henri
+Grace à Dieu</i>, was as much as fifteen hundred tons, and carried no less
+than one hundred and eighty-four pieces of ordnance. It was from the nef
+and the galeasse that the sailing man-of-war arrived by the process of
+evolution. The galley in the first instance was the vessel of men who
+fought hand to hand, the men in whom personal strength and desperate valour
+were blended, who desired nothing so much as to come to close grips with
+their enemy. Such rude engines of war as the pierriers, or short cannons
+which discharged some forty or fifty pounds of broken stone upon the enemy,
+were first mounted in the galley; these were followed by improved artillery
+as time went on. But although the galleys eventually carried quite big
+guns, as instanced by the forty-eight pounder in the galleys of the Knights
+of St. John, still it soon became apparent that the limit was reached by
+guns of this weight; the galley was essentially a light vessel and was not
+built to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">233</a></span> withstand those rude shocks caused by firing heavy charges of
+powder.</p>
+
+<p>The galeasse was the connecting link between the navy of oars and the navy
+of sails. The navy of oars was in its generation apt for warlike purposes;
+but it was in its essence a force analogous to the light cavalry of the
+land; useful for a raid, a sudden dash, but without that great strength and
+solidity which came in later years to the building of the sailing line of
+battleship.</p>
+
+<p>The galeasse was really a magnified galley, one which used both sails and
+oars, on board of which the rowers were under cover; she was built with a
+forecastle and a sterncastle which were elevated some six feet above the
+benches of the rowers, and her very long and immensely heavy oars were of
+course proportionate to the size of the vessel. The description of a
+galeasse of nearly one thousand tons burden is set forth as follows by
+Jurien de la Gravière:</p>
+<blockquote>
+<p>“Her draught of water was about 18 feet 6 inches, she was propelled by
+52 oars, 48 feet in length, each oar being worked by 9 men. Her crew
+consisted of 452 rowers, 350 soldiers, 60 marines, 12 steersmen, 40
+ordinary seamen, 86 cannoneers, 12 petty officers, 4 boatswains’ mates,
+3 pilots, 2 sub-pilots, 4 counsellors, 2 surgeons, 4 writers, 2
+sergeants, 2 carpenters, 2 caulkers, 2 coopers, 2 bakers, 10 servants, a
+captain, a lieutenant, a purser. In all some thousand men, or about the
+same number as the crew of a three-decker of a later date.”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>The fleet of the “Holy League” at the battle of Lepanto had in it six
+galeasses from the arsenal of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">234</a></span> Venice; and whereas an average galley carried
+110 soldiers and 222 galley slaves, the crews of these galeasses comprised
+270 soldiers, 130 sailors, and 300 galley slaves.</p>
+
+<p>The speed of the galley was calculated by the French engineer Forfait to be
+in the most favourable circumstances, that is to say in a flat calm, but
+four and a half knots for the first hour, and two and a quarter to one and
+a half miles per hour for subsequent hours; the exhaustion of the rowers
+consequent on their arduous toil would not admit of a greater speed than
+this. The studies of Forfait were made when the invasion of England by
+rowing boats was a topic of burning interest. It is evident from this that
+long voyages, trusting to the oar alone, could not be undertaken; but as we
+have seen, the galley was also provided with motive power in the shape of
+two masts carrying the lateen sail, which may be still seen in so many
+Mediterranean craft.</p>
+
+<p>That the galley was no vessel in which to embark in bad weather is
+instanced for us by the disasters which befell a Spanish fleet of these
+craft in 1567 under the Grand Commander of Castile, Don Luiz de Requesens.
+A revolt of the Moors in Granada had caused Philip the Second to wish to
+withdraw a certain number of Spanish troops from Italy. Requesens was sent
+to Genoa with twenty-four galleys to embark a detachment of an army corps
+then stationed in Piedmont. Each galley embarked one hundred and fifty
+soldiers; they then got under way and reached the island of Hyères, where
+they anchored, the weather being too bad to proceed. At the end of their
+eighth day in port a number of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">235</a></span> vessels were seen flying to the eastward
+before the wind; it was a squadron of Genoese.</p>
+
+<p>Requesens, who was no seaman, was furious. Here were the Genoese at sea,
+and he wasting his time in harbour; if they could keep the sea why could
+not he, he demanded? He instantly ordered the anchors to be weighed. The
+commander of the Tuscan galleys, of which there were ten in the fleet,
+immediately went on board the galley in which Requesens was embarked and
+represented that the wind was foul and that should they leave their
+anchorage they could make no headway once they got clear of the land. But
+Requesens was obstinate: “if others can go on their way it is shameful that
+I should not proceed on mine,” he protested. Alfonso d’Aragona argued with
+him in vain, representing that his master, the Duke of Tuscany, would hold
+the Grand Commander responsible for damage to his galleys. It was all in
+vain, as the Grand Commander was too arrogant and stupid to listen to
+advice from anybody. The fleet put to sea and struggled out a mile from the
+land; when they got thus far Requesens discovered his mistake and regretted
+that he had not taken the advice of the mariners; but it was now too late,
+they had drifted to leeward of their anchorage and could not get back
+again.</p>
+
+<p>One galley, a new vessel, ran into another which was an old one, and sank
+her on the spot, carrying all her luckless crew to the bottom. The
+remaining vessels scattered far and wide; Alfonso d’Aragona found refuge in
+the Bay of Alghieri, two more of his galleys reached an anchorage in the
+Isle of St. Pierre, another sheltered in the Gulf<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">236</a></span> of Oristano; three
+galleys were shipwrecked on the coast in this neighbourhood and lost many
+of their men; yet another, called the <i>Florence</i>, was twice nearly wrecked
+on the coast of Barbary, and eventually reached the Bay of Cagliari. A
+Genoese captain found himself as far afield as the Island of Pantellaria,
+two galleys were never heard of again, and the Grand Commander himself
+anchored eventually in the Bay of Palamos on the Spanish coast. Of the
+twenty-four galleys which left their anchorage twelve were lost and the
+twelve which remained were practically valueless until large sums had been
+spent in repairs.</p>
+
+<p>It is small wonder in the light of these events that the seamen who ranged
+the Mediterranean in vessels propelled by oars regarded the winter as a
+close season and laid up their galleys in harbour. They were seaworthy
+enough for ordinary weather, but could not withstand such a tempest as the
+one in which Requesens put to sea. The whole story is only a further proof
+of the folly of putting supreme command of a sea-going venture in the hands
+of a man totally ignorant of the hazards he was called upon to encounter.
+In the sixteenth and even in the seventeenth centuries this was done
+perpetually, and if no disaster occurred it was because no bad weather was
+encountered.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/i_fp237.jpg" width="500" height="317" alt="BRIGANTINE CHASING FELUCCA." />
+<div class="caption">BRIGANTINE CHASING FELUCCA.</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>As time went on the sailing ship became larger and larger and was able to
+mount more and more powerful ordnance; this had the effect of discounting
+the value of the galley as a fighting ship; in consequence she became
+practically obsolete, for the line of battle, after the combat at Lepanto.
+In spite of this she was to linger on for many long<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">237</a></span> years to come as the
+weapon of the corsairs who had established themselves on the coast of
+Africa. The “long ship” was still to be the cause of many an awful sea
+tragedy, whether the actors therein were the pirates who hailed from the
+Barbary coast or their most capable imitators the notorious rovers of
+Sallee.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">238</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XV<br /><br />
+
+<small>DRAGUT-REIS</small></h2>
+
+<p><small>How he became Lieutenant to Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa&mdash;His capture by
+Jannetin Doria&mdash;His four years as a galley slave&mdash;His ransom by his old
+chief.</small></p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">In</span> character, in capability, in strategic insight, in tactical ability, not
+one of the predecessors or the successors of Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa can be
+compared to him; he was the greatest and most outstanding figure of all
+those corsairs of whose deeds we hear so much during the sixteenth century,
+the man above all others who was feared and hated by his contemporaries in
+Christendom. He lived, as we have said, for another eight years after the
+battle of Prevesa, but his great age prevented him from pursuing a very
+active career. There were, however, other and younger men, trained in the
+terrible school of hardship in which his life had been passed, who proved
+themselves to be his very worthy successors, even if they did not display
+the same genius in war and statecraft. The conditions of this period are
+somewhat remarkable when we come to consider them; Europe, which had been
+sunk in a rude and uncultured barbarism during the middle ages, was
+emerging under the influence of the Renaissance into a somewhat higher and
+nobler<span class="pagenum2"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">239</a></span> conception of life. It is true that the awakening was slow, that
+morally the plane on which the peoples stood was far from being an elevated
+one, that altruism was far from being the note of the lives lived by the
+rulers of the so-called civilised nations. For all this they had emerged
+from that cimmerian darkness in which they had lived so long, and the dawn
+of better things, of more stable government, of some elementary recognition
+of the rights of those governed, was beginning to show above the murky
+horizon.</p>
+
+<p>But if the sun of European progress was slowly and painfully struggling
+through the clouds, the light which had shone brightly for over seven
+centuries of Moslem advance was certainly and surely dying. Beneath the
+mail-clad heel of the Christian warrior the torch of learning which had
+burned so brightly in Cordova and Granada had been extinguished and ground
+into the dust, and the descendants of the alumni of those universities were
+seeking their bread in the Mediterranean Sea in the guise of bloodthirsty
+and desperate pirates.</p>
+
+<p>There were no longer among the Moors of Andalusia learned philosophers,
+expert mathematicians, wise astronomers, and practical agriculturists;
+there was among them but one art, one science, one means of gaining a
+livelihood&mdash;the practice of war&mdash;and their very existence depended on the
+spoils which could be reft from the hereditary enemy. The corsair who grew
+to man’s estate, brought up in Algiers, Tunis, Tenes, Jerba, or any other
+of the lurking places in which the sea-wolves congregated, had as a rule no
+chance but to follow the sea, to exist as his father had existed before
+him; he must<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">240</a></span> fight or starve, and in a fighting age no youngster was likely
+to be backward in taking to the life of wild excitement led by his elders.
+Unless following in the train of one of the leaders, such as Barbarossa,
+the Moslems were apt to take to the sea in a private capacity; a certain
+number of them joining together to man a small craft which was known as a
+brigantine. As has been said in a previous chapter, this word must not be
+understood in the light of the terminology of the modern seaman: the
+brigantines of the Moslem corsairs were really large rowing boats, carrying
+fourteen to twenty-six oars, and made as seaworthy as the small size of
+such craft would allow. Should the venture of the crew of a brigantine
+prove successful, then the reis, or captain, might blossom out into the
+command of a galley, in which his oars would be manned by his slaves; but,
+in the first instance, he would man his brigantine with a crew of Moslem
+desperadoes working on the share system and dividing anything that they
+could pick up; in this manner most of those corsairs who became famous
+commenced their careers, and rose as we have seen from the thwart of a
+brigantine to the unstable eminence of a throne in Algiers, Tunis, or
+Tlemcen.</p>
+
+<p>This life which they led made of them what they were, namely desperate
+swordsmen, efficient men at arms, incomparably skilful in the management of
+the craft in which they put to sea; but it did nothing else for them in the
+way of education; in consequence he who would rise to the top, who aspired
+to be a leader amongst them and not to remain a mere swash-buckling
+swordsman all his life, was bound to acquire that dominance necessary<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">241</a></span> for
+control of the wild spirits of the age. Nor was this ascendancy by any
+means easy to obtain, as the rank and file led lives of incredible
+bitterness, almost inconceivable to modern ideas. What they suffered they
+alone knew, but it was compounded of hunger, thirst, heat, cold, sickness
+unrelieved by care or tending, wounds which festered for lack of
+medicaments, death which ever stared them in the face, and last, and worst
+of all, the risk of capture by some Christian foe, by whom they would be
+chained to the rowers’ bench and taste of a bitterness absolutely
+unimaginable. As a set-off to this the man who aspired to lead must offer
+to his followers at least a record of success in small things; also he had
+to be something of an enthusiast, something of an orator, some one subtly
+persuasive. Against all the disagreeables of the strenuous life of the
+corsair he had to hold before the dazzled eyes of Selim, Ali, or Mahomet
+the promise of fat captures of the merchant vessels of the foe; when they
+had but to slit a few throats and to return with their brigantines laden to
+the gunwale with desirable plunder. Again he had to hearten them for
+possible encounters with Spaniards, with the terrible Doria, or worst of
+all with the dreaded Knights of St. John themselves; to point out that to
+die in conflict with the infidel was a sure passport to heaven and its
+houris, and to invoke great names, such as that of Barbarossa to show to
+what dizzy heights the fighting Moslem could climb. In such an age and
+among such men as these it was no mean feat to become a leader by whom men
+swore and to whom they yielded a ready obedience.</p>
+
+<p>Fashioned by the hammer of misfortune on the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">242</a></span> anvil of racial expropriation,
+such leaders arose among the Moslems, men of iron, before whom all who
+worshipped at the altars of Islam bowed the knee. These men, whose fame
+extended throughout all the length and breadth of the Mediterranean, taught
+to European rulers something of the value of that great force which is
+known to us under the modern name of “Sea Power.”</p>
+
+<p>Next in importance to Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa himself and in many ways his
+very worthy successor, was Dragut Reis. We have it on the authority of
+Messire Pierre de Bourdeille, the Seigneur de Brantôme, that Dragut was
+born at a small village in Asia Minor called Charabulac, opposite to the
+island of Rhodes, and that his parents were Mahommedans. Being born within
+sight and sound of the sea, the youthful Dragut naturally graduated in the
+school of the brigantine and completed his education on board of a galley.
+His training was that which makes the best of fighting seamen, as from
+contemporary records he appears to have passed all his life actively
+engaged on board ship. At a very early age he entered the service of a
+master gunner who served on board the galleys of the Grand Turk. Under his
+auspices the youngster became an expert pilot in his own home waters, and
+likewise a most excellent gunner. Dragut was evidently a youth of ability
+and determination, as almost before he reached man’s estate he had
+succeeded in buying a share in a cruising brigantine where his venture
+prospered so exceedingly that he was soon able to become sole proprietor of
+a galeasse. Here again fortune favoured the enterprising young man; his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">243</a></span>
+name began to be known as a formidable corsair in the Levant, where he was
+remarkable for his knowledge of that portion of the Mediterranean.</p>
+
+<p>To better his condition he offered his services to Barbarossa at Algiers,
+who accepted this new subordinate with joy, delighted to have so valiant
+and capable a man under his orders.</p>
+
+<p>“During some years,” says J. Morgan in his <i>Compleat History of Algiers</i>,
+1728, “he was by that basha intrusted in the direction of sundry momentous
+expeditions; in which he acquitted himself much to the satisfaction of his
+principal: as having never once been unsuccessful.” When we remember the
+treatment meted out by Barbarossa to some of his unsuccessful lieutenants,
+Dragut must be esteemed a very fortunate man. His master, we are told,
+advanced him to all the military offices of the State&mdash;it would be
+interesting to know what these were in a purely piratical confederation
+ruled by a pirate! In the end Dragut was appointed to be kayia, or
+lieutenant, and given entire command of twelve galleys.</p>
+
+<p>“From thenceforward this redoubtable corsair passed not one summer
+without ravaging the coasts of Naples and Sicily; nor durst any
+Christian vessel attempt to pass between Spain and Italy; for if they
+offered it he infallibly snapped them up, and when he missed his prey at
+sea, he made himself amends by making descents along the coasts
+plundering villages and towns and dragging away multitudes of
+inhabitants into captivity.”</p>
+
+<p>That “no vessel durst pass from Spain to Italy” is no doubt a picturesque
+form of exaggeration on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">244</a></span> the part of the historian; at the same time, when
+Dragut was at the height of his activities there is no doubt that any one
+passing through those seas ran a great risk of capture; so much so in fact
+that at this period, from 1538, the date of the battle of Prevesa, until
+Lepanto in 1571, all maritime commerce in the Mediterranean was greatly
+circumscribed. At the beginning of this epoch, which saw the rise of the
+Moslem corsairs, these robbers perforce confined themselves more to the
+North African coast than was the case later on. The pioneers of the
+piratical movement, after the fatal date 1492, which saw the wholesale
+expulsion of the Moors from Spain, were comparatively speaking inexpert
+practitioners in the art and mystery of piracy; they had not the habit of
+the sea, and in consequence confined their depredations to the
+neighbourhood of their own selected ports in Africa, which dominated that
+sea lane running east and west through the Mediterranean, which then, as
+now, was one of the greatest highways of commerce of the world. Gradually,
+as we have seen, under the able guidance of the two Barbarossas, but
+particularly that of the second and greater of the two, piracy became a
+commonplace in the north, as well as in the south, of the tideless sea; the
+corsairs, as time went on, even devoting more time and attention to the
+coast of Italy and the islands of the archipelago than they did to the
+recognised trade routes. These latter had become by 1540 similar to an
+estate which has been shot over too frequently; birds had become both wild
+and scarce, it was hardly worth while to go over the ground, except<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">245</a></span> now and
+again on the chance of picking up a straggler. Towns and islands, on the
+other hand, even if they did not yield much in the way of actual plunder,
+were always good cover to beat for slaves, which had a certain value in the
+markets of Algiers and Tunis. Another circumstance which had led to the now
+frequent raids on the littoral of the European countries was the
+countenance and support accorded to the corsairs by the Grand Turk: so
+admirably did they fit into the scheme of his ambitions, that by the time
+Dragut arrived at a commanding position they were, so to speak, officially
+recognised as a fighting asset of the Sublime Porte; and, as we have seen,
+the Sultan did not hesitate to lend his picked troops, the Janissaries, to
+the corsairs when engaged in their ordinary piratical business. To the
+Grand Turk the corsairs were Moslems who were prepared to fight on his
+side, and who, taking it all in all, really cost him hardly anything; in
+fact, at this date, owing to the magnificent gifts made to the Sultan by
+Kheyr-ed-Din, the Padishah must have made something out of his association
+with the sea-wolves.</p>
+
+<p>By the year 1540 Dragut had distinctly “arrived”; that is to say, he had
+succeeded in making himself so dreaded that Charles V. ordered Andrea Doria
+to seek him out and destroy him at any cost. The Christian admiral was “to
+endeavour by all possible means to purge the sea of so insufferable a
+nuisance.”</p>
+
+<p>Andrea got ready a fleet, which he entrusted, together with the care and
+management of this affair, to his nephew Jannetin Doria. This was the
+nephew who, in the disastrous attack by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">246</a></span> Charles on Hassan Aga at Algiers in
+the following year, was so nearly lost in the storm which destroyed the
+fleet of the emperor; and of whom Andrea Doria is reported to have said,
+“It was decreed that Jannetin should be reduced to such an extremity
+purposely to convince the world that it was not impossible for Andrea Doria
+to shed a tear.” Certainly from what we know of the celebrated Genoese
+admiral it is hard to imagine him in a tearful mood. Jannetin Doria put to
+sea, and, after a long hunt, found the object of his quest at Andior on the
+coast of Corsica; Dragut was at anchor in the road of Goialatta, under a
+castle situated between Cabri and Liazzo. The corsair knew nothing of his
+enemies being at sea, and was in consequence keeping no particular
+look-out. Although we are not told the composition of the fleet of Jannetin
+Doria, it must have been a large one, as Dragut had under his orders
+thirteen galleys, and was unable to withstand the attack to which he was
+subject. He was also assailed from the shore, as well as the sea, as the
+castle under which he was at anchor opened fire upon him as soon as it was
+discovered by its garrison that the new arrivals were Christians. The fire
+was too hot for the corsair to withstand, and, to add to his
+embarrassments, the beach soon became lined by hundreds of the fierce
+Corsi, awaiting the inevitable end when they should be able to fall upon
+the defeated Moslems and wipe them from off the face of the earth; it was a
+warfare in which there was no mercy, and if the pirates were to fall into
+the hands of the islanders they knew well that they would be exterminated.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">247</a></span></p>
+<p>In all his venturesome life things had never gone so badly with Dragut as
+upon this occasion. On the one side, should he and his men land they would
+be massacred; on the other hand, his road to the open sea was barred by an
+immensely superior force. Recognising the logic of circumstances, and
+seeing no way of escape, the white flag was hung out by the Moslem leader.
+The only terms, however, which he could obtain were immediate surrender or
+instant death. It must have been a moment of anguish to the man who
+hitherto had always ridden on the crest of the wave of success and
+achievement to be thus trapped like a rat; and to have the added bitterness
+of the thought that had he exercised seamanlike care and precaution in
+keeping a good look-out he might have escaped. As it was, he was allowed no
+time for reflection, but had to decide on the instant: he did the only
+thing possible in the circumstances, which was to haul down his flag and to
+become the thrall of his lifelong foes.</p>
+
+<p>The principal captives were made to pass before young Doria. When Dragut
+beheld him he cried out in a fury: “What! Am I a slave to that effeminate
+Caramite?” for Doria was but a beardless youth. These opprobrious epithets
+being interpreted to the young nobleman, “highly incensed he flew at
+Dragut, tore out his beard and moustaches, and buffeted him most
+outrageously: nay his passion was so great it is said that had he not been
+prevented, he certainly would have sheathed his sword in the bowels of that
+assuming prisoner.”</p>
+
+<p>For four long years Dragut rowed in Doria’s galley. No distinctions were
+made in those days,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">248</a></span> and knight or noble, companion or grand master, basha
+or boy, was, if caught, condemned to the rowers’ bench to slave at the oar
+beneath the boatswain’s lash, perchance alongside some degraded criminal,
+filthy and swarming with vermin. While Dragut was employed as a galley
+slave there came on board the craft in which he rowed Monsieur Parisot,
+Grand Master of the Knights of Malta. This high officer, recognising his
+old enemy, called out to him in Spanish:</p>
+
+<p>“Hola, Señor Dragut, usanza de guerra” (“The usage of war, Señor Dragut”).</p>
+
+<p>To which the undaunted corsair merely replied with a laugh:</p>
+
+<p>“Y mudanza de fortuna” (“And a change of luck”).</p>
+
+<p>The Grand Master, who had known the chain and lash himself, smiled and
+passed on&mdash;there was no pity in those days.</p>
+
+<p>But Dragut was not destined to end his life as a galley slave, for, when
+indeed hope must have died within him, after more than four years of this
+veritable hell upon earth, there sailed one day into the harbour of Genoa
+the great Kheyr-ed-Din himself. The Admiralissimo of the Grand Turk, full
+of years, honours, and booty, was on his last cruise, and one of the last
+acts of his active life was the rescue of Dragut, the man who had served
+him so well, and for whom he had so high a regard as a resourceful mariner,
+from the degrading servitude into which he had fallen. The Spanish
+historian, Marmol, recounts that the sum of three thousand ducats was paid
+by Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa for the redemption of Dragut.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">249</a></span> As this history
+was published in 1573, we must conclude that the author who wrote of these
+events so soon after they had happened is correct; at the same time,
+Barbarossa was in command of one hundred galleys of the Grand Turk, and it
+was never his custom to pay for anything which he could take by force.
+However this may have been, and the point is not one of very great
+importance, the Genoese Senate was terrified lest their territory should be
+ravaged; they wrote accordingly to their Grand Admiral, requesting that
+Dragut might be released and sent on board of the galley of the admiral
+basha. This was immediately done, and the man who for four years had tugged
+at the Christian oar was once again in a position to make war on those who
+had been for that period his masters.</p>
+
+<p>Not only had he tugged at the Christian oar, but also he had tasted of the
+Christian whip&mdash;and of very little else, as the food of the rower was as
+scanty as it was disgusting; in consequence, if he had been an implacable
+foe to Christendom before this event, he was not likely to have become less
+so while toiling in the Genoese galley.</p>
+
+<p>The practical retirement of Barbarossa from that sphere of activity in
+which his life had been passed now left Dragut-Reis the most feared and the
+most formidable of all the Moslem corsairs in the Mediterranean. From the
+time of his release by Barbarossa until the day of his death at the siege
+of Malta in 1565, he followed the example shown him by that prince among
+pirates with so much assiduity as to render him only second to Kheyr-ed-Din
+in the detestation in which he was held.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">250</a></span> Says Morgan: “The ill-treatment he
+had met with during his four years’ captivity was no small addition to the
+Innate Rapaciousness of his Disposition.”</p>
+
+<p>In the year 1546, Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa died, and to replace him the
+Sultan Soliman ordered all the mariners in his dominions to acknowledge
+Dragut-Reis as their admiral, and to obey him in the same manner as they
+had obeyed his predecessor. From this date he was the foremost corsair in
+the Mediterranean, and the feats which were performed by him showed that
+the Padishah had not erred in his selection.</p>
+
+<p>The ambition of Dragut increased with his power, and he determined,
+following the example of the Barbarossas, to seize and hold some strong
+place of arms possessed of a commodious port in which he might be the
+supreme ruler. Accordingly, in the depth of winter in the year 1548, at a
+time which was, as we have pointed out, a close season for piratical
+enterprises, and during which attack from the sea was not expected, he
+collected all the corsairs whom he could gather, and fell upon the
+Spaniards on the coast of Tunis, at Susa, at Sfax, and at Monastir. These
+places had been taken from the corsairs in the previous summer by Andrea
+Doria; they formed a sort of regular battle-ground when the combatants were
+in want of something to do, and were held alternately by the King of Tunis,
+the Spaniards, and the corsairs.</p>
+
+<p>Dragut was well aware that as soon as the spring arrived he would be
+attacked; he also knew that the attack would come in sufficient force to
+drive him out, as none of these towns was really<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">251</a></span> strong or easily defended;
+in consequence he concentrated his attention on the town of “Africa,”
+otherwise known as Mehedia, and in the Roman histories as Adrumentum.</p>
+
+<p>This great city lay some leagues to the east of Tunis on a tongue of land
+projecting into the sea; its fortifications were regular, its walls of
+great thickness, height, and solidity, and were strengthened by many towers
+and bulwarks; the guns were large, numerous, and in good condition. At the
+back of the town, on an eminence, stood a large fortress, the citadel of
+the place; the harbour was large and secure, with an inner basin forming a
+port for galleys; the entrance to this was closed by a strong chain. The
+sea washed the walls of the city; indeed, it was entirely surrounded,
+except where by a narrow neck of land it joined the shore.</p>
+
+<p>The inhabitants, natives of the place, had shaken off the yoke of the King
+of Tunis, and had formed themselves into a kind of independent republic.
+They admitted neither Turk nor Christian within their walls, trusting
+neither party, and fearing from them the fate which befell Susa, Sfax, and
+Monastir.</p>
+
+<p>“Africa” was the goal of the desires of Dragut-Reis: once in possession of
+this, by far the strongest city on the littoral of Northern Africa, he
+thought that he might abide secure against the attacks of Charles and of
+Andrea Doria. He had seen the enormous expedition of 1541 against Algiers
+come to naught on account of the wholesale wrecking of the fleet in which
+it had sailed by a tempest of unexampled violence. But he was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">252</a></span> too
+level-headed a man to think that a miracle like this would be likely to
+come to pass a second time for his own special behoof, and preferred to act
+the part of the strong man armed who keepeth his goods in peace. He had,
+however, first to gain over the inhabitants of “Africa” to his views, and
+they proved anything but anxious to listen to his blandishments. The more
+he tried to ingratiate himself the less inclined did these people seem to
+listen.</p>
+
+<p>“My ambition,” said the silver-tongued corsair, “is to become a citizen of
+your great and beautiful city. If you will admit me to its privileges it
+shall be my business to render you the richest people in the whole
+Mediterranean, and your city the most dreaded place in the world.”</p>
+
+<p>The “Africans,” however, were obdurate; they knew a pirate when they saw
+him quite as well as any one else, and they were quite aware that, should
+they open their gates to Dragut, sooner or later they would have to stand a
+siege from the Christian forces, which was a thing they by no means
+desired.</p>
+
+<p>But Dragut was not yet at the end of his resources; he was rich, and he
+spent money freely in order to gain over to his side those men of
+importance by whom such a question as this was bound to be decided. By rich
+presents and other blandishments he succeeded in securing the friendship of
+one Ibrahim Amburac, who was not only a leader among the inhabitants, but
+also governor of one of the towers by which the city was surrounded.
+Through him he approached the Council by which the town was ruled, only to
+receive a very decided<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">253</a></span> negative: the Council observed the outward forms of
+politeness to this formidable person who was speaking them so fair: in
+reality, they hated and feared the corsairs only one degree less than they
+did Andrea Doria and his Christians. To admit the one was to bring upon
+themselves the vengeance of the other; therefore if they could keep them
+both out they intended so to do. The ill-omened courtesy of the corsair
+filled their hearts with apprehension, and they viewed his immediate
+departure, after the refusal of the council had been conveyed to him, with
+undisguised relief. Had they but known their man a little better, their
+uneasiness would have been far greater than their joy at his temporary
+absence. Those things desired by Dragut which he could not obtain by fair
+means he usually seized by the strong hand; and when he left so hurriedly,
+and at the same time so unostentatiously, he had already entered into a
+plot with Ibrahim Amburac. This leader, furious at the rebuff which he had
+received at the hands of his fellow councillors on the subject of the
+admittance of Dragut to the citizenship of “Africa,” was now ready to
+deliver that city into the hands of the corsairs by treachery.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">254</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XVI<br /><br />
+
+<small>DRAGUT-REIS</small></h2>
+
+<p><small>How the corsairs captured the town of “Africa”; of its recapture by
+Andrea Doria and its eventual total destruction by Charles V.</small></p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">Dragut</span> had made it a practice never to appear in the harbour of “Africa” in
+any great force, as he had no desire to frighten the birds whom he desired
+to snare; on the occasion of which we are now speaking he had but two
+galleys, and their departure from the outer harbour passed almost
+unnoticed, as the ruck of the population were accustomed to visits from the
+corsairs, who came to fill up with provisions and fresh water. Swiftly as
+hawks his vessels swept along the coast collecting the garrisons of Susa,
+Sfax, and Monastir to aid him in his latest design; they were all picked
+men and singularly apt for the stern business which their leader destined
+them to undertake. In this manner he soon collected five hundred of the
+stoutest and most reckless fighters who sailed out of the ports of Northern
+Africa, and, when it became noised abroad among them what the service was
+for which they were required, there was universal joy and eagerness. True
+the adventure was a formidable one: to capture “Africa” was no light task,
+even for such men as these under so renowned a leader; there<span class="pagenum2"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">255</a></span> was further
+the difficulty that the persons against whom they went up to fight were no
+Christians but Moslems like themselves. But against this was the
+declaration of Dragut, who represented to his following that there was
+really no choice in the matter; that to these stiffnecked and singularly
+ungrateful people he had offered the protection of the corsairs, that they
+had refused in the most contumelious manner, and in consequence there was
+nothing for it but the strong hand. They&mdash;that is to say the corsairs&mdash;knew
+right well that some strong place of arms in which to shelter themselves
+and their vessels was an absolute necessity for their continued existence,
+as at any moment Doria or the Knights of Malta might be on their track in
+superior force, and then what was their fate likely to be if they had no
+harbour under their lee in which to shelter? Further it was hinted that
+“Africa” would provide very nice pickings in the way of loot, and when this
+came to be generally understood the promptings of the Mahommedan conscience
+yielded easily to the sophistries with which it was lulled.</p>
+
+<p>The council of the town of “Africa” troubled themselves but little more
+concerning Dragut, his ships, and his corsairs; he had departed, and as the
+days wore on and no further tidings of him came to hand, these simple folk
+thanked God that they were rid of a knave and went about their usual
+avocations as unconcernedly as if no sea-wolves lurked under the shadowed
+headlands of that continent in which their homes were situated. They were a
+people essentially of the land; although they dwelt on the confines of the
+ocean the ways<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">256</a></span> and habits of those who earned a precarious living on the
+waters were a sealed book to them, and with the “Africans” it was a case of
+“out of sight out of mind” so far as the corsairs were concerned. But that
+black-hearted traitor Ibrahim Amburac and the few others who had been
+gained over by the gold of Dragut watched and waited for the attack which
+they knew to be impending.</p>
+
+<p>The inhabitants of the doomed city never saw their assailants until they
+were actually upon them, so well had the surprise attack been planned by
+the leader of the corsairs. He had collected five hundred men, and this was
+but a small number with which to assail so strong a place; but Dragut knew
+exactly what he was doing and the effect likely to be produced by the
+introduction of this number of highly trained men-at-arms among a
+population which, although brave and warlike, lacked the elements of
+organisation for the defence of their city.</p>
+
+<p>So it was that, all preparations being completed, he stood along the coast
+anchoring out of sight of his objective, but close enough to reach it by
+midnight after darkness had fallen. He had every confidence in himself, an
+absolute trust in the hardbitten fighters whom he was about to lead;
+success or failure now rested in the hands of traitors within the city.</p>
+
+<p>“Faith unfaithful kept them falsely true,” for when Dragut and his
+followers arrived at a certain rendezvous outside the walls which had been
+agreed upon previously, there they found Ibrahim Amburac and his men ready
+to assist them in scaling this obstacle. It will be remembered that Ibrahim<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">257</a></span>
+Amburac was personally in charge of one of the towers with which the walls
+were guarded, and thus his task of aiding those who came from without was a
+singularly easy one. But even at midnight the passage of five hundred men
+could not remain long undiscovered as they clambered in over the walls.
+Soon an alarm was raised and the “Africans” rushed to arms and hurried to
+the quarter from which danger threatened. The townsmen were well armed and
+brave, also they were numerous; but it was the old story of the break-up of
+undisciplined valour by highly organised attack.</p>
+
+<p>In the choking heat of the African night townsmen and corsairs wrestled in
+deadly conflict hand to hand and foot to foot; but these untrained landsmen
+stood but a poor chance against the picked fighting men of the Moslem
+galleys who had been inured to bloodshed from their earliest youth and
+trained by such a master in the art of war as Dragut. That warrior, his
+great curved scimitar red to the hilt, the blood dripping from a gash in
+his cheek, his clothing torn and in disarray, followed by a gigantic negro
+bearing a flaming torch, was ever in the thickest of the fray. Behind him
+his lieutenants Othman and Selim strove to emulate his prowess, while all
+around surged his devoted band of fanatics.</p>
+
+<p>“Allah! Allah!” and “Dragut! Dragut!” pealed the war-cry of the corsairs;
+foot by foot and yard by yard that spearhead of dauntless dare-devils
+pressed onwards into the packed masses of the “Africans,” who, fighting
+stubbornly, nevertheless were borne back by the fury of the terrible
+onslaught.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">258</a></span></p>
+<p>Torch-bearers among the pirates leaped into houses and set them
+ablaze, the flames volleyed and crackled, the dense smoke rolled upwards to
+the stainless sky, the night was a hell of blood and fire.</p>
+
+<p>There was a sharp order repeated and passed on, the corsairs drew back, and
+the “Africans” shouted that the triumph was theirs; but they little knew
+Dragut, the sea-hawk who poised to strike anew. A blazing beam dropped
+across the street, the townsfolk shouted in insult and derision; but the
+joy which they had experienced at seeing their adversaries recoil was but a
+short and fleeting emotion. Giving himself and those who had hitherto been
+engaged time to breathe and recover themselves, Dragut waited while the
+noise of the strife died down, and nought was heard but the roar of the
+flames and the crash of the burning buildings.</p>
+
+<p>The leader turned to his followers, among whom dwelt an ominous silence.
+“Dost remember Prevesa,” he cried, “when Andrea Doria and the best of the
+Christian warriors fled before you like sheep before a dog: are these
+miserable townsmen to stay your onward march?”</p>
+
+<p>There remained for an appreciable period after he had spoken a tense
+silence; the red light from the burning houses shone on the lean faces
+alight with the fierce fire of fanaticism, with an inextinguishable lust of
+slaughter. There came an answering frenetic roar, “Lead! Lead! Dragut!
+Dragut! Dragut!” It was enough: the corsair had tried the temper of the
+steel, he had now but to use the edge. There was an ordered movement<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">259</a></span> on the
+part of the pirates: a fresh hundred men, who had hitherto taken no part in
+the combat, now pressed to the front and formed the advance, those who had
+been before engaged now forming the supports; that which had been the shaft
+of the spear now forming its head. With Dragut leading, these fresh
+unwounded men swept forward over the burning beam; irresistible as some
+mighty river in spate, these disciplined ruffians, headed by this master
+spirit, burst through the ill-organised resistance opposed to them, and
+slew and slew and slew.</p>
+
+<p>Behind them, alert and wary, came the supports, asking no quarter and
+giving none, cutting up the wounded, trampling under foot friend and foe
+alike who fell in the weltering shambles which marked the onward path of
+their leader and the advanced party. Very soon the broken hosts of the
+“Africans” cried piteously for mercy; the fight was over, and Dragut-Reis,
+wounded, breathless, but victorious, stood master of the strongest place of
+arms in all the continent of Africa. It is true that treachery had given
+him his opportunity, but once that was obtained the rest he had done for
+himself: the stealthy advance by sea, the midnight march to the exact spot
+on the walls where he was awaited by Ibrahim Amburac, the marshalling of
+his five hundred for the conflict, and the actual conduct of the fight
+itself, were all to the credit of this apt pupil of the great Kheyr-ed-Din
+Barbarossa, As warriors his followers were worthy of their leader: defeated
+the corsairs frequently were, but, in the combats in which they engaged,
+they were frequently, as we have seen in the course of this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">260</a></span> story, largely
+dependent upon auxiliaries in whom no trust could be placed; and at
+Prevesa, at the siege of Malta, and later on at the battle of Lepanto, the
+spot on which they fought, were it on the land or on the sea, was ever the
+one which formed the nucleus of resistance. It was not only that fighting
+was their particular trade; that, of course, might be said also of any man
+who trailed a pike or carried an arquebus and marched in the ranks of
+Spain, France, Genoa, or Venice. In the case of the sea-wolves it was the
+perpetual practice in the art of war, as it was then understood, that
+caused them to be the men that they were. Much of their fighting could
+hardly be dignified by such a name, as in their everlasting raids on
+villages and undefended places they seldom lost many of their number: when,
+however, it came to the real thing, as it did on the occasion we have just
+recounted, the long years of training told, and opposition had to be strong
+indeed if it were not to be beaten down by such a leader as Dragut, by such
+men as his picked five hundred.</p>
+
+<p>What passed between Dragut and the council of “Africa,” who in so
+unqualified a manner had refused that warrior as a citizen, is not on
+record; all that we know is that the Moslem leader dispensed with their
+services, and did not invite his new fellow-townsmen to share with him the
+burden of government. There was hurry in the administration of the corsair
+states, as the form of rule which they adopted was apt to irk the rulers in
+Christendom. In this particular instance Dragut, having expelled the
+Spaniards from the coast towns, knew that a reckoning with the Emperor and
+his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">261</a></span> militant admiral, Andrea Doria, was but a matter of time, and, in all
+probability, of a very short time.</p>
+
+<p>Promptly, hurriedly, but efficiently, the corsair organised his new
+possession: such laws as he decreed did not err on the side of tenderness
+towards a people so ungrateful as to have refused his protection in the
+first instance, and who had only accepted the gift at the point of the
+sword. His nephew Aisa, a man young in years but a past-graduate in the
+school of his terrible uncle, was left in charge, while Dragut himself
+sailed once more with his fleet, for, as it is put by the Spanish historian
+Marmol, “truly the sea was his element.”</p>
+
+<p>Once again had a Moslem corsair bid defiance to that ruler whom Sandoval
+and Marmol in their histories greet by the name of the “Modern Cæsar.” It
+was told to Charles that Susa, Sfax, and Monastir had fallen, that “Africa”
+was in the hands of the corsairs; “was he never to be free from these
+pestilent knaves,” he demanded of his trembling courtiers? Hot-foot came
+the couriers from Charles to Andrea Doria, with orders to take Dragut dead
+or alive, but alive for choice; and up and down the tideless sea in the
+summer of 1549 did the great Genoese seaman range in search of the bold
+corsair. Doria was getting a very old man now, but his eye was undimmed,
+his strength yet tireless, his vigilance and zeal in the service of his
+master unabated.</p>
+
+<p>Dead or alive, great was the reward offered for the capture of Dragut, but
+the veteran admiral required no stimulus of this sort to urge him to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">262</a></span> put
+forth his utmost endeavours, to strain every nerve and sinew in the chase.
+All his life he had been fighting the corsairs, mostly with conspicuous
+success; but what Andrea could never forget&mdash;and what his enemies never
+allowed him to forget even had he been so inclined&mdash;was the fact that, at
+the supreme crisis of his valiant life, when he met with Kheyr-ed-Din
+Barbarossa at the battle of Prevesa, he had come off so badly that his
+under officers of the Papal and Venetian fleets had made representations,
+on their return to their respective headquarters, which had detracted from
+his fame, and lowered him in the estimation of Europe. Further than this,
+he knew that Barbarossa had laughed at and made game of him among his wild
+followers: this to the aristocrat, the Prince of Oneglia, the admiral who
+treated on almost equal terms with such men as the Pope, Charles of Spain,
+and Francis of France, was an insult hard to be borne; the next corsair
+with whom he should meet should not escape so easily as had Kheyr-ed-Din,
+that the admiral had sworn.</p>
+
+<p>Personal pique and vanity, racial detestation, and religious fanaticism
+were in his case all allied together to spur him on in the chase of this
+the last of the Emperor’s foes; but, search as he might, during that summer
+Doria could never get on to the track of Dragut. The corsairs, as we have
+just remarked, were fine fighters on occasion when it was necessary for the
+purposes of loot, or of escape from those who, like Doria, interfered with
+their particular method of gaining a livelihood; but, on the other hand,
+they were no fools, they did not covet hard knocks and the possibility<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">263</a></span> of
+defeat from such a one as the admiral of the Emperor, when by the exercise
+of a little ingenuity they could keep out of his way. Dragut was not going
+to fight a general action at sea merely to please Doria; in this summer his
+luck stood to him, and he never came across this man, who, with a sombre
+hatred in his heart, was seeking him high and low. If the corsair were bold
+as a lion when occasion offered, he was no less as slippery as an eel when
+he desired to escape; to face twenty-two royal galleys with Doria in
+command was no part of his programme. An occasion might arise when he would
+be forced to action; should this happen Dragut had not forgotten his four
+years in the galley of Jannetin Doria, the nephew of the admiral, and next
+time he intended to fight to win. Just at present the Christian admiral was
+in too great strength for him to do aught but keep out of his way, and much
+to Andrea’s annoyance this was what he succeeded in doing.</p>
+
+<p>Doria got information that Dragut was at Monastir, information that was
+perfectly correct; but by this time the corsair knew that not only had he
+raised all Christendom, but that the admiral was on his track. In
+consequence, he slipped out of Monastir, “for,” as it is pithily put by
+Marmol, “our corsair cared not to be shut up in so defenceless a port; he
+had good heels and loved sea-room.”</p>
+
+<p>Dragut did not fear for his new possession, “Africa,” as he knew that Doria
+had not sufficient force to attack so formidable a place; therefore,
+leaving it to its destiny and the valour and conduct<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">264</a></span> of his nephew Aisa, on
+whom he knew that he could rely, “he went,” according to the chronicler,
+“on his old trade making Horrid Devastations on the coast of Spain and its
+islands.”</p>
+
+<p>While Dragut was pursuing his “Horrid Devastations,” Doria was not idle,
+but was ranging the northern coast of Africa in his fruitless search; in
+the course of this he landed at Cape Bona, on which was the castle of
+Calibia, held by the corsairs; these men, who were a portion of Dragut’s
+following, made a most valiant defence; they were, however, few in number,
+and when their captain was killed by the ball from an arquebus they
+surrendered. Encouraged by this success, the Christian fleet then stood
+along the coast to inspect “Africa.” Sailing quite close to the shore they
+came within range of the guns of the garrison, who, under the direction of
+Aisa, were very much on the alert. As the admiral’s galley at the head of
+the line passed the walls of the town, she was received with a hot fire,
+and one large cannonball struck the stern of Doria’s ship, doing
+considerable structural damage, and killing five of his men. This
+occurrence took place in broad daylight in full view of all the garrison,
+who signalled their delight at the discomfiture of their foes by the noise
+of cymbals and atambours, and by wild and ferocious yells. Doria, who was
+in no position to land and make reprisals, fell into the greatest paroxysm
+of fury, and we are told that “he swore the destruction of that detested
+city.”</p>
+
+<p>The season being now advanced, Doria returned<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">265</a></span> home, where he found orders
+awaiting him from Charles that preparation was to be made for the capture
+of “Africa”. While the admiral was in harbour, Dragut, finding the seas
+open to him once more, returned from his “Horrid Devastations,” and
+employed his time profitably in throwing provisions and men into the city,
+which he knew would be beleagured in the following year.</p>
+
+<p>During the ensuing winter Doria, in conjunction with the viceroys of Naples
+and Sicily, prepared the expedition which was to accomplish not only the
+capture of “Africa,” but what was, in his opinion, equally important, the
+destruction of Dragut-Reis, Early in the spring of 1550, all was in
+readiness, and the armada of Charles sailed from Palermo to Trapani, where
+it met with the forces of Don Juan de Vega, Viceroy of Sicily, those of Don
+Garcia de Toledo, the son of the Viceroy of Naples, and likewise the
+Maltese squadron. The galleys, accompanied by a fleet of transports, set
+sail early in June, and on the 20th of that month landed an army a little
+to the east of Mehedia or “Africa”.</p>
+
+<p>It must be remembered that the inhabitants of Mehedia were by no means
+enamoured of Dragut-Reis and his piratical followers: King Stork had
+succeeded to King Log, the part of the former monarch being taken by that
+singularly capable and ferocious person, Aisa, whose rule was far from
+being to the liking of the richer and more respectable portion of the
+townsfolk.</p>
+
+<p>When, therefore, Andrea Doria and his captains laid siege to the city, they
+murmured against its defence, desiring ardently to enter into some sort<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">266</a></span> of
+treaty with the besiegers; they had had enough of war, they said, and
+wished to end their days in peace if possible.</p>
+
+<p>Aisa Reis, however, would hear no word of surrender, telling those who
+murmured against the defence that “if he heard a word more of these plots
+he would infallibly sacrifice every mother’s son amongst them, and then lay
+the town in ashes.” Having already had a taste of the quality of this
+redoubtable corsair, and feeling perfectly certain that should the occasion
+arise he would be as good as his word, there was no more disaffection among
+the inhabitants, who had to put up with their native place being made a
+cockpit for Doria and Dragut to fight out their quarrel. It is permissible
+to sympathise very sincerely with these unfortunates, who, having been
+betrayed in the first instance, were compelled to stand a siege in the
+second.</p>
+
+<p>Aisa had a picked force of his uncle’s men, some seventeen hundred foot and
+six hundred horse, all seasoned and formidable veterans, inured to warfare
+by land and sea. On these of course he could rely to the death. The common
+folk of the town were inclined to make common cause with the corsairs in
+resistance to their hereditary enemy the Christians; but the magistrates
+and members of the council, the grave and reverend signiors, held so
+conspicuously aloof that Aisa was constrained into forcing them to aid in
+the defence when he had time to attend to the matter. As Dragut was not
+actually present at the siege it falls outside the scope of this chronicle;
+he was without the walls when the besiegers arrived, but all that he could
+do, that he did. With a body of his own men reinforced by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">267</a></span> a rabble rout of
+Berber tribesmen, he harassed the Christian army; they were, however, in
+far too great numbers for him to make any impression, and after several
+desperate skirmishes he recognised that the day was lost, and re-embarking
+in his galleys sailed away. The town after a desperate and prolonged
+resistance was at last taken by storm; and Doria captured Aisa, a Turkish
+alcaid, and ten thousand prisoners of the baser sort. Of these, however,
+there was scarce one who owed allegiance to Dragut; the warriors of this
+chief neither gave nor accepted quarter, as they feared the wrath of the
+terrible corsair even more than death itself.</p>
+
+<p>Don Juan de Vega put his son Don Alvaro in command of the city and set out
+in search of Dragut with twenty galleys, but the sea leaves no traces by
+which a fugitive can be tracked, and his search proved as fruitless as had
+been that of Doria in the previous year. The rage and the disappointment of
+the admiral were beyond all bounds; what to him was the value of the
+capture of Aisa, of the Turkish alcaid, of the ten thousand of the baser
+sort; nay, what to him was the value of “Africa” itself when once again
+like a mocking spirit Dragut had glided beyond the sea horizon to
+devastate, to plunder, and to slay once more, the scourge and the menace of
+Christendom.</p>
+
+<p>It will be interesting to record briefly the fate of this city which we
+have seen taken and retaken. Don Alvaro de Vega remained as governor till
+the end of July, 1551, when his place was taken by Don Sancho de Leyva; at
+which time there took place one of those curious military mutinies so
+characteristic of the sixteenth century. The soldiers, unpaid<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">268</a></span> for months,
+possibly for years, mutinied, expelled the governor and other officers,
+even the sergeants, from the city, and placed themselves under the
+direction of a stout soldier called Antonio de Aponte, to whom they gave
+the title of “Electo Mayor.”</p>
+
+<p>Don Sancho repaired to Brussels to report matters to the Emperor, and
+during his absence a circumstance which is also singularly characteristic
+of this faithless epoch took place, for the Prior of Capua, then general of
+the French galleys, entered into negotiations with the mutineers for the
+surrender of the city to the French King.</p>
+
+<p>Bluff Antonio de Aponte would have none of this treachery; he held the city
+for the Emperor Charles and only wanted his pay. Eventually a mutiny within
+a mutiny was fomented from without, and with the mutineers divided the
+Emperor regained possession of the city; some of the mutineers were hanged,
+and Aponte, who had been captured by the Turks, died at Constantinople.</p>
+
+<p>The Emperor offered “Africa” to the Knights of Malta with a yearly
+allowance of twenty-four thousand ducats; the Knights refused, much to the
+chagrin of Charles, who gave orders for its complete destruction. This was
+accomplished by blowing up with gunpowder the walls, towers, and
+fortifications which Al-Mehedi, after whom the city had been named, “had
+erected with such art and strength, and had his mind so fixed upon that
+work that he used to say, ‘If I thought building these fortifications with
+iron and brass would render them more durable, I would certainly do it.’”</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">269</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XVII<br /><br />
+
+<small>DRAGUT-REIS</small></h2>
+
+<p><small>How Dragut was blockaded in the Island of Jerbah&mdash;How he left Andrea
+Dona “with the dog to hold”&mdash;His return to Constantinople, and how he
+sailed from thence with a great expedition against the Knights of Malta.</small></p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">Charles V.</span> had “smoked out the fox,” but his admiral in so doing had not
+succeeded in capturing that remarkably wily animal; for Dragut was not only
+still at liberty, but was burning for revenge on those by whom he had been
+dispossessed. He had lost “his city,” as he called “Africa”; he had lost
+two thousand five hundred men&mdash;among them some of the fiercest and most
+experienced of his corsairs; he had lost ten thousand slaves, representing
+a large sum of money, and much wealth besides. The corsair, however, was
+not one of those who merely sit down and repine; for him strenuous and
+continued action was the law of his being, and he at once repaired to
+Constantinople. Here he was well known as an adroit and skilful seaman and
+a most determined enemy of the Christians, and, in consequence, was not
+only certain of a welcome, but of substantial help as well, if he could but
+win over the Grand Turk to take the same view of his grievances as he did<span class="pagenum2"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">270</a></span>
+himself. In reality, the corsairs, as we have seen, played the game of the
+Padishah, as a rule, at no expense to that potentate; when they were in
+trouble he was therefore by no means indisposed to render them assistance.</p>
+
+<p>Dragut, like all the sea-wolves, was fond of money, fonder still of what
+money could buy; he now hankered after revenge as the sweetest morsel that
+his hoarded ducats could procure for him. That the Sultan was well disposed
+to him he had every reason to think; none the less did he spend royally
+among the venal favourites of the Court in order that nothing might be left
+undone to inflame the ardour of Soliman against those whom he considered to
+be his hereditary foes.</p>
+
+<p>With such skill and address did the corsair manage his suit that he
+prevailed upon the Sultan to address a letter to Charles demanding the
+immediate return of the towns of Susa, Sfax, Monastir, and “Africa.” This,
+of course, meant war; as Charles immediately replied that these places were
+dependencies of the King of Tunis, and that that ruler was under his
+special protection; further that they were his by right of conquest;
+finally that the matter was no concern whatever of the Sultan of
+Constantinople. The stern and imperious Christian Emperor was in no mood to
+brook interference, the more so that he discerned plainly that though the
+demand was that of Soliman, the mover in the affair was none other than
+Dragut. He therefore by way of a rider to his answer to the Sultan informed
+that monarch that these places which he had taken on the coast of Africa
+had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">271</a></span> been reft by him “from one Dragut, a corsair odious to both God and
+man”; that without in any way departing from the treaty which he had made
+with Soliman “he intended to pursue this pirate whithersoever he might go.”</p>
+
+<p>Whether or no this denunciation of Dragut had any influence on the Sultan
+it is impossible to say; he was in the habit of employing the corsairs, and
+apparently cared nothing about their piratical reputation, so long as their
+depredations were confined to Christian vessels. Shortly after the receipt
+of the answer of Charles, however, the Sultan conferred upon Dragut the
+title of Sandjak or governor of the island of Santa Maura, thus
+constituting him a Turkish official.</p>
+
+<p>Once again was Andrea Doria ordered to put to sea to fight against neither
+small nor great save Dragut alone; he was to take him dead or alive, but
+alive for choice, in order that he might be made to answer at the bar of
+Christian justice for all the atrocities committed by him both by land and
+sea. The corsair had returned in the meanwhile to Jerbah, an island on the
+east coast of Tunis much affected by the sea-wolves, and which in
+contemporary histories is known as Jerbah, as Los Gelues (by the Spanish
+writers), as Gelves, and various other names which greatly confuse its
+identity.</p>
+
+<p>Doria put to sea with twenty-two royal galleys before Dragut was aware of
+the fact. The Genoese admiral heard that his prey was at Jerbah; he
+repaired thither without losing a moment, found that he had been correctly
+informed, and anchored at the mouth of the harbour, at a place known<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">272</a></span> as La
+Bocca de Cantara. Dragut was completely hemmed in, Doria was in such
+strength that he could not, reckless as he was, attempt to force the
+passage. But as the hour came the spirit of the corsair rose to answer the
+challenge: it was one thing to get Dragut-Reis into a trap, it was quite
+another to keep him there. Accordingly, he assembled all his troops,
+dragged cannon to the mouth of the harbour, and opened so brisk a foe on
+the Christian ships as to compel them to haul out of range. These tactics
+left Doria unaffected; there was but one way out of the harbour, and he
+felt quite convinced that when Dragut had had enough of starvation he would
+either surrender or else fight a hopeless action. The admiral surveyed his
+anchored fleet with a contented mind; his enemy had been delivered into his
+hand, he had nothing to do now but wait for that final triumph of appearing
+before his master the Emperor with the famous corsair as his prisoner. He
+saw a great fort rising before his very eyes at the mouth of the harbour,
+and merely smiled serenely; he sent off to Sicily and Naples for
+reinforcements in order that when the psychological moment should arise he
+might crush the corsair stronghold so thoroughly that it should never rise
+again. In the despatches which he sent he said “the fox is trapped”&mdash;“which
+news rejoiced all parts of Christendom, and most powerful succours came
+daily flocking to the seaports from every quarter; so eager were the
+sufferers to revenge themselves on this so much dreaded corsair.”</p>
+
+<p>The history of what now happened is given by Don Luys de Marmol Caravajal
+in his “Descripcion<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">273</a></span> general de Affrica,” which was printed in Granada, “en
+casa de Rene Rabat impresor de libros año de 1573,” or only some twenty
+years or so after these occurrences; it is set forth in his chapter
+entitled “Como Andrea Doria fue en buscar de these occurrences; it is set
+forth in his chapter Dragut Arraez.” We have also the authority of that
+eminent historian, M. L’Abbé de Vertot.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Juan Vasquez Coronado journeyed to Naples carrying with him letters
+from Andrea Doria to Don Pedro de Toledo, requesting that the Viceroy would
+send him all the galleys in Naples, carrying as many soldiers as possible,
+pointing out that he had Dragut in a trap, from which he could not possibly
+escape, but that this time he wished to make security doubly secure.
+Letters to the same purport were also sent to Don Juan de Vega, the Viceroy
+of Sicily, and to Marco Centurion at the admiral’s own city of Genoa. Doria
+was leaving nothing to chance this time. Meanwhile, great earthworks had
+been thrown up at the Bocca de Cantara at the entrance of the harbour by
+Dragut, and any ship which approached within range was most furiously
+bombarded. This served to amuse Andrea Doria, who, confident that the jaws
+of the trap had closed, kept a sharp look-out for vessels issuing from the
+harbour, but otherwise concerned himself not at all about the
+entrenchments. Was not Naples humming with the note of preparation? Would
+not the Genoese come in their thousands to the summons of their renowned
+chieftain? Could not the Viceroy of Sicily be trusted to work his best to
+gain the favour of his Imperial master?</p>
+
+<p>“Time and I are two” was the favourite<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">274</a></span> expression of King Philip II. of
+Spain; the same idea might have crossed the mind of Doria on this memorable
+occasion. He had only to wait; the longer he waited the more secure he
+would be of success, the more certain would he be of the complete undoing
+of his enemy. But even yet the admiral did not know the man to whom he was
+opposed; in all the years in which he had done battle against Dragut, he
+had never gauged the limitless resource and calculated audacity of this
+lineal successor of Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa. While the admiral had been
+sending his despatches, and idly watching that which he considered to be
+the futile construction of earthworks on the shore at the Bocca de Cantara,
+his enemy was preparing for him that surprise which was shortly afterwards
+to make of him the laughing-stock of the whole of Europe. Dragut was in a
+trap, and he was quite aware of the fact; by way of the Bocca de Cantara
+escape was impossible, and neither a tame surrender nor complete
+annihilation was by any means to the taste of the pirate leader. Had Doria
+gone in and attacked at once, the fate of the corsair had been sealed; the
+policy of delay adopted by the Christian admiral was his salvation.</p>
+
+<p>A man less able, less determined, than Dragut, might well have despaired;
+but he brought to bear on the problem with which he was confronted all the
+subtlety of his nature, all the resourcefulness of the born seaman that he
+was. His mind had been made up from the very beginning: the earthworks at
+the Bocca de Cantara, the movements of troops, the furious cannonading, had
+all been nothing but a blind to hide the real design which he had in view.
+In addition to his fighting men<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">275</a></span> he had at his command some two thousand
+islanders, stout Mohammedans to a man, ready and willing to assist him in
+his design of cheating the Christians of their prey. Day and night, with
+ceaseless silent toil, had garrison and islanders been at work on the
+scheme which the leader had devised. From the head of the harbour Dragut
+had caused a road to be made right across the island to the sea on the
+opposite side: on this road he caused planks to be laid, bolted to sleepers
+and then thickly greased. The vessels of the day were of course
+comparatively speaking light, and capable of being manhandled, supposing
+that you had sufficient hands. At dead of night Dragut assembled his
+forces, and before morning every galley, galeasse, and brigantine had been
+dragged across the island and launched in the sea on the opposite side.
+There was then nothing left to do but to embark stores, guns, and
+ammunition and to sail quietly away, and this was what happened. Once again
+Dragut faded away beyond the skyline, “leaving Andrea Doria with the dog to
+hold,” in the quaint language of the chronicler of these events, Don Luys
+de Marmol Caravajal.</p>
+
+<p>Not only did the indefatigable corsair get clear away without any suspicion
+on the part of the admiral, but his first act on gaining the open sea was
+to capture the <i>Patrona</i> galley sent from Sicily by Don Juan de Vega to say
+that reinforcements were on the road. In this ill-fated craft was Buguer,
+the son of Muley Hassan, King of Tunis, who was sent as prize to Soliman at
+Constantinople, where the Sultan caused him to be shut up in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">276</a></span> “Torre del
+Mar Negro.” Here he remained till he died, as a punishment for that he, a
+Mussulman, had aided the Christians.</p>
+
+<p>Never again was Dragut to be in such sore straits as he was on this
+occasion at the island of Jerbah, when, by sheer wit and cunning, he
+escaped from the trap in which he had been held by Doria. What the emotions
+of the admiral must have been when he found that once again he had been
+fooled, it is not difficult to imagine, as by no possible means could the
+story be hushed up; and, in spite of the annoyance of Christendom generally
+at the escape of Dragut, no one could help admiring his extraordinary
+cleverness, or roaring with laughter at the discomfiture of Doria and the
+viceroys of Naples and Sicily.</p>
+
+<p>Dragut now returned to Constantinople to receive congratulations upon his
+escape, and to take part in a fresh design of stirring up the Sultan
+against the Christians. All who professed this faith were naturally
+obnoxious to the corsair; but his private and personal hatred was entirely
+directed against the Knights of Malta, with whom he had been at war all his
+life. The present preoccupation of the Sultan was to regain the towns on
+the coast of Africa which had been taken by the Spaniards; but it was
+represented to him by Dragut that “until he had smoked out this nest of
+vipers he could do no good anywhere.” The Bashaws and the Divan, heavily
+bribed by the corsair, held the same language, until Soliman heard of
+nothing from morning till night but the ill deeds of the Knights of Malta.
+They were represented to him as corsairs who ruined his commerce and
+defeated<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">277</a></span> his armadas, who let slip no opportunity of harrying the Moslem
+wheresoever he was to be found. In this there was more than a grain of
+truth, as we shall see when we come to the next chapter, which will be
+devoted to a sketch of this militant order. Suffice it to say here that the
+Knights fought for what they termed “the Religion” (it was in this manner
+they designated their confederacy), and to harry and enslave the Mussulman,
+to destroy him as a noxious animal wherever he was to be found, was the
+reason for which they existed. It is true that they plundered not for
+individual gain, but many was the rich prize towed into Malta past St. Elmo
+and the ominously named “Punta delle Forche” (the “Point of the Gallows,”
+where all captured pirates were hanged), the proceeds of which went to the
+enrichment of the Order; to buy themselves the wherewithal to fight with
+the Mahommedan again.</p>
+
+<p>The abuse of the Knights fell upon sympathetic ears; in his early days
+Soliman the Magnificent had expelled the Knights from Rhodes; since then
+Charles V. had given them the islands of Malta and Gozo, and the town of
+Tripoli in Barbary as their abiding place; from Malta they had never ceased
+their warfare against the corsairs, and incidentally against the Sultan and
+his subjects. Therefore, in this year 1551, Soliman ordained that an
+expedition should be prepared with the object of crushing once and for all
+these troublers of the peace of Islam. The preparations were on so large a
+scale that very soon it became noised abroad in Europe that something
+really serious was in the wind: in Constantinople, however,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">278</a></span> men kept their
+own counsel; it was ill talking of the affairs of the Padishah, and,
+further than that, beyond Dragut and the proposed leaders of the
+expedition, the Sultan took no one into his confidence. Charles V., well
+served as he was by his spies, was as much in the dark as to the
+destination of this new armada as were humbler folk; in it he recognised
+the hand of Dragut again, and Doria had standing orders to catch that
+mischievous person if he could. At present, however, there was no chance of
+so desirable a thing happening, as Dragut was superintending the fitting
+out of the new expedition at Constantinople.</p>
+
+<p>Anxious and suspicious of the designs of the Turks, Charles ordered a
+concentration of his fleet at Messina.</p>
+
+<p>The Grand Master of the Knights of Malta at this time was a Spaniard, one
+Juan d’Omedes; he was, says de Vertot, “un Grand Maître Espagnol,” meaning
+by this that he was completely under the domination of the Emperor and
+ready at any time to place the galleys of “the Religion” under the orders
+of that monarch. The Knights, like every one else, had watched with anxiety
+the preparation of this great expedition in Constantinople, and when the
+Grand Master proposed to send the galleys of the Order to join forces with
+Doria at Messina, there was great dissatisfaction at the Council Board.
+That which it behoved them to do, the members informed the Grand Master,
+was not to help a great potentate like Charles, but to make provision for
+their own security by attending to their fortifications, which were in
+anything but a satisfactory condition. D’Omedes maintained that this
+expedition was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">279</a></span> destined to serve with the King of France against the
+Emperor, and that Malta was not the objective. He accordingly sent away the
+galleys of “the Religion” under the Chevalier “Iron-Foot,” the General of
+the Galleys, to join the fleet which had its rendezvous at Messina. Hardly
+had he done so when news came from the Levant that the fleet of the Grand
+Turk was at sea heading for Sicily. The fleet was composed of one hundred
+and twelve royal galleys, two great galeasses, and a host of brigantines
+and transport vessels. Sinan-Reis was in command with twelve thousand
+Janissaries, numerous pioneers and engineers, and all the necessary
+appliances for a siege.</p>
+
+<p>The embarkation of so large a number of Janissaries was the measure of the
+serious purpose of the expedition, as the Sultan did not readily part with
+the men of this <i>corps d’élite</i> unless he was in person taking the command.
+It may be as well to explain here exactly what the Janissaries were, and it
+cannot be better done than by an extract from the famous historian
+Prescott:</p>
+<blockquote>
+<p>“The most remarkable of the Turkish institutions, the one which may be
+said to have formed the keystone of the system, was that relating to the
+Christian population of the Empire. Once in five years a general
+conscription was made by means of which all the children of Christian
+parents who had reached the age of seven and gave promise of excellence
+in mind or body were taken from their homes and brought to the capital.
+They were then removed to different quarters and placed in seminaries
+where they might receive such instruction as would fit them for the
+duties of life. Those giving greatest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">280</a></span> promise of strength and endurance
+were sent to places prepared for them in Asia Minor. Here they were
+subjected to a severe training, to abstinence, to privations of every
+kind, and to the strict discipline which should fit them for the
+profession of a soldier. From this body was formed the famous corps of
+the Janissaries.... Their whole life may be said to have been passed in
+war or in preparation for it. Forbidden to marry, they had no families
+to engage their affections, which, as with the monks and friars of
+Christian countries, were concentrated in their own order, whose
+prosperity was inseparably connected with that of the State. Proud of
+the privileges which distinguished them from the rest of the army, they
+seemed desirous to prove their title to them by their thorough
+discipline and by their promptness to execute the most dangerous and
+difficult services. Clad in their flowing robes, so little suited to
+war, armed with the arquebus and the scimitar&mdash;in their hands more than
+a match for the pike or sword of the European&mdash;with the heron’s plume
+waving above their head, their dense array might ever be seen bearing
+down in the thickest of the fight; and more than once when the fate of
+the Empire trembled in the balance it was this invincible corps which
+turned the scale, and by their intrepid conduct decided the fortune of
+the day. Gathering fresh reputation with age, so long as their
+discipline remained unimpaired they were a match for the best soldiers
+in Europe. But in time this admirable organisation experienced a change.
+One Sultan allowed them to marry; another to bring their sons into the
+corps; a third opened the ranks to Turks as well as Christians; until,
+forfeiting their peculiar character, the Janissaries became confounded
+with the militia of the Empire. These changes occurred in the time of
+Philip the Second.”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">281</a></span></p>
+<p>But to resume: just before the sailing of the galleys of “the Religion”
+from Malta there had arrived in that island from France the famous
+Chevalier, the Commandeur de Villegagnon. This great noble told the Grand
+Master to his face that he was neglecting his duty, that the expedition of
+the Grand Turk was bound for Malta and Tripoli: further, that he was
+charged by Anne de Montmorency, Constable and First Minister of France, to
+advise the Grand Master that this armament was directed against “the
+Religion.” The interview between the Grand Master and de Villegagnon took
+place at a chapter of the Grand Crosses of the Order; when the Commandeur
+had finished speaking, he was coldly thanked by D’Omedes, who then bowed
+him out. Turning to the Knights Grand Cross he said with a sneer, “Either
+this Frenchman is the dupe of the Constable or he wishes to make us his.”
+He then proceeded to give at length the reasons why Soliman would not
+direct so huge an expedition against “the Religion.” Many of the Knights
+dissented vehemently from his conclusions, but D’Omedes refused to listen
+to their arguments. Even advices which arrived on July 13th, representing
+that the armada was moving southwards devastating the Italian ports, did
+not move him from his obstinate pre-occupation; till on July 16th the
+arrival of the Ottoman fleet put an end to all speculation.</p>
+
+<p>The armada which had sailed from Constantinople was under the command of
+Sinan Basha: but he had explicit orders that he was to take no important
+step without first consulting Dragut, who was nominally his lieutenant. It
+was well for the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">282</a></span> Knights that on this occasion the corsair was not in
+supreme command; had this been the case the islands must have been taken,
+as no preparations had been made to repulse an attack in force, and Juan
+D’Omedes was a Grand Master who excited little enthusiasm either among the
+Knights or the inhabitants. The choice of Sinan was not one which did great
+credit to the penetration of the Sultan. Let us explain. We are all of us
+conscious at one time or another of a desire to express some fact in the
+fewest possible words; to place the transaction or the circumstance which
+we wish to describe in the searchlight of truth in so undeniable a fashion
+that the illumination consequent upon this mental effort of our own shall
+throw up our meaning in immediate relief on the intelligences of those whom
+we address. This attribute is possessed by but few even among great
+writers&mdash;indeed, some historic sayings which have come down to us have not
+emanated from the writing fraternity at all, but from soldiers, sailors,
+statesmen, and other busy men of affairs. The quality which distinguishes a
+man of action above all others is fearlessness of responsibility; the
+possession of sufficient greatness of soul and of moral fibre to seize upon
+an opportunity and to make the most thereof when an occasion arises which
+has not been foreseen by those in authority over him. But far more often in
+the history of the world has it happened that brave and capable leaders
+have failed for the lack of the indefinable quality that separated their
+sterling merits from that absolute and real supremacy which marks the
+first-class man.</p>
+
+<p>How then is it possible to differentiate, to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">283</a></span> describe where and in what
+manner this luck occurs?</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately, this has been done for us in seven words by Seignelay, the
+Minister of Marine to Louis Quatorze in 1692. Speaking of Admiral de
+Tourville, who defeated the English and Dutch at the Battle of Beachy Head,
+July 10th, 1690, Seignelay says of him that he was “poltron de tête mais
+pas de coeur.” The judgment was just: de Tourville, as recklessly gallant
+as any French noble of them all, failed to live up to his responsibilities
+two years later at the Battle of La Hogue. Mahan says: “The caution in his
+pursuit of the Allies after Beachy Head, though so different in appearance,
+came from the same trait which impelled him two years later to lead his
+fleet to almost certain destruction at La Hogue because he had the King’s
+order in his pocket. He was brave enough to do anything, but not strong
+enough to bear the heaviest burdens.”</p>
+
+<p>We see the application of this truth in the period which we are
+considering; particularly is it borne in upon us in the case of the leaders
+of the Ottoman Turks. Serving as they did a despot of unlimited powers,
+failure in the success of his arms was apt to lead to the immediate and
+violent death of the man in command. If, therefore, precise instructions
+were issued, they were, as a rule, carried out to the letter; as in case of
+defeat an effort could be made to shift responsibility on to the shoulders
+of the Padishah. Failure owing to initiative was certain of prompt
+retribution; success complete and absolute would be the only justification
+for a departure from orders.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">284</a></span></p>
+<p>Far otherwise was it with the Sea-wolves, who were a law to themselves and
+to themselves alone. Should they care “to place it on the hazard of a die
+to win or lose it all,” there was none to say them nay, there was no
+punishment save that of defeat. This it was that so often conduced to their
+success. Despots as were such men as Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa and Dragut,
+they were none the less dependent on the goodwill of their followers. If,
+therefore, they decided on a desperate enterprise, they appealed to the
+fighting instincts, the cupidity, and the fanaticism of these men. Should
+they succeed in gaining their good will for the attempt which they
+meditated, then all was well with them, and behind them was no grim
+sinister figure whose word was death and whose breath was destruction.</p>
+
+<p>Freed from all the trammels which bound the ordinary warrior of the day in
+which they lived, they were able, as we have seen, to go far; for the man
+in whom supreme ability is united to absolute unscrupulousness is the most
+dangerous foe of the human race. The despotism of the leaders among the
+sea-wolves was not theirs by right divine, as men considered it to be in
+the case of the Padishah; none the less in its practical application it was
+but little inferior to that wielded by the Sultan. For reasons of policy,
+the Sea-wolves allied themselves to the Grand Turk; for reasons of policy
+that monarch employed them and entrusted them with the conduct of important
+affairs. The bargain was really a good one on both sides; as to the
+sea-wolves was extended the ægis of one of the mightiest empires of the
+earth; while to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">285</a></span> the Sultan came “veritable men of the sea,” hardened in
+conflict, as fearless of responsibility as of aught else; capable in a
+sense that hardly any man could be capable who had grown up in the
+atmosphere of the court at Constantinople. To Kheyr-ed-Din the Sultan had
+extended his fullest confidence; he had been rewarded by seeing the
+renowned Doria forsake the field of battle at Prevesa, and by the perpetual
+slights and insults put upon his Christian foes by that great corsair. To
+Dragut he had now turned, and, as we have said, when Sinan Basha sailed
+from the Golden Horn he had orders to attempt nothing important without the
+advice of the corsair. It is impossible to say why the command-in-chief had
+not been entrusted to him, as the Sultan had the precedent of Kheyr-ed-Din
+upon which to go. It can only be conjectured that Soliman, having
+discovered how unpopular that appointment had been amongst his high
+officers, did not care to risk the experiment the second time; and in
+consequence employed Sinan. To this officer the aphorism of Seignelay
+applies in its fullest force. He was as brave a man as ever drew a sword in
+the service of his master; he was, however, a hesitating and incompetent
+leader, with one eye ever fixed on that distant palace on the shores of the
+Golden Horn in which dwelt the arbiter of his destiny and of all those who
+sailed beneath the banner of the Crescent.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">286</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XVIII<br /><br />
+
+<small>THE KNIGHTS OF ST. JOHN</small></h2>
+
+<p><small>The Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem, afterwards known as the Knights
+of Rhodes, and eventually as the Knights of Malta&mdash;A brief sketch of the
+Order, including the relation of how Gozon de Dieu-Donné, subsequently
+Grand Master, slew the great Serpent of Rhodes; also some account of
+Jean Parisot de la Valette, forty-eighth Grand Master, who commanded at
+the Siege of Malta, in which the arms of Soliman the Magnificent were
+defeated after a siege lasting one hundred and thirteen days.</small></p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">Amongst</span> all those principalities and powers against which Dragut contended
+during the whole of his strenuous existence, there was no one among them
+which he held in so much detestation as the famous Knights of Saint John,
+known in the sixteenth century as the Knights of Malta. This militant
+religious organisation had its origin in Jerusalem in peculiar and
+interesting circumstances. After the death of Mahomet, his followers,
+burning with zeal, put forward the tenets of their religion by means of
+fire and sword; during the years which followed the Hegira, 622 <span class="smcap lowercase">A.D.</span>, the
+arms of the Moslems were everywhere successful, and amongst other places
+conquered by them was Palestine. So great was the renown acquired by the
+Emperor Charlemagne that his fame passed even into Asia, and Eginard states
+that the Caliph<span class="pagenum2"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">287</a></span> Haroun Raschid permitted the French nation to maintain a
+house in Jerusalem for the reception of pilgrims visiting the holy places,
+and that, further, the Prince permitted the Patriarch of Jerusalem to send
+to the Christian Emperor, on his behalf, the keys of the Holy Sepulchre and
+those of the Church of Calvary, together with a standard which was the sign
+of the power and authority delegated by the Moslem ruler to his mighty
+contemporary. In the middle of the eleventh century Italian merchants
+coming from Amalfi, who had experienced the hard lot of the Christian
+pilgrims in reaching the Holy City, secured from the Caliph Moustafa-Billah
+a concession of land, on which they built a chapel known as St. Mary of the
+Latins, to distinguish it from the Greek church already established at
+Jerusalem, and also constructed a hospice in which to receive the pilgrims,
+whether in sickness or in health, known as the Hospice of St. John.</p>
+
+<p>In 1093 the untiring efforts of Peter the Hermit, with the support of Pope
+Urbain II., brought about the first Crusade, and in 1099 we first hear of
+Gerard, the founder of the Order of St. John. Gerard was a French monk who,
+seeing the good work done by the Hospice of St. John, had attached himself
+to it, and had at this time been working in the cause of charity, and
+devoting himself to the pilgrims for many years.</p>
+
+<p>Godfrey de Bouillon, having defeated the Saracens outside the walls of
+Jerusalem, entered that city and visited the Hospice of St. John; he there
+found many of the Crusaders who had been wounded during the siege, and who
+had been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">288</a></span> carried thither after the taking of the place: all of these men
+were loud in their praises of the loving kindness with which they had been
+received and tended.</p>
+
+<p>Great was the honour and reverence in which these simple monks were held
+ever after by the Crusaders; for was it not common talk that these holy men
+had themselves subsisted on the coarsest and most repulsive fare in order
+that the food in the hospice should be both pure and abundant? Fired by
+this fine example of Christian charity, several noble gentlemen who had
+been tended in the hospice gave up the idea of returning to their own
+countries, and consecrated themselves to the Hospice of St. John, and to
+the service of the pilgrims, the poor, and the sick. Among these was
+Raimond Dupuy.</p>
+
+<p>The great Prince Godfrey de Bouillon fully approved of the steps taken by
+these gentlemen, and for his own part contributed to the upkeep of the
+hospice the seigneurie of Montbirre, with all its dependencies, which
+formed a part of his domain in Brabant. His example was widely copied by
+the Christian princes and great nobles among the Crusaders, who enriched
+the hospice with many lands and seigneuries, both in Palestine and in
+Europe. All these lands and properties were placed unreservedly in the
+hands of the saintly Gerard to do with as he would for the advancement of
+his work. In 1118 Gerard died in extreme old age; “he died in the arms of
+the brothers, almost without sickness, falling, as it may be said, like a
+fruit ripe for eternity.”</p>
+
+<p>The choice of the Hospitallers as his successor<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">289</a></span> was Raimond Dupuy, a
+nobleman of illustrious descent from the Province of Dauphiny, and it is he
+who first held rule under the title of Grand Master. In all charity and
+loving kindness the life of Gerard had been passed, the brethren of St.
+John occupying themselves merely in tending the sick, in helping the poor
+and the pilgrims; but Raimond Dupuy was a soldier of the Cross, and he laid
+before the Order a scheme by which, from among the members thereof, a
+military corps should be formed, vowed to a perpetual crusade against the
+Infidel. This, in full conclave, was carried by acclamation, and the most
+remarkable body of religious warriors that the world has ever seen then
+came existence.</p>
+
+<p>This pact against the Infidel was in the first instance directed against
+the barbarians who swarmed around the Holy City, and the Hospitallers, who
+nearly all had been knights and soldiers of Godfrey de Bouillon, joyfully
+took up their arms again to employ them in the defence of this locality
+which they cherished, and in defence of the pilgrims who were robbed,
+murdered, and maltreated in all the surrounding country. In becoming
+warriors once more, they vowed to turn their arms against the Infidel, and
+against him alone; to neither make nor meddle with arms in their hands in
+any dispute between men of their own faith. The composition of the Order as
+it was arranged by Raimond Dupuy caused it to consist of three classes. In
+the first were placed men of high birth and rank who, having been bred to
+arms, were capable of taking command. In the second came priests and
+chaplains,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">290</a></span> who, besides the ordinary duties attached to their religious
+profession, were obliged, each in his turn, to accompany the fighting men
+in their wars. Those who were neither of noble houses nor belonging to the
+ecclesiastical profession were known as “serving brothers”: they were
+employed indifferently in following the knights into battle or in tending
+the sick in the hospital, and were distinguished by a coat-of-arms of a
+different colour from that worn by the knights.</p>
+
+<p>As the Order prospered amazingly, and as to it repaired numbers of the
+young noblesse from all parts of Europe to enrol themselves under its
+banner, it was accordingly divided into seven “Languages”; those of
+Provence, Auvergne, France, Italy, Arragon, Germany, and England. To the
+Language of Arragon was in later years allotted those of Castile and of
+Portugal. The dress consisted of a black robe, with a mantle of the same
+colour, the whole being called <i>manteau à bec</i>, having upon the left side
+thereof a white cross in cloth, with light points. The eight-pointed cross,
+or the Maltese Cross, as it came to be known in subsequent centuries, will
+be seen upon the armour, engraven on the breastplate, of all the pictures
+of the Grand Masters.</p>
+
+<p>In the year 1259 the Pope, Alexander IV., finding that men of noble birth
+objected to be habited as were the “serving brothers,” ordained that the
+knights on a campaign should wear a “sopraveste” of scarlet embroidered
+with the cross in white; further, that should any knight abandon the ranks,
+and fly from the battle, he should be deprived of his order and his habit.
+The form<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">291</a></span> of government was purely aristocratic, all authority being vested
+in the Council, of which the Grand Master was the chief, the case of an
+equal division of opinion being provided for by giving to the Grand Master
+the casting vote. There were in the Order certain aged knights who were
+called “Preceptors,” who, under authority delegated to them by the Council,
+administered the estates and funds accruing, and also paid for the hire of
+such soldiers or “seculars” whom the Knights took into their service.</p>
+
+<p>Incidentally, it may be mentioned that the establishment of the Knights of
+St. John led to the foundation of the famous Order of the Knights Templars.
+In 1118 Hugues de Payens, Geoffrey de St. Aldemar, and seven other French
+noblemen, whose hearts were touched by the sufferings which the pilgrims
+underwent in their journey to Jerusalem, formed themselves into a society
+with the object of the protection of these inoffensive persons on their
+transit from the coast inland. Hugues de Payens, received in audience by
+Pope Honoré II., was sent by the Pontiff to the Peers of the Council, then
+assembled at Troyes in Champagne; the Council approving of so charitable an
+enterprise, the Order was formed, and Bernard, known as “Saint” Bernard,
+drew up the code of regulations by which it was to be governed. The
+movement spread, and many princes and nobles returned to the Holy Land in
+the train of de Payens and his companions.</p>
+
+<p>So famous did the Order of St. John become, that in 1133 Alfonzo, King of
+Navarre and Arragon, who called himself Emperor of Spain,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">292</a></span> carried his zeal
+so far as to bequeath to the knights his kingdoms of Navarre and Arragon:
+this, however, was naturally and hotly contested in these places, and
+Raimond Dupuy, who attended a Council to regulate the matter, was content
+to compromise on certain lands and benefits being allocated to those whom
+he represented.</p>
+
+<p>On August 15th, 1310, the knights, under the Grand Master, Fulke de
+Villaret, conquered the Island of Rhodes and established themselves there,
+and from this time onward, while they held the island, were known as the
+Knights of Rhodes. No sooner were the knights firmly established in Rhodes
+and the fortifications placed in a proper state of repair, than a tower was
+built on the highest point of the island, of great height, from which a
+view could be obtained of the sea and the surrounding islands, and from
+which information could be signalled as to the movements of any vessels
+which were observed. It was then decided to fortify the small island of Cos
+or Lango in the vicinity, as it contained an excellent harbour; a fortress,
+planned by the Grand Master himself, was erected on the island, a knight
+was left in command, and we are told that under the successors of de
+Villaret&mdash;himself twenty-fourth Grand Master&mdash;the island, which was very
+fertile, flourished exceedingly, producing much fruit and some most
+excellent wine.</p>
+
+<p>There was reigning in Bithynia, at the time when the knights seized upon
+Rhodes, that Ottoman whose name has come down to us when we speak of the
+Ottoman Empire; it is a somewhat strange coincidence that the Christian
+warriors, sworn foes of the Mussulman, should have so established<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">293</a></span>
+themselves just when the tide of the Mohammedan conquest was about to rise
+and sweep away Byzantium; that they should arrive upon the scene just as
+the curtain was about to rise on the tragedy which, in its onward march,
+was to make of the church of St. Sophia a mosque for the worship of the
+Ottoman Turks.</p>
+
+<p>Ottoman&mdash;the descendant of one Soliman, the chief of a nomadic tribe of
+Tartars who had been chased from the Empire of Persia in the year 1214&mdash;was
+not only a soldier and a conqueror, but also a great and beneficent ruler
+in those regions in which he held sway. Approached by those of his
+co-religionists who had been driven out of Rhodes by the Knights, Ottoman
+embarked an army and attacked the place, assuring himself of an easy
+conquest. In spite, however, of the fortifications having been hastily
+constructed, his troops were defeated with great loss, and he was obliged
+to raise the siege. In this manner did the indomitable champions of
+Christendom begin that long and bloodthirsty war between the Cross and the
+Crescent in the Mediterranean which was to endure for nearly another five
+centuries.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/i_fp295.jpg" width="500" height="268" alt="GOZON DE DIEU-DONNÉ SLAYING THE GREAT SERPENT OF RHODES." />
+<div class="caption">GOZON DE DIEU-DONNÉ SLAYING THE GREAT SERPENT OF RHODES.</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>In the long, chequered, and glorious history of the Knights there are many
+strange and semi-miraculous deeds recounted of them in the wars and
+adventures in which they took so prominent a part; the following, which is
+gravely set out by the historians of the time, may be left to the judgment
+of the reader. In 1324 Fulke de Villaret was succeeded in the Grand
+Mastership by Helion de Villeneuve, a knight of exemplary piety and a
+strict disciplinarian. Under his rule the Order regained<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">294</a></span> those habits of
+severe simplicity from which they had been allowed to lapse by his
+predecessor. In 1329 Rhodes was greatly agitated by the fact that a
+crocodile or serpent&mdash;as it is indifferently described&mdash;had taken up its
+abode in the marshes at the foot of Mount St. Etienne, some two miles from
+the town. This ferocious creature devoured sheep and cattle; also several
+of the inhabitants had lost their lives by approaching the neighbourhood in
+which it dwelt. Several attacks were made upon it, but, as there were no
+firearms, all the missiles projected against it rebounded harmlessly from
+the scales with which it was covered. So dangerous had it become, that the
+Grand Master thought it his duty to forbid any of the knights to attempt
+its destruction; an order which was obeyed with a right good will. There
+was, however, a knight of the Language of Provence called Gozon de
+Dieu-Donné, who secretly determined that he would slay the serpent, and he
+accordingly made it his occupation to observe as closely as possible the
+habits of the monster. Having satisfied himself on certain points, he then
+returned to his chateau of Gozon in the province of Languedoc. The point
+which Gozon had wished to determine was in what portion of its body was the
+serpent vulnerable; and he had convinced himself that the belly of the
+creature was unprotected by scales. He accordingly modelled in wood as
+exact a representation of the serpent as he could accomplish, colouring it
+the same as the original; the belly of the model was constructed of
+leather. He then trained some large and ferocious hounds, at a certain
+signal, to dash in under the model and fix<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">295</a></span> their teeth in its leathern
+underpart. For months did the ingenious knight persevere with the training
+of his dogs, himself on horseback in full armour cheering them to the
+assault. At last he considered them to be perfect in their parts, and,
+taking two servants and the hounds with him, returned to Rhodes. Avoiding
+everybody, he caused his arms to be carried to a small church in the
+neighbourhood of Mount St. Etienne by his servants. The knight went into
+the church, where he passed some time in prayer, recommending his soul to
+God in the enterprise which he was about to undertake.</p>
+
+<p>He then donned his armour and mounted his horse, ordering his servants, if
+he were killed, to return to France but if he succeeded in killing the
+serpent to come at once to him, or to aid him if he were wounded. He then
+rode off in the direction of the marsh accompanied by his hounds. No sooner
+did the serpent hear the ring of bit and stirrup-iron, the trampling of the
+charger and the baying of the hounds, than it issued forth with wide-open
+slavering jaws and terrible burning eyes to slay and to devour. Gozon,
+recommending his soul to his Maker, put spurs to his horse and charged. But
+his lance shivered on the hide of the serpent as though it had struck a
+stone wall. His horse, mad with terror at the sight and the foul odour of
+the serpent, plunged so furiously as to unseat him. He fell to the ground,
+uttering as he did so his call to the hounds; had it not been for these
+faithful auxiliaries he would instantly have been slain, but they rushed in
+and, fastening their teeth in the belly of the serpent, caused it to writhe
+and twist in its anguish. Instantly Gozon was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">296</a></span> upon his feet again, and,
+watching his opportunity, plunged his sword into the exposed vitals of his
+enemy. Mortally wounded, the serpent flung itself high in the air with a
+convulsive effort, and falling backwards pinned the knight to the ground
+beneath its enormous bulk. The servants, who had been the horrified
+spectators of this terrific conflict, now rushed to the assistance of their
+master, and succeeded in freeing him from his unpleasant predicament.
+Gozon, they thought, was dead, but upon dashing some water in his face he
+opened his eyes, to behold the pleasing spectacle of his monstrous enemy
+lying by his side a corpse.</p>
+
+<p>Naturally elated, he returned to Rhodes, where he became on the instant the
+popular hero; for who could say or do enough for the man who had slain the
+serpent. He was conducted in triumph to the palace of the Grand Master by
+his fellow knights, but here a remarkably unpleasant surprise was in store
+for him. Very austerely did Helion de Villeneuve regard the triumphant
+warrior, and stern and uncompromising was the voice in which he asked him
+how he had dared to contravene the express order of his Grand Master by
+going forth to combat with the serpent? Calling a Council immediately the
+implacable de Villeneuve, in spite of all entreaties, deprived Gozon de
+Dieu-Donné of the habit of a knight. “What,” said this just and severe
+disciplinarian, “is the death of this monster, what indeed do the deaths of
+the islanders matter, compared with the maintenance of the discipline of
+this Order of which I am the unworthy chief?”</p>
+
+<p>But Helion de Villeneuve was of too wise and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">297</a></span> kindly a nature to make his
+decree absolute, and having thus vindicated his authority he shortly
+afterwards released Gozon and made him happy by his praises and more
+material benefits.</p>
+
+<p>The Abbé de Vertot tells us that the learned Bochart argues that the
+Phoenicians gave to this island the name of Gefirath-Rod (from whence the
+name “Rhodes”), or the Isle of the Serpents, and that when the Romans were
+at war with the Carthaginians Attilius Regulus slew a monster in the island
+of Rhodes the skin of which measured one hundred feet. Thevenot, in his
+Travels published in 1637, states that he saw the head of Gozon’s serpent
+still attached to one of the gates of the town of Rhodes, and that it was
+as large as the head of a horse.</p>
+
+<p>Upon the death of Helion de Villeneuve in 1346, a Chapter of the Order was
+held as usual to elect his successor. When it came to the turn of the
+Commander Gozon de Dieu-Donné to speak, he said:</p>
+<blockquote>
+<p>“In entering this conclave I made a solemn vow not to propose any knight
+whom I did not consider to be most worthy of this exalted office, and
+animated by the best intentions for the glory and well-being of the
+Order. After considering carefully the state of the Christian world, of
+the wars which we are perpetually obliged to wage against the infidel,
+the firmness and vigour necessary for the maintenance of discipline, I
+declare that I find no person so capable of governing our ‘Religion’ as
+myself.”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>He then proceeded to speak in a purely impersonal tone of the magnificent
+services which he had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">298</a></span> rendered, not forgetting the famous episode of the
+serpent, and drew their attention to the fact that the late Grand Master
+had constituted him, Gozon, his principal lieutenant. He ended: “You have
+already tried my government, you know well that which you may hope to
+expect. I believe that in all justice I shall receive your suffrages.”</p>
+
+<p>Naturally the assemblage was stupefied at hearing a man thus recommend
+himself; on reflection, however, they decided that he had spoken no less
+than the truth, and Gozon de Dieu-Donné, “the hero of the serpent,” became
+twenty-sixth Grand Master of the Order. He died in 1353, when he was
+succeeded by Pierre de Cornillan, and upon his tomb were graven these
+words:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="stanza">
+<div class="line">“Cy Gist le Vainqueur du Dragon.”</div>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>In the years 1480 and 1485 under the Grand Master Pierre D’Aubusson, Rhodes
+withstood two great sieges from the Turks. The first of these is described
+at length by the knight Merri Dupuis “temoin oculaire” who sets down: “Je,
+Mary Dupuis gros et rude de sens et de entendement je veuille parler et
+desscrire au plus bref que je pourray et au plus pres de la verite selon
+que je pen voir a lueil.” The description of that of 1485 is written by
+another eye-witness, the Commandeur de Bourbon, to whom “ma semble bon et
+condecent a raison declairer premierement les causes qui out incite mon
+poure et petit entendement a faire cest petit oeuvre.”</p>
+
+<p>But we have no space to follow these gallant Knights, and it must suffice
+to say that on both<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">299</a></span> occasions, after incredible exertions and terrible
+slaughter on both sides, the attacks of the Turks were eventually repulsed.</p>
+
+<p>It was reserved for Soliman the Magnificent to finally vanquish the Knights
+and to expel them from Rhodes; from July 1522 until January 1523 the
+Knights under the heroic Villiers de L’Isle Adam maintained an all unequal
+struggle against the vast hosts of the Crescent, which were perpetually
+reinforced. At last, on January 1st, 1523, the Knights, by virtue of a
+treaty with Soliman, which was honourably observed on both sides, evacuated
+the island in which they had been established for nearly two hundred and
+twenty years.</p>
+
+<p>By favour of Charles V. the Knights on October 26th, 1530, took charge of
+the islands of Malta and Gozo, and established themselves therein; still
+under the Grand Mastership of L’Isle Adam, whose sword and helmet are still
+religiously kept in a small church in Vittoriosa, just at the back of the
+Admiral Superintendent’s house in the present dockyard.</p>
+
+<p>The knights fortified the islands and there abode, until in 1565 the
+Ottoman returned once more to the attack.</p>
+
+<p>It may be said that heroism is a relative term, that it has many uses and
+applications all equally truthful. On the side of mere physical courage
+almost every man who took part in that memorable siege of Malta in the year
+1565 may have been said to have earned the title of hero. No man’s foot
+went back; no man’s courage quailed; no man’s face blanched when called
+upon to face perils so appalling that they meant an almost<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">300</a></span> inevitable and
+speedy death; this was true or Christian and Moslem alike. The death-roll
+on either side was so tremendous as to prove this contention up to the
+hilt. From May 18th to September 8th, 1565&mdash;that is to say, in one hundred
+and thirteen days&mdash;thirty thousand Moslems and eight thousand Christians
+perished&mdash;an average of some three hundred and thirty-six persons per day.
+In that blazing torrid heat the sufferings of those who survived from day
+to day must have been accentuated beyond bearing by the myriads of unburied
+corpses by which they lived surrounded; and that the contending forces were
+not swept away by pestilence is an extraordinary marvel.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/i_fp301.jpg" width="500" height="664" alt="CARRACK IN WHICH THE KNIGHTS ARRIVED AT MALTA, 1530." />
+<div class="caption">CARRACK IN WHICH THE KNIGHTS ARRIVED AT MALTA, 1530.</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>In many, nay, in most campaigns, personal feeling enters but little into
+the contest. Nationality strikes against nationality, army against army, or
+navy against navy; but no burning hatred of his adversary animates the
+breast of the combatant on either side; it may even be said that frequently
+some pity for the vanquished is felt, when all is over, by the side which
+has conquered. At Malta the element of actual personal individual hatred
+was the mainspring by which the combatants on both sides were moved; each
+regarded the other as an infidel, the slaying of whom was the sacrifice
+most acceptable to the God they worshipped. “Infidel” was the term which
+each hurled at the other; to destroy the infidel, root and branch, was the
+act imposed upon those whose faith was the one only passport to a blessed
+eternity, and those who fell in the strife, whether Christian or Moslem,
+felt assured that for them the gates of heaven stood wide open.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">301</a></span></p>
+<p>Great as were those others who perished, faithful to the death as
+were those noble knights who died to a man in the culminating agony
+of St. Elmo, adroit, resourceful, master of himself and others as was
+the famous Dragut, there is one name and one alone that shines like
+a beacon light upon a hill-top when we think of the siege of Malta.
+Jean Parisot de la Valette, whose name is enshrined for ever in that
+noble city which crowns Mount Sceberass at the present day, was the
+forty-eighth Grand Master of the Noble Order of the Knights of Saint
+John of Jerusalem the charter for which, contained in the original Bull
+of Pope Paschal II., dated 1113 (in which the Holy Father took the
+Order under his special protection), may be seen to this day in the
+armoury of the palace at Valetta. At the time when the supreme honour
+was conferred upon him, in the year 1557, he had passed through every
+grade of the Order: as soldier, captain, general, Counsellor, Grand
+Cross: in all of them displaying a valour, a piety, a self-abnegation
+beyond all praise, A man of somewhat austere manner, he exacted from
+others that which he gave himself&mdash;a whole-hearted devotion to
+the Order to which he had consecrated his life. Fearing no man in
+the Council Chamber, even as he feared no foe in the field, he ever
+spoke his mind in defence of that which he deemed to be right. Proud,
+with the dignity becoming a man of his ancient lineage, he merged
+all personal haughtiness in the zeal he felt in upholding the rights
+and privileges of that splendid confederation of knights of the best
+blood in Europe over which he had been called upon to preside at the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">302</a></span>mature age of sixty-three. There is no instance in history of any
+man more absolutely single-minded than La Valette; that in which he
+believed he cherished with an ardour almost incredible in these days,
+and that the sword of the Lord had been confided into his hand for
+the utter extermination and extirpation of the Moslem heresy was the
+leading feature in his creed. That he had been advanced to a dignity
+but little less than royal in achieving the Grand Mastership was but
+as dust in the balance to him compared with the opportunities which
+it gave him to harry his life-long foes; and he who had known so well
+how to obey throughout all his youth and manhood was now to prove, in
+the most emphatic manner, that he had learned how to command. In all
+those terrible hundred and thirteen days during which the siege lasted
+there was none to be compared to him. As occasion occurred this man’s
+soul rose higher and ever higher; beseeching, imploring, commanding, by
+sheer force of example did he point out the way to the weaker spirits
+by whom he was surrounded.</p>
+
+<p>To speak of weaker spirits in connection with the siege of Malta seems
+almost an insult; these gallant knights and soldiers were only so in
+comparison with their leader. Twice during the siege of St, Elmo did the
+garrison send to La Valette and represent that the place was no longer
+tenable; but Garcia de Toledo, Viceroy of Sicily for Philip of Spain, was
+writing specious letters instead of sending reinforcements, and every
+moment gained was of importance. Coldly did La Valette remind the Knights
+of their vows to the Order, and when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">303</a></span> renewed assurances came that it was
+only a matter of a few hours before they should be overwhelmed he replied
+that others could be found to take their places, that he, as Grand Master,
+would come in person to show them how to die. A passion of remorse overcame
+these noble gentlemen, who, thus nerved by the indomitable spirit of their
+chief, died to the last man in the tumbled ruins of that charnel-house
+which had once been a fortress.</p>
+
+<p>La Valette was ready to die; there was no man in all that garrison so
+ready. With pike and sword this veteran of seventy-one years of age was
+ever at the post of the greatest danger, repelling the assaults of
+Janissaries and corsairs, fighting with the spirit of the youngest among
+the Knights in the breaches rent in the walls of Il Borgo. In vain did his
+comrades try to prevent him from this perpetual exposure; in vain did they
+point out that the value of his life outnumbered that of an army. He was
+very gentle with these remonstrances, but quite firm. There were plenty as
+good as he to take his place should he fall, he insisted; till that time
+came it was his duty to inspire all by his example, to show to the simplest
+soldier that he was cared for by his Grand Master.</p>
+
+<p>As things went from bad to worse, when Il Borgo became in little better
+case than had St. Elmo before it, La Valette never hesitated, never looked
+back, never ceased to hope that the sluggard Garcia de Toledo might send
+relief; and, if he did not, then would they all perish with arms in their
+hands, as had their brethren across that narrow strip of water who had held
+St. Elmo to the last man. What man or woman can read without<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">304</a></span> something of a
+lump coming in their throat of those noble words of the Grand Master in the
+last few days of the siege when all had utterly abandoned hope?</p>
+
+<p>Grimed, emaciated, covered with sweat and blood and dust, did La Valette
+move from post to post exhorting and encouraging his soldiers. So few had
+the gallant company of the Knights become that command was necessarily
+delegated to the under-officers; yet who among them did not find fresh
+courage and renewed strength when that great noble, the head of the Order,
+stood by their sides and spoke thus to them as man to man?&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>“My brothers, we are all servants of Jesus Christ; and I feel assured
+that if I and all these in command should fall you will still fight on
+for the honour of the Order and the love of our Holy Church.”</p>
+
+<p>We have to think of what it all meant, we have dimly to try and realise the
+burden which was laid upon this man, before we come to a right conception,
+not only of what he endured but the terrible sacrifices he was called upon
+to make. Here was no man of iron lusting for blood and greedy of conquest
+for the sake of the vain applause of men; but one full of human love and
+affection for those among whom he had lived all the days of his life. Upon
+him was laid the charge of upholding the honour of the Order, the majesty
+of the God whom he served. To this end he doomed to certain death those
+brethren of his in St. Elmo, his own familiar friends, reminding them that
+it was their duty so to die, while his heart was breaking with the agony<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">305</a></span> of
+this terrible decision, which no weaker man could have given. When his
+beloved nephew was slain, together with another gallant youth, he smiled
+sadly and said that they had only travelled the road which they all had to
+tread in a few days; that he grieved as much for the one as for the other.
+In speaking of this man, it may truly be said that there is no character in
+history more elevated; there is none which shows us the picture of a more
+perfect, gentle, and valiant knight.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">306</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIX<br /><br />
+
+<small>DRAGUT-REIS</small></h2>
+
+<p><small>How Sinan Basha and Dragut raided the islands of Malta and Cozo and
+captured the town of Tripoli. How the Knights of Malta captured “the
+puissant galleon” belonging to the Kustir-Aga and the Odalisques of the
+harem of the Grand Turk. The despair of the ladies and the advice of the
+Imaum to Soliman the Magnificent. A great armada is fitted out in
+Constantinople. The preparations for defence on the part of La Valette
+and the Knights. The expedition sails from Constantinople and lands in
+Malta.</small></p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">Great</span> must have been the consternation of the Knights when the armada,
+commanded by Sinan Basha, appeared off their coasts, and bitter must have
+been the reflections of Juan d’Omedes, the Grand Master, who had all along
+contended that so formidable an expedition could not possibly be directed
+against Malta. The inhabitants of that island were, however, not left long
+in doubt, as Sinan, immediately on his arrival, entered the Grand Harbour,
+or “the Great Port,” as it was called in those days. Sinan, in his royal
+galley, led the way in, contemptuously assured of an easy victory over so
+insignificant a place of arms. He had his first rude awakening before he
+had traversed some quarter of a mile of the placid waters of the Great
+Port. The harbour, as is well known, though long, is very narrow, and, on
+the starboard hand of the Turkish galleys as they entered, the Commandeur
+<span class="pagenum2"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">307</a></span>de Guimeran, a Spanish Knight, had ambushed three hundred arquebusiers. As
+the galley of Sinan came abreast of the ambush, the Commandeur gave the
+order to fire. The volley at so close a range had a terrible effect,
+especially among the “chiourme,” or the slaves who rowed the galley, some
+hundred of whom were placed <i>hors de combat</i>. Sinan, in a furious rage,
+ordered an immediate disembarkment; but when his men landed and scaled the
+heights of Mount Sceberras (the elevated land on which the city of Valetta
+now stands) there was no one to be found, the Commandeur and the men who
+had formed the ambush having disappeared. Gazing from the heights at Il
+Borgo, the fortress on the opposite side of the harbour where the Knights
+then dwelt, Sinan demanded of Dragut, “If that,” pointing to the fortress,
+“was the place which he had told the Sultan could easily be taken?”</p>
+
+<p>Dragut, whom no peril ever daunted, coolly replied:</p>
+
+<p>“Certainly, no eagle ever built his nest on a rock more easy of access.”</p>
+
+<p>A corsair, who had been slave to the Knights, now approached Sinan, and
+told him that he had assisted at the building of the fortress; which, he
+averred, was so strong that if the admiral delayed until he had taken it
+that the winter would be upon them, although it was then only the month of
+July. Sinan, as we have said, was a hesitating commander. He had the
+ever-present fear of the Grand Turk before his eyes, and was not inclined
+for so difficult and dangerous an enterprise as this was represented to be.
+Leaving the fortress in his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">308</a></span> rear, he marched off to the high land in the
+centre of the island, on which was situated the Città Notabile, the capital
+of Malta, some seven miles distant from the sea. On their march through the
+island the Turks committed their usual atrocities, murdering the wretched
+inhabitants, firing their dwellings, destroying their crops, and carrying
+off their women. Had the siege of Notabile been pressed, the city must have
+fallen; but Sinan declared to Dragut that the principal object of the
+expedition was the reduction of Tripoli, and, in consequence, he had not
+the time to devote to its reduction. Dragut, furious at this temporising
+policy, urged an immediate assault, and, while the contention was waxing
+sharp between the two leaders, a letter was brought to Sinan which had been
+captured in a Sicilian galley. It was from the “Receiver” of the Order, who
+dwelt at Messina, to the Grand Master, informing him that he had expressly
+sent this ship to inform him that Andrea Doria had just returned from Spain
+and was hastening with a large fleet to attack the Turks. The letter was a
+ruse on the part of the “Receiver,” and contained not a particle of truth.
+It was, however, quite enough for Sinan, who immediately called a council
+of war and imparted this alarming news to its members. The council, after
+the invariable fashion of such bodies, decided to take the safest and
+easiest course: the name of the terrible Andrea was one of evil omen to the
+Ottomans, and, as one man, they voted for prosecuting their voyage to
+Tripoli before the Genoese seaman should put in an appearance. In vain was
+the fury of Dragut, who had counted on a full<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">309</a></span> revenge on his ancient
+enemies the Knights. The armada sailed to the adjacent island of Gozo,
+which was thoroughly sacked with every refinement of cruelty. Every house
+on the island was burned, and six thousand of its inhabitants carried off
+to slavery. One incident is deserving of record. In Gozo dwelt a certain
+Sicilian with his wife and two daughters: sooner than that they should fall
+into the hands of the Turks this man stabbed his wife and daughters and
+then threw himself, sword in hand, into the ranks of his enemies, where he
+slew two of them, wounded several others, and was then hacked to pieces.
+The fleet then proceeded to Tripoli, which was taken almost without
+opposition, as it was defended by a mere handful of the Knights and some
+utterly unreliable Calabrian infantry, who had never before seen a shot
+fired: these men very soon mutinied and refused to fight any longer. Dragut
+became the autocrat of Tripoli, as his great predecessor Kheyr-ed-Din
+Barbarossa had been of Algiers: from hence, in the years that were to come
+before his death, he carried on his sleepless and unending warfare with his
+Christian foes, on whom he was destined to inflict another terrible defeat
+when they attacked this stronghold which he had made his own.</p>
+
+<p>Claude de la Sangle dying on August 18th, 1557, Jean Parisot de la Valette
+was chosen Grand Master of the Knights of Malta in his stead on August 21st
+of the same year. He was, as we have said before, in succession, soldier,
+captain, councillor, general, and Grand Cross; he was as wise in council as
+he was terrible in battle; he was as much esteemed by his brethren as he
+was feared<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">310</a></span> by the infidel. Under his governorship “the Religion” regained
+the ancient authority which it had once possessed, especially in some of
+the German Provinces and in the Republic of Venice. So great was the
+influence of La Valette that he succeeded in making the “Languages” (or
+confederations of Knights) of Germany and Venice pay their “responsions,”
+which had been allowed to get into arrear. These “responsions” were a tax
+levied on the “Languages “ exclusively for the purpose of combatting the
+infidel, and La Valette brought all the firmness of his high character to
+bear, in order to induce these Knights to do what, he reminded them, was
+their simple and obvious duty. Fired by the highest conception of the
+office he had been called upon to execute, La Valette allowed none of those
+under his command to be slack in their performance of their duties. In him
+dwelt the real old crusading spirit. He saw life with the single eye, for
+that which was paramount was the utter destruction of the infidel. There
+are many men who have a high conception of duty; there are but few who can
+inspire those with whom they are brought in contact. Of these latter was
+Jean Parisot de la Valette; in him the pure flame of religious enthusiasm
+burnt with so clear a light as to act as an illuminant for the paths of
+others. In him dwelt that rare quality of lifting others almost to that
+plane on which he dwelt himself, of making men nobler and better almost in
+spite of themselves. So it was that, when La Valette stooped to remind
+others of his brother Knights that they owed money to the Order, that money
+was paid at once.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">311</a></span></p>
+<p>Having thus restored order to the finances, the Grand Master turned his
+attention to the state of affairs (as he had received them from his
+predecessor) connected with the territorial possessions of the Knights. For
+long years now the fortress of Tripoli had been in the hands of the
+renowned Dragut, who was the scourge and the terror of the Christians. The
+corsair dwelt in his stronghold in insolent defiance of the Knights, whose
+property it once had been. Years before he had wrested it from them by the
+strong hand: what, then, more necessary in the eyes of such an one as La
+Valette than to expel this audacious pirate? The Grand Master invited the
+co-operation of Juan la Cerda (a Spanish Grandee, Duke of Medina-Celi, and
+Viceroy of Sicily for the King of Spain) in this enterprise. The Viceroy
+joyfully acceded to the request, and informed his master. Philip II.
+approved the project, and sent orders to the Duke of Sesse, Governor of
+Milan, to the Duke of Alcala, Governor of Naples, and to John Andrea Doria,
+General of the Galleys, to join forces and to repair to Sicily, placing
+themselves under the orders of the Duke of Medina-Celi, who was expressly
+charged to take no action save by the advice of the Grand Master. The
+expedition assembled, the Duke took it to Malta, where it wintered, and in
+the spring it sailed and attacked Tripoli.</p>
+
+<p>They found this fortress, however, in a very different state from that
+which they expected. Dragut, says De Vertot, “avoit faire terasser les
+murailles de cette place.” Bastions had been constructed, and every
+advantage taken for defence<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">312</a></span> which was permitted by the terrain, or that the
+art of fortification admitted at this epoch. The castle, which was not
+advantageously placed, was, notwithstanding, put in a state of defence by
+an enormous expenditure of money. Great towers, in which were mounted many
+big guns, defended the entrance to the port, which had become the
+headquarters of the vessels owned by Dragut, and also of those corsairs who
+sailed their craft under the crescent flag of the Sultan of Constantinople.
+It was against such a fortress as this that the Duke of Medina-Celi went
+up: we have no space to deal here with the details of this attack, which
+ended in the hopeless and irremediable defeat of the Christian forces. The
+Duke was an incompetent commander; he was opposed to one of the greatest
+leaders of the age&mdash;an expert in almost every branch of the science of war,
+in command of a large body of the fiercest fighters of the day, who ever
+feared the wrath of Dragut more than the swords of the enemy.</p>
+
+<p>La Valette, though he mourned over the repulse of the Christian forces from
+Tripoli, did not on that account allow his pursuit of the infidel to grow
+faint; the galleys of “the Religion” were always at sea, and both the
+corsairs and the Ottoman Turks were perpetually losing valuable ships and
+costly merchandise. Under the General of the Galleys, the Commandeur Gozon
+de Melac, and that celebrated chevalier, the Commandeur de Romegas, the sea
+forces of the Knights were everywhere in evidence. Into the hands of the
+Christians fell the Penon de Velez, situated on the northern coast of
+Africa opposite to Malaga&mdash;a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">313</a></span> fortress much frequented by the corsairs; the
+Goletta at Tunis was also taken, and the pirates became so much alarmed
+that they demanded succour from Constantinople. They represented to Soliman
+that, at this rate, the whole of Northern Africa would soon be in the hands
+of the Christians to the total exclusion of the true believer.</p>
+
+<p>Soliman listened to their complaints and promised that soon he would send
+forth an armament which should put an end to the misfortunes from which
+they were suffering. Once again preparations were begun in the arsenals of
+Constantinople, and while these were in progress an event took place which
+had an important bearing on the situation. Just after the taking of the
+Penon de Velez seven galleys of “the Religion,” under the command of the
+chevaliers de Giou and De Romegas, which were cruising in the neighbourhood
+of Zante and Cephalonia, fell in with “a puissant galleon” filled with the
+richest merchandise of the East, armed with “twenty great cannons of
+bronze,” and a number of smaller guns, under the command of the Reis
+Bairan-Ogli, having on board “excellent officers of artillery,” as well as
+two hundred Janissaries for her defence. This great ship was the property
+of Kustir-Aga, the chief Eunuch of the Seraglio of the Sultan, and many of
+the ladies of the harem were interested in a pecuniary sense in the safe
+arrival of this vessel at Constantinople. The galleys of “the Religion”
+attacked, and, after a most obstinate resistance, in which one hundred and
+twenty of the Christians and an even larger number of the Turks were
+killed, the galleon was captured.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">314</a></span></p>
+<p>If there had been an outcry in
+Constantinople before this occurrence it was all as nothing to that which
+now arose. Kustir-Aga and the Odalisques of the Harem prostrated themselves
+at the feet of Soliman the Magnificent, and with streaming eyes,
+dishevelled hair, and frantic gestures, demanded the instant despatch of an
+expedition to utterly exterminate these barbarian corsairs, the Knights of
+Malta, who had thus injured them and lacerated their tenderest
+susceptibilities. The Grand Turk, autocrat as he was, had no peace day or
+night; he was surrounded by wailing women and sullen officials, all of whom
+had lost heavily by the capture of the puissant galleon. The Imaum, or
+preacher in the principal mosque, called upon the Sultan in his discourse
+to fall upon the audacious infidel and smite him hip and thigh. He reminded
+the Padishah that, in the dungeons of the Knights, true believers were
+languishing; that on the rowers’ benches of the galleys of “the Religion”
+Moslems were being flogged like dogs. In a furious peroration he concluded:
+“It is only thy invincible sword which can shatter the chains of these
+unfortunates, whose cries are rising to heaven and afflicting the ears of
+the Prophet of God: the son is demanding his father, the wife her husband
+and her children. All, therefore, wait upon thee, upon thy justice, and thy
+power, for vengeance upon their cruel and implacable enemies.”</p>
+
+<p>Contrary to all precedent, which enjoins the most perfect silence in the
+mosque, these bold utterances were received with something more than
+murmurs of applause: never in all his long and glorious reign had the great
+and magnificent<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">315</a></span> despot heard so plainly the voice of his people. Apart,
+however, from eunuchs, women, and Mullahs, Soliman had long been importuned
+by Dragut to take the course which was now being urged upon him with so
+much insistence. There was at this time no warrior in all his <i>entourage</i>
+for whose opinion the Sultan had the same respect as he had for that of the
+ruler of Tripoli. Dragut had more than a tincture of learning: he was first
+of all an incomparable leader of men and an entirely competent seaman. He
+was also a scientific artillerist, and was learned in the technique of the
+fortification of his time. Added to this he was&mdash;albeit by no means so
+cruel as most of his contemporaries&mdash;one of those men before whom all
+trembled: as we have seen in the case of the corsairs who defended
+“Africa,” “they feared the wrath of Dragut more than death itself.”</p>
+
+<p>It was this renowned leader who warned Soliman against the Knights; he
+pointed out that they were far more dangerous now than they had been in
+1523, the year of their expulsion from Rhodes. When established there they
+were, so to speak, surrounded by the Turkish Empire; in Malta, on the
+contrary, they were easily succoured from Sicily, which belonged to Spain,
+another implacable enemy of the Moslem; that Malta lay right on the route
+which all the ships of the Sultan must take on passage from the East to
+Constantinople; and in consequence the Order was a standing and perpetual
+menace to the trade of the Empire. All this was so undeniably true that so
+shrewd a man and so competent a ruler as Soliman could not fail to be
+impressed by the soundness of the reasoning.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">316</a></span>Besides all this, he knew quite well that now he could not hold back, had
+it been even against his inclination&mdash;which was by no means the case; for
+there had arisen one of those storms of popular opinion&mdash;all the more
+formidable because of their infrequency&mdash;before which even the most
+hardened of despots must bend. Accordingly the Sultan called a conference
+of his fighting men, which was held on horseback in the open-air. The
+inclination of the Sultan being known, most of the generals, like good
+courtiers, voted for immediate war with the Knights. At this conference was
+present that Ali Basha, or Occhiali, or Uluchali, as he was indifferently
+called, of whom we shall have more to say later on. Upon this occasion he
+was present as the representative of Dragut, and urged, on behalf of his
+master, that the time was not yet ripe for an attack on Malta. First, he
+contended, it was necessary to recapture the Goletta and the Peñon de
+Velez, and to defeat the Moors of Tunis, who were feudatories of the
+Spanish king and avowed enemies of the Ottoman Empire. Ali was supported by
+one Mahomet, an old warrior who had grown white in the service of the
+Sultan, who strongly opposed the contemplated campaign on the ground that
+the Knights would in all probability have the full strength of Europe at
+their backs.</p>
+
+<p>Numbers, however, added to the personal inclination of the Sultan, carried
+the day. The die was cast, the memorable expedition was decided upon, and
+all the Sultan’s vast Empire soon rang with the note of preparation. The
+Capitan Basha, Piali, was in command of the fleet, and the direction of the
+land forces was confided to Mustafa, an old<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">317</a></span> officer sixty-five years of
+age, a severe disciplinarian, and of a sanguinary and cruel disposition to
+any of his enemies who had the misfortune to fall into his hands.</p>
+
+<p>Once again did Europe lose itself in speculation: against whom, all men
+were asking, was this new expedition to be directed? Spain feared for her
+African possessions, as the Goletta was the key to the kingdom of Tunis,
+while the Peñon de Velez was one of the bulwarks of Algeria. In consequence
+Don Garcia de Toledo passed over from Sicily to confer with the Grand
+Master of the Knights. Garcia de Toledo was by no means a favourable
+specimen of the illustrious race from which he sprang, and was a complete
+antithesis to La Valette; he was to prove himself in the terrible days that
+were to come to be sluggish, incompetent, a ruler who could not rule, a
+person for ever letting “I dare not wait upon I would.” Just as long as
+Spain considered this new expedition was directed against herself
+considerable activity was shown; when the attack developed and it was seen
+that the objective of the Turks was Malta, the procrastinating Spanish king
+and his incompetent viceroy allowed matters so to drift that, had any other
+man than La Valette been in command at Malta, the fall of that island had
+been inevitable.</p>
+
+<p>We have seen how Juan d’Omedes had dealt with a previous crisis in the
+affairs of the Order; very different was it in the opening months of the
+year 1565. La Valette was well served by his spies in Constantinople, and
+the Grand Master was under no illusions from the very first as to what the
+destination of the army of the Sultan would be.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">318</a></span> He recognised that against
+the small islands of Malta and Gozo all the strength of the mightiest
+Empire in the world was about to be directed, and with serene confidence
+set about the task of preparation. His first care was to send out “a
+general citation” to those Knights living in their own homes in different
+countries in Europe, commanding them to repair at once to Malta and take
+part in the defence of that Order to which they had vowed to consecrate
+their lives. The agents of the Order in Italy succeeded in raising two
+thousand infantry, and the Viceroy of Sicily sent over two companies of
+Spanish infantry which he had promised. All the galleys of “the Religion”
+were called in from distant service and were set to work importing
+ammunition, stores, provisions, and all requisites for the withstanding of
+a siege. As the galleys passed backwards and forwards to Sicily, in each
+returning vessel came noble gentlemen of every country in Europe, in answer
+to the summons of their Grand Master. They were received with the tenderest
+affection by him and by those others already assembled; never in all its
+long and glorious history had the Order assembled in circumstances more
+grave; never in its history, either in the past or in the future, did it
+quit itself with so supreme a heroism as in those days of 1565 which were
+yet to come. In Malta the orderly bustle of preparation went on
+ceaselessly; the Italian and Spanish troops and the inhabitants of the
+island, for the most part hardy mariners well accustomed to the ceaseless
+<i>guerre de course</i> of the Knights, were formed into companies, officered by
+the members of the Order, and assigned to different posts.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">319</a></span></p>
+<p>Meanwhile the Grand Master caused copies of the letters which he had
+received from Constantinople to be sent to all the great princes of Europe;
+showing them the straits to which the Order was shortly to be reduced and
+imploring of them to send timely succour. But it was not upon outside aid
+that La Valette counted overmuch; he was preparing to confront the Turks
+with such forces as he had at his own disposal; content, if necessary, to
+leave the issue in the hands of the God in whom he trusted. As the
+chevaliers came flocking to the standard of St. John he received them, we
+are told, “as a kind father receives his beloved children, having provided
+in advance for their food and lodging.” He personally entered into the most
+minute details of his charge; he reviewed his infantry, he instructed his
+artillery, he planned sites for hospitals, he sketched out new
+fortifications, and then went among the humblest of his followers and
+wielded the pick and shovel in the burning sun. Everywhere his cheering
+presence was felt, his equable and serene temperament diffused confidence
+and hope.</p>
+
+<p>All things being thus in train he assembled his brethren and addressed them
+in the following terms:</p>
+<blockquote>
+<p>“A formidable army, composed of audacious barbarians, is descending on
+this island; these persons, my brothers, are the enemies of Jesus
+Christ. To-day it is a question of the defence of our faith as to
+whether the book of the Evangelist is to be superseded by that of the
+Koran? God on this occasion demands of us our lives, already vowed to
+His service. Happy will those be who first<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">320</a></span> consummate this sacrifice.
+But that we may indeed be worthy to render it come, my dear brothers, to
+the foot of the altar, where we may renew our vows. Let each one rely on
+the blood of the Saviour of men and in the faithful practice of the
+sacraments; in them we shall find so generous a contempt for death that
+we shall indeed be rendered invincible.”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>The Knights then, headed by the Grand Master, took themselves in procession
+to the church. Here they confessed and received the sacrament. “They went
+out from thence as men who had received a new birth.” The Knights, we are
+then told, tenderly embraced one another in all solemnity; vowing to shed
+the last drop of their blood in defence of their religion and its holy
+altars. It was in this lofty frame of mind that the Knights of Malta
+awaited the coming of their hereditary foe. Into the hearts and minds of
+these gallant gentlemen of the best blood in the world the Grand Master had
+instilled some leaven of the greatness by which he himself was inspired.
+When belief is so wholehearted as it was in the case of La Valette; when it
+is allied to a genius for war, and a supreme gift for the inspiration of
+others, then that man and the force which he commands are as near to
+invincibility as it is permitted to fallible human beings to attain. There
+were two things in which the Knights were supremely fortunate on this
+occasion: the first was that they had La Valette as Grand Master, the
+second that Dragut was not in supreme command of the Turks, and that the
+siege had opened before he arrived upon the scene. In this expedition, as
+in previous ones, the Turkish commanders had orders to attempt nothing
+really important without<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">321</a></span> the advice of Dragut. They found themselves
+without him when they arrived and made an initial mistake. With La Valette
+in command there was no room for blundering; the ultimate result of their
+blunder was the defeat which they sustained.</p>
+
+<p>Grand Master, Knight, and noble, soldier, peasant, and mariner, strove
+valiantly with the task of putting the island into a state of defence, and
+when at last the long-expected armada of their foes rose above that distant
+blue horizon in the north all had been done that skill and experience could
+dictate.</p>
+
+<p>It was upon May 18th in the year 1565 that the Turkish fleet arrived at
+Malta. It was composed of one hundred and fifty-nine galleys and vessels
+propelled by oars: on board of these was an army for disembarkation of
+thirty thousand men, composed of Janissaries and Spahis, the very pick and
+flower of the Turkish army. Soliman the Magnificent was leaving as little
+to chance as was possible on this occasion; he well knew the temper of the
+Knights, and that this expedition had before it a task which would try both
+the army and its leaders to the very utmost of their strength. Behind the
+main body of the fleet came a host of vessels, charged with provisions, the
+horses of the Spahis, the siege-train of the artillery, all the innumerable
+appliances and engines of war which were in use at that day. The initial
+mistake on the part of the Turks was in embarking cavalry for a siege; they
+knew, or they should have known, of the extreme smallness of the island
+which they were about to attack, and that they were by no means likely to
+be met with armies in the field owing to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">322</a></span> the enormous preponderance of
+numbers which they had assured to themselves.</p>
+
+<p>Piali, as we have said, was in command of the fleet, and Mustafa of the
+army; the corsairs did not arrive on the scene till some days afterwards.</p>
+
+<p>The Turks landed some men who encountered the Chevalier La Riviere and some
+Maltese troops, with whom they had some lively skirmishes. Unfortunately,
+in one of these the Chevalier was captured, put to the torture, and
+eventually beheaded for having wilfully misled the Turks. A council of war
+was held by Piali, Mustafa, and their principal officers, to deliberate on
+the best manner of prosecuting the enterprise on which they were engaged.
+The admiral, wishing to conform strictly with the instructions of Soliman,
+voted to delay all initiative until the arrival of the famous corsair.
+Mustafa, however, held a different opinion: the unfortunate Chevalier La
+Riviere had, before his death, informed the Turkish general that large and
+powerful succours were expected daily from Sicily. Secretly disquieted by
+this news, which he had at the time affected to disbelieve, Mustafa now
+urged immediate action. His opinion was that, in the first instance, they
+had better attack the castle of St. Elmo. It was a small and insignificant
+fort which at best would only delay them some five or six days; when this
+had fallen they could proceed to the more serious business of taking Il
+Borgo, the principal fortress on the island in which the Grand Master and
+most of the Knights were established. By the time St. Elmo had been taken
+they might reasonably expect that Dragut and his corsairs would have
+arrived, and, with these<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">323</a></span> seasonable reinforcements, proceed to the really
+formidable portion of their task. In their decisions both admiral and
+general were wrong; to delay attack, once the troops were landed, was a
+counsel of pusillanimity hardly to be expected of Piali, but showing at the
+same time how he dreaded above all else departing one iota from the
+instructions which he had received. To attack the castle of St. Elmo first
+was a military mistake, because it could be&mdash;and was during the whole of
+the siege&mdash;reinforced from its larger sister Il Borgo.</p>
+
+<p>The discourse of Mustafa prevailed in the council of war, and the siege of
+St. Elmo was decided upon and immediately begun.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/i_fp325.jpg" width="500" height="732" alt="JEAN PARISOT DE LA VALETTE" />
+<div class="caption">JEAN PARISOT DE LA VALETTE, GRAND MASTER OF THE KNIGHTS OF
+MALTA, AT THE SIEGE OF THAT ISLAND BY THE TURKS IN 1565.</div>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">324</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XX<br /><br />
+
+<small>THE SIEGE OF MALTA</small></h2>
+
+<p><small>The siege of Malta by the Turks; The capture of the fortress of St.
+Elmo; The death of Dragut-Reis</small></p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">There</span> was an entire disregard of human life among the leaders of the
+Ottoman Turks at this time which is almost incredible; to attain their end
+in war they sacrificed thousands upon thousands of men with an absolutely
+callous indifference. In no chapter of the bloodstained history of their
+Empire was this trait more in evidence than it was at the siege of Malta.
+There was, however, a reason for this, which developed itself more and more
+as the ceaseless assaults on the positions of the Knights went on. From a
+military point of view, all the operations which took place were those of
+the siege of a fortress; as when at length St. Elmo fell the Turks turned
+their attention to the fortress of Il Borgo. The time-honoured method of
+the attack on a fortress, of approaching it by sap and mine, was here
+almost an impossibility, as the island of Malta is composed of solid rock
+through which it was practically impossible to drive trenches. It is true
+that the rock is of an exceptionally soft nature, easily cut through with
+proper tools; but you cannot cut through rock, no matter how soft<span class="pagenum2"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">325</a></span> it may
+be, when your operations are opposed at every step by a brave and vigilant
+enemy. Mustafa and the council of war had, as we have said, decided to
+begin operations by the siege of the fortress of St. Elmo. This place had
+been built from the designs of the Prior of Capua, an officer of the Order,
+and was situated at the extreme end of the promontory of Mount Sceberass,
+which juts out between the Great Port and the harbour of Marsa Muzetto. The
+fort was in a commanding position and dominated the entrance to the two
+principal harbours in the island. It was admirably adapted for repulsing an
+attack from the sea; but, owing to the proximity of other points of land
+upon which artillery could be mounted, was easily capable of attack by such
+an enemy as that by which it was now assailed.</p>
+
+<p>The principal preoccupation of the militant Prior of Capua had been to make
+it formidable on the side facing the sea; perhaps the designer had never
+contemplated the possibility that the day might dawn when it would be
+attacked from the landward side! However this may have been, Mustafa
+decided that it could and should be carried on this, its weakest face, and
+made his preparations accordingly.</p>
+
+<p>As far as it was possible to open trenches this was done, at the most
+prodigal expenditure of the lives of the pioneers. Where the rock proved
+absolutely impossible of manipulation redoubts were constructed of massive
+beams on which thick planks were bolted, the whole covered with wet earth
+which had to be collected with incredible toil from the country at the
+back. Disembarking<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">326</a></span> their siege-guns, and utilising the cattle of the
+islanders for transporting them, the great cannon of the Turks were dragged
+up the slopes of the Mount and got into position; and by the 24th of May
+fire was opened on St. Elmo with ten guns which threw balls weighing eighty
+pounds. Besides these there were two culverins which threw balls of sixty
+pounds, and a huge basilisk, the projectile from which weighed no less than
+one hundred and sixty pounds. A terrible fire was opened against the walls
+of the fort, and so destructive did it immediately become that the Bailli
+of Negropont, the Knight in command, very soon became aware that his trust
+must be in the stout hearts and strong arms of his garrison; as the walls
+by which they were surrounded were hourly crumbling into nothingness.</p>
+
+<p>Regarding the matter from this point of view, he sent at once to the Grand
+Master by the Chevalier La Cerda demanding succour; this officer, “rendered
+eloquent by fear,” exaggerated the peril to which the fort was exposed and
+stated that it could not possibly hold out for more than another eight
+days.</p>
+
+<p>“What losses have you had?” demanded the Grand Master.</p>
+
+<p>“Sire,” replied La Cerda, “the fort may be compared to a sick man in his
+extremity, in the last stage of weakness, unable to sustain himself except
+by perpetual cordials and remedies.”</p>
+
+<p>“Then I myself will be your physician,” said the Grand Master with
+contempt, “and I will bring others with me. If that cannot cure you of fear
+it will, at all events, prevent the infidels from seizing upon the fort.”</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">327</a></span></p>
+<p>There was no real hope in the mind of La Valette that St. Elmo could be
+saved from the enemy. The place was too weak, and none knew this fact
+better than the man to whom all the defences of the island were as familiar
+as the hilt of his own good sword; but, though he secretly deplored the
+necessity, he felt that if Malta were to be preserved it could only be done
+by delaying until succour should come from outside; every day, nay, every
+hour, was of importance, and he was prepared to sacrifice St. Elmo and the
+lives of its entire garrison to attain his end. He did not, however&mdash;to
+continue the simile of La Cerda&mdash;prescribe for others a medicine which he
+himself was not prepared to take, and when he said that he would go to the
+fort of St. Elmo it was no mere figure of speech. The council of the
+Knights, however, would not hear of the Grand Master thus sacrificing
+himself; well did these noble gentlemen know that there was none among them
+like unto him, that his name and his influence were worth an army in
+themselves. The outcry was so loud that La Valette had to yield; which he
+did the more readily when he saw the splendid emulation among his brethren
+to cross over to the beleaguered and crumbling fortress which promised
+nothing but the grave to those who should pass within the circle of fire by
+which it was now surrounded. To the Chevaliers Gonzales de Medran and de la
+Motte was conceded the proud privilege for which all the Knights were
+clamouring; and, accompanied by the tears and the prayers of their
+brethren, they passed to that place where, if death were certain, honour at
+least was immortal. Truly the heart warms somewhat to the days of chivalry
+when one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">328</a></span> reads of what was done at the siege of Malta. The motto of
+<i>Noblesse oblige</i> was no dead letter in the sixteenth century. By this time
+the whole of Europe was awake to the peril of the Order, and, galloping for
+dear life across Europe, came the Knights, anxious and willing to share in
+the danger. For most of these gentlemen Sicily was the goal at which they
+aimed; arrived there they flung themselves into any boat or shallop which
+they could hire, and, heedless of the risk of capture by the Turkish fleet,
+totally ignorant of what was passing in Malta save that the infidel was at
+her gates, they passed across the channel which separates the two islands
+and joined their fellows at Il Borgo.</p>
+
+<p>Greatly heartened by the reinforcements brought to them by de Medran and de
+la Motte, the garrison of St. Elmo made a sortie, surprised the Turks in
+their entrenchments, and, under cover of the guns of the fort, succeeded in
+destroying nearly all the works which the enemy had so painfully built up.
+The Turks, however, when they had recovered from the surprise, were in such
+large numbers as to be able to rally and drive the Christians from the
+vantage points which they had gained; and to oblige them once again to
+retire into the fort. From this time onward there was never a day in which
+the garrison and the besiegers were not hand to hand in the trenches.</p>
+
+<p>Just after the first reinforcements had been thrown into St. Elmo there
+arrived on the scene Ali, the Lieutenant of Dragut. This corsair came from
+Alexandria with six galleys, on board of which were nine hundred men,
+reinforcements for the Turkish army. A few days after this the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">329</a></span> famous
+Dragut himself appeared, with thirteen galleys and two galleots, on board
+of which were sixteen hundred men.</p>
+
+<p>What must not have been the despairing feelings with which the defenders
+viewed the arrival of this augmentation to the swarming ranks of their
+foes! From afar they noted the vessels and knew, while Philip of Spain and
+Garzia de Toledo still procrastinated, that now was added to the number of
+their enemies the most famous captain who served the autocrat of the
+Eastern world. Very naturally the arrival of Dragut was hailed with
+acclamation by the Turks: every gun in that vast armada spoke in salute,
+every trumpet blared, every drum rolled to welcome the man honoured of the
+Padishah, notorious throughout the whole world of Europe for his implacable
+enmity to the Knights. The first preoccupation of the corsair was to inform
+himself as to the conduct of the operations. These, when disclosed to him,
+by no means met with his approval. This real leader immediately made it
+clear to Piali and Mustafa that which they should have done. In the first
+place they should have made themselves masters of the castle of Gozo, and
+then captured the Città Notabile. By doing this the supplies to the town
+and fortress of Il Borgo would have been cut off: besides&mdash;and more
+important than aught else&mdash;they would in this manner have closed the road
+to those succours expected by the Christians. Piali, who had desired from
+the first to undertake nothing without the advice of Dragut, now said that
+the siege of St. Elmo was not so far advanced after all, and,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">330</a></span> if the Basha
+of Tripoli should so direct, it could be raised at once. To this, however,
+Dragut would by no means consent.</p>
+
+<p>“That would have been well enough,” he said, “if the affair had not gone so
+far; but, after the opening of the trenches and several days of attack, it
+is not possible to raise the siege without sullying the honour of the
+Sultan and discouraging the valour of the soldiers.”</p>
+
+<p>It cannot be denied that, in acting as he did, the corsair displayed a
+self-restraint and a loyalty to the Sultan hardly to be expected in the
+circumstances. The jealousy which so often obtains among rival commanders
+was singularly in evidence in the forces of the Padishah: Dragut had good
+cause to be dissatisfied with the dispositions which had been made, and
+yet, for the reasons which we have quoted, he allowed them to proceed.
+Before the Basha had left Tripoli he had been engaged in communications
+with Muley Hamid, the then King of Tunis, who was feudatory of Spain.
+Anxious as was the corsair to aid in attacking his implacable enemies, the
+Knights, he could not afford to leave his own flank unguarded in Africa. He
+succeeded, however, in arriving at an understanding with the King of Tunis,
+and, further than this, he had assured himself, by means of his spies, that
+the succours which were to be sent from Sicily by the Spanish King could
+not possibly arrive for another two months. It was the negotiations which
+he was obliged to undertake with Muley Hamid which had caused his late
+arrival. As far as it is possible to judge, it was this circumstance, which
+(added<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">331</a></span> to their own incomparable valour) turned the scale in favour of the
+Knights.</p>
+
+<p>Among all those brave men at Malta, on both sides, in this flaming month of
+June 1565, there were none who excelled the Basha of Tripoli. “No one had
+ever seen a more intrepid general officer,” says de Vertot. “He passed
+entire days in the trenches and at the batteries. Among his different
+talents none understood better than did he the direction and conduct of
+artillery, which was his special <i>métier</i>. By his orders on June 1st a
+second battery was constructed closer to the fort and parallel to the one
+already in existence, in order that an absolutely continuous fire might be
+maintained. He mounted four guns on the opposite side of Marsa Muzetto
+Harbour on a projecting point of land, from which a further enfilading fire
+smote the doomed fortress on the flank: this point has been known ever
+since as the Point Dragut.”</p>
+
+<p>A ravelin in advance of the fortress on the land side was scourged without
+ceasing by the arquebus fire of the Janissaries. One evening, as the return
+fire had slackened and all seemed quiet within this work, some Turkish
+engineers stole forth from the trenches to reconnoitre. Approaching the
+cavalier, all was still as death; the bold sappers pushed on as far as the
+ditch by which the work was surrounded, creeping on hands and knees. They
+let themselves down noiselessly into the ditch, and then, one standing on
+the shoulders of another, peeped in upon their Christian foes. Whether or
+no the sentry had been slain by a stray shot, or whether he too slept, can
+never be known; but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">332</a></span> the cavalier was unguarded; all within it slept the
+sleep of men utterly exhausted. The sappers crept back to their trenches,
+fetched scaling-ladders, swept like a flood over the rim of the cavalier,
+and put to death every man whom they found. Profiting by their advantage,
+the Turks dashed over the bridge connecting the cavalier with the fort;
+here, however, they were met by Sergeant-Major Guerare and a handful of
+soldiers aroused by him. These men were instantly succoured by the
+Chevaliers de Vercoyran and de Medran, who were immediately followed by the
+Bailli of Negropont and several other Knights. An obstinate hand-to-hand
+combat now ensued; fresh Turks came up to the attack, but were mown down in
+swathes by an enfilading fire from two cannons which the defenders of the
+fort managed to bring to bear upon them. More pioneers arrived from the
+trenches, carrying planks and sacks filled with wool. These men tried to
+effect a permanent lodgment, but the fire was too hot on the Christian
+side, and men fell in hundreds. Nothing daunted, the Turks reared their
+scaling-ladders against the sides of the fortress itself, and attempted to
+scale the walls; but for this the ladders were too short, and the
+assailants were hurled back into the ditch. This attack, in which the
+Turkish arms were rewarded by the capture of the ravelin behind the
+cavalier, is said to have cost them the lives of three thousand men. It
+lasted from daybreak until midday.</p>
+
+<p>On the side of the Christians twenty Knights and one hundred soldiers were
+slain; but worst of all, from their point of view, the ravelin remained in
+the hands of their enemies. The chevalier Abel<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">333</a></span> de Bridiers de la Gardampe
+having received a ball through his body, some of his comrades ran to place
+him under cover. “Count me no longer among the living,” said the Knight.
+“You will be better employed in defending the rest of our brethren.” He
+then, unassisted, dragged himself to the foot of the altar in the chapel,
+where his dead body was discovered when all was over.</p>
+
+<p>So far communication remained established between St. Elmo and their
+comrades in Il Borgo on the opposite side of the harbour; in consequence
+the wounded were removed and their places taken by one hundred fresh men
+under the Chevalier Vagnon. To the Bailli of Negropont and the Commandeur
+Broglio, La Valette sent a message to return to Il Borgo. These gallant and
+aged veterans, both of whom were wounded, whose faces were scorched by the
+sun and blackened with powder, whose bodies were well-nigh worn out with
+perpetual vigil and hand-to-hand fighting, refused stoutly to quit their
+post, which now was naught but a dreadful shambles filled with corpses
+mangled out of recognition and heads and limbs which had been torn and
+hacked from their bodies.</p>
+
+<p>Dragut now proposed to erect batteries on the same side of the Great Port
+as that on which Il Borgo was situated; on the point now known as Ricasoli,
+but which was then and for centuries afterwards known as the Punta Delle
+Forche (or Point of the Gallows, because it was here that all pirates was
+executed; and their bodies, swinging in chains, were the first objects that
+met the eye on entering the Great Port). In this he was overruled<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">334</a></span> by
+Piali, who declared that he had not sufficient men to spare, and the
+Knights of II Borgo would soon render the battery untenable even if they
+should succeed in erecting it, which the Turkish admiral now considered
+extremely doubtful. The siege of St. Elmo, which Mustafa had said would
+last at the outside for five or six days, had now been in progress for four
+weeks; and, although the fort was in a ruinous condition, nothing seemed
+capable of daunting those invincible warriors by which it was held.</p>
+
+<p>The position in St. Elmo now was that the Turks still held on to the
+ravelin which they had captured; this they had built up to such a height
+that they could look over the parapet of the fortress and shoot down with
+arquebus fire any one whom they could see. Meanwhile the Turkish sappers
+delved night and day in their endeavour to undermine the parapet, which, if
+blown up, would give them free access to the interior of the fort; while
+another party, by use of the yards of galleys and huge planks of wood,
+busied themselves in constructing a bridge to connect the ravelin with the
+parapet. Lamirande, one of the most active of the defenders of the fort,
+viewed these preparations without undue alarm, as he was aware that, by the
+nature of the ground, it would be almost impossible to excavate
+sufficiently under the parapet to place an effective mine. As, however, the
+sapping was causing the parapet to incline outwards, and it was possible
+that it might almost at any moment fall over into the ditch, he caused a
+second parapet to be erected inside the first and artillery to be mounted
+thereon. Having done this he caused a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">335</a></span> false sortie to be made on the
+following night, and when the Turks rushed to the attack he, accompanied by
+a party of sappers, sallied out into the ditch and burned the bridge which
+had been made. The Turks, returning after their fruitless assault, found
+their bridge destroyed, but with untiring activity set to work and
+constructed it afresh. Dragging cannon to the very edge of the ravelin,
+they, on the very next evening, revenged themselves by also making a false
+attack: they swarmed into the ditch, and, placing their scaling-ladders
+against the walls, pretended that an escalade was to be attempted. The
+garrison, deceived, appeared on the parapet in large numbers, when a
+murderous fire at point-blank range was opened upon them from the ravelin.
+So great was the execution done on this occasion that the garrison lost
+more men than had hitherto been the case in the most determined attacks
+which they had sustained.</p>
+
+<p>It now seemed as if indeed the end had come, that the garrison had done all
+that was in the power of mortal man and nothing was left for them but to
+retire while there was yet time. Accordingly choice was made of the
+chevalier Median to represent the desperate extremities to which they were
+reduced to La Valette. It was well known that for none among the Knights
+had the Grand Master more respect than he had for Medran, one of the
+bravest and most chivalrous of them all. He, at least, could never be
+suspected of cowardice, feebleness, at a desire to desert his post. This
+gallant Knight crossed the harbour on his dolorous errand and was received
+by his chief: to him he represented the state of affairs as it has<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">336</a></span> here
+been set down, assuring him that at best the fort could but hold out for a
+few days longer.</p>
+
+<p>A chapter of the Knights Grand Cross was immediately held and the most part
+of them were of opinion that the time had come to abandon a hopeless
+position. But this decision did not meet with the approval of the Grand
+Master. No one was more sensible than he of the peril to which their
+brethren were exposed; at the same time, he contended, that there were
+occasions on which it was necessary to sacrifice a certain number for the
+good of the whole Order. He had certain information that, if St. Elmo were
+abandoned, the Viceroy of Sicily would hazard nothing for the relief of the
+island; that upon the arrival of succours depended the existence of their
+ancient and honourable confederacy: therefore, at no matter what cost, they
+were bound to hold out as long as possible. So dominant was the personality
+of the Grand Master that, in a short time, he had won over the votes of the
+chapter and Medran was ordered to return to St. Elmo and deliver to the
+garrison a message that the siege must take its course.</p>
+
+<p>Medran accordingly returned and reported to his comrades the result of his
+embassy. Several of the older Knights received the command with due
+submission, but among those who were younger there were murmurings. These
+men deemed the answer to their appeal hard and cruel; they could see no
+object in the loss of their lives, which they well knew would all be
+sacrificed in the next assault. They accordingly, to the number of
+fifty-three, wrote a letter to the Grand Master,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">337</a></span> demanding permission to
+abandon St. Elmo and retire to Il Borgo. If their request were denied they
+announced their design to sally forth, sword in hand, and perish in the
+ranks of the enemy. The Commandeur de Cornet was the bearer of this letter,
+which was received by the Grand Master with sorrow and indignation. To
+reassure them, he sent three commissioners to inspect the place. This was
+done, and one of them, a Knight of Greek descent named Constantine
+Castriot, reported that the fort could still hold out a while longer. When
+he announced this at St. Elmo the recalcitrant Knights were so furious with
+him that the Baili of Negropont had to sound “the alarm” to prevent a
+disgraceful fracas. The commissioners returned to Il Borgo. After hearing
+their report La Valette wrote a letter to those by whom he had been
+memorialised to the following effect:</p>
+<blockquote>
+<p>“Return to the convent, my brothers; you will there be in greater
+security; and on our part we shall feel a greater sense of security in
+the conservation of so important a place, on which depends the safety of
+the island and the honour of our Order.”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Never were men so taken aback as were the Knights in St. Elmo when they
+received this response; here it was intimated to them that that which they
+refused to do on account of the danger thereof was to be undertaken by
+others. This was no more than a fact, as La Valette was besieged with
+applications from, not only the Knights, but also the simple soldiers of
+the garrison, to be allowed to pass over to St. Elmo and die if necessary<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">338</a></span>
+to the last man. It was, therefore, with prayers and tears that the Knights
+besought the Grand Master to allow them to remain. At first La Valette was
+adamant. He preferred, he said, the rawest militia which was prepared to
+obey his orders, to Knights who knew not their duty. In the end, however,
+he yielded, and in the fortress of St. Elmo, that crushed and ruined
+charnel-house, its defences gaping wide, its every corner exposed night and
+day to a sweeping murderous fire, there remained a host of men sadly torn
+and battered, but animated by such a spirit that nothing the Turks could
+devise made upon it the least impression. These great and gallant gentlemen
+had had their moment of weakness; they had been heartened to the right
+conception of their duty by the noble veteran who was their chief. To him
+had they turned at last, as his obedient children who had had their moment
+of rebellion in a trial as hard as was ever undergone by man. And now, as
+the inevitable end drew near, it was as if they would imitate the Roman
+gladiator with that terrible chorus of his: “Ave Cæsar morituri te
+salutant.”</p>
+
+<p>All day and every day did the garrison fight, snatching such repose as was
+possible when their pertinacious enemies, worn out by fatigue and the
+terrible heat, could no longer be led to the attack against those whom they
+now firmly believed to be in league with Shaitan himself; “For how else,”
+demanded Janissary and Spahi alike, “could infidels like these make head
+against those chosen of the Prophet like ourselves.”</p>
+
+<p>At this time the garrison took into use a device<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">339</a></span> attributed to the Grand
+Master himself. This consisted in hoops of wood which were first thoroughly
+soaked in alcohol and then boiled in oil; they were then tightly bound with
+cotton or wool, also soaked in inflammable liquids mixed with saltpetre and
+gunpowder. Once these fiendish contrivances were set alight nothing availed
+to put them out, and they were feared as was naught else by the Turks
+during the remainder of the time they were in Malta. They were particularly
+deadly against the Turks, and at times two or more soldiers mounting the
+breach would be caught in one of these fiery circles, and the unfortunate
+wretches would be burnt alive. Even the Janissaries refused to advance at
+times when these fireworks were being flung down upon their flowing
+garments.</p>
+
+<p>On June 16th another attack was made on the fortress, and, incredible as it
+may seem, it was repulsed with such awful slaughter that at last the Turks
+would not face the swords of the garrison. Alter this the enemy succeeded
+in drawing so close a cordon round the place that no more succours could
+reach it, and the end was but a matter of time. The day before it came
+Dragut, who, with his usual intrepidity, was standing in the midst of a hot
+fire, was struck on the side of the head by a stone dislodged from a wall
+by a cannon-ball. At the moment when this happened he was holding a council
+of war in the trenches with Piali, a Sanjak, and the principal Turkish
+engineer. The same shot which wounded Dragut killed the Sanjak on the spot.
+Piali caused a cloak to be thrown over the body of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">340</a></span> corsair in order
+that his state should not be observed by the soldiers, and as soon as
+possible had him removed to his tent, where he lay unconscious till the
+following day.</p>
+
+<p>The council on which the corsair had been engaged when he received his
+mortal wound had for its object the complete isolation of St. Elmo from Il
+Borgo; his dispositions were completed and his orders given to the engineer
+just before he was struck.</p>
+
+<p>The agony of St. Elmo was drawing to an end; completely hemmed in by the
+latest dispositions of Dragut, the fortress was at its last gasp; a brave
+Maltese swimmer managed to slip through the cordon, swim the harbour, and
+deliver to the Grand Master a letter from the Bailli of Negropont. The
+Grand Master made one last effort to throw succours and reinforcements into
+the place, but these were beaten off with terrible slaughter: nothing now
+remained but to await the inevitable tragedy.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/i_fp341.jpg" width="500" height="752" alt="DEATH OF DRAGUT AT THE SIEGE OF MALTA." />
+<div class="caption">DEATH OF DRAGUT AT THE SIEGE OF MALTA.</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>On the night of June 22nd the defenders of St. Elmo, having now lost all
+hope of being supported, made ready for death. Into them La Valette had
+breathed his own heroic spirit, and none among them counselled or dreamed
+of surrender. The Order to which they had given their allegiance now
+demanded of them the last sacrifice which it was in their power to make,
+and this was offered in the manner most fitting to its tenets. These
+exhausted, war-worn, battle-scarred warriors repaired to the chapel, where
+they confessed, and made ready by partaking together of the sacrament,
+“and, having thus surrendered their souls to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">341</a></span> God, each retired to his post
+to die on the bed of honour with arms in his hand.” Those among the Knights
+who were too severely wounded or too ill to stand caused chairs to be
+carried to the breach in which they seated themselves and awaited the
+assault. For four hours did these indomitable men withstand the might of a
+host innumerable: at the conclusion of this period there remained alive but
+sixty of the garrison. Mustafa ceased the assault for a few moments only to
+replace the storming party by fresh troops, and then the end came. Almost
+the last to fall were the Chevalier Lamirande and the veteran Bailli of
+Negropont, and when the crescent banner was planted on the walls there
+remained alive not one of those defenders who had held the fort. Several of
+Dragut’s officers ran to his tent and announced the taking of St. Elmo. The
+great captain was in his last extremity and unable to speak, “He, however,
+manifested his joy by several signs, and, raising his eyes to heaven as if
+in thankfulness for its mercies, immediately expired: a captain of rare
+valour and even abundantly more humane than are ordinarily these corsairs.”</p>
+
+<p>The Basha Piali, on entering the fort and observing with what miserable
+resources it had so long been held exclaimed, as he looked across the
+harbour to Il Borgo:</p>
+
+<p>“What will not the parent do to us, when so small a son has cost us the
+lives of our bravest soldiers?”</p>
+
+<p>There is no record of what that cruel savage, Mustafa, said on this
+occasion; his deeds, however, spoke eloquently. He caused the bodies of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">342</a></span>
+Knights to be decapitated and nailed to wooden crosses, while across their
+corpses were slashed a cross in derision of the religion of his foes. The
+bodies were then cast into the harbour, and were washed up at the foot of
+Il Borgo. Instantly the Grand Master ordered the decapitation of all the
+Turkish prisoners, and their heads were fired from cannon into the camp of
+Mustafa.</p>
+
+<p>With the remainder of the siege, which was yet to last till September 18th,
+we have no concern in this book. It is only necessary to say that the men
+of Il Borgo were worthy to stand in the same category with the defenders of
+St. Elmo, which is equivalent to stating that in them also was discovered
+the last limit of heroism. The Grand Master survived the siege, his
+monument is the noble city of “Valetta” built on Mount Sceberras. The Turks
+abandoned the siege and returned to Constantinople on the arrival of some
+insignificant reinforcements from Sicily. So terrible had been the
+resistance of the Knights that no heart was left in their armada. Of Dragut
+there remains but little to be said: he was perhaps the best educated of
+the corsairs and less cruel than was usually their habit. Although not so
+renowned as his more celebrated master, Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, this is,
+perhaps, because his career was cut short at the siege of Malta at a
+comparatively early age. Although he never attained the rank of
+Admiralissimo to the Grand Turk, that potentate, as we have seen, placed in
+him the greatest confidence, and relied largely on his judgment, especially
+when sea-affairs were in question. Like the Barbarossas before him, he rose
+from nothing to the height to which he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">343</a></span> eventually attained by sheer force
+of intellect and character. In the stormy times in which his lot was cast
+he never faltered in his onward way, never repined, never looked back,
+sustained as he was by a consciousness of his own capability to rule the
+wild spirits by whom he lived surrounded. So it is that, whatever other
+opinion we may hold of Dragut, we cannot deny that in this captain of the
+Sea-wolves were blended rare qualities, which caused him to shine as a
+capable administrator, a fine seaman, but above all as a supreme leader of
+men. Dragut died with arms in his hands fighting those whom he considered
+to be his bitterest enemies. He did not live to see the repulse of Piali
+and Mustapha, and it is to be presumed that he died assured in his own mind
+that victory would rest with the Moslem host. For such a man as this no
+death could have been more welcome.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">344</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXI<br /><br />
+
+<small>ALI BASHA</small></h2>
+
+<p><small>Ali, the Basha of Algiers, succeeds to Dragut&mdash;He conquers the Kingdom
+of Tunis, captures four galleys from the Knights of Malta, joins Piali
+Basha in his raidings preliminary to the battle of Lepanto&mdash;The
+gathering of the Christian hosts and the arrival of Don John of Austria
+in the Mediterranean to take command.</small></p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">“Now</span> I have heard several mariners and captains of the sea, nay, even
+Knights of Malta, debate among themselves this question, as to which was
+the greater and better seaman, Dragut or Occhiali? And some held for one
+and some for the other; those who held for Occhiali declaring that he had
+held greater and more honourable charges than Dragut, because he commanded
+as General and Admiral for the Grand Turk and that <i>il fit belle action</i> at
+the battle of Lepanto.” Pierre de Bourdeille, the Seigneur de Brantôme,
+from whom we make the above quotation, was himself present at the siege of
+Malta and, besides this, as is well known, gossiped in his own inimitable
+way concerning men and women of his time, from corsairs to courtesans. When
+such contemporary authorities as those mentioned could not agree it is
+quite certain that we of the twentieth century cannot decide on the rival
+claims to distinction between the Bashaw of Tripoli and his follower
+Occhiali,<span class="pagenum2"><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">345</a></span> as he was known to the Christians, or Ali Basha, as he was called
+by the Turks. Ali Basha has a title to fame in the fact that he is
+mentioned by Cervantes in his <i>Don Quijote de la Mancha</i> under the name of
+“Uchali” in chapter xxxix., “Donde el cautivo cuenta su vida y sucesos.”
+The captive is supposed to have been no less a person than the famous
+Cervantes himself, and he briefly describes how Uchali became “Rey de
+Argel,” or King of Algiers.</p>
+
+<p>Ali was a Christian, having been born at a miserable little village in
+Calabria called Licastelli. Nothing whatever is known of his birth and
+parentage, and he does not appear even to have possessed a Christian name,
+although born in a Christian land. He followed from his earliest youth the
+calling of a mariner; “he was from infancy inured to salt water,” says
+Joseph Morgan, in his <i>Compleat History of Algiers</i>, and he was, as a mere
+boy, captured by Ali Ahamed, Admiral of Algiers, and was chained to the
+starboard-bow oar in the galley of that officer. He was thus very early in
+life “inured” to suffering, and must have possessed a constitution of iron
+to withstand thus, in boyhood, the hardships of the life of a galley-slave,
+which as a rule broke down the endurance of strong men in a very few years.
+Morgan presents us with a description of him at this period which in these
+more squeamish days can certainly not be set down in its entirety: suffice
+it to say that he suffered all his days from what is known as “scald-head,”
+and that personal filthiness was one of his principal characteristics.</p>
+
+<p>For some years Ali remained at the heart-breaking<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">346</a></span> toil of the rower’s
+bench: cut off from home, which to him meant nothing, devoid of kinsfolk,
+alone&mdash;miserably alone in a world which, so far, had given him naught but
+the chain and the whip&mdash;it is not a matter for surprise that he became a
+Mussulman, thus freeing himself from slavery. From the time that he took
+this step his fortunes mended rapidly in that strange medley of savagery
+and bloodshed in which his lot was cast.</p>
+
+<p>Alert, strong, capable, and vigorous, he became in early manhood chief
+boatswain in the galley in which his apprenticeship had been passed&mdash;a
+position which enabled him to accumulate a small store of ducats, with
+which he bought a share in a brigantine. Here he soon acquired sufficient
+wealth to become captain and owner of a galley, in which he soon gained the
+reputation of being one of the boldest corsairs on the Barbary coast.
+Having in some sort made a name for himself, his next step was to seek for
+a patron who could make use of his valour, address, and capability for
+command. His choice was soon made, as who in all the Mediterranean, in his
+early days, held such a name as Dragut? He accordingly entered the service
+of the Basha of Tripoli, and, under his command, became well known to the
+officers of the Grand Turk, particularly to the Admiral, Piali Basha, to
+whom he was able to render some important services.</p>
+
+<p>There is no object to be gained in lingering over the earlier years of this
+notable corsair, as we should thus only be repeating what has been said
+about Dragut, whose lieutenant and trusted follower he became. He
+accompanied his master to the siege of Malta, and when Dragut was slain the
+Capitan-Basha,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">347</a></span> Piali, named him as successor to his chief as Viceroy of
+Tripoli. Ali sailed from Malta to Tripoli, taking with him the remains of
+Dragut, to be buried as that chieftain had directed. When he arrived on the
+Barbary coast he made himself master of the slaves and treasure which had
+been left behind by Dragut; shortly after this he was confirmed in his
+Vice-royalty of Tripoli by the Grand Turk; thenceforward increasing, both
+his wealth and the terror in which his name was held, by continual raids
+upon the Christians, more particularly on the coasts of Sicily, Calabria,
+and Naples. It is curious to observe the sort of spite which all the
+renegadoes seem to have harboured against the countries in which they were
+born.</p>
+
+<p>In March 1568, owing to the fall of Mohammed Basha, the Vice-royalty of
+Algiers became vacant, and, through the good offices of his old friend
+Piali, Ali became Governor. He thus returned to occupy a position of
+literally sovereign power to the city which he had first entered as a
+galley-slave.</p>
+
+<p>That he was no negligent Governor and that he took an entirely intelligent
+view of his functions, is proved by an occurrence which took place in this
+same year in Spain. The Moriscoes in the Kingdom of Granada revolted
+against their Spanish Governor, by whom they were sorely oppressed. They
+sent messages to Ali at Algiers, begging for succour against their
+persecutor. But the Basha would send no expedition; he permitted all and
+sundry to go as volunteers, but gave out publicly that “it more concerned
+him to defend well his own State than to interfere in the affairs of
+others.” He even went farther than this, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">348</a></span> when a number of Moriscoes,
+who were settled at Algiers, embarked a quantity of arms for transportation
+to the coast of Andalusia, he put an embargo on the vessels and would not
+allow them to sail, saying “he would never suffer the exportation of what
+was so necessary for the defence of his own dominions.” At last, after much
+importunity, he consented “that all such as had two of a sort&mdash;as muskets,
+swords, or other weapons&mdash;might, if they thought fit, send over one of
+them, provided they did it gratis and purely for the cause’ sake; but he
+would never allow any of them to strip themselves of their arms for lucre.”</p>
+
+<p>Ali, being now firmly established at Algiers, took up arms against the
+neighbouring State of Tunis. For long years now the King of Tunis had been
+protected by the Spaniards&mdash;a nation whom the Sea-wolves always held in
+singular abhorrence as the most bigoted of the Christian Powers, and who
+held in thrall many of their co-religionists. Hamid, son of Hassan, who now
+ruled in Tunis, had reduced that unfortunate State to anarchy bordering on
+rebellion, and the whole country, torn by internal feud, was ready to rise
+against him. The Goletta was in the hands of the Spaniards; Carouan, an
+inland town, had set up a king of its own, while the maritime towns passed
+from the domination of the Sea-wolves to that of the Christians, and from
+the Christians back to the Sea-wolves, according to which party happened to
+be the stronger for the time being.</p>
+
+<p>El Maestro Fray Diego de Haedo, “Abad de Fromesta de la Orden del Patriarca
+San Benito” and “natural del Valle de Carranca,” whose<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">349</a></span> <i>Topografia e
+Historia de Argel</i> (or Algiers) was printed in Valladolid in the year 1612,
+gives an account of Hamid at this time in which he describes that monarch
+as an “unpopular tyrant who sadly persecuted his vassals and the friends of
+his father; who could by no means suffer his tyrannies and those of his
+ministers, the scum of the earth (“hombres baxos”), to whom he had given
+the principal offices of the kingdom. Accordingly, since the time that Ali
+had become Basha of Algiers, letters had been written to him importuning
+him to come to Tunis that he might possess himself of that city and
+kingdom.”</p>
+
+<p>There were three principal conspirators&mdash;the Alcaid Bengabara, General of
+the Cavalry, the Alcaid Botaybo, and the Alcaid Alcadaar. Ali, however, was
+too shrewd a man to move until he had satisfied himself by reports from his
+own adherents; he, therefore, awaited the result of investigations made by
+spies from Algiers. At last, in the beginning of the year 1569, when the
+offers from the Alcaids had been three times renewed and the Basha was
+assured that the people in Tunis were sincere in their offer to him of the
+sovereignty of the kingdom&mdash;which they begged him to conquer and hold in
+the name of the Ottoman Empire&mdash;the ex-galley-slave no longer hesitated. He
+left Algiers in the month of October, leaving that city in charge of one
+Mami Corso, a fellow renegado. Unlike Dragut, who would have gone by sea,
+he set out by land with some five thousand corsairs and renegadoes. On the
+way he was reinforced by some six thousand cavalry of the wild tribes of
+the hinterland, then<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">350</a></span> as ever ready to join in a fray with promise of booty:
+doubly ready in this case, as it was to harass so unpopular a tyrant as
+Hamid. Passing through Constantine and Bona, he continued to march towards
+Tunis, his following augmenting as he proceeded, and adding to his forces
+ten light field-guns. Arriving at Beja, a town which Haedo describes as
+being but two short days’ march from Tunis, he came upon a fortress,
+recently erected by Hamid, mounting fourteen brass cannon. Here he halted,
+whereupon Hamid sallied out to give him battle at the head of some three
+thousand troops, horse and foot. The engagement had scarcely begun when the
+three Alcaids, who had been in communication with Ali, deserted with all
+their following. Hamid fled to Tunis, expecting to find shelter there, but
+he was hotly pursued by the corsairs, who followed him up to Al-Burdon,
+where his summer palace was situated. Hamid, finding that his people were
+everywhere in revolt, fled to the Goletta, carrying with him a quantity of
+money, jewels, and portable valuables, and placed himself under the
+protection of the Spanish garrison&mdash;not, however, without the loss of the
+major portion of his baggage, plundered from him by certain Moors in the
+course of his flight.</p>
+
+<p>Like Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, Ali was now lord of Algiers and Tunis, and as
+he was, for a corsair, a man of wide views, he treated his new subjects
+with consideration. He made, however, one curious mistake not to have been
+expected from one so politic: he demanded tribute from the tribes of the
+hinterland. In those days, particularly in Northern Africa, men paid
+tribute to an overlord<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">351</a></span> because he was stronger than they; because
+retribution followed swiftly and suddenly upon refusal. To order tribute to
+be paid without being ready to strike was merely to expose the man making
+the demand to derision. Particularly was this the case with the fierce
+land-pirates of the desert, whose habit it was to exact and not to pay
+tribute. To Ali the Sheiks replied that “if he wanted tribute from them he
+must demand it lance in hand in the field, for there and nowhere else were
+they accustomed to pay: that their coin was steel lance-heads and not
+golden aspers.” After this, says Morgan, “the Basha thought it well to
+dissemble.”</p>
+
+<p>Ali, being in no position to wage war in the desert against these people,
+had to swallow the insult and to turn his attention to regulating the
+internal affairs of his newly acquired kingdom. This he succeeded in doing
+sufficiently by the month of June in the following year to enable him to
+leave Tunis in the hands of one Rabadan, a Sardinian renegado, and to start
+himself for Constantinople. His reason for doing this was the old one of
+attempting to consolidate his power in Northern Africa by appealing to the
+Sultan for help. As long as the Goletta remained in the hands of the
+Spaniards no corsair could feel himself secure in either Tunis or Algiers.
+The object of Ali was to beg from the Grand Turk men and ships to assist
+him to chase the Spaniards out of Africa.</p>
+
+<p>The month of June 1570, in consequence, saw Ali once more at sea in his
+“Admiral galley,” steering northwards to the Golden Horn. Carrying with
+them a favourable breeze from the south-east,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">352</a></span> the galleys spread their huge
+lateen sails, and the straining rowers had rest awhile. The squadron
+consisted of twenty-four galleys. Off Cape Passaro, in Sicily, a small
+vessel was captured which gave information that five galleys of the Knights
+of Malta were at anchor at Licata, a small harbour in the neighbourhood,
+and that they were on the point of sailing for Malta. The decision of Ali
+was taken on the instant: were he to go in and attack them with the
+overwhelming force at his command the crews might escape to the shore; even
+the Knights of Malta could hardly be expected to fight twenty-four galleys
+with five. He was anxious to capture the ships, but above all to capture
+those by whom they were manned: to have the satisfactory revenge of seeing
+the proud Knights stripped naked and chained to the benches of his own
+fleet.</p>
+
+<p>The hot Mediterranean sun poured down out of a cloudless sky as the
+Sea-wolves made their offing; out of sight of land they lay, but right in
+the course which the galleys of the Christians were bound to take. The
+great yards, with their lateen sails, were got down on deck, and, oar in
+hand, the Moslems awaited their prey. Presently the Maltese galleys were
+discovered coming leisurely along, under oars and sails, and then&mdash;when it
+was too late&mdash;the Knights discovered the snare into which they had fallen.
+There was but scant time for preparation or deliberation, and who shall
+blame four out of the five if they decided to try to escape? for it was
+escape or annihilation.</p>
+
+<p>But there was one which did not fly, “Una galera hizo cara a los Turcos”
+(One single galley<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">353</a></span> turned her bows towards the Turks), says that faithful
+chronicler Haedo. She was named the <i>Santa Ana</i>, but the name of her heroic
+commander has not come down to us. Even as Grenfell “at Flores in the
+Azores,” stood upon the deck of the little <i>Revenge</i> on that memorable
+August day in 1591, when “he chose to die rather than to dishonour himself,
+his country, and her Majesty’s ship,” so also did this Knight of Malta bear
+down on the twenty-four that were his foes.</p>
+
+<p>When Don John of Austria, being at the time young and inexperienced in
+warfare on the sea, wrote to the Marquis of Villafranca, General of the
+Galleys of Sicily, requesting advice on the subject of galley attacking
+galley, that officer replied to him, “Never fire your arquebus at the foe
+until you are so close at hand that his blood will leap into your face at
+the discharge.” If we bear in mind such an instruction as this it will help
+us to picture that close-packed sanguinary conflict upon which the
+Mediterranean sun looked down on this day. Eight to one, all that could
+find room to get alongside of the <i>Santa Ana</i>, fought with the Knight and
+his followers. The issue was, of course, never in doubt for a moment.
+“Muertos y cansados” (Dead and deadbeat), says Haedo, the caballeros and
+soldados of the Christian ship could at length hold out no longer. The
+Sea-wolves were victorious, the proud banner of Saint John was lowered; but
+never in all its history had it been more nobly upheld, and the galley
+<i>Santa Ana</i>, commanded by that unknown member of the great Christian
+military hierarchy of the sixteenth century, may well stand in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">354</a></span> roll of
+fame alongside of the <i>Revenge</i>, the <i>Vengeur</i>, and the <i>Victory</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Capitana</i>, or “Admiral’s galley,” of the Knights, being hotly pursued,
+ran ashore with one of her consorts at Licata: the crews landed, but were
+pursued and overtaken. One galley escaped altogether, but four out of the
+five were taken. So notable a victory as this over the Knights caused so
+much rejoicing in the fleet of the Sea-wolves that Ali determined to
+celebrate it by a triumphal return to Algiers instead of proceeding
+directly to Constantinople. Accordingly, the ships’ heads were turned south
+once more, and upon July 20th, 1570, the fleet arrived in the African port,
+“on sus galeras todas llenas de muchas banderas”&mdash;with galleys gaily
+beflagged.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/i_fp355.jpg" width="500" height="327" alt="A GALLEY OF THE KNIGHTS OF MALTA." />
+<div class="caption">A GALLEY OF THE KNIGHTS OF MALTA.</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The procession entered the harbour in three divisions of eight galleys: and
+towing behind each division was one of the captured galleys of the Knights.
+In memory of his prowess Ali ordered that the shields and bucklers taken
+from the Maltese galleys, which bore upon them emblazoned the white cross
+of “the Religion,” should be hung up in the great arched gate of the
+Marina. Also there was placed here the image of Saint John the Baptist,
+taken from the <i>Capitana</i> galley, “all of which remain,” says Haedo, “until
+this day” <i>(i.e.</i> 1612), except the image of Saint John, which in the reign
+of Hassan Basha, a Venetian renegado, was taken down and burned at the
+instance of the Morabutos, “los letrados de los Moros” (the learned among
+the Moors). It is an instructive commentary on the fear and respect in
+which the Knights of Malta were held that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">355</a></span> such a man as Ali should have
+considered it a triumph worth the celebrating when he defeated five of
+their vessels with twenty-four of his own.</p>
+
+<p>The next occurrence in the life of Ali was one of those to which the
+Sea-wolves were subjected from time to time, and which do not seem to have
+caused them much trouble or anxiety. This was a mutiny of the Janissaries
+in Algiers, who very reasonably objected to being left without their pay. A
+mutiny of the Janissaries, however, was somewhat a serious matter, as they
+were accustomed to the enjoyment of many privileges, and were, as we have
+said elsewhere, a picked corps who had it in their power even to coerce the
+Sultan himself upon occasions.</p>
+
+<p>Those of them who were in Algiers demanded “Who was this corsair who dared
+to keep the picked men of the army of the Grand Turk waiting for their pay,
+as if they were no better than his slaves?” Such a thing as a mutiny was,
+in the days of which we speak, a matter for which any prudent corsair had
+to be prepared. Ali was in no means discomposed, and, as the crisis had
+become acute on shore, he went to sea, where he was under no obligation to
+pay his men, who paid themselves at the expense of their enemies. He put to
+sea with twenty galleys, and, shortly after leaving Algiers, he met with a
+galley from the Levant, from which he received information that a powerful
+armada was preparing in Constantinople for an expedition against the
+Christians. He steered for Coron in the Morea, where he was almost
+immediately joined by the Ottoman fleet, the commander of which force was
+overjoyed to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">356</a></span> find so formidable a reinforcement under so renowned a captain
+as Ali.</p>
+
+<p>Soliman the Magnificent had died in 1566, and had been succeeded by his
+son, Selim; this prince, bred in the Seraglio, was weak and licentious,
+given to that strong drink forbidden by the Prophet to an extent which
+caused him to be nicknamed by the Spaniards as “el ebrio,” or “el bebedor.”</p>
+
+<p>This was a state of affairs which boded ill for the Turkish Empire, and
+Selim II. had been educated in a very different manner from that which had
+hitherto been the custom. Speaking of this, Gibbon says, “Instead of the
+slothful luxury of the Seraglio, the heirs of royalty were educated in the
+council and the field. From early youth they were entrusted by their
+fathers with the command of provinces and of armies; and this manly
+institution, which was often productive of civil war, must have essentially
+contributed to the discipline and vigour of the monarchy.”</p>
+
+<p>Drunkard and weakling as he was, Selim had his ambitions. He wished to
+signalise his reign by some great conquest, such as had added lustre to the
+rule of his father; and in consequence he laid claim to the island of
+Cyprus, then belonging to Venice, The Venetians, having strengthened the
+fortifications of the island and fitted out their navy, sought alliances in
+Europe to curb the pretensions of the Porte. In this they found support,
+instant and generous, from the Pope Pius V. Of this great ecclesiastic
+Prescott says: “He was one of those Pontiffs who seemed to have been called
+forth by the exigencies of the time to uphold the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">357</a></span> pillars of Catholicism as
+they were yet trembling under the assaults of Luther.”</p>
+
+<p>The Pope, Philip II. of Spain, and Venice formed what was known as the
+“Holy League,” and, having formed it, immediately began to quarrel among
+themselves as to what its functions were to be. The Venetians wished all
+its efforts to be directed to safeguarding Cyprus, while Philip and his
+viceroys were anxious to attack the Sea-wolves on the coast of Africa in
+their strongholds. After much squabbling, an agreement was come to. The
+principal items of this were, that the Pope should pay one-sixth of the
+expenses, Venice two-sixths, and Spain three-sixths; that each party should
+appoint its own Commander-in-Chief, and that Don John of Austria should be
+in supreme command of the whole forces assembled. The contracting parties
+were to furnish 200 galleys, 100 transports, 50,000 foot, 4,500 horse, and
+the requisite artillery and stores.</p>
+
+<p>While the Christians were negotiating and talking, the Turks were acting.
+It was in May that the Pope caused the treaty to be publicly read in full
+consistory; in April the Turkish fleet had got to sea and committed
+terrible ravages in the Adriatic, laying waste to Venetian territory.</p>
+
+<p>While ships and men were gathering, and while the fleet which it was to be
+his fortune to defeat was pursuing its career in the Mediterranean, Don
+John of Austria left Madrid for the south on June 6th, 1571. When he
+arrived at Barcelona he made a pilgrimage to the Hermitage of Our Lady of
+Montserrat, where his father Charles V. had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">358</a></span> confessed and received the
+sacrament before he sailed on his voyage to the Barbary coast in his
+expedition against Barbarossa. From Barcelona he sailed with thirty galleys
+to Genoa, where he arrived on the 25th, and was lodged in the palace of
+Andrea Doria. In August he arrived by water at Naples.</p>
+
+<p>By this time all Europe was aflame with excitement: warriors of noble birth
+were flocking to serve under the standard of the brother of the King of
+Spain, who was regarded as the very mirror of chivalry. The following
+description of Don John, at Naples, is from the pen of that great historian
+Prescott:</p>
+<blockquote>
+<p>“Arrangements had been made in that city for his reception on a more
+magnificent scale than any he had witnessed on his journey. Granvelle,
+who had lately been raised to the post of Viceroy, came forth at the
+head of a long and brilliant procession to welcome his royal guest. The
+houses which lined the streets were hung with richly tinted tapestries
+and gaily festooned with flowers. The windows and verandahs were graced
+with the beauty and fashion of the pleasure-loving capital, and many a
+dark eye sparkled as it gazed upon the fine form and features of the
+youthful hero, who at the age of twenty-four had come to Italy to assume
+the baton of command and lead the crusade against the Moslems. His
+splendid dress of white velvet and cloth of gold set off his graceful
+person to advantage. A crimson scarf floated loosely over his breast,
+and his snow-white plumes drooping from his cap mingled with the yellow
+curls that fell in profusion over his shoulders. It was a picture which
+the Italian maiden might love to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">359</a></span> look on. It was certainly not the
+picture of the warrior sheathed in the iron panoply of war. But the
+young Prince, in his general aspect, might be relieved from the charge
+of effeminacy by his truly chivalrous bearing and the dauntless spirit
+which beamed from his clear blue eyes. In his own lineaments he seemed
+to combine all that was comely in the lineaments of his race.”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>At Naples Don John found a fleet at anchor under the command of Don Alvaro
+de Bazan, first marquis of Santa Cruz, of whom much was to be heard in the
+future in his capacity as Admiral of Castile. Here also he received from
+the hands of Cardinal Granvelle a consecrated banner sent to him by the
+Pope at a solemn ceremony in the church of the Franciscan Convent of Santa
+Chiara. On August 25th he left Naples and proceeded to Messina, where he
+landed under a triumphal arch of colossal dimensions, embossed with rich
+plates of silver and curiously sculptured with emblematical bas-reliefs.
+The royal galley in which the hero embarked was built at Barcelona: she was
+fitted with the greatest luxury, and was remarkable for her strength and
+speed; her stern was profusely decorated with emblems and devices drawn
+from history; no such warship had ever been seen in the world before.</p>
+
+<p>Cayetano Rosell, in his <i>Historia del combate naval de Lepanto</i>, says that
+the number of vessels, great and small, in the Christian armada was over
+300, of which 200 were galleys, the ordinary warships of the time. He goes
+on to say:</p>
+<blockquote>
+<p>“In this spacious harbour [Messina] there were collected<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">360</a></span> the squadrons
+of the League; the people who managed the oars and sails and the
+innumerable combatants making an immense number when added together.
+Since the days of Imperial Rome, never had been seen in these seas so
+imposing a spectacle, never had there been collected so many ships
+moving towards a single end dominated by a single will. Never was there
+a spectacle more gratifying in the eyes of justice, nor of greater
+incentive to men to fight for the cause of religion.”</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>The Spanish fleet comprised 90 royal galleys, 24 nefs, and 50 fregatas and
+brigantines “los mejores que en tiempo alguno se habrian visto” (the finest
+that ever were seen at any time), as they were described by Don John. The
+Pope sent 12 galleys and 6 fregatas, under the command of Mark Antony
+Colonna. The Pope had also made a grant of the “Crusada” and “Excusada,”
+and other ecclesiastical revenues which he drew from Spain, to the King of
+that country, to meet expenses.</p>
+
+<p>Venice appointed Sebastian Veniero to the command of her fleet, which
+consisted of 106 galleys, 6 galeasses of enormous bulk and clumsy
+construction carrying each 40 guns, 2 nefs, and 20 fregatas. These vessels
+were, however, so miserably manned and equipped that Don John had to send
+on board Spaniards and Genoese to complete their complements. In a
+manuscript of the Bibliothèque du Roi (Number 10088) is an account of the
+battle of Lepanto by Commandeur de Romegas. He gives the number of the
+Turkish fleet at 333 ships, of which 230 were galleys, the rest galeasses
+and smaller craft. The total which he gives for the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">361</a></span> Christian fleet is 271.
+Ali Basha was in supreme command of the Turkish forces, “a man of an
+intrepid spirit, who had given many proofs of a humane and generous
+mature&mdash;qualities more rare among the Turks, perhaps among all nations,
+than mere physical courage.” With Ali was the Basha of Algiers, that other
+Ali, the corsair, who since his arrival at Coron had done more than his
+share of the fighting, marauding, and devastating which were the
+preliminaries to the battle of Lepanto. In this historic conflict he was to
+show once again how, on the face of the waters, the Sea-wolves were
+supreme; as it was he and his corsairs, out of the whole of the Moslem
+host, who acquitted themselves with the greatest credit on that day so
+fatal to the arms of the Ottoman Turk.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">362</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXII<br /><br />
+
+<small>LEPANTO</small></h2>
+
+<p><small>How Ali Basha fought at the battle of Lepanto: his subsequent
+career&mdash;Conclusion.</small></p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">Lepanto</span>, the last battle of first-class importance in which the Sea-wolves
+bore a leading part, is memorable in many ways. It is one of the most
+sanguinary which was ever fought, the element of personal hatred between
+the combatants, to which we have alluded more than once, being singularly
+in evidence on this occasion. As we have said, this campaign was brought
+about at the initiative of the Venetians, and an incident which occurred
+not long before the battle exacerbated the feelings with which the Turks
+were regarded by the Christians to the point of madness. The city of
+Famagusta, in Cyprus, had been captured by that Mustafa of whom we heard so
+much at the siege of Malta. The Venetian defenders made an honourable
+capitulation, but when the four principal Venetian captains were brought
+before Mustafa, that general caused three of them to be beheaded on the
+spot; the fourth, a noble and gallant gentleman who had been responsible
+for the magnificent defence of the city entrusted to his charge, he caused
+to be flayed alive in the market-square. He then<span class="pagenum2"><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">363</a></span> had the skin stuffed with
+straw, and, with this ghastly trophy nailed to the prow of his galley,
+returned in triumph to Constantinople. Bragadino, the defender of
+Famagusta, did not die in vain; his terrible fate excited such a passion of
+anger in the whole of the armada of Don John that each individual of which
+it was composed felt that the sacrifice of his own life would be but a
+small thing if it only led to the destruction of such fiends as those
+against whom they were arrayed.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/i_fp363.jpg" width="500" height="664" alt="DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA." />
+<div class="caption">DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA.</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Lepanto was a magnificent triumph for the arms of Christendom, and taught a
+much-needed lesson to Europe that the Ottoman Turk was not invincible upon
+the sea; it was not, however, an interesting battle from the point of view
+of the student of war and its combinations. Of all the high officers in
+command on that memorable day there was only one who displayed real
+generalship and a proper appreciation of the tactical necessities of the
+situation; that officer was Ali Basha, the leader of the Sea-wolves. The
+account of the battle is somewhat obscured by the fact that on the side of
+the Moslems the name of the Ottoman Commander-in-Chief was also “Ali”; in
+order to avoid confusion in this narration, we shall allude to the Basha of
+Algiers by the name given to him by the Christians, “Occhiali.”</p>
+
+<p>It was on Sunday, October 7th, 1571, that the Christian fleet weighed
+anchor from Cephalonia and stood southwards along the Albanian coast, which
+is here fringed with rocky islets. The right wing was commanded by John
+Andrea Doria, the left wing by the Provéditeur Barbarigo, the centre, or
+“battle,” as it was called, by Don John in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">364</a></span> person, who had on the one side
+of him Mark Antony Colonna, the General of the Galleys of the Pope, and on
+the other that fiery veteran Sebastian Veniero, the commander of the
+Venetians. Here also were stationed the Prince of Parma, nephew to Don
+John, Admiral of Savoy; Duke Urbino, Admiral of Genoa; the Admiral of
+Naples, and the Commandeur of Castile. The reserve, under the command of
+the Marquis of Santa Cruz, consisted of thirty-five galleys. Immediately in
+rear of the <i>Real</i>, or royal galley of Don John, was that of the Grand
+Commander Requesens. The number of seamen, soldiers, officers, and
+galley-slaves in the fleet amounted to over eighty thousand persons;
+twenty-nine thousand infantry had been embarked, of which number nineteen
+thousand were Spaniards. Opposed to the Christians on this day was a
+Turkish fleet which had on board no less than one hundred and twenty
+thousand men embarked in two hundred and fifty galleys, without counting an
+innumerable host of smaller vessels.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/i_fp365.jpg" width="500" height="827" alt="SEBASTIAN VENIERO." />
+<div class="caption">SEBASTIAN VENIERO.<br />Inset, portraits of Don John and Pope
+Pius V. Heroic statue of Don John dominating Christian and Turkish Fleets.
+The breath of the Almighty destroying the Turkish fleet at Lepanto.</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The authorities on whose accounts of the battle this description is based
+are Prescott, the famous historian; P. Daru, a member of the Académie
+Française, who wrote an exhaustive <i>Histoire de Venise</i> and Don Cayetano
+Rosell, member of the Spanish Academy, who is responsible for an exposition
+of the subject, known as <i>Historia del combate naval de Lepanto</i>. From a
+comparison of the works of these eminent men one fact emerges with great
+clearness, which is that the battle of Lepanto was an indiscriminate mêlée
+which was decided by some of the most desperate fighting ever recorded, but
+which depended hardly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">365</a></span> at all upon the tactical abilities of the men in
+chief command. It is true that we are told Don John issued written
+instructions to the commander of each ship, but we are left in the dark as
+to what these instructions were, while at the same time we discover that in
+his line of battle, which in the first instance appears to have been that
+of “single line ahead,” the galleys of all nationalities were inextricably
+mixed up; making it thereby impossible for the Papal, Spanish, and Venetian
+commanders to deal, as they should have done, exclusively with their own
+men. On the other hand, Occhiali kept together the squadron of the
+Sea-wolves; he outgeneralled and had all but defeated John Andrea Doria,
+when the end came and he was obliged to retreat.</p>
+
+<p>We are, however, anticipating. Don John passed down his own line in a light
+“fregata” giving a few words of exhortation and advice to each ship under
+his command. If the bastard brother of the King of Spain did not exhibit
+any large measure of ability as a leader on this occasion, he was perhaps
+none the less the right man in the right place, as he had about him so
+winning a way, he was so striking and gallant a figure, that the hearts of
+all under his command went out to him. The seamen and soldiers of the great
+armada greeted him with enthusiastic shouts of delight as he bade them
+remember in whose cause it was that they fought. The last of the
+Knights-errant must have made a brave show as he passed down that line four
+miles in length, the sun shining on his damascened armour, and his yellow
+curls streaming out from beneath his helmet.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">366</a></span></p>
+<p>Soon after sunrise the Turkish fleet was descried sailing towards the
+Christians, in such apparently overwhelming force that several of the
+Spanish commanders represented to Don John that it would be imprudent to
+risk a battle. To his honour be it recorded that he replied he had come out
+to fight the Turks and that the time for talk was now over. He then hoisted
+all his banners, and the executive signal for the combat to begin was given
+by displaying at his mainmast head the sacred banner blessed by the Pope.
+As this standard floated out upon the breeze there went up a great shout in
+unison from all that were under the command of Don John. The scene of the
+combat was that area of the Ionian Sea which is enclosed on the east by the
+coasts of Albania and Morea and on the west by the islands of Ithaca and
+Cephalonia, Just to the northward, at the entrance to the Gulf of Arta,
+sixteen hundred years before had been fought the battle of Actium between
+Antony and Octavius; the same spot had witnessed, in 1538, the memorable
+battle of Prevesa between Andrea Doria and Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa.</p>
+
+<p>From the point of view of the seaman, who is naturally anxious to discover
+the dispositions of their fleets made by the rival Commanders-in-Chief,
+Lepanto is an almost hopeless puzzle. As far as can be gathered, however,
+it was that the two armadas approached one another in what is known as
+“line ahead,” each ship being immediately astern of its next ahead in one
+long continuous line; and that, when they got within striking distance,
+these lines turned so that they formed “line abreast,” when each ship,
+having turned at right angles,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">367</a></span> simultaneously the line advances abreast,
+the ships forming it being broadside to broadside.</p>
+
+<p>When the Turks discovered the allies they were issuing from between the
+islets and the shore. Seeing John Andrea Doria moving to the right, they
+judged that he was executing a turning movement with the object of escaping
+to the northwards, from whence he had come; they were, at the time, unable
+to see the rest of the fleet, which was hidden by the land. With sound
+tactical judgment they accordingly advanced to attack the allies before
+they should have time to issue from the strait. They were, however, too far
+off to accomplish this, and, by the time they arrived within striking
+distance, the Christian fleet had cleared the strait and was ready for
+them, “drawn up for battle,” says Monsieur Daru, which is somewhat vague in
+describing the disposition of a fleet. What is certain, however, is that in
+advance of the galleys of Don John were six great galeasses, which were
+armed with guns of immensely superior power to anything which could be
+mounted in galleys. As the Turks advanced to the attack these vessels
+opened fire, and did so much execution that Ali, the Turkish
+Commander-in-Chief, ordered his line to open out and thus avoid their fire.
+Whatever formation the fleet was in at the time&mdash;which was, as far as we
+can gather, “line abreast”&mdash;this opening-out process, to avoid the
+galeasses, threw it into hopeless confusion. The Turkish right wing, which
+was hugging the coast, and was the first to come into action, passed on in
+an endeavour to turn the left wing of the allies. While this manoeuvre was
+in progress<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">368</a></span> Ali, the Capitan-Basha of the Turks, arrived in his vessel
+opposite to the royal galley of Don John. At the masthead of the galley of
+the Capitan-Bashaw floated the sacred standard of the Ottomans. This, the
+ancient banner of the Caliphs, was covered with texts from the Koran, and
+had upon it the name of Allah emblazoned no less than twenty-eight thousand
+nine hundred times in letters of gold. “It was,” says Prescott, “the banner
+of the Sultan, having passed from father to son since the foundation of the
+dynasty, and was never seen in the field unless the Grand Seigneur or his
+lieutenant was there in person.” Ali, the Commander-in-Chief, a favourite
+of the Sultan, had been entrusted with this most precious of all the
+possessions of the Padishah, as an incentive to him and all under his
+command to fight their hardest to do honour to the Prophet, and to prevent
+this symbol of their religion from falling into the hands of the Christian.
+Ali, like Don John, was young, and burning to distinguish himself;
+accordingly, as soon as the ships of the two leaders came opposite to each
+other neither regarded any enemy save his rival Commander-in-Chief. Ali
+drove his great galley straight on board of the vessel of Don John, and a
+most obstinate conflict ensued. Veniero and Colonna hastened to the
+assistance of their chief, who was sore beset.</p>
+
+<p>The combat now became general, and, as has been said, was for the most part
+nothing but a melee, in which each ship sought out the nearest of her foes
+and closed with her. For some time the fight went hard with Don John; time
+and again the galley of the Moslem leader was boarded,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">369</a></span> but on each occasion
+the Spaniards were hurled back upon their own decks. Loredano and Malipier,
+two Venetian captains, fell upon seven Turkish galleys which were hastening
+to reinforce the attack on Don John, and sank one of them. They then fought
+with such fury and resolution with the six that remained that, although
+both captains were killed, it was conceded that they had saved their
+general, entirely altered the complexion of the battle in their
+neighbourhood, and facilitated the capture of the Turkish admiral. The
+determined conduct of the two Venetians allowed the Spanish division to
+close in on the Turkish flagship, which, after an heroic resistance, was
+captured, principally because there were practically none left alive to
+fight. The head of Ali was struck off by a Spanish soldier, the banner of
+the Moslems was replaced by the flag of the Cross, the head of Ali on a
+pike being exhibited in derision above it. The conquerors seem to have seen
+no incongruity in this performance. The lowering of the sacred standard of
+the Capitan-Basha had a disheartening effect upon the Turks; they knew by
+this that their Commander-in-Chief was dead and his ship captured, the
+result being that the resistance of the Ottomans began to weaken. Then
+thirty galleys took to flight from the neighbourhood of the Christian
+flagship; so hotly were they pursued that they ran on shore, the crews
+swimming or wading to the beach and making off inland.</p>
+
+<p>On the right of the Christian line things had not been going so
+propitiously for them. Here Occhiali had managed, by his apparently
+persistent attempts to outflank John Andrea Doria, to decoy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">370</a></span> that commander
+away from his supports and from the main body of the Christians. This
+tactical manoeuvre of the corsair was successful; having drawn off some
+fifteen of the Christian galleys, he suddenly flung the whole of his
+greatly superior force into the gap and surrounded them. These galleys were
+Spanish, Venetian, and Maltese, and, although they offered a most vigorous
+resistance, they were mostly destroyed or captured. Doria, in spite of all
+his efforts, was on this day both outgeneralled and outfought: the
+Sea-wolves, under their grim leader, manoeuvring for position, obtaining
+it, and then falling like a thunderbolt on the foe. They were all brave men
+at Lepanto on this memorable October day; but few there were like the
+corsair king, in whom a heart of fire was kept in check by a brain of ice,
+who, during the whole combat, never gave away a chance, or failed to swoop
+like an eagle from his eyry when the blunders of his enemy gave him the
+opportunity for which he watched. It was the old story of “the veritable
+man of the sea” pitted against gallant soldiers fighting on an unfamiliar
+element. And yet it was against the best seaman on the Christian side that
+Occhiali pitted himself on this stricken field; and none can deny that with
+him rested such honour as was gained by the Turks on this day, the day
+which broke up for ever the idea of the invincibility of the Ottomans on
+the water. It needs not to say, to those who have read the story of the
+siege of Malta, how the Knights comported themselves in the battle; and yet
+Occhiali captured the <i>Capitana</i>, or principal galley of the Order, He was
+towing her out of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">371</a></span> action, a prize, when the Marquis of Santa Cruz bore down
+upon him with the reserve. By this time the battle was lost; the Moslems
+were in full retreat.</p>
+
+<p>The corsair recognised that he could do no more: sullenly he cast off the
+tow, and, forming up some thirty of his galleys, still in a condition to
+navigate, stood boldly through the centre of where the battle had once
+raged, and escaped. The <i>Capitana</i> of Malta had been taken; and to the
+Sultan did Occhiali present the great standard of Saint John, as an earnest
+of his achievement.</p>
+
+<p>Bernardino de Escalente, in his work <i>Diálogos del arte militar</i>, printed
+in Seville in 1583, says that the Captain Ojeda, of the galley <i>Guzmana</i>,
+recaptured the <i>Capitana</i> of Malta; and that, in recognition thereof, “the
+Religion” pensioned him for life. Ojeda, it is to be presumed, was under
+the orders of the Marquis of Santa Cruz during the battle.</p>
+
+<p>There remains one incident connected with the battle of Lepanto which must
+be told. In the <i>Marquesa</i> galley, in the division of Doria, was lying in
+his bed sick of a fever a young man twenty-four years of age; a Spaniard of
+Alcala de Henares, “de padres hidalgos y honrados,” we are told, although
+these parents were poor. When this young man heard that a battle was
+imminent he rose from his bed and demanded of his captain, Francisco San
+Pedro, that he should be placed in the post of the greatest danger. The
+captain, and others, his friends, counselled him to remain in his bed.
+“Señores,” replied the young man, “what would be said of Miguel de
+Cervantes should he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">372</a></span> take this advice? On every occasion up to this day on
+which his enemies have offered battle to his Majesty I have served like a
+good soldier; and today I intend to do so in spite of this sickness and
+fever.” He was given command of twelve soldiers in a shallop, and all day
+was to be seen where the combat raged most fiercely. He received two wounds
+in the chest and another which cost him the loss of his left hand. To those
+to whom he proudly displayed them in after-years he was accustomed to say,
+“wounds in the face or the chest are like stars which guide one through
+honour to the skies.” Of him the chronicler says: “He continued the rest of
+his life with honourable memory of this wonderful occurrence, and, although
+he lost the use of his left hand, it added to the glory of his right.” How
+glorious was that right hand is known to all readers of <i>El Ingenioso
+Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha.</i></p>
+
+<p>The losses at the battle of Lepanto are something so prodigious that
+imagination boggles at them. It is said that the Christians lost five
+thousand men and the Turks no less than thirty thousand. Enormous as these
+numbers are, they represent probably a very conservative estimate of the
+loss. The Turks lost two hundred vessels, and when we recollect the number
+of men embarked on board of the sixteenth-century galleys we can see that
+the numbers are by no means exaggerated, especially as no quarter was given
+on either side. When the Captain Ojeda recaptured the battered wreck which
+had been the <i>Capitana</i> of Malta, we are told that on board of her were
+three hundred dead Turks; if this were the cost of the capture<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">373</a></span> of one
+galley we need not be surprised at the total.</p>
+
+<p>With the results to Europe of this amazing battle we have nothing to do in
+this book. That which it demonstrated, as far as the Sea-wolves were
+concerned, was that they still remained the most competent seamen and
+sea-fighters in the Mediterranean, and that the legend of the invincibility
+of the Ottomans at sea rested on what had been accomplished during a long
+period of years by these insatiable pirates and magnificent warriors.</p>
+
+<p>That which the fighting Pontiff, Pius V., said when he heard of the victory
+is in character with everything which history has told us of this
+remarkable occupant of the chair of Saint Peter. It was short but very much
+to the point, consisting of the one sentence, “Fuit homo misus a Deo cui
+nomen erat Joannes.”</p>
+
+<p>In a collection of epitaphs printed in Colonia in 1623 (and edited by one
+Franciscus Swertius) is one in Spanish by an anonymous author on Don John
+of Austria. In this, which takes the form of question and answer, it is
+asked of him “who with so much real glory lies so humbly ’neath this
+stone,” what it is that Spain can do for him, what temple or what statue
+can she raise to his honour. To this the hero is made to reply that “My
+temple is found in my works, my statue has been my fame.” This is not only
+a pretty conceit, but it is very substantially true when we think of the
+place in history which this man attained.</p>
+
+<p>It remains to speak of the future career of Ali Basha after his experiences
+at Lepanto. He now returned to Constantinople, where he found that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">374</a></span> the
+bitter complaints of the Janissaries concerning their lack of pay had
+preceded him; this must have been annoying, as by this time so
+insignificant a circumstance had probably escaped his memory. His old
+friend and patron Piali Basha was still in power; the Basha used his
+influence, and the corsair laid at the feet of the Sultan the great
+Standard of Saint John captured by him from the Knights&mdash;which was the only
+trophy which came to Constantinople from that disastrous battle; and in
+consequence we are told that “instead of reprimands he was loaded with
+caresses and applauses.”</p>
+
+<p>There was in Ali the same dauntless quality of never knowing when he was
+beaten which had distinguished Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa. His exploits at
+Lepanto had secured him the high favour of the Sultan, which he used in a
+manner most grateful to that sovereign by approaching him with a request
+that he might be allowed to fit out another fleet to revenge himself on the
+Christians. The Sultan acceded to his request, and such diligence did he
+use that in June 1572, only eight months after the crushing defeat of the
+Turks, Ali took the sea with two hundred and fifty galleys besides smaller
+vessels. So powerful had he now become that Selim nominated him as his
+Admiralissimo, allowing him also to retain the Bashalic of Algiers. With
+his new fleet he sought out the allies once more, finding them at anchor in
+a port in the Morea. He lay outside the harbour defying them to come out,
+which they refused to do&mdash;“but they parted without bloody noses”&mdash;is
+Morgan’s comment. Haedo attributes this inertia on the part of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">375</a></span> allies
+to dissension among their leaders; but, however that may have been, Ali
+gained almost as much favour with the Sultan as if he had defeated them in
+a pitched battle. “But these are the judgments of God and things ordered by
+His divine providence and infinite wisdom,” says Haedo. The connection is
+somewhat hard to establish.</p>
+
+<p>In 1573 the Bashalic of Algiers passed into the hands of Arab Ahmed, and in
+this same year Don John of Austria recaptured Tunis from the Turks. Ali,
+with a fleet of two hundred and fifty galleys and forty smaller vessels,
+recaptured it again in a siege lasting forty days, and once more returned
+to Constantinople in triumph with thousands of Spanish captives. He was yet
+to live some years to harass the Christians, against whom he ever displayed
+a most inveterate rancour. In 1576 he set out from Constantinople with
+sixty galleys and ravaged the Calabrian coast, where he had been born. In
+1578, the Janissaries of Algiers having assassinated Arab Ahmed the Basha,
+he was sent to chastise them, which he did with a heavy hand.</p>
+
+<p>Ali was never married, and left no descendants; in the later years of his
+life he built himself a sumptuous palace some five miles from
+Constantinople, and no man in all the realm save the Sultan himself was so
+great a man as the Calabrian renegado, the unknown waif from Southern Italy
+who possessed neither name nor kindred. He was tall and robust in stature,
+but all his life suffered from “scald-head”; for a definition of which
+ailment we may refer the curious to the dictionary. He possessed, for a
+chieftain and a fighting man, the disadvantage of a voice so hoarse as to
+be inaudible at a few<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">376</a></span> paces distant. In default of offspring he maintained
+at his charges five hundred corsairs, whom he called his children. He died
+in the year 1580, and with him what has been called the “Grand Period of
+the Moslem Corsairs” in this book may be said to have come to an end.</p>
+
+<p>By the men whose deeds have been here chronicled the pirate States of
+Northern Africa were established; and, as we have seen, they maintained an
+unceasing warfare against all that was mightiest in Christendom, aided and
+abetted by the Sultans of Constantinople. In the sixteenth century the
+Sea-wolves had this at least to recommend them, that they feared neither
+King nor Kaiser, albeit these great ones of the earth were bent on their
+destruction. Villains as they were, they were none the less men to be
+feared, men in whom dwelt wonderful capabilities of leadership. Such,
+however, was not the case with those by whom they were succeeded; and the
+great and civilised nations of the world tolerated for centuries in their
+midst a race of savage barbarians whose abominable insolence and fiendish
+cruelty were only equalled by their material weakness and military
+impotence. Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli became recognised States, and the
+Great Powers degraded themselves by actually accrediting diplomatic agents
+to the “Courts” of these people.</p>
+
+<p>“The Algerines are robbers, and I am their chief,” was the remark made by
+the Dey of Algiers to the English Consul in 1641, and the man spoke the
+plain unvarnished truth. Yet at this time the Algerines had no more than
+sixty-five <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">377</a></span>ships, and no organisation which could have held out for
+twenty-four hours against such attacks as had been successfully resisted on
+many occasions in the previous century.</p>
+
+<p>On April 10th, 1682 (O.S.), “Articles of peace and commerce between the
+most serene and mighty Prince Charles II., by the Grace of God King of
+Great Britain, etc., and the most illustrious (<i>sic</i>) Lord, the Bashaw,
+Dey, and Aga, Governor of the famous city of Algiers in Barbary,” were
+concluded by “Arthur Herbert, Esquire, Admiral of His Majesty’s Fleet.” It
+need hardly be said that such a treaty as this was not worth the paper on
+which it was written; that the barbarians by whom it was signed were as
+ignorant as they were unprincipled, and that the only argument which they
+understood at that, or any other time, was that of the right of the
+strongest.</p>
+
+<p>When we of the present day read of the deeds of the corsairs we are filled
+with horror, we fail to understand how such things could have been
+tolerated, we seek for some explanation. When we hear of a “League of
+Christian Princes,” and find that all its members could accomplish was to
+turn their arms the one against the other, we are even still more puzzled.
+What was it, then, that lay at the root of this problem? The answer would
+appear to be in the ethical standpoint of the sixteenth century. We are so
+accustomed in the present day to hear of the rights of man that we are apt
+to forget that, in the time of Barbarossa, of Dragut, of Charles V., and
+the Medicean Popes such a thing did not exist, and the only rights
+possessed by the common man were those<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">378</a></span> vouchsafed to him by his sovereign
+lord. We have also to take another factor into consideration, which is that
+what we call “humanity” simply did not exist, the result being that the
+raids of the Sea-wolves were not judged by the great ones of the earth from
+the standpoint of the amount of suffering which they inflicted, but in what
+manner these proceedings affected the wealth and power of the lord of the
+territory which had been despoiled. So differently was society constituted
+in those days that the very victims acquiesced more or less meekly in their
+fate, each one unconsciously voicing that most pathetic saying of the
+Russian peasant that “God is high and the Czar is far away.”</p>
+
+<p>The fact of the intolerable lot of the common man in these times helps us
+to understand one thing which otherwise would be an insoluble problem:
+which was, why did Christian soldiers so often become renegadoes and fight
+for the corsairs under the banner of those who were the fiercest and most
+irreconcilable foes of themselves and their kindred? The life of the common
+soldier or sailor did not offer many advantages; it was generally a short
+and anything but a merry one, and the thing by which it was most
+profoundly affected was capture by the corsairs.</p>
+
+<p>When this happened he became either a “gallerian,” rowing out his heart on
+the benches of the Moslem galleys, or he festered in some noisome dungeon
+in Algiers, Oran, or Tlemcen. For him, however, there was always one avenue
+of escape open: he had but to acknowledge that Mahomet was the Prophet of
+God and the prison<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">379</a></span> doors would fly open, or the shackles be knocked off the
+chain which bound him to the hell of the rower’s bench. Many of the
+Christian captives had really nothing to bind them to the faith of their
+fathers&mdash;neither home nor lands, wealth nor kindred, and they were
+doubtless dazzled by the amazing success which accompanied the arms of the
+leaders of the pirates. Is it wonderful, then, that such men in such an age
+should grasp at the chance of freedom and throw in their lot with their
+captors?</p>
+
+<p>It was treachery, it was apostasy, and no amount of sophistry can prove it
+to have been otherwise; but the man who would sit in judgment in the
+present day must try to figure to himself what the life of a galley-slave
+meant&mdash;a life so horrible and so terrible that it is impossible, in the
+interest of decency, to set down a tithe of what it really was.</p>
+
+<p>We who in the present day sit in judgment upon the virtues and vices of a
+bygone age can, in the ordered security of our modern civilisation, see
+many things which were hidden from our forefathers, even as in another
+three hundred years our descendants will be able to point the finger of
+scorn at the mistakes which we are now committing. We have seen how it was
+that the pirate States arose; we have seen also how, in future generations,
+they were allowed to abide. We cannot, in common honesty, echo the words
+already quoted of the historian that “these are the judgments of God, and
+things ordered by His divine providence and infinite wisdom,” neither can
+we acquit the heirs of the ages for that slackness which prevented them
+from doing their duty; we have,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">380</a></span> however, to ask ourselves this question,
+that, had it fallen to our own lot to deal with the problem of the
+extermination of the pirates, should we have done better?</p>
+
+<p>One word in conclusion. That which they did has been set down here; the
+record, however, is not complete, as many of their acts of cruelty, lust,
+and oppression are not fitted for publication in the present day. It has
+been said, with truth, that no man is much better or much worse than in the
+age in which he lives; and to hold the scales evenly&mdash;if one were tempted
+to shock contemporary opinion by too literal a transcript of all that was
+done by the corsairs&mdash;it would also be necessary to cite the reprisals of
+their Christian antagonists. It has seemed better to leave such things
+unchronicled: to present, with as much fidelity as possible, the public
+lives and acts of these troublers of the peace of the sixteenth century.
+Looking back, as we do, over three hundred and fifty years, and judging as
+fairly as is possible, it would seem that there is little which can be said
+in their favour.</p>
+
+<p>But we may at least concede that, no matter how infamous were the
+Barbarossas, Dragut, and Ali, they proved that in them dwelt one rare and
+supreme quality, which, in all the ages, has covered a multitude of sins.
+At a time when every one was a warrior and the whole world was an armed
+camp, men sought great captains in whose following to serve. Among the
+Moslems of Northern Africa, in ordered succession, there rose to the
+surface “veritable men of the sea,” in the wake of whose galleys ravened
+the Sea-wolves. When we consider how undisciplined and how<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">381</a></span> stupidly violent
+these pirates were by nature, and how they were welded into a homogeneous
+whole by those of whom we speak, we are forced to the conclusion that
+seldom, in all the ages, have abler captains arisen to take fortune at the
+flood, to dominate the minds and the bodies of a vast host, to prove that
+they were, in deed and in truth, supreme as leaders of men.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">382–383</a></span></p>
+<h2>AUTHORITIES CONSULTED</h2>
+
+<p class="indent">Sailing Ships and their Story. E. Keble Chatterton.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Barbary Corsairs: Story of the Nations. Stanley Lane Poole.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Compleat History of the Present Seat of War in Africa between Spaniards<br />
+and Algerines. 1632. Joseph Morgan.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">History of Philip II. William Hickling Prescott.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">History of Charles V. Robertson.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Histoire de Barberousse. Richer.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Vie des plus célèbres marins. Richer.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Histoire de Barberousse. Sander Rang et Ferdinand Denis.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Doria et Barberousse. Les derniers jours de la Marine aux Rames. Admiral<br />
+Jurien de la Gravière.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Histoire de Barbarie et ses corsaires. Pierre d’An. Paris, 1637.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Histoire d’Alger. Laugier de Tassy.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Messire Pierre de Bourdeille Seigneur de Brantôme. Vie des hommes<br />
+illustres et grands capitaines etrangers de son temps. 1594.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Histoires de les Chevaliers de Malte. Mons l’Abbé de Vertot. Paris, 1726.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Histoire de Venise. P. Daru.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Topografia e Historia general de Argel El Señor Don Diego de Haedo.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Reverendissimo Arcobispo de Palermo. Presidente y Capitan-General del<br />
+Reyno de Sicilia por el Rey Felipe Segundo. Nuestro señor.
+Valladolid, 1612.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Descripcion general de Africa. Don Luys de Marmol Caravajal. Granada,<br />
+1573.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">384</a></span></p>
+<p class="indent">Historia de Carlos Quinto. El Maestro Don Fray Prudencio<br />
+de Sandoval, Obispo de Pampluna. 1612.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha. Cervantes.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Arte de Navegar. Martin Cortes.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Diálogos del arte militar. Bernardino de Escalante.<br />
+Seville, 1583.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Historia del combate naval de Lepanto. Cayetano Rosell.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Epitaphia joco-seria. Francisco Swertius. 1623.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">La Guerra dei pirati e la marina Pontifica dal 1500 al 1560.<br />
+Padre Alberto Guglielmotti.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Storia della sacra religione et illustrissima milizia de San<br />
+Giovanii Gerosolimitano. Jacopo Bosio.</p>
+
+<p class="indent">Lo Assedio di Malta, 18 Maggio-8, Settembre, 1565. Conte<br />
+Carlo, Sanminiatelli, Zabarella, Colonello.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">385</a></span></p>
+<h2>LIST OF THE KINGS OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, SPAIN, SULTANS OF TURKEY, POPES OF
+ROME, AND GRAND MASTERS OF MALTA, BETWEEN THE DATES 1492–1580, THE PERIOD
+COVERED IN THIS BOOK.</h2>
+
+<table summary="KINGS"><tr>
+<td class="tdc"><span class="smcap">England</span></td><td class="tdc"><span class="smcap">France</span></td></tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl">Henry VII., 1485–1509.</td><td class="tdl">Charles VIII., 1483–98.</td></tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl">Henry VIII., 1509–47.</td><td class="tdl">Louis XII., 1498–1515.</td></tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl">Edward VI., 1547–53.</td><td class="tdl">Francis I., 1515–47.</td></tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl">Mary, 1553–58.</td><td class="tdl">Henry II., 1547–59.</td></tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl">Elizabeth, 1558–1603.</td><td class="tdl">Francis II., 1559–60.</td></tr><tr>
+<td>&nbsp;</td><td class="tdl">Charles IX., 1560–74.</td></tr><tr>
+<td>&nbsp;</td><td class="tdl">Henry III., 1574–89.<br /><br /></td></tr></table>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Spain</span></p>
+
+<p>Granada, taken by Ferdinand and Isabella, the sovereigns of Aragon and
+Castile (“Los Reyes Catolicos”) in 1492. Their daughter, Joanna, married
+Philip, son of the Emperor Maximilian of Germany. Ferdinand died 1516, and
+was succeeded by Charles V., son of Philip and Joanna, as King of Spain, in
+1517. On the death of his grandfather Maximilian, in 1519, Charles was
+elected Emperor of Germany. He resigned all his dignities and retired to
+the monastery of Yuste in 1555, and was succeeded by his son, Philip II.
+Charles died 1558. Philip II., who married as his first wife Mary Tudor, of
+England, reigned from 1555 till 1598.<br /><br /></p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Sultans of Turkey</span></p>
+
+<p>Bajazet II., 1481–1512; Selim the Cruel, 1512–20; Soliman the Magnificent,
+1520–66; Selim II., known to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">386</a></span> Spaniards as “el bebedor” (the
+drunkard), 1566–74; Murad III., 1574–95.<br /><br /></p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Popes of Rome</span></p>
+
+<p>Pius III., 1503; Julius II., 1503; Leo X., 1513; Hadrian VI., 1522; Clement
+VII., 1523; Paul III., 1534; Julius III., 1550; Marcellus II., 1555; Paul
+IV., 1555; Pius IV., 1559; Pius V., 1566; Gregory XIII., 1572; Sixtus V.,
+1585.<br /><br /></p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Grand Masters of the Knights of Malta</span></p>
+
+<p>Pierre d’Aubusson, 1476–1503; Emeri d’Amboise, 1503–13; Fabrice Carette,
+1513–21; Villiers de L’Isle Adam, 1521–36; Juan d’Omedes, 1536–53; Claude
+de la Sangle, 1553–57; Jean Parisot de la Valette, 1557–68; Pierre Dumont,
+1568–72; Jean Levesque de la Cassière, 1572–82.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">387–388</a></span></p>
+<h2>DISTANCES IN SEA MILES ON THE COAST OF NORTHERN AFRICA</h2>
+
+<table summary="DISTANCES"><tr>
+<td class="tdl">Gibraltar to Oran</td><td class="tdr">225’</td></tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl">Oran to Tenes</td><td class="tdr">110’</td></tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl">Tenes to Shershell</td><td class="tdr">41’</td></tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl">Shershell to Algiers</td><td class="tdr">40’</td></tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl">Algiers to Bona</td><td class="tdr">104’</td></tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl">Bona to Jigelli</td><td class="tdr">30’</td></tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl">Jigelli to Bizerta</td><td class="tdr">205’</td></tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl">Bizerta to Tunis</td><td class="tdr">55’</td></tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl">Tunis to Susa</td><td class="tdr">120’</td></tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl">Susa to Sfax</td><td class="tdr">86’</td></tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl">Sfax to Jerbah, otherwise known as Los Gelues</td><td class="tdr">54’</td></tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl">Jerbah to Tripoli</td><td class="tdr">130’</td></tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl">Gibraltar to Algiers</td><td class="tdr">410’</td></tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl">Algiers to Tunis</td><td class="tdr">391’</td></tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl">Algiers to Tenes</td><td class="tdr">91’</td></tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl">Tunis to Malta</td><td class="tdr">232’</td></tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl">Malta to Tripoli in Barbary</td><td class="tdr">200’</td></tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl">Tripoli to Cape Serrano</td><td class="tdr">350’</td></tr><tr>
+<td class="tdl">Jerbah to Malta</td><td class="tdr">210’</td></tr></table>
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">389</a></span></p>
+<h2>INDEX</h2>
+
+<ul class="IX"><li>
+Abdahar, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>.</li><li>
+Abu-Abd-Allah-Mahomed, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>.</li><li>
+Actium, battle of, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_366">366</a>.</li><li>
+Adam, Prince Philippe Villiers L’Isle, Grand Master of the Knights of St.
+John, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>.</li><li>
+Adorno, Antony, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>.</li><li>
+Adriatic, coasts of the, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>.</li><li>
+Adrumentum, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>.</li><li>
+“Africa,” town of, position and fortifications, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>,<ul><li>
+attacked and taken by Dragut, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>–259;</li><li>
+besieged by Andrea Doria, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>;</li><li>
+captured, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>;</li><li>
+mutiny, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>;</li><li>
+blown up, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Ahmed, Arab, Basha of Algiers, <a href="#Page_375">375</a>,<ul><li>
+assassinated, <a href="#Page_375">375</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Albania, coast of, <a href="#Page_363">363</a>, <a href="#Page_366">366</a>.</li><li>
+
+Al-Burdon, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>.</li><li>
+
+Alcadaar, Alcaid, <a href="#Page_349">349</a>.</li><li>
+
+Alcala, Duke of, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>.</li><li>
+
+Alcala de Henares, <a href="#Page_371">371</a>.</li><li>
+
+Alcaudite, Count of, his defence of Marzaquivir, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>.</li><li>
+
+Aldemar, St., Geoffrey de, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>.</li><li>
+
+Aleppo, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>.</li><li>
+
+Alexander IV., Pope, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>.</li><li>
+
+Alexander VI., Pope, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>.</li><li>
+
+Alexander VII., Pope, initiates the “Alliance of Christian Princes,” <a href="#Page_38">38</a>.</li><li>
+
+Alexandria, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>.</li><li>
+
+“Alexandria, The Young Moor of,” defeated, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>,<ul><li>
+released, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Alfonso, King of Navarre and Aragon, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>.</li><li>
+
+Alghieri, Bay of, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>.</li><li>
+
+Algiers, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>,<ul><li>
+attacks on, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>;</li><li>
+captured, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>;</li><li>
+Moorish refugees at, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>;</li><li>
+appeal for help, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>;</li><li>
+surrenders, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>;</li><li>
+mutiny of Janissaries, <a href="#Page_355">355</a>;</li><li>
+treaty with King Charles II., <a href="#Page_377">377</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Ali Ahamed, Admiral of Algiers, <a href="#Page_345">345</a>.</li><li>
+
+Ali, at the siege of Malta, <a href="#Page_328">328</a>.</li><li>
+
+Ali Basha, or Occhiali or Uluchali, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>,<ul><li>
+present at the conference held by Soliman, <a href="#Page_316">316</a>;</li><li>
+his birthplace, <a href="#Page_345">345</a>;</li><li>
+endures the life of a galley-slave, <a href="#Page_345">345</a>;</li><li>
+becomes a Mussulman, <a href="#Page_346">346</a>;</li><li>
+enters the service of Dragut, <a href="#Page_346">346</a>;</li><li>
+at the siege of Malta, <a href="#Page_346">346</a>;</li><li>
+appointed Viceroy of Tripoli, <a href="#Page_347">347</a>;</li><li>
+Governor of Algiers, <a href="#Page_347">347</a>;</li><li>
+view of his duties, <a href="#Page_347">347</a>;</li><li>
+offered the sovereignty of Tunis, <a href="#Page_349">349</a>;</li><li>
+expedition against Hamid, <a href="#Page_349">349</a>;</li><li>
+captures Tunis, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>, <a href="#Page_375">375</a>;</li><li>
+captures galleys of the Knights, <a href="#Page_352">352</a>–355;</li><li>
+at the battle of Lepanto, <a href="#Page_363">363</a>, <a href="#Page_368">368</a>–371;</li><li>
+his banner, <a href="#Page_368">368</a>;</li><li>
+captures the <i>Capitana</i>, <a href="#Page_370">370</a>;</li><li>
+withdraws and escapes, <a href="#Page_371">371</a>;</li><li>
+returns to Constantinople, <a href="#Page_373">373</a>, <a href="#Page_375">375</a>;</li><li>
+nominated Admiralissimo, <a href="#Page_374">374</a>;</li><li>
+his palace, <a href="#Page_375">375</a>;</li><li>
+ailment of “scald-head,” <a href="#Page_375">375</a>;</li><li>
+death, <a href="#Page_376">376</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Ali Basha, in command of the Turkish forces, <a href="#Page_361">361</a>,<ul><li>
+at the battle of Lepanto, <a href="#Page_367">367</a>;</li><li>
+beheaded, <a href="#Page_369">369</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Ali-Chabelli defeated, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>.</li><li>
+
+Al-Mehedi, his fortifications of “Africa” blown up, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>.</li><li>
+
+Amalfi, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>.</li><li>
+
+Ambracian Gulf, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>.</li><li>
+
+Amburac, Ibrahim, his plot with Dragut, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>.</li><li>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">390</a></span>Ampasta, Rio de, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>.</li><li>
+
+An, Rev. Frere Pierre d’, on the dangers from the corsairs of<ul><li>
+Barbary, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>–22, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Andalusia, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>.</li><li>
+
+Andior, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>.</li><li>
+
+Andrade, Captain Diego de, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>.</li><li>
+
+Andros, island of, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>.</li><li>
+
+Angelo, Michel, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>.</li><li>
+
+Aponte, Antonio de, “Electo Mayor” of “Africa,” <a href="#Page_268">268</a>.</li><li>
+
+Aragon, Alfonso d’, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>.</li><li>
+
+Aragon, Ferdinand of, acquires Granada, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>,<ul><li>
+attempts to recover Naples, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Arba, Francisco d’, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>.</li><li>
+
+Archipelago, islands of the, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>,<ul><li>
+raid on, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Arta, Gulf of, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_366">366</a>.</li><li>
+
+Aubusson Pierre D’, Grand Master of the Knights of St. John, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>,
+<a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>.</li><li>
+
+Augustus Caesar, at the battle of Actium, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>.</li><li>
+
+Austria, Don John of, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>,<ul><li>
+in command of the forces of the “Holy League,” <a href="#Page_357">357</a>;</li><li>
+at Barcelona, <a href="#Page_357">357</a>;</li><li>
+reception at Naples, <a href="#Page_358">358</a>;</li><li>
+dress, <a href="#Page_358">358</a>;</li><li>
+appearance, <a href="#Page_359">359</a>, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>;</li><li>
+at Messina, <a href="#Page_359">359</a>;</li><li>
+his fleet, <a href="#Page_364">364</a>;</li><li>
+instructions, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>;</li><li>
+at the battle of Lepanto, <a href="#Page_366">366</a>–371;</li><li>
+recaptures Tunis, <a href="#Page_375">375</a>.<br /><br /></li></ul></li><li>
+
+Baetio, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>.</li><li>
+
+Bairan-Ogli, the Reis, in command of the “puissant galleon,” <a href="#Page_313">313</a>.</li><li>
+
+Balearic Islands, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>.</li><li>
+
+Barbarigo, Provéditeur, at the battle of Lepanto, <a href="#Page_363">363</a>.</li><li>
+
+Barbarossa, Hassan, left in charge of Algiers, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>.</li><li>
+
+Barbarossa, Khoyr-ed-Din, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>,<ul><li>
+King of the Sea, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>;</li><li>
+his birth, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>;</li><li>
+title, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>;</li><li>
+joins his brother at the island of Jerba, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>;</li><li>
+attacks <i>The Galley of Naples</i>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>–54;</li><li>
+his wealth, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>;</li><li>
+captures Jigelli, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>–58;</li><li>
+his embassy to Soliman, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>;</li><li>
+character, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>–116, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>;</li><li>
+treatment of Hassan, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>–87;</li><li>
+defeated by Venalcadi, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>;</li><li>
+his allies, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>;</li><li>
+fight against Venalcadi, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>;</li><li>
+assisted by Spanish captives, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>;</li><li>
+captures Algiers, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>;</li><li>
+lays siege to the fortress of Navarro, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>–95;</li><li>
+his plunder of the Christians, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>;</li><li>
+requested to take the command of the Ottoman fleet, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>;</li><li>
+voyage to Constantinople, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>–117;</li><li>
+his captures, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>;</li><li>
+cruelty, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>;</li><li>
+entry into Constantinople, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>;</li><li>
+gifts to Soliman, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>;</li><li>
+reception, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>;</li><li>
+at Aleppo, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>;</li><li>
+appointed head of the fleet, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>;</li><li>
+his age, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>;</li><li>
+appearance, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>;</li><li>
+speech to the Sultan, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>–130;</li><li>
+raids on the coast of Italy, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>–137;</li><li>
+sacks Reggio, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>;</li><li>
+captures 11,000 Christian slaves, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>;</li><li>
+his attempt to capture Julia Gonzaga, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>–136;</li><li>
+enters Tunis <a href="#Page_138">138</a>;</li><li>
+massacre of the inhabitants, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>;</li><li>
+his fame, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>;</li><li>
+appeal for help against the Christian hosts, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>;</li><li>
+preparations for defence, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>;</li><li>
+joined by the tribesmen, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>;</li><li>
+defeated, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>;</li><li>
+flight, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>;</li><li>
+sufferings of his army, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>;</li><li>
+at Bona, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>;</li><li>
+embarks, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>;</li><li>
+retires to Algiers, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>;</li><li>
+return of his men, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>;</li><li>
+captures the castle of Minorca, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>;</li><li>
+recalled to Constantinople, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>;</li><li>
+ravages, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>;</li><li>
+number of slaves, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>;</li><li>
+sets sail, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>;</li><li>
+his innovation in the manning of galleys, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>–187;</li><li>
+raid on the islands of the Archipelago, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>;</li><li>
+his age, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>;</li><li>
+hesitates to fight, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>;</li><li>
+anchored in the Gulf of Arta, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>–207;</li><li>
+at the battle of Prevesa, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>–216;</li><li>
+withdraws from the battle, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>;</li><li>
+his death, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>;</li><li>
+ransoms Dragut, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Barbarossa, Uruj, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>,<ul><li>
+his birth, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>;</li><li>
+character, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>;</li><li>
+first attempt at piracy, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>;</li><li>
+taken prisoner, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>;</li><li>
+escapes, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>;</li><li>
+presented with a ship, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>;</li><li>
+winters at Alexandria, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>;</li><li>
+at the island of Jerba, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>;</li><li>
+joined by his brother, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>;</li><li>
+treaty with the Sultan of Tunis, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>;</li><li>
+attackes <i>The Galley of Naples</i>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>–54;</li><li>
+wounded, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>;</li><li>
+attacks on Bougie, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>;</li><li>
+loses an arm, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>;</li><li>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">391</a></span>appeal from the Algerines, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>;</li><li>
+treatment of Kara-Hassan, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>;</li><li>
+besieges Navarre’s Tower, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>;</li><li>
+slaughters the Berbers, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>–70;</li><li>
+defeats Don Diego, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>;</li><li>
+marches on Tlemcen, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>;</li><li>
+blockaded, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>;</li><li>
+killed, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Barbary, coast of, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>.</li><li>
+
+Barbary, corsairs of, their character, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>.</li><li>
+
+Barbezieux, his attempt to seize Andrea Doria, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>.</li><li>
+
+Barcelona, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_357">357</a>.</li><li>
+
+Bazan, Don Alvaro de, General of the Galleys of Spain, at Barcelona, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>,<ul><li>
+Admiral of Castile, <a href="#Page_359">359</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Beachy Head, battle of, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>.</li><li>
+
+Beja, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>.</li><li>
+
+Bengabara, Alcaid, <a href="#Page_349">349</a>.</li><li>
+
+Berber tribes, their character, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>,<ul><li>
+number, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>;</li><li>
+conspiracy against Uruj Barbarossa, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>;</li><li>
+slaughtered, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Bergerac, Jean Marteille de, on the treatment of slaves on board
+the galleys, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>.</li><li>
+
+Bianco, Cape, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>.</li><li>
+
+Biba, island of, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>.</li><li>
+
+Bizerta, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>,<ul><li>
+captured, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>;</li><li>
+massacre of, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Boabdil el Chico, yields up Granada, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>.</li><li>
+
+Bona, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>,<ul><li>
+Cape, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Bonifacio, Straits of, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>.</li><li>
+
+Borgo, Il, fortress, siege of, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>, <a href="#Page_342">342</a>.</li><li>
+
+Bosworth, battle of, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>.</li><li>
+
+Botaybo, Alcaid, <a href="#Page_349">349</a>.</li><li>
+
+Bougaroni, Cape, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>.</li><li>
+
+Bougie, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>,<ul><li>
+attacks on, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Bouillon, Godfrey de, defeats the Saracens, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>.</li><li>
+
+Bourdeille, Pierre de, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_344">344</a>.</li><li>
+
+Bragadino, his defence of Famagusta, <a href="#Page_362">362</a>,<ul><li>
+killed, <a href="#Page_362">362</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Brigantines, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>.</li><li>
+
+Broglio, Commandeur, at the siege of Malta, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>.</li><li>
+
+Byzacena, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>.</li><li>
+
+Byzantine, Empire, fall of the, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>.<br /><br /></li><li>
+
+Cabri, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>.</li><li>
+
+Cachidiablo, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>.</li><li>
+
+Cadiz, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>.</li><li>
+
+Cadolin, defeated, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>.</li><li>
+
+Cagliari, Bay of, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>.</li><li>
+
+Calabria, <a href="#Page_345">345</a>.</li><li>
+
+Calibia, castle of, surrender, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>.</li><li>
+
+Canale, Girolame, his victory over the Moslems, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>.</li><li>
+
+Candia, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>.</li><li>
+
+Cañete, Marquis de, Viceroy and Captain General of Navarre, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>.</li><li>
+
+Cantara, La Bocca de, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>.</li><li>
+
+Capello, Vicenzo, his age, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>,<ul><li>
+in command of the Venetian fleet, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>;</li><li>
+at Corfu, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+<i>Capitana</i>, the, captured, <a href="#Page_354">354</a>, <a href="#Page_370">370</a>,<ul><li>
+retaken, <a href="#Page_371">371</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Capua, Prior of, his designs for the building of St. Elmo fortress, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>.</li><li>
+
+Caracosa, Marie, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>.</li><li>
+
+Caramania, coast of, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>.</li><li>
+
+Caravajal, Don Luys de Marmol, his “Descripcion general de Affrica,” <a href="#Page_272">272</a>.</li><li>
+
+Caravels, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>.</li><li>
+
+Carouan, <a href="#Page_348">348</a>.</li><li>
+
+Castel Rosso, Isle of, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>.</li><li>
+
+Castile, Isabella of, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>.</li><li>
+
+Castriot, Constantine, his report on the condition of St. Elmo, <a href="#Page_337">337</a>.</li><li>
+
+Centurion, Adan, fails to attack Barbarossa, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>.</li><li>
+
+Cephalonia, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>, <a href="#Page_363">363</a>, <a href="#Page_366">366</a>.</li><li>
+
+Cervantes, Miguel de, his mention of Ali Basha, <a href="#Page_345">345</a>,<ul><li>
+at the battle of Lepanto, <a href="#Page_371">371</a>;</li><li>
+his wounds, <a href="#Page_372">372</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Charabulac, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>.</li><li>
+
+Charlemagne, Emperor, his renown, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>.</li><li>
+
+Charles II., King of England, his treaty with Algiers, <a href="#Page_377">377</a>.</li><li>
+
+Charles V., Emperor, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>,<ul><li>
+history of, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>;</li><li>
+determines to crush the corsairs, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>;</li><li>
+total fleet and army, 81,191;</li><li>
+caught in a storm, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>;</li><li>
+his wrath on the fall of Navarro, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>;</li><li>
+acquisitions, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>;</li><li>
+suzerain of Genoa, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>;</li><li>
+joined by Andrea Doria, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>;</li><li>
+his trust in him, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>;</li><li>
+preparations for his attack on Barbarossa, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>;</li><li>
+at Barcelona, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>;</li><li>
+joined by his allies, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>–150;</li><li>
+reviews the armada, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>;</li><li>
+embarks in the <i>Galera Capitana</i>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>;</li><li>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">392</a></span>attack on the fortress of La Goletta, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>;</li><li>
+defeats Barbarossa, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>;</li><li>
+letter to the potentates, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>;</li><li>
+evacuates Tunis, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>;</li><li>
+his mistaken policy, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>;</li><li>
+at Corfu, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>;</li><li>
+orders the destruction of Dragut, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>;</li><li>
+orders the capture of “Africa,” <a href="#Page_265">265</a>;</li><li>
+denunciation of Dragut, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>;</li><li>
+concentrates his fleet at Messina, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+“Christian Princes, Alliance of,” formed, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>,<ul><li>
+artillery, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>;</li><li>
+seize Naples, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Christian slaves, number of, captured, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>.</li><li>
+
+Città Notabile, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>.</li><li>
+
+Civita Lavinia, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>.</li><li>
+
+Coeva, Andrea, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>.</li><li>
+
+Colonna, Camille, taken prisoner, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>.</li><li>
+
+Colonna, Mark Antony, in command of the Papal fleet, <a href="#Page_360">360</a>, <a href="#Page_364">364</a>.</li><li>
+
+Colonna, Vespasian, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>.</li><li>
+
+Columbus, his caravels, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>.</li><li>
+
+Comares, Marquis de, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>.</li><li>
+
+Condalmiero, Alessandro, Captain of the <i>Galleon of Venice</i>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>,<ul><li>
+attacked by the Moslems, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>–213;</li><li>
+his victory, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Constantine, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>.</li><li>
+
+Constantinople, fall of, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>,<ul><li>
+entry of Barbarossa into, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Còrdoba, Don Martin de, his defence of Oran, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>.</li><li>
+
+Còrdoba, Gonsalvo de, the “Great Captain,” <a href="#Page_39">39</a>,<ul><li>
+war against Roverejo, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>;</li><li>
+besieges the fortress of Rocca Guillelma, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Còrdoba, Mosque at, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>.</li><li>
+
+Corfu, siege of, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>.</li><li>
+
+Cornet, Commandeur de, <a href="#Page_337">337</a>.</li><li>
+
+Cornillan, Pierre de, appointed Grand Master of the Knights of
+St. John, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>.</li><li>
+
+Coron, <a href="#Page_355">355</a>.</li><li>
+
+Coronado, Capt. Juan Vasquez, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>.</li><li>
+
+Corsairs, Moslem, their iron and rigid discipline, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>.<ul><li>
+<i>See</i> Moslem</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Corsica, coast of, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>.</li><li>
+
+Corso, Mami, left in charge of Algiers, <a href="#Page_349">349</a>.</li><li>
+
+Cos, or Lango, island of, fortifications of, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>.</li><li>
+
+Curtogali, at Bizerta, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>,<ul><li>
+his depredations, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>;</li><li>
+attempt to carry off the Pope, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>;</li><li>
+Governor of Rhodes, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Cyprus, island of, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_356">356</a>.<br /><br /></li><li>
+
+Daoud Pasha, Admiral, defeats Grimani, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>.</li><li>
+
+Dardanelles, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>,<ul><li>
+fortification of the, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Daru, P., <i>Histoire de Venise</i>, <a href="#Page_364">364</a>, <a href="#Page_367">367</a>.</li><li>
+
+Delizuff, joins forces with Barbarossa, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>,<ul><li>
+killed, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Diou-Donnè, Gozon de, his mode of killing a serpent, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>–296,<ul><li>
+praises of his services, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>;</li><li>
+appointed Grand Master of the Knights of St. John, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>;</li><li>
+his death, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Doria Andrea, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>,<ul><li>
+his birth, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>;</li><li>
+parents, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>;</li><li>
+sent to Rome, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>;</li><li>
+at the court of Urbino, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>;</li><li>
+in the service of the King of Aragon, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>;</li><li>
+joins Roverejo, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>;</li><li>
+takes service with Lodovico Sforza, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>;</li><li>
+appointed General of the Galleys, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>;</li><li>
+captures the Fort of the Lantern, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>;</li><li>
+defeats Cadolin, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>;</li><li>
+appointed Captain-General of the Galleys of France, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>;</li><li>
+the treatment of Francis I., <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>;</li><li>
+letter to him, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>;</li><li>
+joins Charles V., <a href="#Page_105">105</a>;</li><li>
+honours received from Genoa, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>;</li><li>
+Admiralissimo of the Navy, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>;</li><li>
+defeats the Turks at Patras, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>;</li><li>
+at Barcelona, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>;</li><li>
+captures Bona, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>;</li><li>
+pursuit of Barbarossa, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>;</li><li>
+defeats Ali-Chabelli, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>;</li><li>
+wounded, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>;</li><li>
+appearance, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>;</li><li>
+age, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>;</li><li>
+his fleet, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>;</li><li>
+anchors outside the Gulf of Arta, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>–207;</li><li>
+at Sessola, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>;</li><li>
+tactics at the battle of Prevesa, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>;</li><li>
+sails away, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>;</li><li>
+ordered to capture Dragut, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>;</li><li>
+his pursuit of him, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>–264;</li><li>
+expedition against “Africa,” <a href="#Page_265">265</a>;</li><li>
+blockades Dragut at Jerbah, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>–275;</li><li>
+allows him to escape, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Doria, David, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>.</li><li>
+
+Doria, Dominique, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>.</li><li>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">393</a></span>Doria, Franco, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>.</li><li>
+
+Doria, Jannetin, captures Dragut, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>–247.</li><li>
+
+Doria, John, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>.</li><li>
+
+Doria, John Andrea, at the battle of Lepanto, <a href="#Page_363">363</a>, <a href="#Page_367">367</a>, <a href="#Page_370">370</a>.</li><li>
+
+Doria, Philippin, defeats Moncada, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>.</li><li>
+
+Dragut-Reis, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>,<ul><li>
+his birth and parents, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>;</li><li>
+career, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>;</li><li>
+offers his services to Barbarossa, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>;</li><li>
+in command of twelve galleys, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>;</li><li>
+his destruction ordered, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>;</li><li>
+captured by Jannetin Doria, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>–247;</li><li>
+employed as a galley slave, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>;</li><li>
+ransomed, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>;</li><li>
+increase of power, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>;</li><li>
+his desire to capture “Africa,” <a href="#Page_251">251</a>;</li><li>
+plot with Ibrahim Amburac, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>;</li><li>
+preparations for the attack, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>–256;</li><li>
+wounded, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>;</li><li>
+attack on the city, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>–259;</li><li>
+pursued by Andrea Doria, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>–264, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>;</li><li>
+his “Horrid Devastations,” <a href="#Page_264">264</a>;</li><li>
+in the siege of “Africa,” <a href="#Page_265">265</a>;</li><li>
+escapes, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>;</li><li>
+at Constantinople, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>;</li><li>
+denounced by Charles V., <a href="#Page_270">270</a>;</li><li>
+appointed Sandjak, or governor, of the island of Santa Maura, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>;</li><li>
+blockaded at Jerban, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>–275;</li><li>
+mode of escape, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>;</li><li>
+hatred of the Knights of Malta, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>;</li><li>
+autocrat of Tripoli, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>;</li><li>
+characteristics, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>;</li><li>
+at the siege of Malta, <a href="#Page_329">329</a>–339;</li><li>
+mortally wounded, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>;</li><li>
+death, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Dupuy, Raimond, joins the Hospice of St. John, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>,<ul><li>
+appointed Grand Master, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>;</li><li>
+forms a military corps, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>.<br /><br /></li></ul></li><li>
+
+Eginard, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>.</li><li>
+
+Egypt, Soldan of, his treatment of the Knights of Saint John, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>,<ul><li>
+besieges Rhodes, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Elmo, St., siege of, 6, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>–305, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>–341,<ul><li>
+appeal of the garrison to abandon the fortress, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>–337;</li><li>
+their use of fireworks, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>;</li><li>
+fall, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Escalente, Bernardino de, his “Diálogos del arte militar,” <a href="#Page_371">371</a>.</li><li>
+
+Esquemelin, John, his literary labours, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>.</li><li>
+
+Etienne, St., Mount, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>.</li><li>
+
+Eutemi, Selim, besieges Algiers, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>,<ul><li>
+assassinated, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Exmouth, Lord, bombards Algiers,30.<br /><br /></li><li>
+
+Famagusta, captured, <a href="#Page_362">362</a>.</li><li>
+
+Ferdinand V., King of Spain, joins the “Alliance of Christian Princes,” <a href="#Page_38">38</a>,<ul><li>
+his death, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+<i>Florence</i>, the, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>.</li><li>
+
+Floreta, M. de., <a href="#Page_144">144</a>.</li><li>
+
+Forfait, on the speed of the galley, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>.</li><li>
+
+Francis I., <a href="#Page_14">14</a>,<ul><li>
+appoints Andrea Doria Captain of his fleet, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>;</li><li>
+attempts to levy a fine, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>;</li><li>
+treatment of him, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>;</li><li>
+fortifies Savona, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>;</li><li>
+letter from Andrea Doria, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>;</li><li>
+attempts to take him prisoner, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>;</li><li>
+refuses to join in the war against Barbarossa, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>;</li><li>
+treachery, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Fundi, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>,<ul><li>
+sacked by the corsairs, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>.<br /><br /></li></ul></li><li>
+
+Galeasse, the, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>,<ul><li>
+description of a, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+<i>Galera Capitana</i>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>,<ul><li>
+number of flags and banners on board, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+<i>Galleon of Venice</i>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>,<ul><li>
+attacked by the Moslems, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>–213;</li><li>
+victory, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Galley, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>,<ul><li>
+sufferings of the rower, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>;</li><li>
+innovation in the manning, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>;</li><li>
+mobility, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>;</li><li>
+length, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>;</li><li>
+number of men on board, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>;</li><li>
+treatment of the slaves, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>–229, <a href="#Page_379">379</a>;</li><li>
+size, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>;</li><li>
+mode of opening fire, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>;</li><li>
+speed, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>;</li><li>
+obsolete, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+<i>Galley of Naples, The</i>, attacked by the brothers Barbarossa, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>–54.</li><li>
+
+Gardampe, Chevalier Abel de Bridiers de la, killed at the siege of
+Malta, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>.</li><li>
+
+Gelves, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>.</li><li>
+
+Genoa, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>,<ul><li>
+arrangement with the Grand Turk, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>;</li><li>
+confers honours on Andrea Doria, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Gerard, the founder of the Order of St. John, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>,<ul><li>
+death, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Gibraltar, Straits of, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>.</li><li>
+
+Giou, Chevalier de, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>.</li><li>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">394</a></span>Goialatta, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>.</li><li>
+
+Goletta, La, <a href="#Page_348">348</a>,<ul><li>
+attack on the fortress, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>;</li><li>
+fall, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>;</li><li>
+captured, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Gomez, Alvar, left in charge of Bona, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>.</li><li>
+
+Gonzaga, Hernando de, his advice at the battle of Prevesa, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>.</li><li>
+
+Gonzaga, Julia, attempt to capture her, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>–136,<ul><li>
+escape, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Gozo, island of, Knights of St. John at, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>,<ul><li>
+sacked, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Granada, fall of, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>,<ul><li>
+expulsion of the Moors from, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>;</li><li>
+revolt in, <a href="#Page_347">347</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Grandenico, Count, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>.</li><li>
+
+Granvelle, Cardinal, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_359">359</a>.</li><li>
+
+Gravière, Admiral Jurien de la, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>,<ul><li>
+his description of a Galeasse, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+<i>Great Harry</i>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>.</li><li>
+
+Grimani, Antonio, the Venetian Admiral, defeated at Zonchio, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>.</li><li>
+
+Grimani, Marco, in command of the Papal contingent, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>,<ul><li>
+at Corfu, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>;</li><li>
+raid on Arta, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Guasto, Marquis de, taken prisoner, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>,<ul><li>
+his suggestion to Andrea Doria, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>;</li><li>
+in command of the army, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Guerare, Sergeant-Major, at the siege of Malta, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>.</li><li>
+
+Guglielmotti, Alberto, his work “La Guerra dei Pirati,” <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>.</li><li>
+
+Guimeran, Commandeur de, success of his ambush, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>.</li><li>
+
+<i>Guzmana</i>, the galley, <a href="#Page_371">371</a>.<br /><br /></li><li>
+
+Hadj-Hossein, his embassy to Selim I., <a href="#Page_76">76</a>–78.</li><li>
+
+Haedo, Don Fray Diego de, his <i>History of Algiers</i>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_348">348</a>, <a href="#Page_353">353</a>, <a href="#Page_374">374</a>.</li><li>
+
+Hamid, King of Tunis, character of his rule, <a href="#Page_348">348</a>,<ul><li>
+conspiracy against, <a href="#Page_349">349</a>;</li><li>
+flight, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Hassan Ali, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>,<ul><li>
+ravages towns and villages, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>;</li><li>
+repulsed by Spaniards, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>;</li><li>
+flogged and imprisoned, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>;</li><li>
+released, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>;</li><li>
+attacks Barbarossa, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Hassem, his attack on Oran, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>,<ul><li>
+retreat, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Henry II., <a href="#Page_34">34</a>.</li><li>
+
+Henry VII., <a href="#Page_215">215</a>.</li><li>
+
+Henry VIII., <a href="#Page_14">14</a>.</li><li>
+
+Herbert, Arthur, concludes a treaty with Algiers, <a href="#Page_377">377</a>.</li><li>
+
+Himeral, Basha, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>.</li><li>
+
+Hogue, La, battle of, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>.</li><li>
+
+Honoré II., Pope, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>.</li><li>
+
+Horusco, Pero Lopez de, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>.</li><li>
+
+Hunyadi, John, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>.</li><li>
+
+Hyères, island of, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>.<br /><br /></li><li>
+
+Ibrahim, Grand Vizier to Soliman, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>,<ul><li>
+his mission to Aleppo, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>;</li><li>
+advice, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>;</li><li>
+impressions of Barbarossa, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>;</li><li>
+return from Aleppo, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>;</li><li>
+his relations with Soliman, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>;</li><li>
+murdered, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Innocent VIII., Pope, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>.</li><li>
+
+Ionian Islands, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>.</li><li>
+
+Ionian Sea, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>.</li><li>
+
+Ithaca, island of, <a href="#Page_366">366</a>.</li><li>
+
+Iviza, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>.</li><li>
+
+Janissaries, their character as soldiers, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>,<ul><li>
+institution, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>;</li><li>
+system of training, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>;</li><li>
+mutiny in Algiers, <a href="#Page_355">355</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Jerbale, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>.</li><li>
+
+Jerusalem, Hospice of St. John at, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>.</li><li>
+
+Jigelli, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>,<ul><li>
+siege of, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+John of Jerusalem, St., Knights of, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>.
+<i>See</i> Knights</li><li>
+
+Judeo, El, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>.<br /><br /></li><li>
+
+Kara-Hassan, takes possession of Shershell, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>,<ul><li>
+beheaded, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Khorkud, Governor of Caramania, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>.</li><li>
+
+Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, or Knights of Malta, their bigotry, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>,<ul><li>
+take refuge at Limasol, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>;</li><li>
+characteristics, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>;</li><li>
+fortifications of Rhodes, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>;</li><li>
+faith, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>;</li><li>
+repulse the Turks, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>;</li><li>
+expelled from Rhodes, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>;</li><li>
+forced to retreat to Malta, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>;</li><li>
+their use of galleys, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>;</li><li>
+fight for their “Religion,” <a href="#Page_277">277</a>;</li><li>
+warfare against the corsairs, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>;</li><li>
+history of the Order, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>–291;</li><li>
+founded at Jerusalem, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>;</li><li>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">395</a></span>Grand Masters, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>–298, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>;</li><li>
+crusade against the Infidel, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>;</li><li>
+composition of the Order, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>;</li><li>
+languages, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>;</li><li>
+dress, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>;</li><li>
+form of government, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>;</li><li>
+in the siege of Malta, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>–342;</li><li>
+number of deaths, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>;</li><li>
+capture fortresses, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>;</li><li>
+capture the “puissant galleon,” <a href="#Page_313">313</a>;</li><li>
+at Licata, <a href="#Page_352">352</a>;</li><li>
+their galleys captured by Ali Basha, <a href="#Page_352">352</a>–355.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Knights Templars, foundation of the Order, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>,<ul><li>
+code of regulations, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Kustir-Aga, chief Eunuch of the Seraglio, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>.<br /><br /></li><li>
+
+Lamirande, Chevalier, at the siege of Malta, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>,<ul><li>
+killed, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+<i>Lancaster</i>, the cruiser, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>.</li><li>
+
+Lanciani, extract from “The Golden Age of the Renaissance,” <a href="#Page_139">139</a>.</li><li>
+
+Lantern, Fort of the, captured, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>.</li><li>
+
+Lautrec, Marshal de, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>.</li><li>
+
+Leo X., Pope, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>,<ul><li>
+attempt on his life, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>;</li><li>
+flight to Rome, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Lepanto, battle of, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_362">362</a>–372;<ul><li>
+number of killed and wounded, <a href="#Page_372">372</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Lerici, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>.</li><li>
+
+Leyva, Antonio de, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>.</li><li>
+
+Leyva, Don Sancho de, Governor of “Africa,” <a href="#Page_267">267</a>.</li><li>
+
+Liazzo, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>.</li><li>
+
+Licastelli, <a href="#Page_345">345</a>.</li><li>
+
+Licata, <a href="#Page_352">352</a>.</li><li>
+
+Limasol, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>.</li><li>
+
+Loredano, Jacques, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>.</li><li>
+
+Loredano, Captain, at the battle of Lepanto, <a href="#Page_369">369</a>.</li><li>
+
+Los Gelues, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>.</li><li>
+
+Louis XII., <a href="#Page_100">100</a>,<ul><li>
+joins the “Alliance of Christian Princes,” <a href="#Page_38">38</a>.<br /><br /></li></ul></li><li>
+
+Magliana, Castle of, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>.</li><li>
+
+Mahan, Rear-Admiral, his books on “Sea Power,” <a href="#Page_14">14</a>.</li><li>
+
+Mahomedi, banished from Constantinople, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>,<ul><li>
+his sons, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Mahomet, result of his death, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>.</li><li>
+
+Mahomet II., Caliph, captures Constantinople, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>,<ul><li>
+fortifies the Dardanelles, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>;</li><li>
+defeated Rhodes, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>;</li><li>
+death, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Majorca, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>.</li><li>
+
+Malipier, Captain, at the battle of Lepanto, <a href="#Page_369">369</a>.</li><li>
+
+Malta, siege of, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>–305, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>–342,<ul><li>
+number of deaths, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>;</li><li>
+position, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>;</li><li>
+expedition against, <a href="#Page_316">316</a>;</li><li>
+preparations for the siege, <a href="#Page_318">318</a>–321.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Malta, Knights of,
+<i>see</i> Knights</li><li>
+
+<i>Marquesa</i>, the galley, <a href="#Page_371">371</a>.</li><li>
+
+Marsa Muzetto harbour, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>.</li><li>
+
+Marsaquivir, attack on, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>.</li><li>
+
+Maura, Santa, island of, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>.</li><li>
+
+Mecca, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>.</li><li>
+
+Medina-Celi, Juan la Cerda, Duke of, expedition against Tripoli, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>.</li><li>
+
+Medran, Chevalier Gonzales de, at the siege of St. Elmo, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>.</li><li>
+
+Mehedia, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>.</li><li>
+
+Melac, Commandeur Gozon de, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>.</li><li>
+
+Mendoza, Bernard de, in command of La Goletta, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>.</li><li>
+
+Mendoza, Don Luis Hurtado de, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>.</li><li>
+
+Messina, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>, <a href="#Page_359">359</a>.</li><li>
+
+Minorca, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>.</li><li>
+
+Mitylene, island of, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>.</li><li>
+
+Monastir, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>.</li><li>
+
+Moncada, Don Hugo de, Viceroy of Sicily, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>,<ul><li>
+escapes to Iviza, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>;</li><li>
+defeated and slain, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Mondejar, Marquis de, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>.</li><li>
+
+Monferrato, Monastery of Nuestra Señora de, pilgrimages to, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_357">357</a>.</li><li>
+
+Monte Cristo island, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>.</li><li>
+
+Montmorency, Anne de, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>.</li><li>
+
+Monuc, the eunuch, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>.</li><li>
+
+Moors, their characteristics, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>,<ul><li>
+expulsion from Granada, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>;</li><li>
+their condition in Algiers, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Morea, the, <a href="#Page_355">355</a>, <a href="#Page_366">366</a>.</li><li>
+
+Morgan, Sir Henry, his capture of Panama, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>.</li><li>
+
+Morgan, J., his <i>Compleat History of Algiers</i>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>, <a href="#Page_345">345</a>.</li><li>
+
+Moriscoes, their persecutions, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>,<ul><li>
+revolt in Granada, <a href="#Page_347">347</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Mosca, Lodovico del, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>.</li><li>
+
+Moslem corsairs, their cupidity, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>,<ul><li>
+driven out of Spain, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>;</li><li>
+characteristics, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>;</li><li>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">396</a></span>fanaticism, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>;</li><li>
+supremacy on the sea, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>;</li><li>
+frequent defeats, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>;</li><li>
+tyranny, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>;</li><li>
+ships, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>;</li><li>
+booty, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>;</li><li>
+cruel methods, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>;</li><li>
+retrogression, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>;</li><li>
+mode of commencing their careers, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>;</li><li>
+conquer Palestine, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>;</li><li>
+at the siege of Malta, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>;</li><li>
+number of deaths, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Motte, Chevalier de la, at the siege of St. Elmo, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>.</li><li>
+
+Mourad-Reis, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>.</li><li>
+
+Moustafa-Billah, Caliph, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>.</li><li>
+
+Muley Hamid, negotiations with, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>.</li><li>
+
+Muley Hassan, King of Tunis, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>,<ul><li>
+restored to his kingdom, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>;</li><li>
+terms of his vassalage, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Mustafa, in command of the land forces against Malta, <a href="#Page_316">316</a>, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>,<ul><li>
+captures Famagusta, <a href="#Page_362">362</a>.<br /><br /></li></ul></li><li>
+
+Naples, seized, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>,<ul><li>
+invasion of, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>;</li><li>
+reception of Don John of Austria at, <a href="#Page_358">358</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Navarro, Count Pedro de, seizes the town of Bougie, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>,<ul><li>
+captures Algiers, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>;</li><li>
+his Tower, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Navarro’s Tower, siege of, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>–95,<ul><li>
+captured, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>;</li><li>
+pulled down, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Nef, the, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>.</li><li>
+
+Negropont, Bailli of, at the siege of Malta, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>,<ul><li>
+killed, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Nunez, Martin, his embassy to the Pope, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>.<br /><br /></li><li>
+
+Occhiali.
+<i>See</i> Ali Basha.</li><li>
+
+Ojeda, Captain, rescues the <i>Capitana</i> at the battle of Lepanto, <a href="#Page_371">371</a>.</li><li>
+
+Omedes, Juan d’, Grand Master of the Knights of St. John, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>,<ul><li>
+warned of the approach of the corsairs, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>;</li><li>
+refuses to take alarm, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Oneglia, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>.</li><li>
+
+Oran, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>,<ul><li>
+attack on, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Oristano, Gulf of, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>.</li><li>
+
+Osmanli, their warlike achievements on land, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>.</li><li>
+
+Ottoman, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>,<ul><li>
+his siege of Rhodes, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+<i>Our Lady of the Conception</i>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>.<br /><br /></li><li>
+
+Palamos, Bay of, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>.</li><li>
+
+Palermo, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>.</li><li>
+
+Palestine, conquered by Moslems, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>.</li><li>
+
+Palma, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>.</li><li>
+
+Panama, capture of, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>.</li><li>
+
+Pantellaria, island of, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>.</li><li>
+
+Pantera, Captain Pantero, “L’ Armata Navale,” <a href="#Page_225">225</a>.</li><li>
+
+Parma, Prince of, at the battle of Lepanto, <a href="#Page_364">364</a>.</li><li>
+
+Paschal II., Pope, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>.</li><li>
+
+Passaro, Cape, <a href="#Page_352">352</a>.</li><li>
+
+Patras, Turks defeated at, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>.</li><li>
+
+<i>Patrona</i> galley, capture of, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>.</li><li>
+
+Paul III., his scheme of defence for Rome, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>.</li><li>
+
+Paxo, island of, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>.</li><li>
+
+Payens, Hugues de, founds the Order of the Knights Templars, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>.</li><li>
+
+Pedro, Francisco San, <a href="#Page_371">371</a>.</li><li>
+
+Penne, Barras de la, on the treatment of men on board the galleys, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>.</li><li>
+
+Peter the Hermit, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>.</li><li>
+
+Philip II., King of Spain, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>,<ul><li>
+forms the “Holy League,” <a href="#Page_357">357</a>;</li><li>
+his fleet, <a href="#Page_360">360</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Piali, Admiral, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>,<ul><li>
+in command of the fleet against Malta, <a href="#Page_316">316</a>, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Pierre, St., Isle of, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>.</li><li>
+
+Pius V., Pope, <a href="#Page_356">356</a>, <a href="#Page_373">373</a>,<ul><li>
+forms the “Holy League,” <a href="#Page_357">357</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Portugal, Don Juan, King of, his armada at Barcelona, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>.</li><li>
+
+Portugal, Prince Luis of, at Barcelona, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>.</li><li>
+
+Prescott, William Hickling, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>,<ul><li>
+his description of the Janissaries, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>;</li><li>
+of Don John of Austria, <a href="#Page_358">358</a>;</li><li>
+of the battle of Lepanto, <a href="#Page_364">364</a>, <a href="#Page_368">368</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Press-gang, methods of the, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>.</li><li>
+
+Prevesa, battle of, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>–218, <a href="#Page_366">366</a>.</li><li>
+
+Punta delle Forche, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>.<br /><br /></li><li>
+
+Rabadan, Celebi, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>.</li><li>
+
+Rabadan, left in charge of Tunis, <a href="#Page_351">351</a>.</li><li>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">397</a></span>Raschid, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>.</li><li>
+
+Raschid, Caliph Haroun, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>.</li><li>
+
+Ravenstein, Count Philip of, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>.</li><li>
+
+<i>Real</i>, the, <a href="#Page_364">364</a>.</li><li>
+
+Reggio, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>,<ul><li>
+sack of, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Reis, Aisa-, left in charge of “Africa,” <a href="#Page_261">261</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>,<ul><li>
+his defence, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>;</li><li>
+captured, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Reis, Dragut-,
+<i>See</i> Dragut</li><li>
+
+Requesens, Don Luiz de, disaster to his fleet, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>.</li><li>
+
+<i>Revenge</i>, the, <a href="#Page_354">354</a>.</li><li>
+
+Rhodes, island of, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>,<ul><li>
+seized by the Knights of St. John, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>;</li><li>
+besieged, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>;</li><li>
+serpent at, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>–296;</li><li>
+derivation of the name, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Ribera, Don Perisan de, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>.</li><li>
+
+Ricasoli, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>.</li><li>
+
+Richard II, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>.</li><li>
+
+Rio, Juan del, taken captive, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>.</li><li>
+
+Rivière, Chevalier La, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>.</li><li>
+
+Robeira, Captain, repulses the corsairs, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>.</li><li>
+
+Rocca Guillelma, fortress of, besieged, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>.</li><li>
+
+Rodas, Capitan de, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>.</li><li>
+
+Roderick the Goth, conquered by the Osmanli, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>.</li><li>
+
+Rome, fortifications of, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>.</li><li>
+
+Romegas, Commandeur de, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>,<ul><li>
+his account of the battle of Lepanto, <a href="#Page_360">360</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Rosell, Don Cayetano, his <i>Historia del combate naval de
+Lepanto</i>, <a href="#Page_359">359</a>, <a href="#Page_364">364</a>.</li><li>
+
+Roverejo, Juan, war with Cordoba, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>.</li><li>
+
+Roxalana, Sultana, her influence over Soliman, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>,<ul><li>
+characteristics, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>;</li><li>
+jealousy, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>;</li><li>
+murders Ibrahim, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>.<br /><br /></li></ul></li><li>
+
+Salaerrez, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>.</li><li>
+
+Saleh-Reis, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>.</li><li>
+
+Salerno, Gulf of, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>.</li><li>
+
+Sallee, the rovers, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>.</li><li>
+
+Sandoval, El Maestro Don Fray Prudencio de, his history of
+Charles V., <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>.</li><li>
+
+Sangle, Claude de la, his death, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>.</li><li>
+
+Sangullo, Antonio de, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>.</li><li>
+
+<i>Santa Ana</i>, bravery of the, <a href="#Page_353">353</a>.</li><li>
+
+Santa Cruz, Marquis of, at the battle of Lepanto, <a href="#Page_364">364</a>,<ul><li>
+rescues the <i>Capitana</i>, <a href="#Page_371">371</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+<i>Santa Maria</i>, the flagship of Columbus, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>.</li><li>
+
+Sardinia, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>.</li><li>
+
+Satalie, Gulf of, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>.</li><li>
+
+Savona, fortification of, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>.</li><li>
+
+Sceberass, Mount, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>, <a href="#Page_342">342</a>.</li><li>
+
+Scutari, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>.</li><li>
+
+Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean,<ul><li>
+take refuge in Northern Africa, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>;</li><li>
+their deeds of terror, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>;</li><li>
+cupidity, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>;</li><li>
+fanaticism, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>;</li><li>
+autocratic rule, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>;</li><li>
+equality, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>;</li><li>
+aptitude for the sea, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>;</li><li>
+defeats, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>;</li><li>
+nefarious doings, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>;</li><li>
+characteristics of their leaders, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>, <a href="#Page_376">376</a>;</li><li>
+ships, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>;</li><li>
+character of the men, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>;</li><li>
+leagues against, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>;</li><li>
+relations with the Turks, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Seignelay, his criticism of Admiral de Tourville, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>.</li><li>
+
+Selim I., Sultan of Turkey.
+<i>See</i> Soliman</li><li>
+
+Selim II., Sultan of Turkey, <a href="#Page_356">356</a>,<ul><li>
+his character, <a href="#Page_356">356</a>;</li><li>
+lays claim to the island of Cyprus, <a href="#Page_356">356</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Serpent, method of killing, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>–296.</li><li>
+
+Sesse, Duke of, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>.</li><li>
+
+Sessola, islet of, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.</li><li>
+
+Sfax, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>.</li><li>
+
+Sforza, Lodovico, Duke of Milan, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>.</li><li>
+
+Shershell, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>.</li><li>
+
+Shott-el-Jerid, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>.</li><li>
+
+Sinan-Reis, in command of La Goletta fortress, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>,<ul><li>
+at the battle of Prevesa, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>;</li><li>
+in command of the Janissaries, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>;</li><li>
+character as a leader, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>;</li><li>
+his expedition against Malta, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>;</li><li>
+sacks the island of Gozo, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>;</li><li>
+captures Tripoli, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Skiathos, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>.</li><li>
+
+Skios island, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>.</li><li>
+
+Slaves, on board galleys, their treatment, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>–229,<ul><li>
+mutiny at Lepanto, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Smyrna, Basha of, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>.</li><li>
+
+Soliman the Magnificent, Sultan of Turkey, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>,<ul><li>
+expels the Knights of St. John from Rhodes, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>;</li><li>
+embassy from Barbarossa, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>;</li><li>
+sends reinforcements, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>;</li><li>
+recalls his ships, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>;</li><li>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">398</a></span>his conquest of the Mamelukes, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>;</li><li>
+invites the cooperation of Barbarossa, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>;</li><li>
+appoints him commander of his fleet, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>;</li><li>
+receives gifts from him, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>;</li><li>
+his reception of him, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>;</li><li>
+relations with Ibrahim, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>;</li><li>
+under the influence of Roxalana, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>;</li><li>
+declares war against Venice, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>;</li><li>
+defeated, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>;</li><li>
+preparations for campaigns, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>, <a href="#Page_316">316</a>;</li><li>
+his demands from Charles V., <a href="#Page_270">270</a>;</li><li>
+loss of his “puissant galleon,” <a href="#Page_313">313</a>;</li><li>
+lamentations of his people, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>;</li><li>
+holds a conference, <a href="#Page_316">316</a>;</li><li>
+expedition against Malta, <a href="#Page_316">316</a>;</li><li>
+his death, <a href="#Page_356">356</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Spaniards, under Moorish rule, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>,<ul><li>
+expedition against the Barbarossas, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>;</li><li>
+repulse Hassan, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>;</li><li>
+captives, assist in the capture of Algiers, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>;</li><li>
+restored to liberty, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Spartivento, Cape, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>.</li><li>
+
+Spezzia, Gulf of, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>.</li><li>
+
+Susa, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>.</li><li>
+
+Swertius, Franciscus, his collection of epitaphs, <a href="#Page_373">373</a>.<br /><br /></li><li>
+
+Tabas, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>.</li><li>
+
+Taranto, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>.</li><li>
+
+Tarik, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>.</li><li>
+
+Tenes, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>,<ul><li>
+fall of, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Thevenot, his Travels, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>.</li><li>
+
+Tiber, the, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>.</li><li>
+
+Tineo, Garzia de, kills Uruj Barbarossa, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>.</li><li>
+
+Tlemcen, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>.</li><li>
+
+Tlemcen, Sultan of, his flight to Fez, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>.</li><li>
+
+Toledo, Don Garcia de, 230;<ul><li>
+in the expedition against Dragut, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>;</li><li>
+his character as a ruler, <a href="#Page_317">317</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Toledo, Don Pedro de, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>.</li><li>
+
+Tours, Viscomte de, sent to Genoa, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>.</li><li>
+
+Tourville, Admiral de, criticism on, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>.</li><li>
+
+Traparni, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>.</li><li>
+
+Tripoli, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>,<ul><li>
+defence of, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>;</li><li>
+capture, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>;</li><li>
+fortifications, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>;</li><li>
+expedition against, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Trivulce, Theodore, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>.</li><li>
+
+Tunis, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>,<ul><li>
+captured by the corsairs, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_375">375</a>;</li><li>
+massacre in, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>;</li><li>
+fortifications repaired, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>;</li><li>
+rebellion in, <a href="#Page_348">348</a>;</li><li>
+appeal to Ali Basha, <a href="#Page_349">349</a>;</li><li>
+flight of Hamid, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Tunis, Sultan of, his treaties with the Barbarossas, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>,<ul><li>
+repudiates treaty, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Turks, their character as soldiers, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>,<ul><li>
+relations with the Sea-wolves, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>;</li><li>
+attack on Rhodes, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>;</li><li>
+defeated at Patras, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Tuscany, Duke of, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>.<br /><br /></li><li>
+
+Urbain II., Pope, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>.</li><li>
+
+Urbino, Duke of, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>,<ul><li>
+at the battle of Lepanto, <a href="#Page_364">364</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Vagnor, Chevalier, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>.</li><li>
+
+Valentia, ravaged by corsairs, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>.</li><li>
+
+Valetta, position of, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>, <a href="#Page_342">342</a>.</li><li>
+
+Valette, Jean Parisot de la, Grand Master of the Knights of
+St. John, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>;<ul><li>
+his characteristics, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>;</li><li>
+creed, <a href="#Page_302">302</a>;</li><li>
+personal example in the siege of Malta, <a href="#Page_302">302</a>–305;</li><li>
+his high conception of duty, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>;</li><li>
+expedition against Tripoli, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>;</li><li>
+repulsed, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>;</li><li>
+summons help, <a href="#Page_318">318</a>;</li><li>
+preparations for the siege, <a href="#Page_318">318</a>–321;</li><li>
+address to his brethren, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>;</li><li>
+at the siege of Malta, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>–328;</li><li>
+reinforcements, <a href="#Page_328">328</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Vargas, Martin de, in command of the fortress of Navarro, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>,<ul><li>
+besieged, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>–95;</li><li>
+wounded and taken prisoner, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>;</li><li>
+beheaded, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Vasto, Marquis de, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>.</li><li>
+
+Vega, Don Alvaro, in command of “Africa,” <a href="#Page_267">267</a>.</li><li>
+
+Vega, Don Juan de, Viceroy of Sicily, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>,<ul><li>
+in the expedition against Dragut, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Velez, Peñon de, captured, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>.</li><li>
+
+Venalcadi, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>,<ul><li>
+escapes, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>;</li><li>
+attacks Barbarossa, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>;</li><li>
+fight, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>;</li><li>
+beheaded, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+<i>Vengeur</i>, the, <a href="#Page_354">354</a>.</li><li>
+
+Venice, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>,<ul><li>
+treaty of commerce concluded, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>;</li><li>
+relations with Soliman, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>;</li><li>
+war declared, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>;</li><li>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">399</a></span>“Holy League” formed, <a href="#Page_357">357</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Veniero, Sebastian in command of the Venetian fleet, <a href="#Page_360">360</a>, <a href="#Page_364">364</a>.</li><li>
+
+Vera, Don Diego de, sent to capture Algiers, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>,<ul><li>
+defeated, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Vercoyran, Chevalier de, at the siege of Malta, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>.</li><li>
+
+Vertot, M. L’Abbé de, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>.</li><li>
+
+<i>Victory</i>, the, <a href="#Page_354">354</a>.</li><li>
+
+Villaret, Fulke de, Grand Master of the Knights of St. John, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>,<ul><li>
+seizes Rhodes, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Villegagnon, Commandeur de, his interview with the Grand Master, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>.</li><li>
+
+Villeneuve, Helion de, Grand Master of the Knights of St. John, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>,<ul><li>
+character of his rule, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>;</li><li>
+death, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>.</li></ul></li><li>
+
+Vittoriosa, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>.</li><li>
+
+Volo, Gulf of, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>.<br /><br /></li><li>
+
+Ximenes, Fray Francisco, Cardinal Bishop of Toledo, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>.<br /><br /></li><li>
+
+Yamboli, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>.</li><li>
+
+Yonis Bey, sent to Venice, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>.<br /><br /></li><li>
+
+Zante, island of, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>.</li><li>
+
+Zara, port of, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>.</li><li>
+
+Zay, Basha, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>.</li><li>
+
+Zonchio, battle of, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="center">PRINTED BY<br />
+
+HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LTD.,<br />
+
+LONDON AND AYLESBURY.</p>
+
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+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sea-wolves of the Mediterranean, by 
+Currey E. Hamilton
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+</body>
+</html>
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+Project Gutenberg's Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean, by E. Hamilton Currey
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean
+
+Author: E. Hamilton Currey
+
+Release Date: October 10, 2004 [EBook #13689]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SEA-WOLVES OF THE MEDITERRANEAN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Robert Connal and the Online Distributed Proofreading
+Team, from images generously provided by the Million Books Project.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+SEA-WOLVES OF THE MEDITERRANEAN
+
+
+
+[Illustration: KHEYR-ED-DIN BARBAROSSA--CORSAIR, ADMIRAL, AND KING.]
+
+
+
+SEA-WOLVES OF THE MEDITERRANEAN
+
+
+THE GRAND PERIOD OF THE MOSLEM CORSAIRS
+
+
+
+
+BY COMMANDER E. HAMILTON CURREY, R.N.
+
+
+WITH PORTRAITS AND ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+  "Ships be but boards, sailors but men:
+  There be land rats and water rats, land thieves and water thieves,
+  I mean pirates."
+
+  _Merchant of Venice_.
+
+
+LONDON
+
+JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W
+
+1910
+
+
+
+
+TO THAT GRACIOUS LADY TO WHOSE COUNSEL AND ENCOURAGEMENT I OWE SO MUCH MORE
+THAN ANY ONE--SAVE I--CAN IMAGINE...
+
+TO MY WIFE
+
+I DEDICATE THIS BOOK
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+When the ship is ready for launching there comes a moment of tense
+excitement before the dogshores are knocked away and she slides down the
+ways. In the case of a ship this excitement is shared by many thousands,
+who have assembled to acclaim the birth of a perfected product of the
+industry of man; the emotion is shared by all those who are present. It is
+very different when a book has been completed. The launching has been
+arranged for and completed by expert hands; she like the ship gathers way
+and slides forth into an ocean: but, unlike the ship which is certain to
+float, the waters may close over and engulf her, or perchance she may be
+towed back to that haven of obscurity from which she emerged, to rust there
+in silence and neglect. There is excitement in the breast of one man
+alone--to wit, the author. If his book possesses one supreme qualification
+she will escape the fate mentioned, and this qualification is--interest. As
+the weeks lengthened into months, and these multiplied themselves to the
+tale of something like twenty-four, the conviction was strengthened that
+that which had so profoundly interested the writer, would not be altogether
+indifferent to others. For some inscrutable reason the deeds of sea-robbers
+have always possessed a fascination denied to those of their more numerous
+brethren of the land; and in the case of the Sea-wolves of the sixteenth
+century we are dealing with the very aristocrats of the profession.
+Circumstances over which they had no control flung the Moslem population of
+Southern Spain on to the shores of Northern Africa: to revenge themselves
+upon the Christian foe by whom this expropriation had been accomplished was
+natural to a warrior race; and those who heretofore had been land-folk pure
+and simple took to piracy as a means of livelihood. It is of the deeds of
+these men that this book treats; of their marvellous triumphs, of their
+apparently hopeless defeats, of the manner in which they audaciously
+maintained themselves against the principalities and the powers of
+Christendom always hungering for their destruction.
+
+The quality which Napoleon is said to have ascribed to the British
+Infantry, "of never knowing when they were beaten," seems to have also
+characterised the Sea-wolves; as witness the marvellous recuperation of
+Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa when expelled from Tunis by Charles V.; and the
+escape of Dragut from the island of Jerba when apparently hopelessly
+trapped by the Genoese admiral, Andrea Doria. All through their history the
+leaders of the Sea-wolves show the resourcefulness of the real seamen that
+they had become by force of circumstances, and it was they who in the age
+in which they dwelt showed what sea power really meant. Sailing through the
+Mediterranean on my way to Malta in the spring of this year, as the good
+ship fared onwards I passed in succession all those lurking-places from
+which the Moslem Corsairs were wont to burst out upon their prey. Truly it
+seemed as if
+
+  "The spirits of their fathers might start from every wave,"
+
+and in imagination one pictured the rush of the pirate galley, with its
+naked slaves straining at the oar of their taskmasters, its fierce,
+reckless, beturbaned crew clustered on the "rambades" at the bow and stern.
+It might be that they would capture some hapless "round-ship," a
+merchantman lumbering slowly along the coast; or again they might meet with
+a galley of the terrible Knights of St. John or of the ever-redoubtable
+Doria. In either case the Sea-wolves were equal to their fortune, to
+plunder or to fight in the name of Allah and his prophet.
+
+That which differentiated the Sea-wolves from other pirates was the
+combination which they effected among themselves; the manner in which these
+lawless men could subordinate themselves to the will of one whom they
+recognised as a great leader. To obtain such recognition was no easy
+matter, and the manner in which this was done, by those who rose by sheer
+force of character to the summit of this remarkable hierarchy, has here
+been set forth.
+
+E. HAMILTON CURREY.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY                                                 1
+
+CHAPTER I
+THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS                                  13
+
+CHAPTER II
+THE COMING OF THE CORSAIRS                                  28
+
+CHAPTER III
+URUJ BARBAROSSA                                             43
+
+CHAPTER IV
+THE DEATH OF URUJ BARBAROSSA                                59
+
+CHAPTER V
+KHEYR-ED-DIN BARBAROSSA                                     75
+
+CHAPTER VI
+THE TAKING OF THE PENON D'ALGER; ANDREA DORIA               91
+
+CHAPTER VII
+THE APOTHEOSIS OF THE CORSAIR KING                         107
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+THE RAID ON THE COAST OF ITALY; JULIA GONZAGA              123
+
+CHAPTER IX
+BARCELONA, MAY 1535; THE GATHERING OF THE
+CHRISTIAN HOSTS                                            139
+
+CHAPTER X
+THE FALL OF TUNIS AND THE FLIGHT OF BARBAROSSA             155
+
+CHAPTER XI
+ROXALANA AND THE MURDER OF IBRAHIM                         172
+
+CHAPTER XII
+THE PREVESA CAMPAIGN; THE GATHERING OF THE
+  FLEETS                                                   189
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+THE BATTLE OF PREVESA                                      205
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+THE NAVY OF OARS. THE GALLEY, THE GALEASSE,
+  AND THE NEF                                              221
+
+CHAPTER XV
+DRAGUT-REIS                                                238
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+DRAGUT-REIS                                                254
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+DRAGUT-REIS                                                269
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+THE KNIGHTS OF ST. JOHN                                    286
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+DRAGUT-REIS                                                306
+
+CHAPTER XX
+THE SIEGE OF MALTA                                         324
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+ALI BASHA                                                  344
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+LEPANTO                                                    362
+
+AUTHORITIES CONSULTED                                      383
+
+LIST OF THE KINGS OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, SPAIN,
+  SULTANS OF TURKEY, POPES OF ROME, AND GRAND
+  MASTERS OF MALTA FROM 1492 TO 1580                       385
+
+DISTANCES IN SEA MILES ON THE COAST OF NORTHERN
+  AFRICA                                                   387
+
+INDEX                                                      389
+
+
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+I wish to record my cordial recognition of the kindness shown to me at
+Malta by Mr. Salvino Sant Manduca. The picture of the carrack opposite to
+page 300 was a gift from him. The galley of the Knights of Malta is a
+reproduction of a picture hanging in his house. I should also like to thank
+him for the time and trouble which he took on my behalf during my stay at
+Malta, and the keen interest he displayed in my subject.
+
+R. HAMILTON CURREY.
+
+
+KHEYR-ED-DIN BARBAROSSA--CORSAIR, ADMIRAL, AND KING      _Frontispiece_
+
+                                                            FACING PAGE
+
+URUJ AND KHEYR-ED-DIN BARBAROSSA                                     44
+
+ANDREA DORIA, PRINCE OF ONEOLIA, ADMIRAL TO CHARLES V.               92
+
+SOLIMAN THE MAGNIFICENT                                             110
+
+THE EMPEROR CHARLES V                                               150
+
+MULEY HASSAN KING OF TUNIS                                          162
+
+GALEASSE UNDER SAIL                                                 194
+
+GALLEY UNDER OARS                                                   222
+
+BRIGANTINE CHASING FELUCCA                                          236
+
+GOZON DE DIEU-DONNE SLAYING THE GREAT SERPENT OF RHODES             294
+
+CARRACK IN WHICH THE KNIGHTS ARRIVED AT MALTA, 1530                 300
+
+JEAN PARISOT DE LA VALETTE, GRAND MASTER OF THE KNIGHTS
+  OF MALTA, AT THE SIEGE OF THAT ISLAND BY THE TURKS
+  IN 1565                                                           324
+
+DEATH OF DRAGUT AT THE SIEGE OF MALTA                               340
+
+A GALLEY OF THE KNIGHTS OF MALTA                                    354
+
+DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA                                                 362
+
+SEBASTIAN VENIERO                                                   364
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY
+
+In all the ages of which we have any record there have been men who gained
+a living by that practice of robbery on the high seas which we know by the
+name of Piracy. Perhaps the pirates best known to the English-speaking
+world are the buccaneers of the Spanish Main, who flourished exceedingly in
+the seventeenth century, and of whom many chronicles exist: principally
+owing to the labours of that John Esquemelin, a pirate of a literary turn
+of mind, who added the crime of authorship to the ill deeds of a sea-rover.
+The Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean in the preceding century did not raise
+up a chronicler from among themselves: for not much tincture of learning
+seems to have distinguished these desperate fighters and accomplished
+seamen, descendants of those Spanish Moslems who had, during the Middle
+Ages, lived in a land in which learning and culture had been held in the
+highest estimation. Driven from their homes, their civilisation crushed,
+their religion banned in that portion of Southern Spain in which they had
+dwelt for over seven centuries, cast upon the shores of Northern Africa,
+these men took to the sea and became the scourge of the Mediterranean. That
+which they did, the deeds which they accomplished, the terror which they
+inspired, the ruin and havoc which they wrought, have been set forth in the
+pages of this book.
+
+It was the age of the galley, the oar-propelled vessel which moved
+independently of the wind in the fine-weather months of the great inland
+sea. Therefore to the dwellers on the coast the Sea-wolves were a perpetual
+menace; as, when booty was unobtainable at sea, they raided the towns and
+villages of their Christian foes. During all the period here dealt with no
+man's life, no woman's honour, was safe from these pirates within the area
+of their nefarious activities. They held the Mediterranean in fee, they
+levied toll on all who came within reach of their galleys and their
+scimitars. Places unknown to the geography of the sixteenth century became
+notorious in their day, and Christian wives and mothers learned to tremble
+at the very names of Algiers and Tunis. From these places the rovers issued
+to capture, to destroy, and to enslave: in Oran and Tlemcen, in Tenes,
+Shershell, Bougie, Jigelli, Bizerta, Sfax, Susa, Monastir, Jerbah, and
+Tripoli they lurked ready for the raid and the foray. At one time all
+Northern Africa would thrill to the triumph of the Moslem arms, at another
+there would go up the wail of the utterly defeated; but in spite of
+alternations of fortune the Sea-wolves abode in the localities of their
+choice, and ended in establishing those pirate States which troubled the
+peace of the Mediterranean practically until the introduction of steam.
+
+The whole record of the sixteenth century is one of blood and fire, of
+torture and massacre, of "punic faith" and shameless treason; the deeds of
+the sea-rovers, appalling as they were, frequently found a counterpart in
+the battles, the sieges, and the sacking of towns which took place
+perpetually on the continent of Europe.
+
+There was so much history made at this period, the stage of world politics
+was occupied by so many great, striking, and dazzling personalities, that
+the Sea-wolves and all they accomplished were to a great extent
+overshadowed by happenings which the chroniclers of the time considered to
+be of greater importance. In this no doubt they were right in the main;
+but, in spite of this opinion which they held, we find that time and again
+the main stream of events is ruffled by the prows of the pirate galleys.
+Such men as the Barbarossas, as Dragut, and Ali Basha could only have been
+suppressed and exterminated had the whole might of Christendom been turned
+against them, for they held in their hands two weapons, the keenest and
+most powerful with which to attain the objects which they had in view.
+
+The first and more powerful of these was the appeal in a rough and warlike
+age to the cupidity of mankind. "Those who are content to follow us," they
+said in effect, "are certain to enrich themselves if they are men stout of
+heart and strong of hand. All around us lie rich and prosperous lands; we
+have but to organise ourselves, and to take anything that we wish for; we
+can, if we like, gather a rich harvest at comparatively small trouble."
+Such counsels as these did not fall on deaf ears. Driven from the land of
+plenty--from glorious Andalusia with its fruitful soil, its magnificent
+cities, its vines and olives, its fruit and grain, its noble rivers and
+wide-spreading _vegas_--the Spanish Moslem of the day of the Sea-wolves was
+an outcast and a beggar, ripe for adventure and burning for revenge on
+those by whom he had been expropriated.
+
+Great historians like William Hickling Prescott tell us that, in the course
+of the seven centuries of the Moslem domination in Spain, the Moors had
+become soft and effeminate, that "the canker of peace" had sapped, if it
+had not destroyed, the virile qualities of the race, that luxury and
+learning had dried up at their source those primitive virtues of courage
+and hardihood which had been the leading characteristics of those stark
+fighters who had borne the banner of the Prophet from Mecca even to Cadiz.
+Tom by faction, by strife among themselves, they had succumbed to the arms
+of the Northern chivalry; by its warriors they had been driven out, never
+to return.
+
+When this was accomplished, when the curtain fell on the final scene of the
+tragedy, and the Moors, after the fall of Granada, were driven across the
+sea into Africa, there came to pass a most remarkable change in those who
+had been expropriated. The learning, the culture, the civilisation, by
+which they had been so long distinguished, seemed to drop away from them,
+cast away like a worn-out garment for which men have no further use. In
+place of all these things there came a complete and desperate valour, a
+bitter and headstrong fanaticism.
+
+It was one of the attributes of the Moslem civilisation in Spain, and one
+of the most enlightened thereof, that religious toleration flourished in
+its midst. Jew and Christian were allowed to worship at the altars of their
+fathers, no man hindering or saying them nay; one rule, and one alone, had
+to be preserved: none must blaspheme against Mahomet, the Prophet of God,
+as he was considered to be by the Moslems. The penalty for infraction of
+this rule was death; otherwise, complete liberty of conscience was
+accorded.
+
+We have spoken of the two weapons held by the leaders of the Sea-wolves.
+The first, as we have, said, was cupidity; the second was fanaticism, the
+deadly religious hatred engendered, not only by the wholesale expropriation
+of the Moslem population, but also by the persecution to which the
+Moriscoes--as those Moslems were known who remained in Spain--were
+subjected by their Christian masters. It requires little imagination to see
+how these two weapons of avarice and intolerance could be made to serve the
+purpose of those dominant spirits who rose to the summit of the piratical
+hierarchy. Not only did they dazzle the imaginations of those who followed
+in their train by promises of wealth uncounted, but they added to this the
+specious argument that, in slaying and robbing the Christian wheresoever he
+was to be found, the faithful Moslem was performing the service of God and
+the act most grateful to his holy Prophet.
+
+Could any rule of life be at the same time more simple and more attractive
+to the beggared Mohammedan cast on the sterile shores of Northern Africa to
+starve?
+
+With the main stream of history, to which we have before referred, we have
+no concern in this book. He who would embark thereon must sail a powerful
+vessel which must carry many guns. Also for the conduct of this vessel many
+qualities are necessary: a commanding intellect, acute perceptions,
+indefatigable industry, complete leisure, are among those things necessary
+to the pilot. These must be supplemented by a genius for research, a
+knowledge of ancient and modern languages, and an unerring faculty for
+separating the few precious grains of wheat from those mountains of chaff
+which he will have to sift with the utmost care. There are, however,
+subsidiary rivulets which feed the onward flow of events, and of such is
+the story of the Sea-wolves of the Mediterranean. On these the adventurous
+mariner can sail his little cockboat, discreetly retiring before he becomes
+involved and engulfed in the main stream. That he cannot altogether avoid
+it is shown by the fact that the men who are here chronicled took part in
+events of first-class importance in the age in which they lived.
+Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa fought the battle of Prevesa against his lifelong
+antagonist, Andrea Doria. Dragut was killed at the siege of Malta, at the
+moment almost of the fall of the castle of St. Elmo; had he lived it is
+more than probable that Jean Parisot de la Valette and his heroic garrison
+would have been defeated instead of being victorious. Ali Basha was the one
+Moslem commander who increased his reputation at the battle of Lepanto,
+because, as was usual in all maritime conflicts of the time, the corsairs,
+who had the habit of the sea, were more than a match for soldiers embarked
+to fight on an unfamiliar element.
+
+We shall speak, later on, of the autocratic rule of these leaders who
+possessed so absolute a domination over the men by whom they were followed.
+The fact of this absolute supremacy on the part of the chiefs is very
+curious, as theoretically in the confederacy of the Sea-wolves all were
+equal; we are, in fact, confronted with pure democracy, where every man was
+at liberty to do what seemed best in his own eyes. He was a free agent,
+none coercing him or desiring him to place himself under discipline or
+command. This, be it observed, was the theory. As a matter of fact the
+corsairs, who were extraordinarily successful in their abominable trade,
+abode beneath an iron and rigid discipline. This was enforced by the lash,
+as we shall see later on when it is related how Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa
+flogged one Hassan, a captain who, he considered, had failed in his duty:
+or by the actual penalty of death, which Uruj Barbarossa inflicted on one
+who had dared to act independently of his authority.
+
+The theory of equality obtained among the Mediterranean pirates; but the
+Barbarossas, Dragut, and Ali believed that, in practice, the less
+interference there was with their designs by those, whom Cardinal Granvelle
+denominated in a letter to Philip II. as "that mischievous animal the
+people," the better it would be for all concerned. The conception held of
+rights and duties of "the mischievous animal" by these militant persons
+was, that it should behave as did those others recorded of the Roman
+centurion in Holy Writ: if it did not, and difficulties arose, the leaders
+were not troubled with an undue tenderness either towards the individual or
+the theory. Of this we shall see examples as we go on.
+
+This period has been called "The Grand Period of the Moslem Corsairs"
+because it was in something less than a century, from the year of the
+expulsion of the Moors from Granada in 1492 to the death of Ali Basha in
+1580, that the Sea-wolves were at the height of their power, that the
+piratical States of the Mediterranean were in the making. That subsequently
+they gave great cause of trouble to Christendom is written in characters of
+blood and fire throughout the history of the succeeding centuries; but the
+real interest in the careers of these men resides in the fact that they
+established, by their extraordinary aptitude for sea-adventure, the
+permanent place which was held by their descendants. Time and again in the
+sixteenth century the effort was made to destroy them root and branch: they
+were defeated, driven out of their strongholds on shore, crushed apparently
+for ever. But nothing short of actual extermination could have been
+successful in this; as, no matter how severe had been the set-back, there
+was always left a nucleus of the pirates which in a short time grew again
+into a formidable force. The Ottoman Turk, magnificent fighter as he was on
+land, seemed to lose his great qualities when the venue was changed from
+the land to the sea. The Janissaries, that picked corps trained as few
+soldiers were trained even in that age of iron, who never recoiled before
+the foe but who fought only to conquer or die, seem to have failed when
+embarked for sea-service. That which the hard teaching of experience alone
+could show--that the man who fights best upon the sea is he who has the
+habit of the sea--was at this time not generally recognised, and this it
+was that rendered the corsairs so supreme on the element which they had
+made their own. Some among the great ones of the earth there were who
+appreciated this fact, who, like that great statesman Ibrahim, Grand Vizier
+to Soliman the Magnificent, recognised what it was to lay their hands upon
+"a veritable man of the sea"; but the rule was to embark men from the shore
+and to entrust to them the duty of fighting naval actions.
+
+When "the Grand Period" came to an end, as it did about the date already
+indicated, the corsairs had become a permanent institution; they remained
+established at Algiers, Tunis, and other ports on the littoral of Northern
+Africa as a recognised evil. Pirates they remained to the end of the
+chapter, the scourge of the tideless sea; but no longer did they array
+themselves in line of battle against the mightiest potentates of the earth
+allied for their complete destruction. It was the men of the sea who set up
+this empire; it was they who defied Charles V., a whole succession of
+Popes, Andrea Doria and his descendants, the might of Spain, Venice, Genoa,
+Catalonia, and France. It was they who taught the so-called civilised world
+of the age in which they lived that sea-power can only be met and checked
+by those who dispose of navies manned by seamen; that against it the master
+of the mightiest legions of the land is powerless.
+
+This contention is by no means invalidated by the fact that frequently the
+corsairs were defeated by land forces embarked on board ship. Thus when
+Dragut was defending Tripoli against an expedition sent against him in 1559
+by the combined forces of Spain, Tuscany, Rome, Naples, Sicily, and Genoa,
+of one hundred sail which embarked fourteen thousand troops, he was
+relieved by Piali, the Admiral of Soliman the Magnificent, who came to his
+assistance with eighty-six galleys, each of which had on board one hundred
+Janissaries, and who gained so striking a victory over the Christians that
+the Turkish Admiral returned to Constantinople with no less than four
+thousand prisoners. But in this case, as in so many others, the actual
+hostilities took place on shore, where the troops had the opportunity of
+displaying their sterling qualities.
+
+There is very little doubt that critics will point out that the corsairs
+were by no means universally successful; that, as in the case of the attack
+by Hassem, the ruler of Algiers in 1563, on Oran and Marzaquivir (a small
+port in the immediate vicinity of Oran), in the end the Moslems were badly
+beaten. This undoubtedly was the case, and there is no desire to magnify
+the deeds of the Sea-wolves or to minimise the heroic defence of
+Marzaquivir by the Count of Alcaudete, or that of Oran by his brother, Don
+Martin de Cordoba, At the last moment of their wonderful defence they were
+relieved by a fleet sent by the King of Spain, and Hassem had to abandon
+his artillery, ammunition, and stores and beat a hasty retreat to the place
+from whence he had come.
+
+There was nothing remarkable in the fact that the corsairs were frequently
+defeated; what is really strange is that they should have achieved so great
+a success--success vouched for by the concrete instance that they
+established those sinister dynasties on the coast of Northern Africa which
+were the outcome of their piratical activities.
+
+In speaking of them, historians of later date than that at which they
+flourished are apt to hold them somewhat cheaply, to dismiss them as mere
+barbarians of no particular importance in the scheme of mundane affairs; as
+men who caused a certain amount of trouble to civilisation by their inroads
+and their plunderings. That which is certain is that they were for
+centuries a standing shame and disgrace to the whole of Christendom.
+
+To those who may perhaps be called the pioneers--that is to say, the men
+treated of in this book--a certain amount of sympathy and understanding may
+be conceded; for they had been driven from the land which had been theirs,
+it was their countrymen and their co-religionists who were being ground to
+powder beneath the fanatical cruelty of the Spanish Inquisition. That which
+they did was doubtless abominable, but it cannot be contended that they had
+not received the strongest provocation both from the material and the
+religious points of view.
+
+Once the "Grand Period" was passed, that period in which such men as the
+Barbarossas, Dragut, and Ali flourished, the chronicle of the Moslem States
+founded by them sinks to the degraded level of sheer robbery and murder; of
+a history of a tyranny established within one hundred miles of the shores
+of Europe, and of great kings and princes bargaining with piratical
+ruffians who held in thrall thousands upon thousands of their subjects. How
+it came about that the Christian States tolerated such an abuse is one of
+those mysteries which can never be explained; and if subsequent centuries
+displayed a greater refinement of manners, a more apt appreciation of all
+that is softer and kindlier in the human relationships of nation towards
+nation and of people towards people, they have not perhaps so much to plume
+themselves upon as had their rude forefathers of the sixteenth century,
+who, seeing the evil and feeling the effects thereof, did their best to
+extirpate those by whom this evil was caused.
+
+The question may be asked, how can it be that the lives and actions of such
+men as these are worth chronicling? It is because, not only that they
+modified profoundly the course of history in the age in which they lived,
+but also because that, hidden deep down, somewhere, in these men stained by
+a thousand crimes, ruthless, lustful, bloodthirsty, cruel as the grave, was
+the germ of true greatness, some dim spark of the divine fire of genius.
+Contending against principalities and powers, they held their own; in the
+welter of anarchy in which they lived they proved that there existed no
+finer fighting men, which alone give them some claim to consideration; but
+that which is most interesting to watch is the absolute domination obtained
+by the leaders over their followers. There is no other record of pirates
+who commanded on so large a scale; there is none which shows men such as
+these bargaining on equal terms with the great ones of the earth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS
+
+There is, in the deeds of men of action, an interest which is never aroused
+by those persons of brains and capacity by whom the world is really ruled.
+The statesman in his cabinet is the god within the machine; it is he who
+directs the acts of nations, it is he who moves the fleets and armies as if
+they were pieces on the chess-board; to him, as a rule, is the man of
+action subordinate, obeying his behests. Rule and governance are his, power
+both in the abstract and the concrete. Seldom in the history of the world
+do we come across the men who are at one and the same time statesmen and
+soldiers, who, taking their destiny in their own hands, work it out to the
+appointed end thereof. But, as we stray in the by-paths of history, we meet
+with some who, in their day, have influenced not only the age in which they
+lived themselves, but also the destinies of generations yet unborn. It
+would seem incredible that mere pirates, such as the Moslem corsairs of the
+Mediterranean, could be included in this category, and yet, as their story
+is unfolded, we shall see how the Sea-wolves rose from the humblest
+beginnings to trouble the peace of Europe, to found for themselves
+dynasties which endured.
+
+Uruj Barbarossa, Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, Dragut Reis, and Occhiali, or All
+Basha, were men who, in the sixteenth century, did much to change the
+conditions of the times in which they lived: it was the time of the
+Renaissance in Europe, a period of splendour in all the arts and sciences.
+These men added nothing to the knowledge of the civilised world as it then
+existed, save and except in one particular, which was, as Kheyr-ed-Din
+explained to Soliman the Magnificent on a certain memorable occasion, that
+he who rules on the sea will rule on the land also. In the present day,
+when all the nations and languages sit at the feet of Captain (now
+Rear-Admiral) Mahan, and acclaim his "Sea Power" series of books, it is
+interesting to find that he was anticipated in the most practical fashion
+possible by a corsair of the sixteenth century.
+
+This period was one in which great men abounded. The Emperor Charles V.,
+Francis I. of France, and Henry VIII. of England, were on the thrones of
+their respective countries; in Hungary was John Hunyadi, at Constantinople
+Soliman the Magnificent held rule, while in Rome the "fatal house of
+Medici" were the successors of Saint Peter. War was a commonplace state of
+the times, but until the Crescent began to sweep the seas it had its
+manifestation in the perpetual quarrels of the nations of Christendom,
+which represented, as a rule, the insatiable ambitions of its rulers. But
+now new men forced themselves to the front, a new power arose which was
+very imperfectly understood, and which practically held the sea at its
+mercy. Gone were the halcyon days of peaceful trade which had been pursued
+for generations by Venetian and Genoese, by Spaniard and Frenchman; gone
+also, apparently never to return, was all sense of security for the
+wretched dwellers on the littoral of the Mediterranean, who lived in daily,
+and particularly in nightly, dread of the falcon swoop of the pirate
+galleys.
+
+It is amusing to read the old chroniclers, sticklers as they were for "the
+dignity of history," continually having to turn aside from the main stream
+of their narrative of emperors, popes, and kings to descend to the level of
+the Sea-wolves, and to be constrained to set down the nefarious doings of
+these rovers of the sea. Bell, book, and candle were invoked against them
+in vain, and mighty monarchs had to meet them in the stricken field not
+merely once or twice--to their utter undoing and discomfiture--but many
+times, while victory inclined first to one side and then to the other.
+
+The Osmanli had ever been warriors since the times of the Prophet, of
+Abu-Bekr, of Othman, and of Ali; but so far their warlike achievements had
+been always on land, their only sea experience being confined to the
+crossing of the Straits of Gibraltar, when in the eighth century, under
+Tarik, they had swarmed into Andalusia, conquered Roderick the Goth, and
+set up that Moslem domination in Southern Spain which lasted until 1492,
+just before the events set forth in this book took place. Piracy in all
+ages is a thing in which a curious shuddering interest has been taken, and
+the deeds of the outlaws of the sea have never lacked chroniclers. There is
+for this a reason apart from the record of robbery and murder, which is the
+commonplace of piratical deeds: it resides in the perennial interest which
+men take in individual achievement, in the spectacle of absolute and
+complete domination by one man over the lives and the fortunes of others.
+This intense form of individualism is nowhere so well exhibited as in the
+story of piratical enterprise, where a band of men, outside of the law and
+divorced from all human kind by the atrocity of their deeds, has had to be
+welded into one homogeneous mass for the purpose of preying upon the world
+at large. Therefore he who would hold rule among such outlaws must himself
+be a man of no common description, for in him must be that quality which
+calls for instantaneous obedience among those with whom he is associated;
+behind him is no constituted authority, discipline is personal, enforced by
+the leader, and by him alone. Beneath him are men of the rudest and
+roughest description, slaves to their lusts and their passions, prone to
+mutiny, suspicious, and--worst of all--stupid.
+
+It is with these constituent elements that the piratical leader had to
+deal, trusting to the strength of his own arm, the subtlety of his own
+unassisted brain. Some among these leaders have risen to eminence in their
+evil lives, most of them have been the captains of single ships preying on
+commerce in an indiscriminate manner; but this was not the case with the
+Sea-wolves of the Mediterranean, Primarily sea-robbers they were of course,
+but as time and opportunity developed their characters they rose to meet
+occasion, to take fortune at the flood, in a manner that, had they been
+pursuing any other career, would most certainly have caused them to rise to
+eminence. Into the fierce and blood-stained turmoil of their lives there
+entered something unknown to any other pirates: this was religious
+fanaticism--a fanaticism so engrained in character, a belief held to with
+such passionate tenacity, that men stained with every conceivable crime
+held that their passage to Paradise was absolutely secure because of the
+faith which they professed. Tradition, sentiment, discipline, were summed
+up in one trite formula; but though we, at this distance of time, may hold
+it somewhat in derision, it was a vital force in the days of Soliman the
+Magnificent; and there was an added zest to robbery and murder in the fact
+that the pirates, as good Mohammedans, were obeying the behests of the
+Prophet every time that they cut a Christian throat, plundered a Christian
+argosy, or carried off shrieking women into a captivity far worse than
+death.
+
+That a pirate should be a warrior goes without saying, that a pirate should
+be a statesman is a thing almost incredible; but those who will read the
+story of the life of Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa will be forced to admit that
+here, at least, was a pirate who achieved the apparently impossible.
+Admiral Jurien de la Graviere has remarked that the Moslem corsairs of the
+sixteenth century were great men, even when measured by the standard of
+Henry VIII., of Charles V., of Soliman the Magnificent, of Ibrahim, his
+Grand Vizier, or of Andrea Doria, greatest among contemporary Christian
+mariners. To the seaman, of course, there is much that is fascinating in
+the deeds of his forerunners, and the ships of the corsairs had in them
+something distinctive in that they were propelled by oars, and were in
+consequence, to a certain extent, independent of the weather. Like the
+sailors of all ages, to the Sea-wolves gales and storms of all sorts and
+descriptions were abhorrent; and in consequence they had a well-marked
+piracy season, which, as we shall see, covered the spring and summer, while
+they carefully avoided the inclement months of autumn and winter.
+
+In a later chapter an attempt has been made to place before the reader
+pictures of the galley, the galeasse, and the nef, which were the names
+attached to the ships then in use; the name brigantine, far from having the
+significance attached to it by the sailor of the present day, seems to have
+been a generic term to denote any craft not included in the names already
+given.
+
+Although the sixteenth century had outgrown the principle of the general
+massacre of the enemy by the victors, still chivalry to the fallen foe was
+far to seek, as all persons captured at sea were, no matter what their rank
+and status, immediately stripped and chained to the rowers' bench, where
+they remained until ransom, good fortune, or a kindly death, for which
+these unfortunates were wont to pray, should come to their release. To a
+large extent this savagery may be traced to the religious rancour which
+animated the combatants on both sides, as the fanaticism of the Moslem, of
+which we have already spoken, was fully matched on the side of the
+Christians by the bigotry of the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem,
+otherwise known as the Knights of Malta, who were vowed to the
+extermination of what they, on their side, called "the infidel." It was an
+age of iron, when men neither gave nor expected grace for the misfortunes
+which might befall them in the warrior life which they led. It was
+distinguished by many gallant feats of arms on both sides, but pity formed
+no part of the equipment of the fighting man bent on the death or capture
+of his enemy. Honestly and sincerely each side believed that they were
+doing the service of the Almighty in destroying the other party root and
+branch. The amount of human misery and suffering caused by the rise and
+progress of the Moslem corsairs was absolutely incalculable; the slavery of
+the rower in the galley in the time of which we speak was an agony so
+dreadful that in these days it is a thing which seems altogether
+incredible, a nightmare of horror almost impossible even to imagine.
+
+The life of the "gallerian" was so hard that his sufferings in many cases
+were mercifully ended in death in a very short time, as none save those of
+iron constitution could stand the strain imposed by the desperate toil and
+wretched food. Yet there are cases on record of men who had worked at the
+oar for actual decades, so unconquerable in their strength that even such a
+life as this had not the power to break them down.
+
+To the peaceful mariner who wished merely to trade, to the individual whose
+business called him overseas, this epoch must have been one of terror
+unspeakable. The ordinary perils of the deep were quite enough to keep
+timid folk at home in those days of clumsy, ill-found sailing ships, which
+could by no means work to windward, and did not sail remarkably well even
+with the most favouring breezes; when to this we add that every ship which
+started on a voyage in the Mediterranean had before her the chance of being
+captured by the corsairs, it was no wonder that he whose business led him
+oversea should make his last will and testament and bid a fond farewell to
+all his relatives.
+
+There is a record in the Memoires of the Rev. Frere Pierre d'An, Bachelier
+en Theologie de la Faculte de Paris, etc., who wrote in a most heartfelt
+manner concerning the danger of the sea and the perils to be expected from
+the Barbary corsairs. He says, date 1637:
+
+  "An ancient writer, considering how little assurance can ordinarily be
+  placed in the sea, and how hazardous it is to expose oneself and one's
+  goods to its mercy, has remarked, with much reason, that it is
+  infinitely preferable to be poor on shore than to be rich at sea. In
+  which saying he mocks indeed at those ambitious, avaricious, and
+  mercenary men who, in order to gain false glory and the things of this
+  world, expose themselves rashly to the manifest perils which are most of
+  the time the inevitable lot of the seaman. This same consideration
+  causes him also to utter these remarkable words: that he repents himself
+  of but one thing, and that is ever to have travelled by sea when it was
+  possible to have done so by land. And, to say truth, he has good reason
+  to speak as he does, because it is impossible for the most hardy
+  navigators not to tremble with fear when it is represented before their
+  eyes that they must combat with the winds, the waves, and the foam every
+  time that they adventure upon the deep.
+
+  "Because it is indisputable that this is the very Theatre of the storms,
+  and the place in the world most capable of all sorts of violence and
+  tragic adventure. This, however, does not prevent those who covet the
+  perishable goods of this world from straying upon the sea, even in
+  unknown and untraversed regions, without ceasing and without rest.
+
+  "If, however, they abandon the ocean for a time, it is but to return to
+  it again to seek once more war with their ships, in order unjustly to
+  make themselves masters of the bodies and of the riches of others.
+
+  "Of such it may be remarked to-day are, in all the maritime coasts, the
+  implacable Corsairs of Barbary. For, however great may be the dangers of
+  which we have just spoken, and no matter now many examples they may see
+  of the fury and inconstancy of Neptune, they cease not their irritating
+  performances, kindling warfare in all the coasts of the Christian
+  nations. It is there that they exercise their infamous piracies, and
+  there also that they glory in the most shameful of all commerce--the
+  trade of the brigand.
+
+  "Which in all towns that are well policed have always met with a swift
+  and just retribution, because the law is ordained against those who
+  maintain such practices.
+
+  "But such does not happen among these pirates.
+
+  "On the contrary, it may truthfully be said that, while in towns in
+  which good persons dwell good actions receive the palms and the crown,
+  it is among the Corsairs but to the wicked to whom are given recompense
+  and praise.
+
+  "In effect the most determined among them--I mean the most unworthy
+  robbers who are best versed in all the infamies of their trade and most
+  accustomed to the practice of violence--are those who are covered with
+  honours, and who pass in the estimation of their fellows for men of
+  heart and courage.
+
+  "Indeed experience has taught all Christian merchants that the infidels
+  of the coast of Barbary are all brigands.
+
+  "Among these those of Algiers carry off the prize for riches, for ships,
+  for strength, and for villainy."
+
+The bachelor in theology is somewhat sweeping in his criticisms, and his
+meaning is, perhaps, somewhat clearer than his grammar. One thing, however,
+is perfectly plain, that, in the opinion of the reverend brother, those who
+go to sea are to be divided into two categories, rogues and fools, with a
+strong preponderance of the worse Element of the two.
+
+Of the corsairs dealt with in this record of their deeds the two
+Barbarossas were the sons of a Mohammedan father and a Christian mother.
+Dragut Reis was a pure Mohammedan, and Ali Basha was a pure-blooded
+Italian. All these men, as will be seen, raised themselves to eminence in
+the profession of piracy; in each and every separate case starting at the
+very bottom rung of the ladder and rising, by sheer stress of valour and
+character, to the very top. Each in turn became Admiralissimo to the Grand
+Turk at Constantinople. Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa commanded the Ottoman fleet
+at the great battle of Prevesa, at which he met with his life-long
+competitor at sea, the famous Genoese Admiral, Andrea Doria. Dragut Reis
+was killed at the siege of Malta in 1565, and Ali Basha was the only Moslem
+commander who increased his reputation at the battle of Lepanto in 1571,
+when Don John of Austria shattered the power of the Moslem at sea for the
+time being.
+
+Although the "renegado" was very much in evidence in the vessels of the
+Moslem corsairs, still of course the bulk of the fighting men, by which the
+galleys were manned, were Mohammedans, the descendants of the warriors who
+had swept through Northern Africa like a living flame in the early days of
+the Mohammedan conquest.
+
+Cut adrift from the homes which had been theirs for over seven
+centuries--as we shall see in the next chapter--there was nothing left for
+the erstwhile dwellers in Andalusia but to gain their living by the strong
+hand. The harvest of the sea was the one which they garnered--a harvest of
+the goods of their mortal enemies strung out in lines of hapless
+merchant-vessels throughout the length and breadth of the tideless sea.
+
+It booted not that the great Powers of Europe sent expedition after
+expedition against them; these they fought to the death with varying
+fortune, ready, when the storm had passed over their heads, to start once
+more on the only career which promised them the chance of acquiring riches.
+Their whole history is a study of warfare, waged as a rule on the petty
+scale, but rising at times, as in the cases already mentioned, into events
+of first-class historical importance.
+
+The deeds of the buccaneers of the next century in the Spanish Main sink
+into comparative insignificance when compared with what was accomplished by
+such a man as Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, who was known, and rightly known, by
+his contemporaries, and for many generations of Moslem seamen yet to come,
+as "the King of the Sea." The capture of Panama by Sir Henry Morgan in
+January 1671 was possibly as remarkable a feat of arms as was ever
+accomplished, but it cannot rank in its importance to civilised mankind on
+the same plane as those memorable battles in the Mediterranean of which
+mention has been made as having been fought by the Moslem corsairs.
+
+Fighting for their own hand, the booty reaped by these men was incredible
+in its richness. Sea-power was theirs, and they took the fullest advantage
+of this fact, fearing none save the great community of the Knights of Saint
+John of Jerusalem, which, vowed to the destruction of the infidel, neither
+gave nor accepted quarter.
+
+We have said that the real interest in the lives of the corsairs arose from
+the fact that it was personal ascendancy, and that alone, which counted in
+the piratical hierarchy. Against Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa plots arose again
+and again, only to be defeated by the address of the man against whom they
+were directed.
+
+It was one of the cruellest of ages, and rough cruelty was the principal
+means adopted to ensure success; sheer terror was the weapon of the leader.
+Thus when one Hassan, a subordinate of Kheyr-ed-Din, failed to take a
+Spanish ship because she made too stout a resistance, his chief caused him
+to be soundly flogged and then thrown into prison. Such methods naturally
+raised up hosts of enemies in the wake of the piratical commanders, ready
+at any time to do them a mortal injury, and it is little short of
+miraculous that they should throughout a long period of years have been
+able not only to maintain, but to increase, their supremacy over the wild
+spirits of which their following was composed. It was, however, the golden
+age of autocracy, when men surrendered their judgment to some great leader,
+content to follow where he led, to endorse his policy at the cost of their
+lives.
+
+It is the autocrat who is made by the circumstances of his life who
+ultimately becomes supreme. The leaders among the corsairs were tried by
+every test of prosperity and of adverse fortune; they emerged from the ruck
+in the first instance because it was in them to display a more desperate
+valour than did their contemporaries, and it was only when they emerged
+triumphant from this, the first test, that they could begin to impose their
+will upon others. It was then that their real trials began, as the
+undisciplined are ever prone to suspicion, much given to murmuring against
+a leader who is not perpetually successful.
+
+As a rule, however, there were but few to criticise, as the office of
+critic was one fraught with far too much danger to be alluring. In
+maintaining their authority the leaders stopped at nothing, and the heads
+of the recalcitrant were apt to part with amazing suddenness from their
+bodies if they repined overmuch. The Moslem leader was, it is true, merely
+_primus inter pares_, and was distinguished by no outward symbol of the
+power which he possessed; but life and death lay in his hands, and life was
+cheap indeed.
+
+We have spoken hitherto of the leaders, but what of the men of which their
+following was composed? Rough, rude, and reckless, these latter lived but
+to fight and to plunder; to them any other life would have seemed
+impossible, and indeed this was practically the fact. In the communities in
+which they lived the adult male had no other means of gaining a livelihood.
+Since their expulsion from their ancient homes no ordered and peaceful
+method of existence had been possible for them. In the surroundings in
+which their forefathers had lived the arts of peace had been carried on in
+a civilisation to which there had been none comparable in the world as it
+then existed; on all this the Moslem had now to turn his back, and to earn
+a precarious living by the strong hand. War, sanguinary and incessant, was
+henceforward to be his lot, and it must be said that he turned to this
+ancient avocation with a zest which left but little to be desired from the
+point of view of those by whom he was led. In the new life of bloodshed and
+adventure he seemed to delight. Like the free-lance in all ages, he seems
+to have squandered his booty as soon as it was acquired, and then to sea
+once more, to face the desperate hazard of an encounter with the knights,
+to raid defenceless villages, to lie _perdu_ behind some convenient cape,
+dashing out from thence to plunder the argosy of the merchantman.
+Intolerable conditions of heat and cold he endured, he suffered from
+wounds, from fever, from hunger and thirst, from hope deferred, from
+voyages when no plunder came his way.
+
+His reward was the joy of the fight, the delight of the ambush skilfully
+laid, to see the decks of the enemy a dreadful shambles, with the Crescent
+of the Prophet above the detested emblem of the Cross. Then the return to
+Algiers laden with spoil: to tow behind him some luckless Christian ship,
+while aboard his own war-worn galley the drums beat and the trumpets
+sounded, and the banners floated free to the stainless Mediterranean sky.
+Then the procession of the captives through the crowded streets laden with
+what a short time before had been their own property--a mournful _cortege_
+of men doomed to an everlasting slavery and of women destined for the
+harems of the Bashas.
+
+Thus was his life lived, and when death came it came as a rule from the
+slash of a sabre or the ball from an arquebus or a bombard; and then what
+matter, for had not Hassan Ali or Selim fallen in strife against the
+enemies of his faith, and did not the portals of heaven open wide to
+receive the man who had lost his life testifying to the fact that there was
+but one God, and that Mahomet was the Prophet of God?
+
+True in substance and in fact is that which was said by the Frere Pierre
+d'An that "it is indisputable that the sea is the Theatre of the storms and
+the place in the world most capable of all sorts of violence and tragic
+adventure." Those who "coveted the goods of others straying on the sea,"
+called by the reverend brother "the implacable, corsairs of Barbary," were
+to make life intolerable on that element for centuries to come, and if the
+Crescent did not supersede the banner of the Cross in the blue waters of
+the Mediterranean Sea, it remained as a portent and a dread symbol of human
+misery and unutterable suffering.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+THE COMING OF THE CORSAIRS
+
+The rise and progress of the Moslem corsairs of the Mediterranean is a most
+curious and interesting historical fact. The causes which led to results so
+deplorable to commerce, civilisation, and Christianity are set forth in
+this chapter in order that some idea may be formed of the state of affairs
+in that region at the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the
+sixteenth centuries, and also that the reflex action of the great triumph
+of the Christian armies in Spain may be more fully understood.
+
+The maritime Christian States of the Mediterranean at this epoch were at
+the height of their power and prosperity, but were faced by the might of
+the Ottoman Empire, against which they waged perpetual warfare. Bitter and
+unceasing was the strife prosecuted by the Cross against the Crescent, and
+by the Crescent against the Cross; and riding, like eagles on the storm
+came the corsairs in their swift galleys ready to strike down the luckless
+argosy of the merchantman wheresoever she was to be met. But this was not
+all, as the shore as well as the sea yielded up to them its tribute in the
+shape of slaves and booty, and Christian mothers trembling in the
+insecurity of their homes would hush their wailing children with the terror
+of the names of Barbarossa, of Dragut, or of Ali Basha.
+
+Popes and emperors, kings and princes, found themselves compelled to form
+leagues against these Sea-wolves who devoured the substance of their
+subjects, and great expeditions were fitted out to fight with and destroy
+the corsairs. Had Christendom been united no doubt the object would have
+been attained; but, as will be seen at the end of this chapter, an
+"Alliance of Christian Princes against the Turks"--which generic term
+included the corsairs--was not always used in the manner best calculated to
+injure those common enemies.
+
+When in 1492 Granada was yielded up to "Los Reyes Catolicos," Ferdinand of
+Aragon, and Isabella of Castile, by that luckless monarch known as Boabdil
+el Chico (or "the little"), the last remnant of the power of the Moors in
+Spain had gone never to return. On that small hill on the way to the coast
+still known as "el ultimo suspiro del Moro" (the last sigh of the Moor),
+Boabdil, as he looked for the last time on his lost capital of Granada, is
+said to have burst into tears. His fierce mother Ayesha had, however, no
+sympathy for her fallen son: "Thou doest well to weep like a woman for that
+which thou daredst not defend as a man," was her biting--and totally
+unjust--comment, and the cavalcade pursued its miserable journey to the
+coast, from whence it embarked for the kingdom of Fez.
+
+Great was the jubilation in Christendom; for more than seven centuries the
+followers of the Prophet had dwelt in the land from which Tarik had
+expelled Roderick the Goth in the eighth century. There they had dwelt and
+held up a lamp of learning and comparative civilisation which shone
+brightly through the miasmatic mists of cruelty and bloodshed in the Middle
+Ages, and none can question that, under Moorish rule in Spain in those
+centuries, the arts of peace had flourished, and that science, agriculture,
+art, and learning had found generous and discriminating patronage in the
+courts of Cordoba and Granada.
+
+And now all was over the iron chivalry of the North had broken in pieces
+the Paynim hosts. They were expelled for ever from Christian soil, or else
+were forced to live in a state of degrading servitude, sore oppressed by an
+alien rule, in the land which their forbears had won and kept by the sword.
+
+There was jubilation, as has been said, in Christendom, but the knights and
+nobles who flocked from all parts of Europe to join the standard of the
+Catholic monarchs had no prevision of the consequences, no idea of the
+legacy that they were leaving to their descendants.
+
+It is of this legacy that we have to speak, and there has been none more
+terrible, none fraught with more awful suffering for the human race. The
+broken hosts of the Moslem chivalry became the corsairs of the
+Mediterranean: ruthless pirates freed from all restraint of human pity,
+living only to inflict the maximum of suffering upon their Christian foes,
+who, having sown the wind at the taking of Granada, reaped in the coming
+centuries a whirlwind of blood and agony which continued down to the
+bombardment of Algiers by Lord Exmouth in 1816, and even later than that
+date.
+
+Warriors to a man, the hosts of Boabdil crossed the Straits of Gibraltar
+into Africa; warriors but now broken men, from whom had been reft not only
+their lands and houses but even the chance of remaining in their native
+country. Religious toleration had been the rule of the Moslem States in
+Spain. In the name of religion they had been expropriated; therefore
+toleration was slain, and to exalt the Crescent above the Cross became the
+duty of every fighting Mohammedan. Into all the ports and harbours of the
+North African littoral the Moslems intruded themselves, their one
+preoccupation to revenge themselves upon the Christians, of no matter what
+race or nationality. There was at this date but small opposition from the
+rulers of the Pagan States who held in their weak and inefficient hands
+such strong places of arms as Algiers and Tunis.
+
+Very soon the Moslems acquired the habit of the sea, and very soon the
+Christian States discovered how different was the Mohammedan dwelling at
+peace in Andalusia, or at worst fighting with his co-religionists, to the
+desperate corsairs created by their own act who now ravaged the shores of
+the tideless sea.
+
+In the years succeeding to the conquest of Granada the corsairs became the
+scourge of the Mediterranean. France, Spain, Genoa, Venice, were all at
+odds with them; as the trading vessels, which had hitherto passed to and
+fro unmolested, were now captured, haled into North African ports, their
+cargoes sold, and their hapless crews forced to labour, naked and chained
+to the benches of the pirate galleys, until death came and mercifully put
+an end to their sufferings.
+
+From Reggio to Genoa, from Venice to Taranto, the cry of rage and fear went
+up; it was re-echoed from the coasts of France and of the Balearic Islands,
+while Southern Spain seethed with disaffection, and the Moriscoes, as those
+Moors who remained in the country were known, were ever on the lookout to
+assist their bold brethren, the rovers of the sea. Christendom was
+completely bewildered: hitherto the relations between the nations and the
+Kings of Tunis, Tlemcen, Fez, and others of the North African potentates,
+had been of the most agreeable description. Both parties had denounced
+piracy, and had as far as in them lay done all in their power to discourage
+this form of robbery. But now all was changed, and, as has been said in the
+previous chapter, a situation arose analogous to that of the Spaniards in
+the West Indies a century and a half later when Morgan and the buccaneers
+were at the height of their maleficent prowess. The situation was
+analogous, but whereas Morgan, Scott, L'Ollonais, and others terrorised
+only such forces as Spain possessed in far-distant colonies, the corsairs
+were a terror to all the great nations of the world.
+
+Granada fell, as has been said, in 1492 amid the rejoicings of the
+Christian States; but it had been well for Christendom as a whole if the
+Caliphs of Cordova and Granada had never been defeated, and they and their
+subjects driven from their homes: to form the nucleus of those piratical
+States which existed from this date until well into the nineteenth century,
+as the scourge and the terror of all those who, during those ages, desired
+to "pass upon the seas on their lawful occasions." The capture of Granada
+was separated from the fall of the Byzantine Empire by a period of
+thirty-nine years, as it was in the year 1453 that Constantinople was
+captured by the Caliph Mahomet II. Byzantium fell, and perhaps nothing in
+the records of that Empire became it so well as that last tremendous
+struggle; and when on May 29th, 1453, the Ottoman legions were victorious,
+the body of the last Emperor of Byzantium was found beneath a mountain of
+the slain only recognisable by his purple mantle sewn with golden bees. The
+Cross which Constantine the Great had planted on the walls 1125 years
+before was replaced by the Crescent, and the Christian Cathedral became
+that Mosque of St. Sophia which still endures.
+
+From the earliest days of the Moslem corsairs of the Mediterranean they
+were in close communication with their co-religionists of the Ottoman
+Empire; and this for a very good reason, which was that the Turk had not
+the habit of the sea, but was essentially a land warrior, and, as the story
+of the Sea-wolves progresses, we shall see how in a sense the Grand Turk
+and the pirates became interdependent in the ceaseless wars which were
+waged in the epoch of which we treat.
+
+The fall of Constantinople resounded throughout Christendom as though it
+had been the crack of doom, and all men held their breath wondering what
+next might portend. So stunned were the maritime States that they took no
+action, letting "I dare not wait upon I would." Their indecision was fatal.
+Had the Venetians, the Genoese, and the Catalans at this juncture formed an
+alliance, they might have chased the Turks from off the face of the waters;
+but to mutual jealousy and indecision was added fear--fear of this new and
+mighty power which had arisen and had swept away one of the landmarks of
+Europe. So it fell out that Genoa entered into an arrangement with the
+Grand Turk, and Venice concluded a treaty of commerce on April 18th, 1454.
+It was the Caliph Mahomet who first fortified the Dardanelles, where he
+mounted thirty heavy guns before which Jacques Loredano, the Venetian
+admiral, recoiled, reporting to the Republic that henceforward none could
+pass the Straits. We have, however, nothing to do with the Grand Turk in
+these pages, save, and except in so far, as he had an effect on the lives
+of the corsairs. This effect will develop itself as we proceed.
+
+There is one body of men, however, concerning whom it may be as well to
+treat of briefly in this place, as the lives which they led and the deeds
+which they performed were inextricably entangled with those of the
+corsairs. These men were the members of that association first known as the
+Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem, later as the Knights of Malta. Between
+them and the corsairs it was war to the death; and not only with these
+robbers, but also with any ship which sailed beneath the insignia of the
+Crescent.
+
+In 1291 the Soldan of Egypt chased the Knights Hospitallers, as they were
+also known, from the soil of the Holy Land; Philip IV. of France welcomed
+them in the island of Cyprus, and gave them the town of Limasol as an
+asylum. This for the time the knights were bound to accept, but they were
+impatient of charity, resentful of tutelage, proud and independent.
+Considering their own order as the greatest and most stable bulwark of the
+Christian faith, they bowed before neither King nor Kaiser; and the only
+boon they asked of great potentates, when allied temporarily with them in
+their eternal warfare, was that on all occasions theirs should be the post
+of the greatest danger.
+
+This, indeed, they did not ask as a favour, but claimed as a right. It is
+easily understood that such desperate warriors, who fought only to conquer
+or die, were allies sought for eagerly by all professing the same faith.
+
+Fulke de Villaret, Grand Master of the order in 1310, seized upon Rhodes,
+which, though nominally belonging to Greece, was at this time a refuge for
+bad characters of all nationalities. This island was in the most
+advantageous position, as it commanded the sea-route from Constantinople to
+Egypt and the ports of Asia Minor, and was also in close proximity to the
+coast of Caramania, from whence the order could draw the necessary timber
+for the building of their galleys and incidentally their motive power--in
+the shape of slaves--for the oars by which they were propelled.
+
+The knights fortified the island until it was practically unassailable in
+that age. In the meanwhile their navy grew so rapidly that, in 1436, they
+were actually in a position to fight the Turks in line of battle. To Rhodes
+came the younger sons of noble families from every nation in Europe, all
+aflame with ardour to fight for "the religion"; and the great nobles
+themselves did not disdain to take service in so chivalrous an order.
+
+Their former enemy, the Soldan of Egypt, made a descent on the island in
+1440, and in 1444 besieged the place in form; but he was beaten off, after
+forty-two days' ceaseless fighting, with great slaughter.
+
+"Soldier and sailor too" were the bold Knights of Saint John; for them no
+toil was too arduous, no danger too great. In heat and cold, in storm and
+tempest, they plied their trade of war, their holy crusade to extirpate the
+infidel from off the face of the waters. They looked for no material
+reward, and riches and honours they contemptuously rejected. Strong in
+their marvellous faith that on their shoulders rested the propagation of
+Christianity in these latter days, they swept the seas with a calm
+assumption of victory which caused it to be half assured before the fight
+began. And when the battle was joined, where could be found such paladins
+as these men who claimed it as an inalienable right to head the hurricane
+rush of the boarders from the decks of their galleys, to be ever the
+leaders when the forlorn hope should mount the breach? Life for the
+knights of this order was looked at literally with a single purpose--the
+advancement of Christianity and the downfall of that pestilent heresy which
+proclaimed that Mahomet was the prophet of God. Against all who bowed the
+knee in the mosques of the false prophet their lives were vowed, and it is
+but the barest justice to them to record that on the altar of this their
+faith these were ungrudgingly poured forth.
+
+Naturally reprisals were the order of the day. Equally fanatical was he who
+held to the Moslem faith; in consequence many were the attempts to stamp
+out, once and for all, the prime enemies of the Ottoman Empire. In 1480 a
+Turkish fleet of one hundred and forty ships issued from the Dardanelles,
+an army awaited it on the coast of Caramania which was rapidly embarked,
+and on May 23rd the fleet anchored a few miles from the town of Rhodes.
+Here, then, was a trial of strength in which the Hospitallers delighted.
+After repeated attacks in detail, on July 28th a grand assault was made
+which the Turks considered would be absolutely decisive: it was decisive,
+but not in the fashion which they anticipated.
+
+The standard of the Janissaries already floated on the first curtain of the
+rampart when Pierre D'Aubusson rallied the knights for one last desperate
+effort. "Shall it be said in days to come that 'the Religion' recoiled
+before a horde of Moslem savages; that the banner of Saint John was soiled
+by their infamous touch? But this is no time for talk. Ye have swords,
+Messires; use them!"
+
+Thus the Grand Master; and then the knights, in their battered armour and
+with their hacked and dinted swords, flung themselves once more upon the
+foe. The Janissaries closed in around them; but these fine troops were not
+what they had been two months before, and the close contact with the
+Hospitallers, which had endured sixty-five days, had been to them a lesson
+fraught with disaster: they had already lost six thousand men, and their
+adversaries were still absolutely undismayed. His helmet gone, his banner
+held aloft over his head, Pierre D'Aubusson was ever in the thickest of the
+fray unconquered, unconquerable; and pressing close behind him came the
+knights, each jealous for the glory of his "Auberge." French, Venetian,
+Catalan, Genoese German, none can tell who fought best that day; but the
+Janissaries were beaten, and three thousand of their corpses cumbered the
+ditch into which they were hurled by their foes; there were besides fifteen
+thousand wounded in the Turkish camp.
+
+The heart was out of that great army which had embarked to the sound of
+trumpets and the blessings of the Mullahs but ten weeks before, and they
+sailed away a beaten force. Mahomet II. swore to avenge his defeat, but his
+days were numbered, and he died at Scutari on May 3rd, 1481, at the age of
+fifty-two, and in the thirteenth year of his reign.
+
+In the year 1499 Daoud Pasha, Admiralissimo to Bajazet, the successor to
+Mahomet II., defeated Antonio Grimani the Venetian admiral in that combat
+known to the Republic as "La deplorabile battaglia del Zonchio." The
+populace of Venice demanded that Grimani should be instantly beheaded, but
+he not only escaped their vengeance but lived to be nominated as Doge
+on June 6th, 1521, at the age of eighty-seven: certainly a curious record
+for an unsuccessful admiral of that date.
+
+In 1500 was formed the "Alliance of Christian Princes" at the initiative of
+the Borgia Pope Alexander VII. Louis XII., King of France, and Ferdinand V.
+of Spain announced their adherence to this effort against the Turk, and
+Pierre D'Aubusson, the veteran Grand Master of the Knights of Saint John,
+was nominated as Captain-General of the Christian armies. For the purposes
+of this war the admiral of the Papal galleys in the Mediterranean, Lodovico
+del Mosca, purchased from Ferdinand, King of Naples, all his artillery, of
+which a description is given by the Padre Alberto Guglielmotti, a Dominican
+friar, author of a work entitled, "La Guerra dei Pirati e la Marina
+Pontifica dal 1500 al 1560 A.D." "There were thirty-six great bombards,
+with eighty carts pertaining to them; some drawn by horses, some drawn by
+buffaloes harnessed singly, or two, four, or even six together; two waggons
+laden with arquebuses for ships' boats; nine with about forty smaller
+bombards (_bombardelles_) placed three, four, or even six on each waggon;
+twelve with ordinary pieces of artillery; as many more for the service of
+twelve big guns; thirty-seven carts of iron balls; three with gunpowder;
+and finally five laden with nitre, darts, and bullets. Splendid artillery
+of most excellent workmanship and great power escorted by two thousand men
+under arms, without mentioning the companies who marched before and after
+each waggon."
+
+The French king had prepared a fleet and army under Count Philip of
+Ravenstein; the Spaniards were under the command of Gonsalvo de Cordoba,
+the "Great Captain." The history of the "Alliance of Christian Princes" is
+illustrative of the methods of those potentates at that time. After one or
+two unimportant skirmishes with the Turks, in which no great harm was done
+on either side, the French and Spaniards joined together, and seized the
+Kingdom of Naples: the prudent king of this territory, having sold his
+artillery to Lodovico del Mosca, did not await the coming of his Christian
+brethren.
+
+In the territory known to the Romans as Byzacena, which stretched from
+Algiers to the confines of Tripoli, there was reigning at this period one
+Abu-Abd-Allah-Mahomed, a Berber Moslem of the dynasty of Hafsit. Between
+this dignitary and Genoa a treaty of commerce had been arranged and signed.
+But treaties on the shores of the Mediterranean were capable of very
+elastic interpretation; they never reckoned with the corsairs, and these
+latter were in the habit of intruding themselves everywhere, and upsetting
+the most carefully laid plans. Curtogali, a corsair who had collected a
+great following, was now a power with which to reckon, and high in the
+favour of the Grand Turk at Constantinople. This robber presented himself
+at Bizerta--one of the ports of Abd-Allah-Mahomed--with a squadron of
+thirty ships, and demanded hospitality. As Curtogali disposed of thirty
+ships and some six thousand fighting men it would probably have been
+impossible for Abd-Allah to have refused his request in any case; but he
+was far from wishing to do so, as, by a convenient interpretation of the
+Koran, the pirate had to deliver up one-fifth part of all the booty which
+he reft from the Christians to the ruler of the country in whose harbours
+he sheltered. There was no place so convenient for the purposes of the
+pirate as Bizerta: from here he could strike at Sicily, at the Balearic
+Islands, at Rome, Naples, Tuscany, and Liguria, while at the same time he
+held the trade slowly sailing along the North African littoral at his
+mercy. Great were the depredations of Curtogali, and even Pope Leo X.
+trembled on his throne, while Genoa, Venice, and Sicily seethed with
+impotent fury.
+
+In the meanwhile who so happy as Abu-Abd-Allah-Mahomed? We cannot do better
+than to take the description of his position from the pages of the good
+Padre Alberto Guglielmotti. The Franciscan says: "He [that is, Abd-Allah]
+desired peace with all and prosperity for his own interests. Friendly to
+the merchants in their commerce; friendly to the corsairs in their spoils.
+Let all hold by the law: the former contentedly paying customs dues, the
+latter cheerfully handing over a fifth part of their robberies, and
+Abd-Allah--their common friend--would ever continue at peace with them all.
+Outside his ports the merchants and the pirates might fall by the ears if
+they would: that was no reason for him to trouble his head. On the
+contrary, he would joyfully await them on their return either with customs
+dues or tribute of the fifth as the case might be."
+
+However well this state of affairs may have suited Abd-Allah, the Genoese
+held that the situation was far from satisfactory. In consequence they sent
+an army against Curtogali, and on August 4th, 1516, they captured Bizerta,
+set free a number of Christian captives, and plundered the town. But they
+did not capture Curtogali, who, only five weeks after, made a daring
+attempt to carry off the Pope in person from the sea-shore in the
+neighbourhood of Rome. Curtogali ended his days as the Governor of Rhodes,
+from which the Knights of Saint John were finally expelled by Soliman the
+Magnificent on December 22nd, 1522. This was the greatest blow which the
+fraternity ever received. On December 24th the Turks made a triumphal entry
+into the town, and it was said that "Sultan Soliman was not insensible to
+the sorrowful position of his vanquished enemies, and when he saw the
+Christian Commander, Prince Philippe Villiers L'Isle Adam, he remarked: 'It
+weighs upon me somewhat that I should be coming hither to chase this aged
+Christian warrior from his house.'" At the beginning of the following year
+the knights left the island, never to return. On the day of this desolate
+embarcation the herald blew upon his trumpet the "Salute and Farewell" and
+the identical instrument upon which this call was sounded is still
+preserved in the armoury at Malta, to which barren island the knights were
+forced to retreat.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+URUJ BARBAROSSA
+
+In the year 1457 an obscure Roumelian or Albanian renegado named Mahomedi
+was banished from Constantinople by the Grand Turk; he established himself
+in the island of Mitylene and there married a Christian widow named
+Catalina, by whom he had two sons, Uruj and Khizr. The father had been a
+sailor and both sons adopted the same profession. It is from the pages of
+El Maestro Don Fray Prudencio de Sandoval that we glean these bare facts
+concerning the birth and parentage of these men who, in after-years, became
+known to all the dwellers on the shores of the Mediterranean as the
+"Barbarossas," from their red beards. Sandoval, Bishop of Pampluna,
+published in the year 1614 his monumental history of the Emperor Charles
+V., and through his splendid volumes the deeds of the Moslem corsairs run
+like the scarlet thread which is twisted through a Government rope. It is
+evident that the fact of having to deal with such rascals annoys the good
+Bishop not a little, as his severe and caustic comments frequently display.
+There was incident and accident enough in the life of the famous "Carlos
+Quinto" without the historian having to turn aside to chronicle the deeds
+of the pirates; but their exploits were so daring, the consequences thereof
+were so far-reaching, that the ominous crimson thread had to be woven into
+any narrative of the times in despite of the annoyance of the man by whom
+the rope was twisted.
+
+Of Mahomedi we possess no record save the remark concerning him to the
+effect that "el qual fue gran marinero": in what way he displayed his gifts
+as a seaman we are not told. We have remarked before on the curious fact of
+how the "renegado," or Christian turned Mohammedan, became the most
+implacable foe of his former co-religionists. We see in the case of the two
+Barbarossas that they had no drop of Moslem blood in them, as both parents
+came from Christian stock: and yet no greater scourges ever afflicted the
+people from whom both their father and mother originally sprang than did
+Uruj and Khizr Barbarossa.
+
+[Illustration: URUJ AND KHEYR-ED-DIN BARBAROSSA.]
+
+The characters of the two brothers were widely different. The elder was no
+doubt a "first-class fighting man," a fine seaman, a born partisan leader;
+but here his qualities came to an end. Rough, cruel, imperious, brutal, he
+imposed himself upon those who became his followers; but in him were to be
+found none of the statesmanlike qualities which distinguished his far
+greater younger brother. His was the absolutely finite intellect of the
+tactician as opposed to the strategist, who, seeing his objective, was
+capable of dealing with circumstances as they immediately arose; but,
+partly no doubt from defective education, but principally from the lack of
+intellectual appreciation of the problems of the time in which he lived,
+could never rise to the heights which were scaled by Khizr, better known by
+the title conferred upon him later on by the Grand Turk as "Kheyr-ed-Din,"
+or "The Protector of Religion."
+
+The sons of Mahomed, that "gran marinero," naturally took to the sea, and
+as a young man Uruj became possessed of a ship--how we do not know, and it
+were better perhaps not to inquire. In this small craft he repaired to the
+coast of Caramania to make war upon the Christians; or, in other words, to
+begin an independent piratical career. Uruj in these days was young and
+inexperienced, or he would not have chosen this locality for his first
+venture, as this coast was in close proximity to the island of Rhodes, from
+whence the great galleys of the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem set
+forth to exterminate the enemies of their faith.
+
+So it came about that Uruj, sailing out in his little ship from under the
+shadow of a wooded point, came in full sight of _Our Lady of the
+Conception_. There was nothing for it but immediate flight, and Uruj put
+his helm up and scudded before the breeze; but the great galley
+"goose-winged" her two mighty lateen sails, and turned in pursuit. The ship
+which carried Uruj and his fortunes was both fast and handy, and for a time
+she held her own; but it was only for a time, as those on board _Our Lady
+of the Conception_, finding that they were not gaining on the chase, put
+forth their oars and soon changed the aspect of affairs. The galley of the
+knights carried twenty-seven oars a-side, and each of these oars was manned
+by nine Moslem slaves. The sea was smooth and favourable for rowing, and
+soon the ravening pursuit closed in on the doomed corsair. As the interval
+between chaser and chased became less and less, those on board the pirate
+ship could see for themselves the fate which was awaiting them, as on the
+central gang-plank, which separated the rowers' benches, the boatswain and
+his mates were unmercifully flogging the bare backs of the straining
+oarsmen to urge them to greater exertions. He who was captured at sea in
+those days was set to row until he died, and the calculating mercy which
+causes a man to feed and treat his beast well in order that it may do the
+better work was not to be relied upon here, as life was cheap and slaves
+were plentiful. Very soon the beak of the galley overhung the stern of the
+little ship. Escape was impossible, to fight would have meant the massacre
+of all on board; the choice was instant submission or a watery grave. Uruj
+lowered his sail, and he and his little company were ironed and flung into
+the depths of the galley until such time as they should be wanted to take
+their turn at the oars. In this ignominious fashion ended his first attempt
+at independent piracy.
+
+But a storm was brewing, and a heavy sea got up. The sails of the galley
+were lowered, her beak was put head-on to the wind, and she made for the
+shore. In this noisome confinement Uruj could hear above the crash of the
+seas and the whistling of the wind the shrieks of the hapless slaves as the
+whips of their taskmasters bit through skin and flesh: the galley-slave
+rowed stark naked chained to his bench. This was to be his fate, and he was
+well aware of the fact.
+
+At last, after nightfall, the galley anchored under the Isle of Castel
+Rosso, at the entrance of the Gulf of Satalie. It still blew hard, but, in
+the comparative peace of the anchorage, sounds hitherto hidden by the war
+of the elements now made themselves manifest. There were the snores of the
+sleepers, the clank of the leg-chains as the wretched slaves shifted their
+positions in the attempt to gain an easier place on the bench, there was
+also the sound of men carousing with loud laughter in the stern of the
+vessel; but above them all rose the hollow groaning as of one in mortal
+agony. This proceeded from a slave who was quite close to Uruj. There came
+a spell in the laughter and loud voices in the stern, and presently an
+imperious voice spoke: "That noise disturbs me; see that it ceases at
+once." An obsequious answer came from out of the prevailing darkness: "It
+shall cease at once, Excellency." Then came men with lanterns, who
+unshackled the wretch who groaned and--flung him overboard.
+
+The night grew worse, the wind backed, and the galley began to drag her
+anchors. The slaves were roused, and the oars got ready to shift her from
+her dangerous position on what had now become a lee-shore. Uruj had managed
+to slip his shackles, a defective bolt having given him his liberty; for
+him it was now or never, and he was a bold swimmer. He had seen enough and
+heard enough of _Our Lady of the Conception_, and, as the great oars
+plunged once more into the sea, the corsair, preferring the mercy of the
+elements to that of the knights, slipped over the side unobserved and swam
+for the shore. He reached dry land by a miracle, and from Satalie he found
+his way to Egypt, where he took service as a mariner in a ship of the
+Soldan of Egypt which was bound for the coast of Caramania, from which
+province the Egyptians, as well as the knights, drew the timber which they
+required for shipbuilding. But again this neighbourhood proved disastrous
+to Uruj, as the ship in which he sailed was attacked by a Christian galley,
+and he once more had to save himself by swimming on shore. There was no
+lack of incident in the life of a corsair of the sixteenth century.
+
+This time he presented himself to Khorkud, the Governor of Caramania,
+brother to Sultan Selim, the Grand Turk. The Governor, recognising him as
+an intrepid mariner, ordered the Basha of Smyrna to furnish him with a ship
+fitted for that _guerre de course,_ which he desired to pursue against the
+Christians. The value of the corsair as an auxiliary was beginning to be
+recognised among the high Turkish officials. For the complaisance of
+Khorkud there were two reasons: in the first place, he was acting in the
+interests of his brother in sending to sea any really capable man to make
+head against his enemies, and the fact that Uruj was a pirate pure and
+simple did not weigh for a feather in the balance; in the second place, it
+was a decidedly good mercantile speculation as he ordered his inferior, the
+Basha of Egypt, to bear the expense of fitting out the necessary
+ship--which came to some 5,000 ducats--and doubtless received a handsome
+percentage on all captures from his grateful protege.
+
+This latter, as may easily be imagined, had had quite enough of the
+Caramanian coast, which had turned out a veritable nest of hornets; also,
+he had no desire at present to cultivate the further acquaintance of the
+knights, and therefore put the whole width of the Ionian Sea between
+himself and them, and succeeded in taking several rich prizes. He avoided
+Mitylene and returned to Egypt, wintering at Alexandria. It may here be
+remarked that the corsairs, as a rule, regarded the winter as a close
+season, as in those early days the mariner did not, if he could avoid it,
+risk his ship by sailing her at this period of storm and tempest. In
+consequence there was nothing to tempt the pirates to range the seas during
+these months, and if they had had a successful summer and autumn, as they
+generally did, they could well afford to lay up and await the coming of
+spring.
+
+But when storm and rain gave way to the smooth waters and balmy breezes,
+the Sea-wolves were certain of their prey, as the whole length and breadth
+of the tideless sea was sure to be filled with the ships of the detested
+Christians trafficking in every direction. In the ethics of the Moslem all
+ships which sailed under the banner of the Cross, no matter to what nation
+they belonged, were fair game, even supposing that her insignia were the
+Crescent--well, supposing the spot to be sufficiently remote, dead men tell
+no tales, and the pirates were to be trusted to see to it that none
+escaped.
+
+But, however this might have been, it is quite certain that no qualms of
+conscience troubled Uruj concerning those others: Genoese, Neapolitans,
+Catalans, Andalusians, French, or the dwellers of the Balearic Islands,
+were all fish sent by a bountiful Providence to be enclosed in his net, and
+he seized upon them without distinction. When in the full tide of his
+success there was but one thing which preoccupied the mind of the corsair,
+which was to find a ready market for his spoils and a convenient place in
+which to rid himself of an embarrassing number of captives. This, however,
+did not present an insuperable difficulty, as we have already seen in the
+case of Curtogali, and a similar arrangement was carried out by Uruj
+Barbarossa and his brother.
+
+Uruj now established himself at the island of Jerba, on the east coast of
+Tunis, which formed an admirable base from which to "work" the
+Mediterranean from the piratical point of view. Jerba had originally been
+conquered and occupied by the Spaniards in 1431, but the occupation had
+been allowed to lapse, and the island was lying derelict when the
+Barbarossas made it their headquarters. Here Uruj was joined by his younger
+brother Khizr, destined to become so much the more famous of the two; he
+had already made himself some reputation in piratical circles, and now
+brought his cool judgment and wise counsel to the assistance of that fiery
+fighting man his elder brother. The first question to be decided was that
+which we have already mentioned, namely, the disposal of spoil from
+prospective captures, and with this end in view the corsairs approached the
+Sultan of Tunis. This potentate made a gracious response to their
+overtures, and wished them all success in their enterprises. He promised
+them succour and support on the same terms which Curtogali had obtained,
+namely, one-fifth of all the spoil landed in his dominions.
+
+The price to be paid was a stiff one, and was so regarded by the active
+partners in this arrangement; they were, however, young and unknown, and
+had not the least intention of holding to their bargain when more
+favourable circumstances presented themselves. Now they held fair speech
+with the puppet princes of North Africa; the day was to come when they
+should chase them from their insecure thrones. It was at this time, shortly
+after the treaty with the Sultan of Tunis was concluded, that the younger
+Barbarossa received from the Grand Turk the glorious name of Kheyr-ed-Din,
+or "The Protector of Religion." It was a somewhat remarkable title for a
+pirate, but perhaps its bestower was slightly deficient in a sense of
+humour.
+
+Sailing from Tunis in the spring of the year 1512, the brothers, with three
+galleys, fell in with _The Galley of Naples_, an enormous nef with a crew
+of three hundred. They instantly attacked, but were repulsed, night falling
+without either side having gained an advantage. This audacious proceeding
+illustrates the hardihood of the Moslem corsairs at this time. They were
+amply strong enough to range the Mediterranean and to capture, with no risk
+to themselves, the weak and unprotected argosies plying their trade in this
+sea; but this was not the method of the Barbarossas. Villains they may have
+been according to modern standards, pirates they were unquestionably; but
+they were grim, hard-bitten, fighting men, who shrank from no dangers in
+the pursuit of their prey, who reckoned that the humiliation and defeat of
+their Christian antagonists was as sweet a morsel as the booty reft from
+their hands. All night the three Moslem galleys and the great nef lay
+becalmed awaiting the conflict which was to come with the break of day; and
+it is easy to imagine that there was not much quiet sleep on board of
+either the Moslem or the Christian ships, for both on the one side and the
+other the issues loomed large. The corsairs had, so far, made no such
+important capture as this, which, could it be accomplished, would add
+enormously to their prestige, in addition to such spoils as they might
+acquire; but the combatants were fairly evenly matched in the matter of
+numbers, and the fight was one to a finish. The advantage on the side of
+the corsairs lay in the fact of their being three to one, and their being
+thus enabled to attack in three separate places at the same time. Terrible
+must have been that night of waiting for the unfortunates on board _The
+Galley of Naples_; there was no escape, and on board of her among her
+passengers were many women, whose fate was too terrible to contemplate
+should the day go against them. The first assault had been beaten off, it
+is true, but the struggle had been hard and bitter; would they be equally
+successful when the assault was renewed?
+
+Even such a night as this, however, comes at last to an end, and the
+prospect of action must have been welcomed by the men on both sides; of the
+women with so horrible a fate impending one can hardly bear to think. The
+ghostly fingers of the dawn touched the grey sea with a wan yellow light,
+outlining the nef and the slender, wicked-looking galleys with their banks
+of oars; over the surface of the deep a slight mist hovered, as though some
+kindly spirit of the sea would hide, if such a thing were possible, the
+deeds which were to come. The three galleys lay close together, and Uruj
+and his brother held a few last words of counsel.
+
+"It is agreed, then," said the elder; "you, my brother, attack the
+starboard side and I on the port side, while Hassan Ali [indicating the
+captain of the third galley] will await the time when we are fully engaged,
+and will then board over the stern."
+
+"It is agreed," answered Kheyr-ed-Din, and Hassan Ali.
+
+As the strong sun of a perfect May morning in the Mediterranean leapt above
+the horizon, Uruj loosed his hounds upon their prey; the oars of the
+galleys churned the clear blue waters into foam, and the air was filled
+with the yells of the corsairs. "Allah! Allah!" and "Barbarossa!
+Barbarossa!" they cried. It was a war-cry that was destined to re-echo over
+many a conflict, both by land and sea, in the years that were to come.
+
+In a simultaneous, and as we have seen a concerted attack, the beaks of the
+galleys crushed into the broadsides of _The Galley of Naples_, and, ever
+foremost in the fray, Uruj and Kheyr-ed-Din were the first two men to
+board. Then, when men were hand to hand and foot to foot, when Moslem
+scimitar rang on Christian sabre, and the air was filled with the oaths and
+shouts of the combatants, the third remaining pirate craft grappled _The
+Galley of Naples_ by the stern, and a tide of fresh, unwounded men burst
+into the fray. This was the end; the Christians were both outnumbered and
+outfought, for among them were many who were not by profession warriors,
+whereas no man found a footing among the Sea-wolves, or was taken to sea as
+a fighting man, unless he had approved himself to the satisfaction of his
+captain that he was a valiant man of his hands. We have no record or list
+of the dead and wounded in this battle, but among the latter was Uruj, who
+was severely hurt. Not so Kheyr-ed-Din, who escaped scatheless and took
+command now that his brother was incapacitated. The dead were flung
+overboard with scant ceremony, and the wounded patched up as best might be,
+and then _The Galley of Naples_ was taken in tow, and the corsairs returned
+in triumph to Tunis. Faithful to their treaty, so far, they laid one-fifth
+of their spoils at the feet of the Sultan.
+
+A great procession was formed of Christian captives marching two and two.
+Four young Christian girls were mounted on mules, and two ladies of noble
+birth followed on Arab horses sumptuously caparisoned. These unfortunates
+were destined for the harems of their captors. The Sultan was greatly
+pleased at the spectacle, and as the mournful procession defiled before him
+cried out, "See how heaven recompenses the brave!" Jurien de la Graviere
+remarks: "Such was the fortune of war in the sixteenth century. A man
+leaving Naples to go to Spain might end his days in a Moorish bagnio and
+see his wife and daughters fall a prey to miscreants of the worse
+description."
+
+It was not till the following spring that Uruj was fit once more to pursue
+his chosen calling, so severe had been his wounds; but once he was whole
+and sound again he put to sea accompanied by Kheyr-ed-Din, and this time he
+had conceived a singularly bold and desperate enterprise. Two years before
+the famous Spanish captain, Pedro de Navarro, had seized upon the coast
+town of Bougie, and had unfortunately left it in the hands of a totally
+insufficient garrison. This departure from the sound rules of warfare had
+already been punished as it deserved, as the garrison was perpetually
+harassed and annoyed by the surrounding Arab tribes. The idea of Uruj was
+to seize upon Bougie by a _coup de main_. The corsair, however, was a far
+finer fighter than he was a strategist, and was possessed of a most
+impatient temper. All went well to begin with, as he managed to intercept
+and to capture a convoy of Spanish ships sent to revictual the place, and
+had he been content to wait he might have counted with certainty on
+reducing the garrison by starvation, as it depended on this very convoy for
+its supplies. In vain the wary and cool-headed Kheyr-ed-Din counselled
+prudence and delay, but these words were not to be found in the vocabulary
+of his elder brother. "What had to be done," he replied, "had better be
+done at once," and at the head of only fifty men landed and assaulted the
+still uncompleted ramparts of Bougie.
+
+But if Uruj were rash and headstrong, so was not the commander of the
+Spanish garrison, who, massing his men for the repulse of the assault,
+waited till the last moment, and then received them with a volley of
+arquebuses, which laid many of them low, and so badly wounded their leader
+that he had to have his arm amputated on the spot: it says much for his
+constitution that he survived the operation.
+
+For the time being the brothers had had enough of shore enterprises, and
+confined themselves strictly to their piratical business at sea, which
+prospered so exceedingly that they became exceedingly rich and their fame
+and power increased day by day. As time went on and the wealth of the
+brothers and partners increased, there entered into the calculating brain
+of Kheyr-ed-Din the idea that the payment of one-fifth share to the Sultan
+of Tunis was but money thrown away. Twenty per cent, was eating into the
+profits of the firm in an unwarrantable manner, he considered, and now that
+the active partners therein had established so good a business connection,
+they were quite strong enough to dispense with a sleeping partner. Times
+had changed for the better, and Kheyr-ed-Din was anxious to take full
+advantage of the fact; if possible he determined to seize upon and hold
+some port, in which, not only would they be exempt from tribute, but also
+in which he and his brother Uruj should be the supreme arbiters of the fate
+of all by whom it might be frequented.
+
+Of Bougie and its stout Spanish garrison the brothers had had quite enough
+for the present: they sought, in consequence, for some harbour which
+presented equal advantages of situation, and their choice fell upon
+Jigelli, then belonging to the Genoese, who occupied a strong castle in
+this place.
+
+Jigelli lies well outside the confines of the kingdom of Tunis, about
+equi-distant from Bougie and Cape Bougaroni, some forty miles from each. It
+would appear that on this occasion it was the younger of the two brothers
+who took charge of the enterprise, and there were no slap--dash,
+unconsidered methods employed. By this time the fame of the Barbarossas had
+gone abroad from Valencia to Constantinople, from Rome to the foot--hills
+of the Atlas Mountains, and, to circumvent the Genoese garrison of Jigelli,
+Kheyr-ed-Din called to his aid the savage Berber tribes of the hinterland
+of this part of Northern Africa.
+
+Turbulent, rash, unstable as water, were these primitive dwellers of the
+desert; but they were fighters and raiders to a man, and ready for any
+desperate encounter if only it held out the promise of loot: they were as
+veritably the pirates of the land as were the Barbarossas pirates of the
+sea.
+
+Small chance, indeed, had the five hundred Genoese soldiers by which
+Jigelli was garrisoned when attacked from the sea by the Barbarossas and by
+land by an innumerable horde of Berbers who were reckoned to be as many as
+20,000. Invested by land and sea, the garrison did all that it was possible
+for men to do. Provisions and water ran short, ammunition was failing, the
+ring of their enemies was encircling them day by day closer and ever
+closer. From the land nothing could be expected but an augmentation of
+their foes, and day by day the commander of the garrison strained his eyes
+seaward to watch if haply the proud Republic, to which he and his men
+belonged, would send succour, or the redoubtable Knights of Saint John
+would come to his aid.
+
+But the days lengthened into weeks, and the soldiers were gradually
+becoming worn out by the perpetual strain imposed upon them. There was one
+chance left, and one alone, which was to cut their way out through the
+besieging lines. Massacre to a man was their fate in any case, and thus it
+was that the commander, whose name has not come down to us, mustered his
+men for the last supreme effort. At dead of night the garrison, having
+destroyed as far as possible all that might be of use to the enemy, sallied
+out to their doom. They fought as men fight who know that the end has come;
+but valour could not avail against the numbers arrayed on the side of the
+enemy, and they were wiped off the face of the earth. The tribes looted the
+castle of everything portable, and then retired from whence they had come.
+For this Kheyr-ed-Din cared nothing; they were welcome to the poor
+possessions of some hundreds of half-starved Italian soldiers--let them
+take the shell, for him remained the kernel in the shape of a strong place
+of arms.
+
+Hardly, however, had the brothers succeeded in this enterprise when that
+tireless fighter Uruj again attempted the capture of Bougie; but his second
+attempt was even more disastrous than his first, and he lost half his
+flotilla. Then he asked for succour from Tunis; but the Sultan, much
+offended at the idea of the brothers setting up in a piratical business in
+which he was no longer a sleeping partner, angrily refused.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+THE DEATH OF URUJ BARBAROSSA
+
+The events recorded in the last chapter bring us down to the end of the
+year 1515, and while every endeavour has been made to present affairs in
+chronological sequence, it must be remembered that the dates of piratical
+expeditions are often impossible to obtain: the wrath of the chroniclers at
+the nefarious deeds of the corsairs greatly exceeding their desire for a
+meticulous accuracy in the matter of the exact time of their occurrence.
+Uruj, as has been seen, had by his headstrong folly once again placed his
+brother and himself in a decidedly awkward situation. By the losses which
+he had incurred in his second ill-advised attempt on Bougie he had so
+weakened the piratical confederation that the countenance of some potentate
+had again become necessary for their continued existence, and the Sultan of
+Tunis had now repudiated all connection with these ingrates.
+
+But, if craft and subtlety were not to be found in Uruj there was one who
+never failed to exhibit these qualities when they became necessary, and
+Kheyr-ed-Din once more came to the front. The Russian peasantry have a
+saying that "God is high and the Czar is far away." In the sixteenth
+century the Grand Turk was in every sense "far away" from the struggling
+corsairs on the littoral of Northern Africa, and was a sovereign of such
+great and mysterious might that any man with a less fine instinct into the
+psychology of the times in which he lived than Kheyr-ed-Din would have
+hesitated long and anxiously before addressing him directly; would probably
+in the end not have done so at all. But desperate diseases require
+desperate remedies, and the politic corsair well knew that even the moral
+support of such an one as the Sultan of Constantinople was worth more than
+even material aid from a Sultan of Tunis.
+
+Consequently, greatly daring, he sent an embassy to the Sublime Porte with
+one of his most trusted captains at its head to lay the homage of the
+corsairs at the feet of Selim I. Very naturally these ambassadors did not
+go empty-handed, but took with them rich presents and numerous slaves.
+Selim was much pleased at the attention, coming as it did from such a
+distance--we have to remember that the coast of North Africa was an immense
+journey from Constantinople in those days--and the insight of Kheyr-ed-Din
+was triumphantly vindicated. Not only did the Sultan send a gracious reply
+in return, but--what was far more to the purpose--he sent a reinforcement
+of fourteen vessels to the corsairs bidding them to go on and prosper in
+their efforts to spread the true faith among the Christian heretics.
+
+There is nothing more curious in the history of the corsairs than the
+perpetual ups and downs of their lives. Thus in the present instance the
+ill-advised attack of Uruj on Bougie had reduced them to terrible straits;
+immediately afterwards the action of the Grand Turk once more set them upon
+their feet and enabled them to pursue an unchecked career of devastation.
+Aided by the reinforcements sent by Selim, their depredations assumed ever
+larger proportions, and, had they continued to receive this assistance, the
+course of history itself might have been changed. Ground to powder beneath
+the iron heel of their ruthless conquerors, the Moriscoes of Southern Spain
+were ever waiting the chance to rise and shake off the yoke by which they
+were so sore oppressed; from far and near reports were coming to hand of
+the continued successes of the corsairs, and all Andalusia seethed with
+passionate hope that the day of deliverance was at hand.
+
+But, alas for the vanity of human wishes! in the opening months of the year
+1516 Selim recalled his ships and the chance was gone, never again to
+arise.
+
+It may have been that "the sorrowful sighing of the captives" never reached
+the ears of the successor of Othman in his palace on the shores of the
+Golden Horn; in any case, the Sultan was preparing for the conquest of
+Egypt, and in consequence recalled the ships which he had lent to assist
+the corsairs. The Moriscoes were thus left without hope, but so far as the
+corsairs were concerned they were enabled to strike another bargain with
+the Sultan of Tunis. This monarch had now got over his fit of the sulks,
+and discovered that customs dues from the peaceful trading mariners,
+although desirable enough, were not by any means so lucrative a form of
+revenue as was the one-fifth share of the booty of the pirates. Uruj and
+Kheyr-ed-Din for their part, although they had captured Jigelli, were
+totally unable to hold it: the capture had indeed been principally due to
+the assistance which they had received from the Berber tribesmen, but these
+nomads had disappeared into the deserts from whence they came, once the
+looting of the town and fortress had been completed.
+
+The corsair had to be armed at all points, in the moral as well as the
+material sense, as he was the enemy of all men, and all were vowed to his
+destruction. Every cruise which he took raised up against him fresh hatred
+and a more bitter animus, and we must remember that it was not only men
+individually, but Principalities and Powers that were arrayed in line of
+battle for his destruction. At the present juncture Spain was specially
+hostile, for not only had her possession of Bougie been twice attacked by
+the Sea-wolves, but a valuable convoy had been captured. An expedition, in
+consequence, was sent by the Spaniards against the Barbarossas, but this
+effort did not result in much damage being done to the offenders. The
+Spaniards destroyed four piratical vessels which had been abandoned by
+their crews at Bizerta, and pushed a strong reconnaissance into the Bay of
+Tunis itself. Here shots were exchanged between the Spanish fleet and the
+forts--under which Kheyr-ed-Din had drawn up his ships--and the Spaniards
+then abandoned the enterprise and returned from whence they had come.
+
+In the year 1510 the Spaniard, Count Pedro Navarre, had seized upon
+Algiers, which town was at this time one of the principal refuges of the
+Moorish fugitives, who had been driven from Granada, from Cordoba, and from
+Southern Spain generally by Ferdinand and Isabella eighteen years
+previously. To say that the condition of these people was desperate is to
+speak but the bare truth, for what could exceed the misery of the situation
+in which they were left after the successful incursion of their Christian
+foes? What we are apt to lose sight of in the light of present-day
+circumstances is the fact that these Spanish Moors were a most highly
+civilised people, far more so indeed than their Christian contemporaries;
+that they had been driven with fire and sword from the land in which they
+and their forefathers had dwelt for over seven centuries, and that they now
+had been cast out literally to starve on the inhospitable shores of
+Northern Africa. So it came about that the common people exchanged the life
+of the peaceful and prosperous artisan or husbandman for that of the
+hand-to-mouth pirate, and the case of knight and noble among them was no
+better--perhaps rather worse--than the meanest among those who had been
+expropriated.
+
+Those who know the region in which these unhappy folk lived are aware of
+the material monuments which still exist and testify to the glorious past;
+and, seeing what they have seen, it is no great stretch of the imagination
+to picture to themselves the comfort, the elegance, and the luxury with
+which the inhabitants of Granada and Cordoba lived surrounded. Over there,
+away across some few leagues of shining blue water, were the ruined homes
+of which many of the banished people still possessed the keys, awaiting the
+day when Allah and the Prophet should vouchsafe to them that return which
+they so naturally and ardently desired. To this day the key of the great
+Mosque at Cordoba is preserved at Rabat as a sacred relic of former dignity
+and power--a symbol to the Moslem of his perpetual banishment. If Cordoba
+with its mosque--still one of the wonders of the world, with its eleven
+hundred marble columns--were the principal shrine and holy of holies to
+these people, there were in addition hundreds of other temples of their
+faith now for ever desecrated in their eyes by the misfortune which had
+placed them in Christian hands. In Andalusia were the dishonoured graves of
+their kinsfolk, and, last and worst of all, in this land still dwelt
+thousands upon thousands of their co-religionists held in a degrading
+bondage by their implacable enemies.
+
+The capture of Algiers by Count Pedro Navarro was a crowning misfortune for
+the exiles, and when this commander seized upon the place he extracted from
+the inhabitants an oath of fidelity to the Spanish crown; he further
+erected a strong tower to overawe the town, and to keep its turbulent
+inhabitants in order. But such an oath as this, extracted at the point of
+the sword, was writ in water; it meant, of course, the suppression of
+piracy, and it also meant the starvation of most of those persons who dwelt
+in the vicinity. How the Moslem population existed for the six years after
+the incursion of Navarro is a mystery; but they probably moved their
+galleys, of which they possessed some twenty, further along the coast out
+of the range of the guns from Navarro's Tower, and secure from the
+observation of those who held it for the Spanish king.
+
+In the year in which Selim descended upon Egypt the King of Spain,
+Ferdinand V., died, and grave troubles immediately broke out in Spain. This
+was an opportunity too good to be missed, as no reinforcements could
+possibly be expected for the garrison in Algiers as long as these
+disturbances lasted, and the Algerines took counsel together as to the best
+means of driving out their enemies. It is a commentary on the detestation
+in which they held the Spaniards that they should have allied themselves
+for this purpose with the savages of the hinterland. This, however, was
+what they did. As in the case of Jigelli, these people could always be
+relied upon to go anywhere in search of booty, and one Selim Eutemi entered
+the town at the head of his tribe. But sheer, stark, savage valour could
+make no impression on Navarro's Tower and the ordnance that was mounted on
+its walls. The result was a stalemate, as the Spaniards could by no manner
+of means get out, and neither could their enemies, who swarmed innumerable
+in the town and the surrounding country, get in. In time, of course, they
+might hope to bring the garrison to surrender by starvation; but time
+pressed, and no man knew when the troubles in Spain might be adjusted and
+help come to the beleaguered. In the meanwhile Selim Eutemi and his men,
+who had been taught some rude lessons in the power of firearms, kept out of
+range of the cannon, while the Algerines held yet another council of war,
+the result of which was that they decided to ask help from Uruj and
+Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, and to them they appealed. By this time their fame
+was known to all men, and they could supply that which was lacking--namely
+ships, artillery, a first-class fighting force, and last, and best of all,
+the moral support which would stiffen and put heart into the motley horde
+which at present surged around the gates of the fortress of Navarro.
+
+The Algerines did not appeal in vain, and an instant promise of succour was
+forthcoming. Kheyr--ed--Din was away at sea, but Uruj, that indomitable
+fighter, started at once. From whence we are not told, but he must have
+been somewhere in the neighbourhood, as he and his men marched along the
+shore; while, keeping pace with them, came a fleet of eighteen galleys and
+three barques laden with stores.
+
+But before proceeding to the assistance of the Algerines Uruj had a
+personal matter to which to attend, and he wished to combine pleasure with
+serious business. One of his old companions had seceded from his command
+and had established himself at Shershell, where he lived the life of an
+independent corsair within easy striking distance of the Balearic Islands
+and the coast of Spain, his following composed of a horde of those broken
+men of whom mention has been made. Shershell was an unfortified town, and
+surrendered unconditionally upon the arrival of Uruj and his army.
+Kara-Hassan, for such was the name of this independent corsair, came out to
+greet his old-time chief; he was met with violent reproaches, and the
+altercation ended by Uruj having him beheaded on the spot. It was ill to
+quarrel with the Barbarossas.
+
+Freed from this rival, the Mitylene corsair had now uncontested supremacy
+on the coast, a supremacy none was likely to contest in the future, as he
+brooked no opposition, and had come to consider that independent piracy in
+the Mediterranean was in some sort an infringement of the rights of himself
+and his brother. One of the most salient peculiarities of the corsairs at
+this time was the apparent recklessness with which they assailed others who
+were participants in their nefarious business. Self-interest and policy
+would seem, to the observer in the present day, to have dictated quite a
+different course of action; but we shall see, when we come to deal with the
+life-history of Kheyr-ed-Din, that this infinitely wiser and more
+intellectual man apparently allowed himself to be swayed by gusts of
+passion, in which he savagely maltreated those with whom he was associated,
+and from whom dangerous hostility was certainly to be feared if they
+escaped with their lives. At this distance of time it is impossible to
+gauge the motives by which men such as these were actuated, more
+particularly in the case of Kheyr-ed-Din, whose character was a blend of
+the deepest subtlety and calculated ferocity.
+
+Having settled with Kara-Hassan, Uruj continued his march along the coast.
+Arrived at Algiers, he opened in form a siege of Navarro's Tower; but,
+being unable to make any impression on its defences, he abandoned the siege
+after twenty days' fruitless fighting, during which he lost a number of men
+in his assaults. Baffled and furious, he turned on the Berber chieftain,
+the luckless Selim Eutemi, and caused him to be assassinated, regarding him
+as being responsible for the failure. The Spanish chroniclers relate, with
+some wealth of detail, how Uruj personally fell upon Selim Eutemi, when
+that chieftain was in his bath, and strangled him with his own hands.
+However this may have been, the Spanish records of the deeds of the
+corsairs cannot well be taken _au pied de la lettre_; there is no doubt
+that Selim was murdered, and from that time the Berbers recognised that he
+who had come to help was now remaining to plunder. Uruj now established
+himself in the town, and set to work making raids into the adjoining
+country, carrying off sheep, cattle, and slaves. For the Berbers this was a
+true awakening. He who now oppressed them had come in the guise of a
+champion to assist them in the sack and plunder of Navarro's Tower; they
+had exchanged King Log, who dwelt securely locked up, for a King Stork of
+the most active description. Although we cannot sympathise with such
+people, it is quite possible to understand their very natural annoyance at
+the turn which things had taken, and it does not surprise us (in this age
+of "punic faith") that a conspiracy was set on foot between the dwellers of
+the hinterland and the Spaniards of the fortress.
+
+Uruj was informed of all that was going on through his own spies, and,
+although he kept his finger on the pulse of the conspiracy, he acted as
+though the tribesmen were still his very faithful friends and allies. The
+corsair was more patient than his wont. In this affair he wished for ample
+proof of delinquency, and also for a vengeance adequate to the occasion
+when he should discover all the guilty parties; and so some weeks went by
+while the plot was maturing, apparently, from the point of view of the
+conspirators, to a successful conclusion. But Uruj had bided his time with
+a subtlety and _finesse_ which would have done credit to Kheyr-ed-Din
+himself,
+
+It was the custom of the corsair and his chief adherents to attend the
+principal mosque on Fridays; and therefore, when the conspirators were
+cordially invited to attend on the following Friday, and, after the service
+was over, to attend Uruj to his dwelling and there confer with him, they
+went, nothing doubting, to their deaths. As the discourse of the Mullah
+came to an end a crash resounded throughout the building: six stalwart
+swordsmen had flung the great gates of the mosque together, and barred all
+exit. Excepting the conspirators, twenty-two in number, the remainder of
+the edifice was filled with the galley's crews of the corsair, men who, had
+he given the order, would have cheerfully set alight to the sacred building
+itself and roasted the Mullahs themselves in the flames.
+
+To the corsairs, after they were seated in the mosque, the word had been
+passed that the Berber tribesmen had meditated this treachery against them,
+which, had it succeeded, would have meant the death or enslavement of them
+all. It was therefore a trap of a singularly deadly description into which
+the countrymen of Selim Eutemi walked on this Friday morning.
+
+The doors being closed, the conspirators were one by one dragged before
+Uruj, who, bitterly reproaching them, gave order for their instant death.
+They were haled out through rows of jeering pirates, and beheaded in the
+street immediately in front of the principal entrance of the mosque. When
+the slaughter of the twenty--two was accomplished Uruj strode from the
+mosque over the weltering corpses of the traitors amid the plaudits of his
+own men, ever ready to acclaim deeds of blood and cruelty. After this there
+were no more plots against the corsair in Algiers. News of all these
+desperate doings in Algiers had by this time filtered across into Spain,
+and El Maestro Don Fray Prudencio de Sandoval recounts how, when the
+tidings came to Fray Francisco Ximenes, the Cardinal Archbishop of Toledo,
+that that prelate, much scandalised that the might of Imperial Spain should
+be flouted by a mere pirate, sent Don Diego de Vera with some fifteen
+thousand men to recapture the town, and relieve the beleaguered garrison in
+the tower. This was in the month of September 1516.
+
+Don Diego landed "en el dia de San Hieronymo," and threw up entrenchments
+within gunshot of the town. Great things were expected of this expedition,
+as Sandoval notes that in 1513 Don Diego de Vera, in the war against the
+French, had gained the approval of Count Pedro Navarro ("avia bien aprovado
+con el Conde Pedro Navarro"), and it was not expected that a mere pirate
+rabble would ever make head against the Spanish troops. De Vera opened fire
+on the walls of the town from his entrenchments, but hardly had he done so
+when Uruj, leading his corsairs, which formed the spearhead to an
+innumerable army of Berbers and Arabs, made a sortie.
+
+  "Upon them one day did Barbarossa make an onslaught, and when he saw
+  that the Spanish soldiers were ill commanded, he flung his forces upon
+  them with loud cries. And so great was the fear inspired by Barbarossa
+  that they were routed almost without loss to the Moors; and with much
+  ease did these latter slay three thousand men and capture four hundred
+  on the day of San Hieronymo in this year."
+
+  ("Salio un dia a el Barbarossa y como vio los soldados Espanoles
+  desmandados dio en ellos con gran gritos. Y fue tan grande el miedo que
+  vieron que Barbarossa los desbarato casi sin dano y con mucho facilidad
+  mato tres mil hombres y cautivo quatro cientos dia de San Hieronymo
+  deste ano.")
+
+This quotation is given in full to set out the amazing fact that in this
+battle over three thousand were killed while only four hundred were
+captured, which shows that it must have been in the nature of an
+indiscriminate massacre; the only captive of any note was the captain, Juan
+del Rio. Diego de Vera had had enough of the corsairs, and sailed away with
+the remainder of his force. Of what became of him or of them there is no
+record, but he must have been a singularly incompetent commander when he
+could not make head against a rabble of pirates and Moors with the army at
+his disposition. Sandoval does not attempt to minimise the defeat, which,
+of course, would have been impossible; he contents himself with the
+following delightfully quaint reflection: "But many, many times Homer nods;
+this disaster must have come upon us for our sins, upon which it is most
+important that we should always think and meditate."
+
+Who so triumphant now as Uruj Barbarossa? It is true that the fortress of
+Pedro Navarro still remained in the hands of its splendid and undaunted
+garrison, and was destined so to remain for some years to come; but they
+were impotent for harm, and the conqueror of Don Diego now turned his arms
+in another direction. Kheyr-ed-Din was at Jigelli when he heard of the
+victory gained by his brother, and sailed at once with six ships to his
+support. The town of Tenes fell into the hands of the brothers, with an
+immense booty, and then Uruj marched on Tlemcen. The Sultan of Tlemcen, the
+last of the royal race of the Beni-Zian, did not await the coming of the
+corsair. All through the northern coasts of Africa the name of Barbarossa
+was a synonym of terror; the sad fate of Selim Eutemi, of Kara-Hassan, of
+the twenty-two conspirators of the mosque, had been noised abroad, and the
+superstitious tribesmen firmly believed that these red-bearded corsairs
+were the accomplices of Shaitan, even if they did not represent him
+themselves in their own persons. Who were these men, they asked one another
+tremblingly, who feared neither God nor devil, and who caused even the
+redoubtable Spaniards to fly before them like the leaves in front of an
+autumn gale?
+
+When men begin to talk and to think like this there is not much fight left
+in them, and so it came about that, after the most feeble of resistances,
+the Sultan of Tlemcen fled to Fez. Thus, almost without striking a blow,
+Uruj found himself master of a province from which the Spaniards were
+accustomed to draw the necessary provisions for the upkeep of the garrison
+of Oran. But Tlemcen is but some seventy miles from Oran, and Oran is so
+close to Spain as to be easily reinforced; in consequence Uruj was soon
+blockaded by the Spaniards, and remained so for seven months. But no
+blockade could keep Uruj Barbarossa for long within stone walls; sortie
+after sortie did the gallant corsair lead against the foe, and it was in
+one of these that he characteristically came by his death. Ever rash and
+impetuous, he allowed himself to be drawn too far away from possible
+shelter or support; and, as there was something dramatic in the whole life
+of this man, so also was there in the manner of his death. They had him
+trapped at last, this grim Sea-wolf, and he stood at bay in a stone corral
+used for the herding of goats.
+
+  As the wolves in winter circle round the leaguer on the heath,
+  So the greedy foe glared upward panting still for blood and death.
+
+By his side was his faithful lieutenant Venalcadi. In a breathless melee
+Christian sword and Moslem sabre clashed and rang. His turban gone, his
+great curved scimitar red to the hilt, the undaunted corsair fought his
+last fight as became the terror of his name. Almost had he succeeded in
+breaking through the ring of his foes when Garzia de Tineo, _alferez_ (or
+lieutenant) to Captain Diego de Andrade, wounded him severely with a pike.
+Uruj stumbled, was struck on the head with another weapon; he reeled and
+fell. The fight was over, and one of the Barbarossas bit the dust. Garzia
+de Tineo leaped upon the fallen man and cut off his head. It is recorded
+that Garzia de Tineo was wounded in the finger by Uruj in the course of the
+combat, and that for the rest of his life he proudly exhibited the scar as
+a sign that it was none other than he who had killed the famous corsair.
+
+Uruj Barbarossa was undoubtedly a remarkable man. At a time when the
+Mediterranean swarmed with warriors none was more feared, none was more
+redoubtable than he. By sheer valour and tenacity he had fought his way to
+the front, and the son of the obscure renegado of Mitylene died a king. It
+is true that his sovereignty was precarious, that it was maintained at the
+edge of the sword; none the less, in that welter of anarchy in which he
+lived he had forced himself to the summit, and, pirate, sea-wolf, and
+robber as he was, we cannot withhold from him a meed of the most hearty
+admiration.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+KHEYR-ED-DIN BARBAROSSA
+
+Uruj had arrogated to himself the title of King of Tlemcen, but with his
+death this shadowy sovereignty came to an end, and the Spaniards seized
+upon the province. This, however, did not avail them much, as the Sultan of
+Fez sent against them an innumerable army, and they in their turn were
+dispossessed. It was in the year 1518 that Uruj fell beneath the pike of
+Garzia de Tineo, and now the first place in the piratical hierarchy was
+taken by Kheyr-ed-Din. In this man the genius of the statesman lay hidden
+beneath the outward semblance of the bold and ruthless pirate; ever
+foremost in the fight, strong to endure, swift to smite, he had by now long
+passed his novitiate, had established an empire over the minds of men which
+was to endure until the end of his unusually prolonged life. With a brain
+of ice and a heart of fire, he looked out, serene and calm, upon the
+turbulent times in which he lived, a monstrous egotist desiring nothing but
+his own advancement, all his faculties bent upon securing more wealth and
+yet more power.
+
+He played a lone hand, for he brooked even less than did his truculent
+brother any approach to an equality with himself among the men who followed
+in his train. Absolute supremacy was his in the life which he lived, but
+none knew better than he upon what an unstable basis his power rested. He
+now called himself the King of Algiers, but still that lean, sun-dried
+garrison held with desperate tenacity to the tower of the redoubtable
+Navarro, and any moment a fresh Spanish relieving force might be upon him
+and chase him forth even as Uruj had been chased from Tlemcen. He saw that
+he must consolidate his power, must for the present, at any rate, have some
+force at his back which would provide that material and moral backing which
+was essential to his schemes. Once before he had successfully approached
+the Grand Turk, the Padishah, the head of the Mohammedan religion, and from
+him he had received that which he had asked; on this former occasion,
+however, he had not been in the same position as he now occupied.
+
+The corsair must have meditated long and anxiously on the best way in which
+to approach the autocrat of Constantinople; in the end he probably hit upon
+the best solution of the problem by again sending an ambassador with
+precise instructions as to the manner in which he was to act. For this
+important service his choice fell upon one of his captains, Hadj-Hossein by
+name, and to him he imparted all that he was to say, and--what was almost
+as important--what he was not to say.
+
+The duty of the ambassador was to magnify the importance of his master, but
+to do so in such a manner that the Padishah was not to imagine that a rival
+to his own greatness had arisen at Algiers. Selim was at this time in
+Egypt, where he had just completed the conquest of the Mamelukes, and
+thither did Hadj-Hossein repair. He laid at the feet of the conqueror the
+respectful homage of the King of Algiers, who, he assured Selim, desired
+nothing better than to become the vassal of the Commander of the Faithful.
+Also, he informed him, that in the name of Selim public prayer was offered
+in the mosques on Fridays, that his image and superscription were struck on
+the coins, that in every manner possible recognition was made of the fact
+that he, and he alone, was the chosen of God upon earth. This manner of
+stating the situation was both delicate and politic. A less wise man than
+Kheyr-ed-Din might have assumed a note of equality from one Moslem
+potentate to another, but the corsair was perfectly conscious of his
+limitations--he knew exactly how the Grand Turk could be useful to him, and
+he was not going to mar his chance by the display of an untimely arrogance.
+
+Hadj-Hossein proved himself to be a tactful and successful ambassador. The
+Sultan accepted the homage offered, and made many inquiries concerning the
+war prosecuted by Hossein's master against the enemies of the true faith in
+the distant region of Algiers. His queries were all answered with deep
+submission and the most subtle of flattery, much of which latter was no
+doubt a perfectly honest expression of opinion. As to the average
+Mohammedan of this period the Padishah was a being set apart by Heaven to
+fulfil the decrees of the Prophet.
+
+The ambassador, when he rejoined his master, must have been a proud man, as
+so well had he fulfilled his mission that he carried back with him to
+Algiers not only a gracious message, but the insignia of the Sanjak,
+Scimitar Horse and Tambour, conferred upon that loyal Moslem Kheyred-Din
+Barbarossa, who, in the words of the Padishah, "abandoning a sterile
+independence, sought in all the bloody hazards of his life nought but the
+glory of God and His Prophet" To us this hyperbole, addressed to a pirate,
+seems merely ridiculous, but in those days of fanaticism the beliefs of
+men, both Christians and Moslems, are something which it is impossible for
+us to realise. On either side the way of salvation was the path of
+conquest, and the man who was heretic to the faith which you professed was
+rightly served if you could cut him and his off from among the
+congregation.
+
+It was well for the corsair to make as many friends as possible, as among
+his enemies he counted all the kings of Christendom; and, looking back on
+his career, it seems but little short of a miracle that he was not crushed
+out of existence, not once but a hundred times. But, as has been said
+already, the root of true statesmanship was in Kheyr-ed-Din. He watched
+with eager eye the quarrels of the great kings on the continent of Europe;
+he saw his life-long rival at sea, the greatest of all Christian mariners,
+Andrea Doria, the Genoese admiral, transfer his allegiance from the French
+King Francis I. to the Emperor Charles V. He noted and took full advantage
+of the perpetual squabbles between the Genoese and Venetian Republics, and
+all the time was in touch with the Sea-wolves, who swarmed on the coasts of
+Africa, and lurked in every creek and harbour of the Ionian Sea. "In all
+the bloody hazards of his life," to quote once again the words of the Grand
+Turk, "he could, in the end, depend more or less on the corsairs, whether
+they ostensibly sailed beneath his banner or whether they did not, as when
+danger threatened what name was so potent as that of Barbarossa, which his
+followers asserted to be worth ten thousand men, when shouted on the day of
+battle!"
+
+That which is most extraordinary in the life of Kheyr-ed-Din is the
+perpetual danger and stress in which it was lived. Time and again the heavy
+menacing clouds gathered around his head; strenuous and unceasing were the
+efforts made by his enemies to destroy his power, to capture the person of
+this militant robber who flung an insolent defiance to the whole of
+Christendom. The storms gathered and broke with various effects, which
+sometimes sent the corsair flying for his life a hunted fugitive, as others
+saw him once more victorious. But no reverses had the power to damp his
+ardour, or to render him less eager to arise, like some ill-omened phoenix,
+from the ashes of defeat: to vex the souls of those who held themselves to
+be the greatest men on earth.
+
+It was shortly after the death of his brother Uruj that the storm arose
+which bade fair to sweep, not only Kheyr-ed-Din but all the corsairs of the
+North African coast, clean out of their strongholds, for the Emperor
+Charles V., at this time young, eager, and enthusiastic, gave orders for
+their destruction. These robbers troubled the peace of Europe; they did
+more than this, they insulted the Majesty of the Emperor, and Charles
+regarded their perpetual incursions in the light of an affront to his
+personal dignity. The divinity which hedged such a monarch as the grandson
+of "Los Reyes Catholicos," Ferdinand and Isabella, was a very real thing,
+and, if offended, was likely to find concrete expression in the most
+vigorous form. Charles, much annoyed at the necessity for chastising a band
+of robbers, determined that he would make an end of them once and for all.
+To Don Hugo de Moncada, the Viceroy of Sicily, to Don Perisan de Ribera at
+Bougie, to the Marquis de Comares at Oran, orders were sent to prepare
+their forces for an attack on Algiers.
+
+There was no lack of good-will on the part of the Christian princes,
+nobles, and governors. The Spanish veterans in Sicily were rusting for want
+of employment, the levies on the African littoral welcomed anything in the
+way of war as a distraction from the deadly monotony of their lives. The
+soldier in these days who rested too long upon his arms became in time
+practically useless for the purpose for which he existed; but such rulers
+as Charles V. gave their fighting men but small cause of complaint in the
+matter of want of employment. The Pope sent his blessing and a contingent,
+and, to show how serious was the purpose of the Emperor, who took the
+command in person, let us set forth the total of the expedition which was
+to utterly destroy and root out the corsairs and their leader:
+
+FLEET.
+
+  Galleys of the Pope               4
+    "     of Malta                  4
+    "     of Sicily                 4
+    "     of Antony Doria           6
+    "     of Naples                 5
+    "     of Monaco                 2
+    "     of Marquis of Terra Nova  2
+    "     of Vicome de Cigala       2
+    "     of Fernando de Gonzaga    7
+    "     of Spain                 15
+    "     of Andrea Doria          14
+
+  Total Galleys                    65
+  Add Transports                  451
+                                  ---
+  Total Fleet                     516
+
+SAILING-SHIP TRANSPORT.
+
+  The Frigate of Malta               1
+  Division of Spezzia              100
+    "      of Fernando Gonzaga     150
+    "      of Spain                200
+
+  Total Transports                 451
+
+
+We now come to the military side of the expedition, which consisted of:
+
+  The Household of the Emperor     200
+  Noblesse                         150
+  Knights of Malta                 150
+  Servants                         400
+  German Corps                   6,000
+  Italians                       5,000
+  Spanish from Naples and Sicily 6,000
+  Soldiers from Spain              400
+  Adventurers                    3,000
+  Italian Cavalry                1,000
+  Spanish Cavalry from Sicily      400
+  Light Cavalry                    700
+                                ------
+  Total Army                    23,900
+                                ======
+
+We next come to the Armament of the Fleet:
+
+  Soldiers of the Galleys (50 in each)            3,250
+  Galley Slaves (average 70 in each)              4,500
+    "      "    The Frigate of Malta                 80
+  540 sailing ships of all sorts, mostly
+        small (at an average of 10 each)          4,500
+                                                  -----
+  Total _Personnel_ of the Fleet                 12,330
+  Add Army                                       28,900
+                                                 ------
+  Total _Personnel_ of the Expedition.      36,230 men.
+                                                 ======
+
+It was late autumn when the expedition at last set sail, and the imperious
+temper of Charles was such that he refused to be governed by the advice of
+the seasoned mariners, such as Andrea and Antony Doria, and others who
+dreaded the effect of the gales which the armada was likely to encounter on
+the coast of Africa. The Emperor was not to be gainsaid, and the fleet set
+sail. They arrived, says Sandoval, "en el dia de San Hieronymo," Saint
+Bartholomew's day; and there then arose such a storm as the Mediterranean
+seldom sees. Some of the army had landed, some were still afloat, the
+corsairs accounted for the luckless soldiers ashore, the elements destroyed
+many left in the ships: 26 ships and 4,000 men were lost.
+
+Bitterly mortified, Charles, who had personally displayed valour and
+conduct of unusual distinction in this disastrous expedition, returned to
+Europe to turn his attention to his everlasting quarrels with the King of
+France. Meanwhile Don Hugo de Moncada had escaped with a remnant of his
+forces to Iviza, in the Balearics, where he wintered, and where his men
+mutinied because he was unable to pay them.
+
+As there was depression almost amounting to despair in the camps of
+Christendom, so was there concurrently the widest rejoicing in the tents
+and on board of the galleys which flew the Moslem flag. What mattered it
+that it was the elements which had saved Kheyr-ed-Din from annihilation?
+was it not a cause the more for jubilation, as had not the Prophet of God
+himself come to the assistance of those who were upholding his holy
+standard? Were not his favours made manifest in that he had sent, to lead
+his votaries to victory, such an one as Kbeyr-ed-Din Barbarossa?
+
+Pope and Emperor, King, Duke, and Viceroy had tried conclusions with the
+pirates, and their fleet and army had melted away as the mists melt in the
+hot sunshine on the Mediterranean; truly were the descendants of the
+dispossessed Moors of Codoba and Granada taking a terrible revenge on
+those by whom they had been expropriated.
+
+Barbarossa was never one to let the grass grow under his feet; he had the
+Christians on the run, and he intended to take full advantage of this
+pleasing circumstance. Accordingly he despatched a trusted lieutenant, one
+Hassan, with instructions to harass the coast of Valentia, to ravage with
+fire and sword all those unfortunate towns and villages which he could
+reach. This corsair entered the Rio de Ampasta and destroyed all before
+him, the inhabitants fleeing as the news was carried by escaped fugitives
+and by the red glare of the villages flaming to heaven in the night.
+Satiated with blood, laden with spoil, and burdened with many wretched
+captives, Hassan put to sea once more in triumph.
+
+It may here be mentioned how terrible was the damage wrought by the
+piratical fraternity in the Mediterranean, and the manner in which it has
+been brought to light in somewhat remarkable fashion quite recently. Since
+the French occupation of Tunis it was charged against them that they had
+taken away from the natives of the country those fertile lands which lay
+upon the shores of the sea, and had given them to French subjects. The
+facts of the case were that for centuries these lands had been entirely out
+of cultivation, the reason being that, until the complete suppression of
+piracy in the Mediterranean took place, none dared to dwell within raiding
+distance of the sea for fear of being carried off into slavery.
+
+But to return to Hassan. That warrior, having cleared the Spanish coast,
+got separated from three of his consorts during the night. The next day, at
+dawn, he sighted a Spanish sailing-vessel, which he thought to make an easy
+prize. The wind was light, and the galleys--that is to say, the one on
+which Hassan was aboard and his remaining consort--were soon churning up
+the waters in pursuit as fast as their oars could carry them. Hassan
+reckoned on an easy capture, as he made certain she was but a peaceful
+trader with some score or so of throats to cut. He was, however, badly out
+of his reckoning, as on board of her was a veteran company of Spanish
+infantry, stark fighters to a man, who feared no odds, and who were
+skilfully commanded by Captain Robeira, grown grey in the Moorish wars.
+With bloodcurdling yells the galleys swept alongside with the fighting men
+massed on the high poops and forecastles of their vessels. Behind the high
+bulwarks of the "round ship" (as the sailing craft of the day were
+denominated to distinguish them from the long ships, or galleys) crouched
+the Spaniards, their muskets in their hands. Captain Robeira had them
+perfectly in hand, and not a piece was discharged until the beaks of the
+galleys crashed into her sides.
+
+Robeira then gave the order to fire, and at the short range into packed
+masses of men the volley did terrible execution. Completely surprised, the
+corsairs attempted to board, but were repulsed and driven back with more
+slaughter. His men becoming demoralised, Hassan withdrew amidst the
+ferocious taunts of the Spaniards, who had escaped almost unscathed. Sore
+and angry, the corsairs continued their voyage for another three days, at
+the expiration of which they arrived at Algiers. Hassan, who had acquired
+quite a considerable booty, expected a warm reception; this he received,
+but hardly in the way that he expected. He told his tale to Kheyr-ed-Din,
+which that commander received in frowning silence; when he had finished the
+storm burst.
+
+"O miserable coward! dost thou dare to stand in my presence and to confess
+that thou hast been whipped like a dog by those sons of burnt fathers, the
+Spaniards?"
+
+The miserable Hassan attempted to justify himself by reference to the booty
+which he had obtained and the number of captives with which he had
+returned; but this, far from assuaging the wrath of Barbarossa, only made
+it worse.
+
+"Dastard and slave! thou boastest that, thou hast destroyed defenceless
+villages and brought back many captives, but that shall avail thee nothing.
+No profit shalt thou derive from that. Let the captives be brought before
+me."
+
+This was done, and to the horror even of those hardened men of blood who
+followed in the train of Barbarossa, they were all executed. Even this
+wholesale massacre did not assuage the wrath of the corsair. Standing and
+surveying the weltering shambles which tainted the air, he pulled
+ferociously at his red beard, and commanded that they should whip Hassan
+till the blood ran; when this was done thoroughly and to the satisfaction
+of the despot, he gave orders that he should be chained and thrust into the
+prison of the fortress.
+
+Terror stalked abroad in Algiers. No man knew when his turn might come
+after this awful example of what it meant to incur the wrath of Barbarossa.
+The corsair gave orders for the execution of Venalcadi, who, it will be
+remembered, was with Uruj when that warrior came by his death; but
+Venalcadi was popular among the pirates, and they connived at his escape.
+
+For so cool and politic a man as Kheyr-ed-Din this outburst is wholly
+inexplicable. Judged by our standards, the flogging of Hassan was not only
+brutal but silly, as raising up to himself enemies of the most bitter
+description in the midst of his own followers; and yet cruelty was so
+engrained in this man that he never forewent his revenge. It is a standing
+miracle that he escaped assassination in the age in which he lived, and the
+only explanation would appear to be that men were too much afraid of him to
+make the attempt.
+
+The immediate result of the flogging of Hassan and the attempted murder of
+Venalcadi was that the latter collected a following and made war upon
+Kheyr-ed-Din, who, with incredible folly, then released Hassan, and sent
+him with five hundred men to fight against Venalcadi. The result was what
+might have been anticipated: Hassan joined forces with Venalcadi, and
+together they attacked the tyrant and drove him out of his stronghold.
+
+Kheyr-ed-Din had the one supreme merit of never knowing when he was beaten.
+Driven from the shore, there was for him always the sea to which to retire;
+so on this occasion he embarked his family and such of his riches as were
+portable, and took to the sea once more. "Yendo a buscar nuevos asientos y
+nuevos amigos" (seeking a new home and new friends), says Sandoval.
+
+It was well for the corsairs that the Christians had selected the previous
+year for their attack, as, had they fallen upon them when Barbarossa was no
+longer in power at Algiers and the pirates were fighting among themselves,
+the latter would have been wiped out of existence. It was ill fighting with
+Kheyr-ed-Din, whether you professed the religion of Christ or that of
+Mahomet, and this the revolting corsairs were very soon to discover.
+Barbarossa sailed away from Algiers a hunted fugitive, only to return again
+as a conqueror.
+
+Eastward the dispossessed ruler of Algiers took his course, and very soon
+discovered that which he sought--allies to assist him against the revolted
+Venalcadi and the recalcitrant Hassan. Lurking in the neighbourhood of
+Bizerta, he discovered El Judeo (the Jew), Cachidiablo (Hunt the Devil),
+Salaerrez, Tabas, and other corsairs, who collectively composed a
+formidable force. These were all old acquaintances and some old followers
+of Kheyr-ed-Din, and to them did he relate the piteous tale of the
+cowardice of Venalcadi, whom he accused of having deserted his brother Uruj
+in his direst necessity, thereby causing his death; the abominable conduct
+of Hassan, who had turned and bitten the hand that fed him. With tears in
+his eyes did this accomplished actor reluctantly reveal the base
+ingratitude of which he had been the recipient; so much did he contrive to
+work upon the feelings of his auditors that they one and all vowed to stand
+by him, and to replace him as ruler of Algiers, from which he had been
+thrust by men whose shameful treachery was only equalled by their
+ingratitude.
+
+Forty sail in strength, they set out to avenge the wrongs of the gentle and
+long-suffering Kheyr-ed-Din, that master of craft in every sense of the
+word. Reaching Algiers, they disembarked artillery and stores and began an
+attack in form; but Venalcadi, whose forces were equal, in fact slightly
+superior, to those of his antagonists, made a sally, and battle was joined
+in the open. A most sanguinary combat ensued, in which the forces of
+Kheyr-ed-Din were decidedly worsted. For a considerable period his fate
+hung in the balance. Then occurred one of those singular and remarkable
+things only possible in such an age of anarchy and bloodshed. Barbarossa
+had in his train sixty Spanish soldiers captured by him from the force of
+Don Hugo de Moncada. Well did the corsair know their value: there were no
+finer fighting men in all the Christian armies. Hastily summoning them, he
+promised them their freedom if they would now throw in their lot with him
+and assist in the downfall of Venalcadi.
+
+The offer was no sooner made than accepted, and the Spanish veterans, fresh
+and unwearied, threw themselves into the heart of the fray. Shoulder to
+shoulder and blade to blade in their disciplined valour, they broke through
+all opposition; they fought for liberty as well as life, to exchange the
+noisome confinement of the piratical galley for the free air of their homes
+and their country. Soon the soldiers of Venalcadi turned and fled back to
+the city; the day was once again with Kheyr-ed-Din. For four days longer
+did Algiers hold out, and then a traitor betrayed Venalcadi into the hands
+of his enemies. Instantly his head was struck off, placed on a pole, and
+paraded in full sight of the garrison, who were promised their lives on
+condition of surrender.
+
+The city opened its gates once more, and Barbarossa entered in triumph. The
+corsair was as good as his word to his Spanish captives, and restored to
+them their liberty. He went even further, and was liberal in his _largesse_
+to those who had fought so well for him. If he can be credited with such an
+emotion as gratitude, he must have felt it for Moncada's stout infantrymen,
+as, had it not been for them, it would have been his head and not that of
+Venalcadi which would have decorated the pole. The Spaniards departed to
+their own country--that is to say, such of them as desired to do so; but
+one Hamet, a Biscayan, declared that life was so intolerable for a common
+man such as he in his own country that he desired to throw in his lot with
+Barbarossa. Thirty-nine others followed his example, abjuring the Christian
+faith and becoming renegadoes.
+
+Those of the garrison left alive were glad enough to return once more to
+their allegiance to their former master. The episode of the mutiny of
+Venalcadi and Hassan was a lesson not only to them: the fame of it spread
+far and wide throughout the Mediterranean. Who now could be found to combat
+Barbarossa? and all along the coasts of the tideless sea echo shudderingly
+answered--Who?
+
+With the new accession to his strength Kheyred-Din had no difficulty in
+making himself master of Tunis, and he sent Cachidiablo with seventeen
+galleys to harry once more the coast of Spain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+THE TAKING OF THE PENON D'ALGER; ANDREA DORIA
+
+Although Kheyr-ed-Din had made himself master of Algiers, there still
+remained the fortress of Pedro Navarro in the hands of the Spaniards. This
+strong place of arms had now been in their practically undisputed
+occupation for twenty years; from out of its loopholed walls and
+castellated battlements the undaunted garrison had looked forth while the
+tide of war both by land and sea had swept by. They had been unmolested so
+far, but now their day was to come.
+
+In command of the Penon d'Alger, as it was called by the Spaniards, was a
+valiant and veteran cavalier, by name Martin de Vargas. For twenty years,
+as we have said, the gold-and-crimson banner of Spain had floated from its
+crenulated bastions; since the days of Pedro Navarro it had held its own
+against all comers. It must have been with a sinking heart that Martin de
+Vargas and his brave garrison beheld the town fall once again into the
+hands of Kheyr-ed-Din; they knew, as by this time did all the Mediterranean
+and the dwellers on the coasts thereof, the implacable enmity of the
+corsair to the Christians, and how short a shrift would be theirs should
+they fall into his hands.
+
+On his side Kheyr-ed-Din looked with longing eyes on this remnant of the
+power of Spain in Africa. Could he but dislodge Martin de Vargas, he had
+the whole of Northern Africa practically at his disposal; Algiers would
+then be really his, to fortify for all time against the inroads of his
+foes. He was master by land and sea, the time was propitious; the corsair
+decided that the hour had come. He had seen the repulse of his brother
+Uruj, none knew better than did he the temper of the men by whom the Penon
+was held, or the valiance and the unswerving fidelity of that caballero of
+Spain, Martin de Vargas. He tried to induce that officer to surrender to
+him, offering every inducement to the Spanish commander to come to terms.
+He was met with a haughty refusal, couched in the most contemptuous
+language. He tried the most blood-curdling threats, which were no empty
+menaces, as his adversary well knew: these were received in silence.
+
+One more embassy he tried, and to this he received the following answer:
+
+  "I spring from the race of the De Vargas, but my house has never made it
+  a practice to boast of the glory of their long descent: they professed
+  merely to imitate the heroism of their ancestors. Spurred forward by
+  this worthy desire, I await with calmness all your efforts, and will
+  prove to you, with arms in my hands, that I am faithful to my God, my
+  country, and my king."
+
+[Illustration: ANDREA DORIA, PRINCE OF ONEGLEA, ADMIRAL TO CHARLES V.]
+
+Barbarossa summoned to his palace his kinsman and trusted adherent Celebi
+Rabadan, and they mutually decided that there was nothing they could do
+save take up arms against this most insolent and uncompromising warrior. In
+the meanwhile they would try what craft would do; and accordingly two young
+Moors were introduced into the Penon, under the pretext that they had seen
+the error of their ways and were anxious to embrace the Christian religion.
+Martin de Vargas, like all Spanish caballeros, was an ardent proselytiser,
+and he ordered the two young men to be taken into his own house and
+instructed by the chaplain of the garrison. The next day was Easter Day,
+and the two young Moors, while the entire garrison were at Mass, signalled
+to their co-religionists a prearranged sign indicating that now was the
+time to attack. Unfortunately for them, a woman in the employment of De
+Vargas saw them, and they were immediately hanged from the battlements in
+full view of Barbarossa. That potentate was filled with fury at what he
+considered an insult to the Mohammedan religion, and again consulted with
+Celebi as to the feasibility of another assault. It was true, he said, that
+his messengers had been hanged, but they had made the prearranged signal.
+Still, the walls were hardly sufficiently breached, he thought, and his own
+men were singularly disheartened by the ill success of their previous
+efforts. Did Celebi Rabadan think another attempt desirable?
+
+That person was in a quandary, because he could not gather what it was that
+Barbarossa wished him to say. He knew that if he recommended an assault,
+and that it proved once again unsuccessful, that the full fury of the
+tyrant would fall upon his head; at the same time he was almost equally
+afraid to broach the idea which had been prevalent in Algiers for some time
+that Martin de Vargas must assuredly be in league with Shaitan, or he could
+never have held out in the way that he had done. In consequence he
+temporised and hesitated, while Barbarossa pulled at his famous red beard
+and regarded him with scowling brows.
+
+The situation was saved for Celebi Rabadan by an accident. There swam off
+to the ship a traitor from the Spanish garrison, and this man informed them
+that his whilom comrades were positively at their last gasp, ammunition all
+but exhausted, and the food-supply barely sufficient to last another two
+days.
+
+"To such an end come those who deny the Prophet of God," exclaimed
+Barbarossa, and gave orders that this news be communicated to all his men,
+who were to prepare for the final assault on the morrow. He further offered
+a reward for the capture of Martin de Vargas alive.
+
+On May 16th, 1530, the corsairs once again advanced to the assault. By this
+time the walls had been battered until a practicable breach had been
+formed, and over this swarmed thirteen hundred of the starkest fighters of
+the Mediterranean, In the breach, bareheaded, his armour hacked and dinted,
+stood the undaunted chieftain of the Spaniards: over his head floated that
+proud banner which had never cast its shadow on a worthier knight of Spain.
+The garrison, worn to a shadow by their hardships and their hunger, most of
+them wounded, and all of them sore spent, were in no case to resist this,
+the most formidable attack to which they had been subjected. It was all
+over in a very short time, and a dreadful massacre ensued.
+
+Martin de Vargas, though sorely wounded, was taken alive and conducted to
+the presence of Barbarossa. Wounded, shaken, bruised, his fortress in the
+hands of his enemy, the dying shrieks of his murdered garrison still
+ringing in his ears, the amazing spirit of the man was still utterly
+unsubdued. "It is to the treason of a ruffian that you owe your triumph,"
+he said to his captor, "and not to your valour: had I received the smallest
+relief I could still have repulsed and kept you at bay. You have my maimed
+and mutilated body in your possession, and I hope that you are satisfied.
+But my body is accustomed to pain, and I therefore defy you and your
+dastardly cruelty."
+
+To do Barbarossa justice he admired the undaunted spirit of his prisoner,
+and he replied:
+
+"Fear nothing, De Vargas, I will do all in my power to ease your hurts if
+you will do that which I ask of you."
+
+De Vargas replied:
+
+"As an earnest of your faith, I demand the punishment of the traitor
+through whose information you were enabled to take the citadel."
+
+Barbarossa ordered the soldier to be brought before them, and, having
+nearly flogged him to death, had him beheaded. He then presented the head
+to De Vargas, saying:
+
+"You observe my complaisance. I now ask you to embrace the Mohammedan
+faith; then I will overwhelm you with benefits and honours, and make you
+the Captain-General of my guards."
+
+De Vargas looked at him in indignation and replied:
+
+"Dost thou believe that I, who but now demanded the just punishment of a
+man who had forsworn himself, could stoop to such an act of baseness as
+this? Keep your ill-gotten riches; confer your dignities on others; insult
+not thus a caballero of Spain."
+
+There was a breathless pause. None had ever used such language to
+Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa and lived to tell the tale. Nor was it to be so in
+this case.
+
+"You and yours have caused me too much trouble," he answered indifferently.
+He made a sign to the executioner who had beheaded the soldier, and the
+next moment the head of De Vargas was swept from his body.
+
+The gallant Spaniard, it is to be hoped, came by his end in the way just
+narrated; but the chroniclers disagree among themselves, and "El Senor Don
+Diego de Haedo, Arcobispo de Palermo y Capitan General del Reyno de Sicilia
+por El Rey Felipe nuestro senor," states that Barbarossa kept De Vargas in
+confinement for three months and then had him beaten to death. One can only
+sincerely hope that the first account is the true one; but Haedo was nearer
+to the time of the occurrence, and, as he wrote in the reign of Philip II.,
+is more likely to have known the facts. But however this may have been,
+there was an end for all time of Spanish domination on the north coast of
+Africa, and from this we may date the permanent establishment of those
+piratical States in that part of the world.
+
+The star of Kheyr-ed-Din was once more in the ascendant. Not only had he
+crushed out the incipient mutiny of Venalcadi and taken his life, but he
+had consolidated his power by the taking of the Penon d'Alger. He
+celebrated this occasion in the most practical manner possible: a stop was
+put to the indiscriminate massacre of the garrison, and five hundred of the
+Spaniards were captured alive; it was their dreary fate to pull down
+entirely the tower of Pedro Navarro, which they had defended so gallantly
+and to utilise the material in making a causeway from the Penon to the
+shore. Barbarossa was determined that on no future occasion should his
+enemies have the chance of dominating his town of Algiers. He was now a
+sovereign in fact and in deed, regarding even so mighty a monarch as
+Charles V. with comparative equanimity. Terrible was the wrath of the
+latter when the news of the fall of the Penon, the massacre of the
+garrison, and the death of his trusty servant De Vargas, was brought to
+him. The Sea-wolves seemed to exist but to exasperate him, and this latest
+news came just at one of the most prosperous epochs of his career.
+
+The titles of "Carlos Quinto," as recorded by Sandoval, read like the roll
+of some mighty drum. Nor were these titles mere vain and empty boastings,
+as was so often the case at that time among the minor rulers of the earth.
+On February 22nd, 1580, just before the fall of the Penon, he had placed on
+his own head the iron crown of Lombardy; his viceroys ruled in Naples and
+Sicily, his dukes and feudatories in Florence and Ferrara, in Mantua and in
+Milan; there was no more Italy. All these recent acquisitions had been
+rendered possible by the defection of Andrea Doria, the Genoese seaman,
+from Francis I. of France to the side of the Emperor. From henceforward it
+was against this modern Caesar that Barbarossa had to contend; the monarch
+under whose banner swarmed the terrible Schwartz-Reiters of Germany, for
+whose honour marched the incomparable infantry of Spain, for whom the
+fleets of the gallant Genoese sailed in battle-array under the orders of
+the greatest admiral of the day, Andrea Doria. All these disciplined
+legions of Christendom were arrayed against the corsair king; banded
+together for the destruction of that daring pirate whose flag floated in
+insolent triumph above the white walls of Algiers.
+
+As from this time onwards we shall hear much concerning Andrea Doria, it is
+fitting that some account should here be given of this great patriot, great
+soldier, and still greater seaman. Andrea Doria, of the family of the
+Princes of Oneglia, of Genoa, was born at Oneglia on November 30th, 1468,
+and was the son of Andrea Coeva and Marie Caracosa, both of the family of
+Doria. At the death of his mother the young Andrea, then nineteen years of
+age, was sent to Rome, where his kinsman Dominique Doria, of the elder
+branch of the family, was captain of the Papal Guard of Pope Innocent VIII.
+Here he rose rapidly: owing to his extraordinary address in all military
+exercises, he was marked out for preferment, and would probably have
+succeeded his kinsman as grand officer, had it not been for the death of
+Innocent VIII. The successor to Innocent, Alexander VI., was not favourable
+to the claims of the Dorias; so young Andrea, acting on the advice of
+Dominique, repaired to the court of Duke Urbino, then regarded as the best
+school for young nobles desirous of following a military career. After some
+time spent at the court of Urbino, Dominique counselled that Andrea should
+enter some other service, as there was no glory to be obtained under a
+prince who was never at war. Accordingly Andrea passed into the service of
+the King of Aragon, who, having invaded Naples, was giving plenty of
+employment to all would-be warriors.
+
+In the record of his early days we find that in the year 1495 he made a
+journey to Jerusalem to visit the holy places, and that he then returned to
+Italy, where Ferdinand of Aragon was attempting to recover the kingdom of
+Naples. "The Great Captain," Gonsalvo de Cordoba, was warring against
+Doria's kinsman, Juan Roverejo; this commander had rendered a great service
+to the Dorias by rescuing David Doria from imprisonment at Ancona, and
+Andrea decided to throw in his lot with him. He accordingly armed
+twenty-five cavaliers at his own expense, and joined Roverejo, who put him
+in charge of the fortress of Rocca Guillelma. In this place Andrea was
+besieged by Gonsalvo de Cordoba, the first warrior of the age; here he
+displayed such extraordinary ability in defence that, on the occasion of a
+truce, Gonsalvo urged upon Andrea to join the Spaniards. Andrea made answer
+that honour bound him to Roverejo, but, could he be released from his
+arrangement with him, he might then consider the proposition of "The Great
+Captain." Roverejo refused, but, as Charles VIII. immediately afterwards
+evacuated Italy, Andrea was free to follow his own inclinations, and took
+service with Lodovico Sforza, Duke of Milan.
+
+From this time onward until 1503 Andrea was constantly employed in war, and
+made for himself such a reputation that in this year the Republic of Genoa
+requested him to take command of their navy. This offer he refused, as he
+said that he knew nothing about the sea. They pressed him, saying that to a
+man of his genius nothing was impossible, and in the end he gave a somewhat
+reluctant consent. He soon proved his competence in his new sphere of
+activity, as his first act was to capture the Fort of the Lantern, in the
+neighbourhood of Genoa, which was then held by the French for Louis XII.
+The Republic confirmed his appointment as General of the Galleys with many
+compliments, and he put to sea and captured three of the war-galleys of the
+corsairs, also two Turkish ships laden with valuable merchandise. He fitted
+out the galleys for his own service, sold the merchantmen, and made an
+immense sum of money.
+
+His next act was to defeat the corsair, Cadolin, who had eight galleys to
+Doria's six; these he added to his own fleet, which now consisted of
+fourteen vessels, he having begun with three. As Cadolin was one of the
+most famous corsairs of the day, this capture made an immense sensation,
+and all men, Moslems as well as Christians, were asking one another, "Who
+was this Doria?"
+
+They had their answer, as time passed, in the career of this astonishing
+warrior, who in his time played so many parts, who served under so many
+flags, and yet who remained consistently a patriot all the time. As this is
+not a history of Doria, we have no space to trace out his life step by step
+as it was lived; suffice it to say that, disapproving of the government of
+his native Republic under the family of the Adorno, Andrea offered his
+sword and his fleet to the King of France, Francis I. His offer was
+received with joy, and he was made Captain-General of the Galleys of
+France. In his new capacity he sailed for the coast of Provence, which was
+being devastated by the fleet of Charles V. He sank several of the Spanish
+vessels, captured others, and secured sufficient booty to pay his soldiers
+and sailors--a fact most welcome to Francis, who was in desperate straits
+for money.
+
+Eventually, however, a dispute arose between Francis and Doria, which was
+to have disastrous effects for the King. At this time Charles V. was
+suzerain of Genoa, which was held for him by the Adorno. Philippin Doria,
+nephew of the admiral, met at sea with Hugo de Moncada outside the Gulf of
+Salerno; a battle ensued, in which Philippin was victorious and Moncada was
+slain. Amongst others who were captured was the Marquis de Guasto and
+Camille Colonna; these high officers, together with three of the captured
+galleys, were sent by Philippin to his uncle at Genoa.
+
+In the meantime some malcontents reached the Court of France and complained
+to the King that Andrea Doria had not captured Sicily, which they averred
+he could easily have done. These men were backed up by a certain number of
+the courtiers, who were bitterly jealous of the fame of Doria and the
+esteem in which he had been held by Francis. The monarch, easily swayed by
+any determined and persistent attack, decided to levy a fine on the
+inhabitants of Genoa as a punishment for the supineness of their
+countryman, who was his Captain-General of the Galleys; his argument being
+that they must pay him for the plunder Doria had missed by not taking
+Sicily when he should have done so.
+
+This was worse than a crime--it was blunder of the very first magnitude,
+and such a blunder as could only have been made by a very stupid as well as
+a very arrogant man. Doria by this time was a warrior of European
+celebrity, and one to whom even kings used the language of persuasion; to
+attempt to browbeat him was to court disaster.
+
+Francis sent the Vicomte de Tours to Genoa to levy the fine, but the
+Vicomte did not prosper on his mission. Outside of Genoa he was met by the
+outraged admiral on horseback at the head of some fifty Genoese nobles and
+a numerous company of foot-soldiers. De Tours reported that the name and
+authority of the King of France was held in derision by the fierce old
+admiral, who so alarmed the envoy himself that he thought it prudent to
+retire to Florence, from whence he wrote a long letter to his master
+complaining of his reception by Doria.
+
+This attempt to levy a fine on Genoa was not, however, the only deadly blow
+which the King of France was aiming at her. The children of Francis were at
+this time in Madrid, as hostages for the good behaviour of their father,
+and that monarch was in treaty secretly with Charles to restore Italy to
+the _status quo ante bellum_, which would have had the effect of handing
+over Genoa to Antony Adorno. He also began the fortification of Savona, in
+order that from there he might be in a position to strike at the
+Genoese--from a military point of view, if necessary--but in any event to
+cripple the trade of that city. Andrea Doria, as soon as he became aware of
+this latter action on the part of Francis, was thoroughly roused, and wrote
+him the letter quoted below, which illustrates the fact that he was quite
+aware of his own great importance in Europe. It was not a time in which men
+held such language as did Doria on this occasion unless they were very sure
+of themselves and their followers.
+
+  "GREAT PRINCE,
+
+  "It is an ill use of power to reverse order in human affairs. Genoa has
+  always been the capital of Liguria, and posterity will see with
+  astonishment that your Majesty has deprived it of this advantage with no
+  plausible pretext. The Genoese are well aware how inimical to their
+  interests are your projects with regard to Savona. They beg of you that
+  these may be abandoned, and that you will not sacrifice the general good
+  to the views of a few courtiers. I take the liberty to add my prayers to
+  theirs, and to ask of you this grace as the price of the services I have
+  rendered to France. Should your Majesty have been put to
+  expense, I shall join to my request the sum of forty thousand gold
+  crowns.
+
+    "With the humble duty of Andrea Doria,
+      Captain-General of the Galleys of France."
+
+Theodore Trivulce, who held Savona for the King of France, was roundly told
+by Doria that "the people of Genoa would never suffer the taking of Savona
+by the King of France, as it had from time immemorial belonged to them,"
+and added, "for myself I will sacrifice the friendship of the King in the
+interests of my fatherland."
+
+The last straw came, however, when the Marshal de Lautrec demanded from
+Andrea the prisoners taken by Philippin Doria at Salerno. To this Doria
+returned a curt negative, whereupon Francis sent one Barbezieux to
+supersede Doria and to seize upon the person of the veteran admiral. But
+that seaman, now sixty years of age, was not to be taken by any king or
+soldier. He moved his twelve galleys from Genoa to Lerici, on the east
+coast of the Gulf of Spezzia, and when Barbezieux arrived he sarcastically
+told him to take the galleys. Barbezieux had no better fortune than his
+predecessor, the Vicomte de Tours, and retired discomfited and boiling over
+with rage to report matters to the King.
+
+It has been said that among the prisoners of Philippin Doria was the
+Marquis de Guasto. This nobleman had been an interested spectator of the
+quarrel, and now approached Doria suggesting that he should throw in his
+lot with Charles. The admiral, who all through had been acting in the
+interests of his native country, seeing its ruin approaching from the
+ambitions of Francis, consented, and wrote to his nephew Philippin telling
+him of his decision, and his reasons for that which he proposed to do.
+Philippin therefore rejoined his uncle at Lerici with his eight galleys.
+The negotiations were short, sharp, and decisive, and were conducted
+through the medium of De Guasto. Charles offered the admiral sixty thousand
+ducats a year; this was accepted. The only other stipulation made by the
+Emperor was natural enough, which was that all the Spanish galley-slaves in
+the fleet of Andrea should be released and their places taken by men of
+other nationalities. This was of course conceded, and the transaction was
+complete. Henceforward the most formidable force at sea on the Christian
+side was at the disposal of the Spanish King.
+
+This transference took place in the year 1528, and it was in the same year
+that the citizens of Genoa, in recognition of the unexampled services of
+the admiral to the State, elected him perpetual Doge.
+
+This honour Doria declined, declaring that it was more glorious to have
+deserved than to possess the honour, and that he considered he could be of
+more use to his fellow citizens by gaining for them the protection of great
+princes than by remaining as chief judge in his own country.
+
+The Senate of Genoa, astonished by his noble modesty, hailed him as the
+father and liberator of his country, ordered that a statue of him should be
+erected in the public square, that in the same place a palace should be
+built for him at the public expense, and that it should be called Plaza
+Doria; further, that he and his posterity should be for ever exempted from
+taxation, and that a device should be engraved on a plate of copper and
+attached to the walls of the palace, where it could be seen of all men,
+announcing to posterity the services that this great man had rendered to
+his fellow citizens, to be for ever a memorial of their gratitude.
+
+The chronicler of these events draws a parallel between Doria and
+Themistocles, who, when discontented with the Athenians, passed into Persia
+and offered his services to Xerxes, to the great joy of that monarch, who
+cried aloud, "I have Themistocles, I have Themistocles."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+THE APOTHEOSIS OF THE CORSAIR KING
+
+If Charles V. made no such outward manifestation of his joy as did the
+Persian monarch, he possibly was no less pleased than Xerxes; this he
+showed by his acts, and the value that he attached to the services of Doria
+was instanced in the directions which he gave. He ordered the Governors of
+all his possessions in Italy to do nothing without first consulting the
+admiral; to lend him prompt aid, whether he demanded it in his own name or
+in that of the Republic of Genoa. He made him Admiralissimo of his navy,
+with power to act as he liked without even consulting him, as his Emperor.
+It will be seen that Charles had in him sufficient greatness to trust
+whole-heartedly when he trusted at all; the faith which he reposed in the
+Genoese seaman was amply justified by events, and no action of his during
+the whole of his singularly dramatic reign was ever to result so entirely
+to his profit. When in after-life Charles had received from the Pope the
+Imperial Crown, and when, on his return, he put into Aigues-Mortes in
+Doria's galley, he there met with Francis, who, in a burst to confidence,
+advised the Caesar never to part with his admiral.
+
+On that stage, which was the blue waters of the tideless sea, we shall,
+from this time forward, watch the fortunes of those two great sea-captains,
+Andrea Doria and Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa. With them the ebb and flow of
+conquest and defeat alternated. Great as was the one, it cannot be said
+that he was greater than the other; but when the supreme arbitrament was
+within the grasp of both, as it was at the naval battle of Prevesa, neither
+the Christian admiral nor the Moslem corsair would reach out his hand and
+grasp the nettle of his fate. Hesitation at this moment, when, in the
+fulness of time, the rivals stood face to face with arms in their hands,
+was the last thing that would have been expected of such dauntless
+warriors, such born leaders of men! and the battle of Prevesa presents a
+psychological problem of the most baffling and perplexing description. We
+are, however, anticipating events which will fall into their proper
+sequence as we proceed.
+
+Kheyr-ed-Din, now firmly established in Algiers, devoted his energies to
+the undoing of his Christian foes by the systematic plunder of their
+merchant-vessels. At this period he, personally, seems to have remained
+ashore, and sent his young and aspiring captains to sea to increase his
+wealth by plunder, his consequence by the hordes of slaves which they swept
+into the awful bagnios of Algiers; and Sandoval, that quaint and delightful
+historian, is moved to indignation and complains with much acrimony of "las
+malas obras que este corsario hizo a la Christiandad" (the evil deeds done
+to Christianity by this corsair). These were on so considerable a scale at
+this time that he had to devote to them far more space than he considered
+consonant with the dignity of history.
+
+But if all were going on well on the coast of Africa for the Crescent, such
+was far from being the case in the northern waters of the Mediterranean;
+for Andrea Doria, serving His Most Catholic Majesty at sea, had defeated
+the Turks at Patras and again in the Dardanelles, which unpleasant fact
+caused no little annoyance to Soliman the Magnificent. On land the Sultan
+was sweeping all before him; at sea this pestilent Genoese was dragging
+into servitude all the best mariners who sailed beneath the banner of the
+Prophet. There was wrath and there was fear at Constantinople, and the
+captains of the galleys which sailed from the Golden Horn felt that their
+heads and their bodies might at any moment part company--the Grand Turk was
+in an ill humour, which might at any moment call for the appeasement of
+sacrifice; so it was that men trembled.
+
+It was at this time, in 1533, that Soliman bethought himself of
+Kheyr-ed-Din. There was no better seaman, there was no fiercer fighter,
+there was no man whose name was so renowned throughout the length and
+breadth of the Mediterranean, than was that of the corsair king who was
+vassal to the Sublime Porte. Soliman was confronted with a new, and, to
+him, an almost mysterious thing, for the onward conquering step of the
+Moslem hosts was being checked by that sea-power so little understanded of
+the Turk, and the imperious will of the Sultan seemed powerless to prevent
+the disasters conjured from the deep.
+
+[Illustration: SOLIMAN THE MAGNIFICENT.]
+
+Soliman the Magnificent, who was not inaptly described by this title, for
+he was successful as both warrior and statesman, meditated both long and
+anxiously on the new development of affairs before he made up his mind to
+the step of calling to his assistance the corsair king. But he possessed
+that truest attribute of greatness in a ruler, the faculty of discerning
+the right man for any particular post. Brave and reckless fighters he
+possessed in super-abundance, but somehow--somehow--none of these fiery
+warriors had that habit of the sea which enabled them to make head against
+such a past-master in the craft of the seaman as Andrea Doria. The Genoese
+was chasing the Turkish galleys from off the face of the waters.
+Constantinople itself was a sea-surrounded city; it was necessary that a
+check should be administered to the arms of the Christians on this element.
+It is easy to imagine the preoccupations of the Turkish monarch. The despot
+rules by force, but he also holds his power by the address with which it is
+wielded, and he can by no means afford to disregard his personal popularity
+if he is to make the best use of his fighting men in such a turbulent epoch
+as was the first half of the sixteenth century. Soliman had the wit to know
+that he had no mariner who was in any way comparable to Doria; he was also
+aware that Kheyr-ed-Din had risen from nothing to his present position by
+his sheer ability as a seaman. It would appear, therefore, a very natural
+thing that he should invite the co-operation of the King of Algiers, but
+that with which he had to reckon was the furious jealousy that such an
+appointment must inevitably arouse among his own subjects.
+
+It says much for the steadfast moral courage of the man that he eventually
+decided to take the risk; it says even more for the absolute correctness of
+his judgment that he never afterwards repented of the step which he then
+took.
+
+Once the mind of the Grand Turk was made up he hesitated no longer. The
+Capitan de Rodas, one of his personal guard, was sent to Barbarossa to
+request him to come to Constantinople and take command of the Ottoman
+fleet. There were no conditions attached; the honour was supreme.
+Barbarossa loaded the messenger with rich gifts, and overwhelmed him with
+honours. For Kheyr-ed-Din this was in a sense the apotheosis of his career.
+The Grand Turk, the head of the Mohammedan religion, had not only
+recognised his kingship, but had conferred on him an honour unprecedented,
+unlooked for, and one of the highest value to a man of such an insatiable
+ambition. Into the cool and crafty brain of this prince among schemers
+instantly sprang the thought that now at last his kingdom was secure, that
+in future the whole of the Barbary coast would own no other lord than he.
+
+Preparations for the voyage were immediately begun, and, as an earnest of
+the new importance which he derived from the advances of Soliman, the
+corsair actually sent presents to the King of France and proffered him his
+aid against his enemies. To such a pass as this had one of the most
+powerful monarchs in Christendom been reduced by the defection of Andrea
+Doria. Algiers he left in the keeping of his son Hassan, and in charge of
+Hassan his kinsman Celebi Rabadan and a captain of the name of Agi. In the
+middle of August, 1533, Barbarossa left Algiers, his fleet consisting of
+seven galleys and eleven fustas. Sailing northward, he fell in with a fleet
+which he at first feared was that of Doria, but which, fortunately for him,
+was that of a corsair named Delizuff from Los Gelues. Courtesies were
+interchanged between the two leaders, and Barbarossa succeeded in
+persuading Delizuff to accompany him to Sicily, where it was possible they
+might fall in with Doria, and with their combined forces inflict defeat
+upon the Christian admiral. Delizuff was nothing loath to join forces with
+so noted a commander as Kheyr-ed-Din, as he had no desire to tackle Doria
+single-handed, and at the same time wished to extend the sphere of his
+plunderings, which had been cruelly restricted recently by the wholesome
+fear instilled into the Sea-wolves by the new admiral of Charles V.
+
+Accordingly, reinforced by the fifteen fustas and one galley of Delizuff,
+the Algerian fleet once more proceeded on its voyage. Although bound for
+Constantinople at the request of Soliman, at a time when it would have been
+thought that delay was not only dangerous but impolitic, and although the
+corsair was endeavouring to merge the pirate in the king who dealt on terms
+of equality with those whom he now regarded as his brother monarchs, still
+the old instinct of robbery was too strong to be resisted; the lust of gain
+and the call of adventure were still inherent in the man whose famous beard
+was now far more white than red. Advancing age had not tamed the spirit nor
+weakened the frame of this leader among the Moslems.
+
+Sailing through the Straits of Bonifacio, they touched Monte Cristo, a
+small island where they found a slave who had formerly belonged to
+Delizuff. This man was base enough to betray his own native island of Biba
+into the hands of the corsairs, who sacked it thoroughly and carried off
+its inhabitants; they also captured thirteen large ships going to Sicily
+for wheat, and burnt them, making slaves of their crews. In the fight with
+these vessels Delizuff was killed. Shortly after this, some disagreement
+arising between the crews of the ships of Barbarossa and the men in
+Delizuff's fleet, the Algerian commander seized a man out of one of
+Delizuff's galleys and had him summarily shot. The death of Delizuff
+naturally caused some confusion in his command, and the high-handed
+proceeding of Kheyr-ed-Din caused great resentment, not unmixed with fear,
+as the terror inspired by the Barbarossas was a very real sentiment. Under
+their command no man knew when or at how short notice his life might not be
+required of him; but the glamour of success was ever around them, and they
+never, in consequence, lacked for followers. But the taking out and
+shooting of one of their comrades was too much for the pirates from the
+islands of Los Gelues, from whence Delizuff was in the habit of
+"operating." In the words of Sandoval, "they were not used to such tyranny
+and cruel usage." In consequence they concerted among themselves and one
+dark night sailed off, leaving Kheyr-ed-Din to continue his voyage with his
+original following.
+
+That warrior, nothing disconcerted, pursued his way to the island of Zante,
+where he fell in with a Turkish "flota," under the command of the Bashas
+Zay and Himeral. To these officers of the Grand Turk Barbarossa used most
+injurious language, bitterly reproaching them with not having sought out
+and destroyed Andrea Doria, which he declared they ought to and should have
+done. This is yet another instance of the extraordinary character of the
+man. These persons were the highest officers in the fleet of the Ottoman
+Empire; it was more than possible that they would be placed under the
+command of Barbarossa as soon as his new position as Admiralissimo was
+adjusted at Constantinople; and yet, in spite of these facts, the corsair
+had taken the very first opportunity which presented itself grossly to
+insult these men. It is true, as we shall see, that his injurious words
+came home to roost in the future; but arrogant, conquering, contemptuous,
+Barbarossa seems to have shouldered his way through life, fearing none and
+feared by all.
+
+The fact of his known cruelty accounts for much of the dread which he
+inspired, but it was something far more than this which caused the son of
+the Albanian renegado to ride roughshod as he did over all with whom he was
+brought into contact. Men felt, in dealing with Barbarossa, that here was a
+rock against which they might dash themselves in vain. In all his
+enterprises he spared not himself. He asked no man to do that which he was
+not prepared to do, but if any failed him there was no mercy for that man;
+and, although in deference to modern susceptibility no mention is made of
+the tortures he so frequently caused to be inflicted on his victims, they
+were none the less a daily spectacle to those who lived under his rule. He
+possessed, it is true, the rough geniality of the fighting man, a certain
+"Hail fellow, well met!" manner in greeting old comrades, and yet none of
+these men there were who did not tremble in an agony of fear when the bushy
+brows were bent, when the famous red beard bristled in one of his
+uncontrollable furies. The real secret of his success must have been that,
+no matter how uncontrollable did his passions appear to be, the man was
+always really master of himself. Further, he possessed a marvellous insight
+as to where his own interests lay. He used as his tools the bodies and the
+minds of the men who were subject to him, and he carried his designs to an
+assured success by the aid of that penetrating, far-seeing mental power
+with which, above all else, he must have been gifted. He could drive men,
+he could lead them, he could invariably persuade when all else failed him.
+In this we have had an instance when he was chased from Algiers by the
+combined efforts of Venalcadi and Hassan, whom he had flogged; for no
+sooner did he meet with other corsairs than he persuaded them to take up
+his quarrel--which, it must be understood, was none of theirs--and to
+replace him on that precarious throne from which he had been so rudely
+thrust. We have already said that he was a man who never knew when he was
+beaten, and in the years which we have yet to chronicle this characteristic
+appears again and again; for age had no effect apparently, either mentally
+or physically, on this man of iron who had by this time reached the age of
+seventy-seven.
+
+Leaving the high officers of his future master, the Grand Turk, smarting
+under the opprobrium which he had heaped upon their heads, Barbarossa fared
+onward with his fleet to Salonica, capturing a Venetian galley on the
+voyage: from thence he made his way to the Dardanelles, where he anchored
+and remained several days, to make ready his fleet for the spectacular
+entry which he intended to make into Constantinople.
+
+The city on the Golden Horn was all agog for the arrival of Barbarossa; no
+matter what private opinions the inhabitants might have had concerning him,
+of which we shall hear more presently, they were none the less all curious
+to a degree to catch sight of this man, so famous in his evil supremacy on
+that distant shore of Northern Africa.
+
+Kheyr-ed-Din, among his other qualities, possessed in the highest degree
+that of a successful stage-manager; no pageant which he undertook was ever
+likely to fail from the want of the striking and the dramatic. It was now
+his business to impress the citizens of Constantinople with an idea of his
+greatness, and none knew better than he that it is the outward and visible
+sign which counts among the orientals, more perhaps than the inward and
+spiritual grace: he may also possibly have felt that he did not possess the
+latter to any overwhelming extent.
+
+Even before he left Algiers this entry to the chief city of the Ottoman
+Empire had been in the mind of Barbarossa, who had caused to be embarked a
+quantity of flags and pennons for the decoration of his grim war-galleys
+when they should stream into the Golden Horn. There were also bands of
+music, which, it is to be presumed, utilised the delay in the Dardanelles
+to attain to something like "a concord of sweet sounds," as the incidents
+of the voyage from Algiers, so far, had hardly been conducive to much time
+to spare for band-practice. The galleys were scrubbed and gaily painted;
+round the ship of Kheyr-ed-Din ran a broad streak of gold on the outer
+planking to denote the presence of a King of Algiers, and at last all was
+ready. The fleet weighed anchor, and, with banners flying and bands
+playing, entered the harbour. The shores were black with spectators; even
+the Sultan himself deigned to look forth on the coming of the man from whom
+he expected such great things.
+
+Ceremonial was the order of the day. Soliman the Magnificent was too wise a
+man not to know what was being said in his capital that day; it was his
+part to accustom the minds of men to the fact that he, Soliman, had chosen
+Barbarossa to command his fleet, and that there could be no looking back.
+The decree had been signed, the invitation had been sent, the man had
+arrived, there could be no possible retreat from the situation. The anchors
+splashed into the placid waters close to the shore, and the ships were soon
+so surrounded by boats as to be almost unapproachable; then came official
+persons from the Sultan with greetings to the famous seaman; also came
+Bashas and officers ("con carga de guerra," says Sandoval), to offer a
+welcome and to stare in undisguised curiosity at the man chosen by their
+sovereign to make head against the famous Andrea Doria. This preliminary
+courtesy completed, there came the next act in the drama, which consisted
+in the immemorial custom of the East in the offering of gifts from
+Barbarossa to the Sultan, from the vassal to his suzerain. The Janissaries,
+splendid in scarlet and gold, tall above the ordinary stature of man,
+bristling with weapons inlaid in gold and silver, cleared the common vulgar
+from the streets approaching the palace of the Sultan; they formed the
+spearhead of the procession clearing a way for the King of Algiers, who,
+mounted on a splendid bay stallion, the gift of the Sultan on his arrival,
+headed the captives who bore the gifts. Of these the exact number is not
+stated, but the procession was headed by two hundred women and girls, each
+of whom carried in her hand a gift of gold or silver; one hundred camels
+were loaded with silks and golden ornaments, and other "curious riches"
+("con otras mil cosas de que hizo ostentacion"), says Sandoval. There were
+also lions and other animals, brocades and rich garments.
+
+All of this reads no doubt somewhat too like the tales in the "Arabian
+Nights"; but we have to remember that, if you have led a long and eminently
+successful life as a robber, you have necessarily accumulated a store of
+riches. In the case of Barbarossa he had begun in extreme youth, and was
+now an old man; he had been quite in the wholesale way as a thief, and now
+desired to pay a good price for that which he coveted, namely, the post of
+Admiralissimo to the Grand Turk. It may be objected that he had already
+been offered and had already accepted the post; this is quite true, but
+there were certain conventions to be fulfilled on the side of the recipient
+of the bounty of the Sultan quite understood on both sides, although no
+word had passed on the subject. In those days the man who desired the
+favour of an Eastern potentate never dreamed of approaching him
+empty-handed, and the more liberal that he was in the matter of gifts the
+greater was the favour with which he was regarded. Therefore the principle
+acted upon by Kheyr-ed-Din on this occasion was both wise and politic; that
+is to say, he placed certain of his riches in a perfectly sound investment,
+certain to yield him an admirable percentage, not only in added personal
+prestige, but also in the placing under his command of such a force as he
+had never before commanded, with unlimited opportunities of preying on the
+detested Christian on a far larger scale than it had ever been his good
+fortune to do before.
+
+The Sultan Soliman was not called "the Magnificent" without just cause; his
+life was splendid in its social prodigality, as it was in war and in
+statesmanship; yet even he was somewhat astonished at the amazing richness
+of the gifts which were laid at his feet by a man whom he knew to be, in
+spite of the kingly title which he had assumed, merely a rover of the sea.
+Therefore, in spite of himself, he was impressed. To him, it is true, in
+his splendour and magnificence, the intrinsic value of that which was
+brought to him by Barbarossa mattered but little; but the fact that the
+corsair was in a position to do so opened the eyes of the Sultan to the
+manner of man with whom he had to deal. Hitherto he had but known of him by
+hearsay, as the one Moslem seaman who was likely to be capable of making a
+stand against the terrible Doria, who had now become the plague of the
+Sultan's existence. He now knew that the man who disposed of such
+incredible riches must be, no matter what his moral character, a man who
+stood a head and shoulders over any commander in the Ottoman fleet sailing
+out of the Golden Horn.
+
+Both materially and psychologically this man somewhat bewildered the
+despot: and his _alter ego_, the Grand Vizier, happening to be away on a
+mission to Aleppo, Soliman had no one with whom to confer in a strictly
+confidential manner; for, after the manner of autocrats, he had but few
+familiars, in fact it may be said none at all save the statesman mentioned.
+His reception of the corsair lacked, however, nothing in cordiality. He
+inquired after the incidents of the voyage, interested himself graciously
+in all that he was told concerning Africa and the conflicting claims of
+Christian and Moslem in that region, and was generally courteous to his
+distinguished visitor. He placed at his disposal a palace and attendants on
+a scale commensurate with the state of a reigning sovereign, and sent his
+most distinguished generals to confer with Kheyr-ed-Din. The latter, for
+the first time in his life, was thoroughly out of his element. His had been
+the life of the seaman and the soldier to begin with, and of later years
+that of a rude and unquestioned despot on a savage coast, surrounded by
+myrmidons to whom his voice had been as the voice of a god. Never had it
+been his lot before to dwell within the limits of such a comparative
+civilisation as that which obtained in Constantinople at this date; never
+before had it been necessary for him to restrain that naturally fiery and
+impetuous temper of his and to speak all men fairly.
+
+The strain must have been great, the effort enormous, and he knew, as he
+was bound to know, that his coming had unloosed jealousies and
+heart-searchings innumerable, with which he could not deal in the usual
+drastic fashion common to him. The winter was coming on, which was, as we
+have before remarked, very much of a close season both for the pirate and
+the honest merchant seaman. In consequence there was not very much chance
+against the foes of Soliman for the present. When that opportunity offered
+he promised himself that the courtiers and the soldiers of the Grand Turk
+would very soon discover that the fame of Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa was no
+empty matter, and that there existed no seaman in all the Ottoman dominions
+with whom they could compare the "African pirate," as he had reason to
+believe that he was scornfully called behind his back.
+
+A weaker man would have been daunted by his surroundings, by the manifestly
+unfriendly atmosphere in which he lived, and by the dread that perhaps,
+after all, Soliman might go back upon his word. There were no lack of
+counsellors, he knew very well, who would advise the Sultan to his undoing,
+if that monarch gave them the opportunity; and, as time passed, so his
+anxiety grew. Soliman also could not have felt particularly comfortable at
+this juncture, with a sullen spirit possessing his men "con carga de
+guerra," bitterly resenting the step which he had taken, and the
+appointment which he had made. For the present, however, he made no sign,
+treating Kheyr-ed-Din with distinguished courtesy, but making no reference
+to the future. Soliman was revolving the problem in his acute mind,
+doubtless weighing the unpopularity of the step which he had taken against
+the services likely to be rendered to him by his strange guest. And thus
+several weeks passed at Constantinople, probably amongst the most trying of
+all those in the unusually prolonged life of Kheyr-ed-Din.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+THE RAID ON THE COAST OF ITALY; JULIA GONZAGA
+
+The Grand Turk had spoken, the appointment had been made, Barbarossa had
+arrived; but though autocrats can cause their mandate to be obeyed, they
+cannot constrain the inward workings of the minds of men. In spite of the
+awe in which Soliman the Magnificent was held, there were murmurs of
+discontent in the capital of Islam. The Sultan had been advised to make
+Barbarossa his Admiralissimo by his Grand Vizier Ibrahim, who was, as we
+have said, his _alter ego_. This great man had risen from the humblest of
+all positions, that of a slave, to the giddy eminence to which he had now
+attained by the sheer strength of his intellect and personality. The Grand
+Vizier it was who had pointed out to his master that which was lacking in
+the Ottoman navy: brave men and desperate fighters he had in plenty, but
+the seaman who cleared the Golden Horn and made his way through the
+archipelago into the open sea beyond had forces with which to contend
+against which mere valour was but of small avail. Out there, somewhere
+behind the blue line of the horizon, did Andrea Doria lie in wait; and if
+the Moslem seaman should escape the clutches of the admiral of the
+Christian Emperor, were there not those others, the Knights of Malta, who,
+under the leadership of Villiers de L'lsle Adam, swept the tideless sea in
+an unceasing and relentless hostility to every nef, fusta, and galley which
+flew the flag of the Prophet?
+
+It had come to a pass when the Ottoman fighting man was by no means anxious
+to go to sea. He was still as brave as those marvellous fanatics of seven
+centuries before, who, in the name of God and of His Prophet Mahomet, had
+swept all opposition aside from the path of Islam, had conquered and
+proselytised in a manner never paralleled in the world before. At the call
+of the Padishah, for the honour of the Prophet, the sons of Islam were as
+ready to march and to fight as had ever been the warriors of the earlier
+Caliphs. But they had ever been soldiers; the habit of the sea was not
+theirs, and they found that, time after time, such sea-enterprises as they
+did undertake were shattered by the genius of Doria, or broken into
+fragments by the reckless, calculating assaults of the knights. And so it
+came about that there was but little heart in the navy of the Padishah, and
+those who served therein had but slight confidence in those by whom they
+were led. To use a metaphor from the cricket-field, it was time "to stop
+the rot" by sending in a really strong player. He was not to be found
+within the confines of orthodox Islam, and must be imported from outside.
+
+The man had been found; could he be forced on an unwilling and discontented
+populace? Who, it was asked in Constantinople, was this man who had been
+called in to command the ships of the Ottomans at sea? They answered their
+own question, and said that he was a lawless man, a corsair: were there not
+good seamen and valiant men-at-arms like the Bashas Zay and Himeral, who
+should be preferred before him; this man who had come from the ends of the
+earth, and of whom nobody knew anything good? Again, could he be trusted?
+Something of the history of the Barbarossas had penetrated to the capital
+of Turkey, and it was known that scrupulous adherence to their engagements
+had not always characterised the brothers: who should say that he might not
+carry off the galleys of the Grand Turk on some marauding expedition
+designed for his own aggrandisement? There was yet more to be urged against
+him: not only was he infamous in character, but he was no true Mussulman,
+for had not his father been a mere renegado, and--worst of all--had not his
+mother been a Christian woman?
+
+It was thus that the talk ran in that blazing autumn in Constantinople.
+Naturally there were plenty of persons who carried reports to Kheyr-ed-Din,
+and that astute individual soon made up his mind as to the most
+advantageous course for him to pursue. With the full concurrence of the
+Sultan, he left Constantinople and journeyed to Aleppo to see Ibrahim. The
+latter was both cunning and tenacious. Removed from the capital, the tide
+of gossip and discontent only reached him at second-hand; but he was not to
+be deterred by popular clamour even had he been in the midst of it. None
+knew better than he who and what was Barbarossa; in fact, it may be
+confidently asserted that none in Constantinople had anything like the same
+knowledge of this man and all that concerned him. Ibrahim had not named
+Barbarossa to his sovereign without weighing all the pros and cons of the
+matter, and that which was now happening in the capital had been fully
+anticipated by him. It pleased the Grand Vizier very much that Kheyr-ed-Din
+should take this long journey to see him; not from any ridiculous idea that
+this was an act of homage due to the dignity of his position--Ibrahim was
+far too great a man for such pettiness--but because it enabled him to see
+for himself what manner of man was this redoubtable pirate on whom he was
+relying to defeat the enemies of the Sublime Porte at sea. The corsair must
+have made the most favourable impression possible on the Grand Vizier, as
+that statesman wrote to Soliman:
+
+  We have put our hands on a veritable man of the sea. Name him without
+  hesitation Basha, Member of the Divan, Captain-General of the Fleet.
+
+The Grand Turk had no intention of going back upon the appointment already
+made, but he was none the less pleased to receive from his Vizier so strong
+an endorsement of his policy; and now the time had come to stop the mouths
+of the murmurers and scandal-mongers of Constantinople. Accordingly he
+formally recalled Barbarossa from Aleppo, gave him, with his own hand, a
+sword and a royal banner, and invested him with plenary power over all the
+ports of his kingdoms, over all the islands owning his jurisdiction,
+command of all ships, vessels, and galleys, and of all soldiers, sailors,
+and slaves therein. The die was cast, the erstwhile corsair, the son of the
+renegado of Mitylene and his Christian wife was henceforward the supreme
+head of the Ottoman fleet.
+
+The following description of the famous corsair may be found interesting at
+this juncture.
+
+Barbarossa was at this time seventy-seven years of age. Courageous and
+prudent, he was as far-seeing in war as he was subtle in peace. A tireless
+worker, he was, above all things, constant in reverse of fortune, for no
+difficulties dismayed him, no dangers had power to daunt his spirit. His
+ruddy skin, his bushy eyebrows, his famous red beard, now plentifully
+streaked with white, his square, powerful frame, somewhat inclined to
+stoutness, above all, his penetrating and piercing eyes, gave to his aspect
+a certain terror before which men trembled and women shrank appalled.
+
+All this harmonised well with his reputation as a chief so resolute, so
+pitiless, that it was the boast of his followers that his very name shouted
+in battle put to flight the Christian vessels. His smile was fine and
+malicious, his speech facile, revealing beneath the rude exterior of the
+corsair the subtle man of affairs, who, from nothing, had made himself King
+of Algiers, and was now, by the invitation of Soliman the Magnificent,
+Admiralissimo of the Ottoman navy.
+
+Well may Jurien de la Graviere say that "in the sixteenth century even the
+pirates were great men."
+
+It has been stated that in speech Barbarossa was facile. He was not only
+so, but he possessed a power of addressing such a man as Soliman in terms
+which, while delicately flattering that mighty monarch, gave him also a
+lead which he might follow in the future disposition of such power as he
+possessed at sea.
+
+On his return from Aleppo Kheyr-ed-Din was received in audience by the
+Sultan. We must be pardoned if we give the long speech which he addressed
+to his new master in its entirety; and we have to remember that the man who
+made it was now an old man who, all his life, had been absolutely free and
+untrammelled, owing allegiance to no one, following out his own caprices,
+and sweeping out of his path any whom he found sufficiently daring as to
+disagree with him. That this ruthless despot should have been able so to
+change the whole style and manner of his address so late in life is only
+one proof the more of the marvellous gifts which he possessed.
+
+It was in the following words that the corsair addressed the Sultan:
+
+  Dread Sovereign, fortune itself has made it a law to second you in all
+  your enterprises because that you are always ready to declare war upon
+  the enemies of Mahomet the Prophet of God, on whom be peace. You have
+  extended the limits of your vast possessions, you have vanquished and
+  slain the King of Hungary, you have humiliated Charles V., this Emperor
+  with whom the Christians dare hold you in comparison. These have been
+  the recompenses received by you for the pure flame with which
+  your zeal for the religion of Mahomet has ever burned.
+
+  "But these successes and these triumphs are not capable of contenting
+  that thirst for glory with which your being is animated, and I am humbly
+  desirous of indicating to you the means of culling fresh laurels.
+  Experience has taught me the way, and I can assert, without fear of
+  being accused of vanity, that in this matter I can be of great
+  assistance to your Majesty.
+
+  "That which fortune has done for me in the past that will it continue to
+  do for me in the future. Age has not enfeebled me, continual exercise
+  has but rendered me stronger; I can therefore promise to you the most
+  ready service both by land and sea. The desire which has always been
+  mine to persecute the Christians caused me to conceive the idea of
+  serving in your sea-army.
+
+  "If Heaven is favourable to my vows, the Spaniards will soon be chased
+  from Africa; the Carthaginians, the Moors, will soon be your very
+  submissive subjects; Sardinia, Corsica, Sicily, will obey your will. As
+  for Italy, it will soon be desolated by famine when I attack it in
+  formidable force, without fearing that the Christian Princes will come
+  to its aid.
+
+  "Mahomet II., your illustrious grandfather, formed the project of
+  conquering this country; he would have succeeded had he not been carried
+  off by death. If I counsel you, dread Sovereign, that you should carry
+  war into Europe and Africa, it is not that I desire your arms should be
+  turned back in Asia from against the Persians, the ancient enemies of
+  the Ottomans. I require but your sea-army, which is no use against the
+  Persians. While you shall be conquering Asia I shall be
+  subduing Africa. The first enterprise which I shall undertake will be
+  against Muley Hassan, the King of Tunis; he has all the vices and
+  possesses not one single virtue. He is a man of sordid avarice, of
+  unexampled cruelty; he has rendered himself odious to the entire human
+  race.
+
+  "He had twenty-two brothers, all of whom he has caused to be murdered.
+  That which is a common failing among tyrants is his: he dare not place
+  himself at the head of his troops. He prefers to endure the outrages
+  which he suffers at the hands of the Moors to taking up arms and
+  inflicting upon them a salutary vengeance. He had the baseness to enter
+  into an alliance with the Spaniards, and to favour their conquests in
+  Africa. It will be all the easier for me to exterminate this wild beast
+  because I have with me his brother, who prayed me to save him from the
+  cruelty of Muley Hassan.
+
+  "When I besiege Tunis I shall present him to the inhabitants, who love
+  him as much as they hate Muley Hassan. They will open their gates to me,
+  and I shall gain the town without the loss of a single man: it will be
+  then you who will be master. On my way thither I will do what harm I can
+  to the Christians; I will endeavour to defeat Andrea Doria, who is my
+  personal enemy and my rival in glory: should I succeed in defeating him
+  your Majesty will possess the empire of the sea. Be then persuaded,
+  great Prince, by me, and believe that he who is master of the sea will
+  very shortly become master on land."
+
+It is somewhat difficult to fathom the reasons which induced Barbarossa to
+treat Soliman to his sanctimonious diatribe concerning the King of Tunis;
+coming, as it did, from a pirate, it was merely ludicrous, and could not
+for one instant have deceived the remarkably shrewd person to whom it was
+addressed. The corsair stated the facts correctly, but the reasons which
+led to an Eastern autocrat disposing of his family in this manner were so
+obvious at the time that, if Soliman felt any emotion at all concerning the
+event, it was probably one of admiration! Regarded from the practical,
+apart from the sentimental side, what the proposition amounted to was that
+Barbarossa should attack a king with whom the Grand Turk had no sort of
+quarrel, and that, once his territory had been reft from him, that it
+should be handed over to the ruler of Constantinople for the greater glory
+of the Sublime Porte. What mental reservations there were on the part of
+the corsair we are not told, but had Soliman known him better he would have
+been aware that never had Barbarossa pulled any chestnuts from the fire of
+life which were not intended for his own eating; and that it was extremely
+unlikely, at his time of life, that he was now going to alter the habits of
+his long and strenuous career.
+
+There was one thing, however, that Kheyr-ed-Din was not; he was no bragger
+or boaster, and, whatever may have been his mental reservations in his
+interview with the Sultan, that which he stated he would do, that he did.
+And now the time had come when the grim old Sea-wolf had done with intrigue
+and the unaccustomed atmosphere of a Court and went back to his native
+element, the sea.
+
+Soliman, it must be said to his credit, was no man to deal in
+half-measures, and when once he had given his trust he gave it
+whole-heartedly, generously. In consequence he gave Barbarossa eighty
+galleys, eight hundred Janissaries, eight thousand Turkish soldiers, and
+eight hundred thousand ducats for expenses (some three hundred thousand
+pounds sterling of our money). All the necessary preparations were carried
+out under the orders of Barbarossa, who was given a roving commission to do
+what seemed best to him for the advancement of the glory of his master and
+the discomfiture of his Christian foes. The commission which he now
+received was practically that which had been given by Charles V. to Doria,
+the most flattering with which any man can be entrusted, as in his hands
+were left issues of peace and war usually only vested in the sovereign.
+
+All through the early summer of 1534 the dockyards and the arsenals of
+Constantinople hummed with the note of preparation; Ibrahim had returned
+from Aleppo and threw himself, heart and soul, into these activities, which
+meant the sailing of the Ottoman fleet under the command of "that veritable
+man of the sea," Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa. Stilled were the murmurs of the
+year before; the corsair, invested with plenary powers by the Sultan
+himself, was now in a position to make his authority felt; added to this,
+the more sensible of the malcontents had been won round by the Grand Vizier
+to the view that as, so far, the Ottoman navy had been conspicuously
+unsuccessful at sea, it was just as well to make use of the most capable
+Moslem seaman upon whom they could lay their hands. As to his moral
+character, that they could afford to discount, and as to the question of
+his faithfulness or the reverse, it was pointed out with irresistible logic
+by Ibrahim, that never before had the Sea-wolf had such glorious
+opportunities of plunder as now, when he could count ten ships for every
+one that had followed in his wake before.
+
+It was in July 1534 that the Ottoman fleet left Constantinople, and
+Kheyr-ed-Din began operations by a descent upon Reggio, which he sacked. On
+August 1st he arrived at the Pharos of Messina, where he burnt some
+Christian ships and captured their crews; then he worked north from Reggio
+to Naples, ravaging the coast and depopulating the whole littoral, burning
+villages, destroying ships, enslaving people. In this expedition he is said
+to have captured eleven thousand Christian slaves. There is perhaps nothing
+more amazing in the whole history of this epoch than the number of the
+slaves captured by the corsairs, and the damnable cruelties exercised upon
+them; these were, of course returned by the Christians with interest
+whenever possible. As an instance of the treatment to which the slaves were
+subjected it is only necessary to mention the course taken by Barbarossa
+when he left Algiers in the previous year. There were at that time seven
+thousand Christian captives in his power; immediately before starting he
+had the entire number paraded before him, and, under the pretext of having
+discovered a plot, which in no circumstances could possibly have existed,
+owing to the supervision of the slaves, he caused twenty of them to be
+beheaded on the spot in order to strike terror into the remainder during
+his absence.
+
+Back to the Golden Horn streamed ship after ship laden with plunder and
+with slaves. "The veritable man of the sea" was proving the correctness of
+the choice of the Sultan, the acumen of the Grand Vizier who had
+recommended his appointment. Barbarossa was determined to leave nothing
+undone to prove to Soliman that his choice had indeed been a worthy one
+when he had selected him as admiral of his fleet: also he had in his mind
+those others who spoke slightingly of him as "the African pirate"; they
+should know as well as their master of what this pirate was capable.
+Northward the devastating host of Barbarossa took its way; the fair shores
+of Italy smoked to heaven as the torches of the corsairs fired the
+villages. Blood and agony, torture and despair, followed ever on the heels
+of the Sea-wolves of the Mediterranean. And now a fresh pack had been
+loosed, as it was, of course, in enormously increased strength that
+Barbarossa returned to the scene of so many of his former triumphs.
+
+Plunder and slaves were all very well in their way, and acceptable enough
+on the shores of the Golden Horn; but Kheyr-ed-Din had a pet project in
+view on this particular cruise, which was to capture Julia Gonzaga and to
+present her to Soliman for his harem. The lady destined by him for this
+pleasant fate was reported to be the loveliest woman in Europe, a fitting
+gift for such an one as the Grand Turk. The fame of her surpassing
+loveliness had reached even the corsairs. She was the widow of Vespasian
+Colonna, Duchess of Trajetto, and Countess of Fundi; she had now been a
+widow since 1528, and lived at Fundi, some ninety miles north-east of
+Naples. Barbarossa laid his plans with his accustomed acuteness, and it was
+only through an accident that they miscarried.
+
+There was one undeniable advantage in the system which swept off into
+slavery the whole of the inhabitants of a country-side, and that was, if at
+any time you required a guide at any particular point on the coast, he was
+sure to be forthcoming from one of the vessels in the fleet. Now Barbarossa
+did not exactly know where Julia Gonzaga was to be found, so he set his
+captains to work to discover the necessary slave. This was soon
+accomplished, and there was really no occasion for a slave on this
+occasion, as a renegado of Naples knew the castle in which Julia Gonzaga
+was residing at the time, and readily agreed to act as guide to the
+expedition sent to accomplish her capture. Kheyr-ed-Din had made a sudden
+dash along the coast with some of the swiftest of his galleys for the
+purposes of this capture. In consequence the people in Naples and the
+neighbourhood were not even aware that the piratical squadron was on the
+coast before they anchored, as near as it was practicable to do, to the
+residence of the Duchess of Trajetto. The fleet actually arrived after
+dark, having kept out to sea and out of sight during the day.
+
+As soon as the anchors were down a party of two thousand picked men were
+landed and marched silently and with all expedition to the castle of Fundi.
+The escape of the Duchess was really providential. She had already gone to
+bed, and the fierce marauders were actually within the grounds of the
+castle before her distracted people became aware of their presence. But
+fortunately some among them kept their heads, and it also so happened that
+her bed-chamber was the opposite side of the castle to that by which the
+pirates approached. A horse was brought round under the window of the room,
+and, in her night-dress with nothing but a shawl wrapped around her, was
+Julia Gonzaga lowered out of her window on to the back of her horse. As she
+galloped for dear life down the avenue of her home she heard the shrieks of
+her miserable household murdered in cold blood by the furious pirates who
+had thus been balked of their prey.
+
+Dire was the vengeance taken by the corsairs. They sacked Fundi and burned
+the town; they killed every man on whom they could lay their hands, and
+carried off the women and girls to the fleet.
+
+Kheyr-ed-Din was furious with anger and disappointment. "What is the value
+of all this trash?" he demanded, with a thundering oath, of the commander
+of the unsuccessful raiders, surveying as he spoke the miserable, shivering
+women and girls. "I sent you out to bring back a pearl without price, and
+you return with these cattle."
+
+Thus balked of his prey, Barbarossa swung his fleet round to the southward
+and westward and sailed for Sardinia, where, from the Straits of Bonifacio
+to Cape Spartivento, he left no house standing that would burn, or man
+alive who was not swept in as a captive. The descent of the corsairs in
+force, such as Kheyr-ed-Din now had at his disposal, was one of the most
+awful calamities for a country that it is possible to imagine. When
+Sardinia had ceased to yield up either booty or slaves the fleet sailed for
+Tunis, where it arrived before Bizerta on August 15th. The arrival of the
+corsairs was totally unexpected, and caused the greatest consternation. The
+story which Barbarossa had told to Sultan Soliman concerning the reigning
+King Muley Hassan was correct in every detail, and there is no doubt that
+he was a bloody and cruel tyrant of the worst description.
+
+Therefore when the wily Barbarossa sent on shore and informed the sheiks
+and ulemas of the place that he had come in the name of the head of the
+Mohammedan religion to free them from this monster by whom they were
+oppressed, and that he intended to place on the throne the brother of Muley
+Hassan, Raschid, who had miraculously escaped from the fate which had
+overtaken all the other members of his house, the townspeople were inclined
+to listen to his advances and to admire the picture which he drew of the
+peace and prosperity which would accrue to them should Raschid, and not
+Muley Hassan, be on the throne of their country. That which he inferred in
+all his dealings with these people was that he had Raschid with him ready
+to step into the shoes of his unpopular brother as soon as the latter
+should be deposed by a justly indignant populace. The fact of the matter
+was that Kheyr-ed-Din had taken the fugitive prince with him to
+Constantinople, thinking to make use of him, and that, when he was sailing,
+Soliman had absolutely forbidden him to remove Raschid from his capital.
+
+Completely deceived, the townspeople allowed the landing of eight hundred
+Janissaries. The tyrant, who was, as Barbarossa had told the Sultan, a
+craven coward, waited for no further demonstration of force, but
+incontinently fled into the interior with such valuables as he could carry.
+As soon as this was reported to Barbarossa he landed in force and entered
+the town, and then the townspeople noticed that the soldiers were all
+shouting for Soliman and for Barbarossa. They then demanded that Raschid
+should be produced according to promise, but naturally he was not
+forthcoming. Those who had acclaimed the soldiers of Soliman as liberators
+now began to arm against them, and they very shortly discovered, from some
+Tunisians who had come in the fleet from Constantinople, that Raschid had
+been left behind in that city.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+BARCELONA, MAY 1535; THE GATHERING OF THE CHRISTIAN HOSTS
+
+Some idea of the terror inspired by the actions of the Sea-wolves at this
+date is contained in the following extract from "The Golden Age of the
+Renaissance," by Lanciani:
+
+  "The Bastione del Belvedere, which towers in frowning greatness at the
+  north-east end of the Vatican Garden and commands the approach to the
+  Borgo from the upper-end valley of the Tiber, was begun by Antonio de
+  Sangullo the younger, and finished by Michel Angelo after the death of
+  Antonio, which took place on September 30th, 1546. This great piece of
+  military engineering must not be considered by itself, but as a part of
+  a great scheme of defence conceived by Paul III, to protect the city
+  against a hostile invasion from the sea. The Pope could not forget that,
+  in August 1534, the fleet of infidels commanded by Barbarossa had cast
+  anchor at the mouth of the Tiber to renew its supply of water, and that
+  if its leader had thought fit they could have stormed, sacked, and
+  plundered the city, and carried off the Pope himself into slavery
+  without any possibility of defence on the Christian side. This point has
+  not been taken into due consideration by modern writers; the
+  fortifications of Rome, designed or begun or finished at the time of
+  Paul III., have nothing to do with the sack of 1527, with the Connetable
+  de Bourbon, or with the Emperor Charles V. All the bastions, that of the
+  Belvedere excepted, point towards the sea-coast, which was perpetually
+  harried and terrified by Turkish or Barbary pirates. These would appear
+  with lightning-like rapidity in more than one place at a time, and carry
+  off as many unfortunate men, women, and children as they could
+  collect.... To prevent the recurrence of such disasters the sea-coast
+  was lined with watch-towers, the guns of which could warn the peasants
+  of the approach of suspicious vessels."
+
+That Paul III. had good warrant for the precautions which he designed to
+take is not only instanced by the fact of Barbarossa anchoring in the mouth
+of the Tiber on the occasion of the raid with which we are at present
+concerned, but from what had occurred to his predecessor on the Papal
+throne in 1516. Pope Leo, son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, was accustomed to
+leave Rome in the autumn for hunting, and fishing in the sea, of which
+latter pastime he was particularly fond. One of his favourite resorts was
+the castle of Magliana, five miles from Rome, on the banks of the Tiber. On
+September 18th, 1516, he left Rome and proceeded to Civita Lavinia, on the
+Laurentian coast. Here he was waited for by the corsair Curtogali, who,
+with fifteen ships off the coast and an ambush on shore, was ready to carry
+him off. Curtogali is supposed to have derived his information as to the
+movements of the Pope from some traitor about the Papal Court who desired
+the downfall of "the fatal House of Medici."
+
+Some one, however, warned the Pope, who fled, accompanied by his retinue,
+at a headlong gallop to Rome, never drawing bridle until he reached the
+safe seclusion of the Vatican.
+
+We must now return, however, to that eagle who fluttered so sorely the
+dovecotes, both Christian and Moslem, and whose loudly proclaimed faith in
+the Prophet never permitted his religion to stand inconveniently in the way
+of his material advancement in the world. The soldiers and sailors of the
+corsair entered Bizerta shouting for Soliman and Barbarossa. There was no
+mention of Raschid, that Prince of the Hafsit dynasty, whom Kheyr-ed-Din
+had declared to the townspeople he had come to restore to the throne of his
+ancestors. Too late the town sprang to arms, under a chief named Abdahar,
+and in the first instance accomplished a considerable success. Barbarossa's
+men were unprepared, and a number of them were slain. Driven into a bastion
+of the walls, a party of the corsairs were desperately defending
+themselves, when one Baetio, a Spanish renegado, discovered that a cannon
+behind them pointing seawards was loaded. He succeeded, with the assistance
+of others, in slewing it round and discharged it at close quarters into the
+packed masses of the enemy. This caused a frightful demoralisation to set
+in; the corsairs rallied and soon swept all before them. The massacre
+turned from the one side to the other, and it is said that no less than
+three thousand of the unfortunate townspeople were slain. Barbarossa only
+called off his men when they were wearied out by the slaughter.
+
+Kheyr-ed-Din now graciously accepted the submission of the townsfolk; that
+is to say, such of them as were left, and took charge of the entire kingdom
+as governor for the Sultan of Turkey. He sent out ambassadors to the
+neighbouring Arab and Berber chieftains of the hinterland, repaired
+fortifications, appointed magistrates--all ostensibly in the name of that
+phantom prince whom the Tunisians were destined never to see, and who never
+returned to his native country.
+
+King of Algiers, _de facto_ King of Tunis, Admiralissimo to Soliman the
+Magnificent, his name a portent in Christendom, his fame reaching from
+Spartel to Tunis, and from the shores of France to the foothills of the
+Atlas, Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa was at the height of his power. Never before
+had a corsair risen to such eminence, never again was there destined to be
+so magnificent a sea-robber. Thus it was that the year 1535 opened gloomily
+for all those Powers whose coasts were washed by the tideless sea. Italy,
+torn and bleeding, her strong men slain, her fairest matrons and maids
+carried off into the most odious captivity, was lamenting the terrible fate
+to which she had been exposed by the raids of the pirate admiral. In
+Catalonia, in Genoa, in Venice, along what is now known as the Riviera, men
+trembled and women wept; for who could say that it might not be upon them
+that the next thunderbolt might fall? In Venice taxation was raised to the
+breaking strain to provide galleys wherewith to combat the foe, while the
+Genoese fortified their coasts and poured out money like water upon arms,
+armaments, and ammunition. Says Sandoval:
+
+  "Desde el Estrecho de Mecina hasta el de Gibraltar ninguno de la parte
+  de Europa pudiera tomer comida ni sueno seguro de lo que viviera en las
+  riberas del mar." (From the Straits of Messina to those of Gibraltar
+  none living in Europe on the shores of the sea were able to eat in peace
+  or to sleep with any sense of security.)
+
+The Emperor Charles V. was roused to action, stung by the intolerable
+humiliation of the position into which he had been placed by a mere
+corsair.
+
+King of Sicily, Naples, and Spain, as well as Emperor of Germany, in any
+direction he might turn he would find a trail of blood and fire over the
+fair face of his dominions in the Mediterranean. Although it might gall his
+pride to admit that his enemy was formidable, Charles was too wise a man,
+too experienced a warrior to underrate his foe. He repaired the
+fortifications of Naples and Sicily at great cost: he wrote letters to the
+Pope, to Andrea Doria, to the Viceroys of Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia, to
+the Marquis de Vasto, and Antonio de Leyva to collect all the arms and
+munitions necessary for the attack on Barbarossa. He sent orders to Don
+Luis Hurtado de Mendoza, Marquis de Mondejar, Captain-General of the
+Kingdom of Granada, to collect money and to have men ready in the ports of
+Andalusia. He gave orders for eight thousand German soldiers to hold
+themselves in readiness; these were to be joined by the veterans of Coron
+and Naples, which body counted four thousand more; in Italy he also raised
+another eight thousand men. All this was done under the seal of secrecy,
+which the Emperor most peremptorily ordered was to be observed.
+
+But news travelled in the first half of the sixteenth century, although
+newspapers, war correspondents, and telegraphs were not; when all the
+feudatories of the greatest king in Christendom were busy it was impossible
+for the matter to remain hidden. Even had it been within the range of
+possibility to conceal what was going on there was one circumstance which
+would have rendered all effort to this end nugatory. Charles had invited
+Francis of France to join in this holy war against the scourge of
+Christendom: not only did Francis refuse to join, but he had the incredible
+baseness to betray the scheme to Barbarossa. It would be pleasanter to
+think that some mistake had been made in this matter, but unfortunately it
+is beyond dispute, as the facts have been placed on record by Sandoval,
+whose history, it must be remembered, was published in 1614. In this matter
+he is quite precise, as he states that a "Clerigo Francese," one Monsieur
+de Floreta, was sent with despatches from Francis to Barbarossa at Tunis,
+and that this treacherous envoy from Christendom gave the corsair king all
+the available information that he had been able to collect before starting.
+
+This was typical of that "Golden Age of the Renaissance" in which it took
+place; when real devotion to all arts, sciences, and amenities of a higher
+civilisation went hand in hand with crime of the vilest and treachery of
+the basest description. Well might Barbarossa, and such as he, laugh to
+scorn the pretension that his Christian enemies were one whit better than
+were they, when they could point to the fact that, to serve a private
+revenge, a great Christian king could betray his co-religionists to their
+Moslem foes. Shamelessly did the Sea-wolves seek their prey wherever it was
+to be found; their methods were villanous and seemingly without excuse,
+but, after all, there was some colour, some shadow of right in what they
+did, for their argument was that they were merely getting back from
+Christendom that which had been reft from them in the near past in the
+kingdoms of Cordova and Granada. But who shall find excuse for the
+Christian kings, governors, and princes at this epoch? They sought their
+prey no less ravenously than did the pirates, and with just about the same
+amount of justification: witness the sacking of Rome by Charles V. in 1527,
+and the unexampled act of treachery just recorded of Francis of France.
+
+Kheyr-ed-Din had lived all his turbulent life among wars and rumours of
+wars: the head of the tiller, the hilt of the scimitar, the butt of the
+arquebus, had been in his hand since early youth; bloodshed and strife were
+the atmosphere in which he lived and breathed. Desperate adventures by land
+and sea had been his ever since he could remember; there was no hazard that
+he had not run, no peril which he had not dared. But now even he, the
+veteran of far more than one hundred fights, was grave and preoccupied when
+he considered the greatness, the imminence of his peril. The "Clerigo
+Francese" had put him in possession of the fact that Carlos Quinto was
+exerting all his strength for the combat which was to come; and Barbarossa
+was far too old a fighter, far too wise a warrior, to underrate by one
+soldier or by one galley the forces that the Emperor could put into line
+against him; from far and near his foes were gathering for his destruction,
+and he did not deceive himself in the least as to what the fate of his
+followers and himself would be should the Christian hosts be victorious.
+
+But, nevertheless, such an emergency as this found the man at his best:
+ready to take fortune at the flood when she smiled upon him, he was perhaps
+at his very greatest in adversity; and when all around him trembled and
+paid one of their infrequent visits to the Mosque to implore the aid of the
+Prophet, the veteran corsair was coolly reviewing the situation, seeking a
+way to weather the tempest before which lesser men shrank appalled,
+declaring that the end had come. The storm was coming in a squall of such
+violence as even he had never before experienced, but, thanks to his friend
+the King of France, he had been forewarned. He sent at once to his master,
+Soliman the Magnificent, at Constantinople, to impart to him the direful
+intelligence; then the bagnios were thrown open, and, under pitiless lash
+and scourge, the Christian captives toiled from dawn till dark to repair
+the fortifications of Tunis. Silent and unapproachable, conferring with
+none, the grim old Sea-wolf sat in his palace overlooking the bay and
+considered the question of whether he should give battle by land or sea
+when the time came. If it were possible, he came to the conclusion that it
+should be the latter; he had been evicted from his kingdom on land once
+before, but he knew that in the open ocean few cared to face Barbarossa,
+and he might fall on Doria first and the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem
+second if matters turned out favourably for him. In any case, he must
+summon all the aid that was possible.
+
+East and west flew the galleys of Kheyr-ed-Din, scudding before the wind if
+that were favourable, or churning the surface of the sea with straining,
+strenuous oars should the wind be foul or a calm prevail.
+
+It was an appeal for aid to the Moslem corsairs from Algiers, from Tlemcen,
+from Oran, from Los Gelues (or Jerbah), and from all the countless islands
+of the Archipelago, where they lurked to seize their prey--Tunis, which
+flew the Crescent flag of the Prophet, was in danger--let them rally
+against the grandson of the man who expelled the Moors from Spain.
+
+Grim and sinister, the corsairs came flocking to the standard of
+Barbarossa. Well they knew that, should he fall, it was but a matter of
+time for them all to be chased from off the face of the waters. Of cohesion
+there was but little among them, and, in spite of the bond of a common
+religion and a common hatred of the Christian, they were swayed far more by
+a lust for plunder than by such considerations as these. In times of
+imminent danger, however, men naturally crave for a leader, and in
+piratical circles all was now subordinated to the instinct of
+self-preservation.
+
+Meanwhile, in Christendom their great enemy was maturing his plans. To the
+Marquis de Canete, Viceroy and Captain-General of the Kingdom of Navarre,
+Charles wrote, confiding to his care the charge of the Empress, with
+instructions that her orders were to be implicitly obeyed during his
+absence. Having done this he journeyed to Barcelona, at which city he
+arrived on April 8th, 1535. Here he was immediately joined by the armada of
+Portugal--twenty caravelas raised, armed, and paid for by the King, Don
+Juan of Portugal. This fleet was commanded by the Infante Don Luis, brother
+to the Empress, and carried on board the vessels of which it was composed a
+whole host of nobles and gentlemen of quality, who had come to fight under
+the approving eyes of the Caesar of the modern world.
+
+On May 1st came Andrea Doria with twenty-two galleys, and those already in
+the harbour crowded the sides of their vessels to watch the arrival of the
+famous Genoese seaman.
+
+Four abreast in stately procession the great galleys swept into the
+harbour. With that love of "spectacle" so inherent in the southern nature,
+everything was done to ensure the military pomp and circumstance of the
+coming of the first sea-commander of the Emperor. At first with furious
+haste, and then slowing down to make the approach more stately, the fleet
+of Andrea moved on. From mast and yard and jackstaff of the galleys of the
+admiral floated twenty-four great banners of silk and gold embroidered with
+the arms of the Emperor, with those of Spain, of Genoa, and of the Dorias,
+Princes of Oneglia. The principal standard bore upon it a crucifix,
+broidered at the sides with pictures of Saint John and the Virgin Mary;
+another represented the Virgin with her Son in her arms. With the sound of
+trumpets, clarions, chirimias, and atambours the fleet moved to within a
+short distance of the Portuguese and saluted them; then, as the thunder of
+the guns ceased and the light wind blew away the smoke, they circled round
+and stopped abreast of the royal vessel on which Charles had embarked. Once
+again the guns barked a royal salute, while knights and nobles, seamen and
+soldiers hailed their Emperor with frenzied shouts of "Imperio! Imperio!"
+
+Then Andrea Doria stepped into his boat and was rowed across the shining
+water to visit the Emperor, who received him, we are told, "with great
+honour and many tokens of love."
+
+On May 12th arrived Don Alvaro de Bazan, General of the Galleys of Spain.
+This magnificent caballero made an entrance in much the same state and
+circumstance as did Doria, and during the remainder of the stay of the
+armada in Barcelona there was much banqueting and feasting and drinking of
+healths to the Emperor and confusion to the Moslem foe. It was once again
+as it had been in those days in which Ferdinand and Isabella had descended
+upon the doomed city of Granada, and had built, in full sight of its
+defenders, the town which they called Santa Fe (or the Holy Faith) as an
+earnest that they would never leave until that symbol of their faith had
+triumphed. To witness this victory the best blood of Europe had flocked,
+and now, forty-three years later, when the audacious Moslem had raised his
+head once more, the descendant of the warriors who had followed "Los Reyes
+Catolicos" rallied to that standard which Carlos Quinto, their grandson,
+had set up on the shores of Catalonia. Sandoval devotes pages of his work
+to the names, styles, and titles of the noble caballeros who joined the
+army for the destruction of Barbarossa.
+
+On May 16th Charles embarked in the _Galera Capitana_ of Andrea Doria,
+accompanied by many grandees and caballeros of the Court, as well as
+illustrious foreigners like Prince Luis of Portugal, and held a review of
+the armada. There was much expenditure of powder in salutes to the Emperor,
+and all vied with one another in shouting themselves hoarse in honour of
+the great monarch who deigned to lead in person the hosts of Christendom
+against the infidel, who had defied his might and dared to offer him
+battle. On May 28th the Emperor travelled some leagues inland, starting
+before dawn, to visit the Monastery of Nuestra Senora de Monferrato, in
+which was kept a singularly holy image of the Virgin. Here he confessed and
+received the sacrament, and then returned to Barcelona.
+
+[Illustration: THE EMPEROR CHARLES V.]
+
+On May 30th he embarked in the Royal Galley, the _Galera Bastarda_, which
+had been prepared for him by Andrea Doria, his Captain-General of the
+Galleys. This vessel seems to have somewhat resembled the barge of
+Cleopatra in the magnificence of its appointments, as its interior was
+gilded, and it was fitted up with all the luxury that could be devised at
+this period. Silken carpets and golden drinking-vessels, stores of the most
+delicate food and of the rarest wines, were embarked to mitigate, as far as
+possible, the inevitable hardships of a sea-passage, and there were not
+lacking instruments of music wherewith to beguile the Caeesar with concord
+of sweet sounds. Perhaps that which strikes the modern seaman most in this
+recital of all the useless matters with which the vessels of the great were
+burdened at this period is the extraordinary number of flags and banners
+with which they went to sea.
+
+The catalogue of those in the _Galera Bastarda_ makes one rather wonder how
+there was room for anything else of more practical usefulness when it came
+to fighting. There were in this galley twenty-four yellow damask banners,
+inscribed with the imperial arms; a pennon at the main of crimson taffeta
+of immense length and breadth, with a golden crucifix embroidered thereon.
+Two similar ones bore shields with the arms of the Emperor, and there was a
+huge flag of white damask sewn with representations of keys, communion
+chalices, and the cross of Saint Andrew, in crimson, with a Latin
+inscription. There were yet two others of scarlet damask "of the same
+grandeur," embroidered round the edge with "Plus Ultra," the device of
+Spain. Among a further varied assortment was one which bore the
+inscription: "Send, O God, thine angel to guard him in all his goings."
+
+The fleet under the command of Andrea Doria numbered sixty-two galleys and
+one hundred and fifty nefs. There were also a miscellaneous assortment of
+small craft, known in those days as "brigantines," employed in the carriage
+of stores and ammunition. We have seen, on a former occasion, what terrible
+losses attended one of these armadas when really bad weather was
+encountered, and therefore it is not surprising that, on his second
+venture, Charles should have selected the finest season of the year for his
+descent upon the coast of Africa. They were brave men, these Mediterranean
+seamen, and the risks which they ran in their strangely formed, unseaworthy
+craft were of course much enhanced when they were loaded to the gunwale
+with stores, provisions, horses, banners, and last, but by no means least,
+a mob of seasick soldiery.
+
+Into this armada were crowded twenty-five thousand infantry and six hundred
+lancers with their horses.
+
+Cagliari, in Sardinia, was the last rendezvous of the expedition, and here
+it arrived in the early part of June, where a week was spent in making the
+final preparations; and at last, on June 10th, a start was made for the
+coast of Africa.
+
+Meanwhile in Tunis Kheyr-ed-Din was working double tides. He was kept well
+informed by his spies of all that was going on, and his preparations for
+defence were as adequate as they could be made; the corsairs, as we have
+said, had come flocking in at his call. He had withdrawn as many of his
+fighting men from Algiers as he deemed prudent. Knowing that the attack was
+directed against him personally, he had not much fear that it would be
+diverted at the last moment. It would have been true strategy on the part
+of Charles to have done this, but the Emperor considered that his honour
+required that the attack should be an absolutely direct one, and so Algiers
+was left on one side, to the ultimate upsetting of his plans. We say this
+because, although in this case he was to take Tunis and to restore to the
+throne of that country the puppet King Muley Hassan, and although he was to
+rescue some twenty thousand Christian captives, he did not capture
+Barbarossa, who was to live for many years to continue and to carry on his
+unceasing war against the Christians.
+
+There was no artifice left untried by the despot of Tunis. To the African
+princes, Moors as well as Arabs and Berbers, did Kheyr-ed-Din send
+embassies. For these he chose cunning men well versed in the means of
+exciting the furious passions of these primitive and ferocious peoples, and
+it was their mission to represent Muley Hassan as an infamous apostate who
+was prompted by ambition and revenge, not only to become the vassal of a
+Christian king, but to conspire with him to extirpate the Mohammedan faith.
+The subtle policy inflamed these ignorant and bigoted Mohammedans to the
+point of madness, and from far and near they threw in their lot with the
+man who represented himself to be the rallying-point for all those in
+Africa who desired not only to preserve their holy religion but also their
+personal liberty. From Tripoli and Jerba, from Bougie and Bona, from the
+shores of Shott-el-Jerid, through all the dim hinterland that stretches
+from thence north-westwards to Algiers, the tribesmen came flocking in. The
+wild riders of the desert had been rounded up, and it is said that no less
+than twenty thousand horsemen, in addition to an innumerable crowd of
+infantry, responded to the call of the master schemer who was but using
+these guileless savages to further his own personal ends. The land-pirates
+of the desert, those stormy petrels whose lives only differed from those of
+the followers of Kheyr-ed-Din in that they carried on their depredations on
+the land instead of on the sea, camped in their thousands in the environs
+of Tunis and boasted of the deeds which they were about to perform.
+Kheyr-ed-Din stimulated their enthusiasm with presents of the most costly
+description. Ever wise and politic, he knew when it was necessary to pay
+royally, and on this occasion surpassed himself in prodigality. For all
+this he himself cherished no illusions; he had the measure of the fighting
+men of his foes at his fingers' ends, and the most that he expected from
+these wild irregulars was that they might, perchance, stay an onset and
+worry the imperial army with dashing cavalry raids. But that they should
+hold their own with the incomparable infantry of Spain, or make head
+against the stolid valour of the German men-at-arms, was not contemplated
+by Barbarossa. In his Janissaries, in his hard-bitten fighting men from the
+galleys, he could expect much; but there were but some few thousands of
+these, while the disciplined host against which he was called upon to
+combat was at the least twenty-five thousand--the flower of the imperial
+forces. The situation was unique, one on which the world had never looked
+before--all the might of Christendom going up against one who, no matter by
+what titles he might choose to describe himself, was no more than a vulgar
+robber. He was, however, a robber on such a scale as had never before been
+equalled--a force which remained unsubdued during the whole of his
+extraordinary and unusually protracted career.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+THE FALL OF TUNIS AND THE FLIGHT OF BARBAROSSA
+
+Autocracy in the sixteenth century was a very real and concrete fact. The
+orders of great kings were, as a rule, implicitly obeyed, and, when they
+were not, there was likely to be trouble of the worst description for those
+by whom they had been contravened. It is this that causes us to regard as
+most extraordinary one of the happenings in the armada which sailed from
+Barcelona for the coast of Africa. A most peremptory order was issued that
+no women, no boys, no one, in fact, save fighting men of approved worth,
+should find a place in the ships. Says Sandoval, "No se consintiesen en la
+armada mugeres ni muchachos ni otra gente inutil, mas de aquellos solos que
+eran para pelear." (There were not allowed in the armada women, boys, or
+useless persons, but only those who were capable of fighting.) It appears,
+however, that the women paid no sort of attention to this ordinance, and
+the historian gravely relates that "it was no use turning them out of the
+ships as, as soon as you sent them down one side they returned and climbed
+up the other," It seems almost incredible, but is none the less a fact,
+that four thousand women accompanied the expedition and landed at Tunis.
+The autocracy of the Emperor apparently stopped short where women were
+concerned, or else he was indifferent whether they came or not.
+
+On June 16th the armada arrived before Tunis, and the army disembarked to
+attack the fortress known as La Goletta. Into this strong place of arms
+Barbarossa had sent some six thousand of his best men, mostly Turkish
+soldiers, under the command of Sinan-Reis, a renegado Jew, and one of the
+fiercest and most faithful of his followers. To the camp of the Emperor
+came the fugitive King, Muley Hassan, in whose cause the armada had
+nominally been assembled--how nominal this was we shall see later by the
+light of the treaty concluded between him and the Emperor. Charles had
+complete command of the sea for the time being, and, in consequence, the
+ex-Sultan was amazed at the profusion and luxury which reigned in the camp
+of the Christians; and he concluded that these indeed must be the lords of
+the earth, as luxury and profusion was hardly the note of such courts as
+then existed in the northern portion of the African continent.
+
+Although the army was landed, and with it artillery for the bombardment of
+the Goletta, there remained, of course, "the army of the sea," under the
+orders of the redoubtable Doria; and while the Marquis del Guasto, who was
+in supreme command on shore, prepared to batter down the defences of the
+fortress on the land side, the attack was carried on simultaneously from
+the sea by the galleys. The actual presence of the Emperor stimulated the
+various nationalities under his eyes to vie with one another in deeds of
+daring, and they contended among themselves for the posts of the most
+honour and danger. The attacks of the African horsemen were brushed on one
+side by the disciplined valour of the Andalusian cavalry, while the great
+guns thundered from land and sea against the walls of the doomed Goletta.
+Sinan and his Ottoman soldiers performed prodigies in the way of repairing
+breaches in the walls as soon as they were made; but Kheyr-ed-Din from the
+city watched the progress of the bombardment gloomily, as he saw and knew
+that the fall of the Goletta was but a matter of days. All this time he was
+far from idle; sortie after sortie did the dauntless old warrior lead in
+person against those engaged in the task of bombardment. Time and again he
+heartened the Arab and Berber levies to attack, but the sallies were
+repulsed, and the lightly armed Africans were driven like chaff before the
+wind when they swooped down on the lines of investment.
+
+But the time came at last when Sinan and his gallant Turks could hold the
+place no longer; the walls were breached in six or seven places, and
+Spaniards, Germans, and Italians made a simultaneous attack. Sinan fighting
+to the last, evacuated the fortress, and retired actually through the water
+across a shallow part of the bay to the city, with the remnant of his once
+magnificent force; and now Barbarossa knew that the end was come, and that
+Tunis must pass from his hands to those of the Christian Emperor. It was
+not only the fall of the Goletta that troubled him, but the equally
+important fact that by this the fleet of the enemy was enabled to lay hands
+upon his own fleet, consisting of eighty-seven galleys and galliots,
+together with his arsenal, and no less than three hundred cannon, mostly
+brass guns of excellent construction, mounted on the walls and planted on
+the ramparts. The surprising amount of this artillery gives a measure of
+the strength of the fortress and the efforts it must have cost the
+besiegers with such a man as Sinan in command.
+
+That the end was near was known to all, and not the least of their
+embarrassments was the presence within the city walls of some twenty
+thousand Christian captives. The city was large, the defences were spread
+out over a great area, it was abundantly evident that it could not be held,
+and, in consequence, Barbarossa summoned his principal officers and
+communicated to them his decision.
+
+  "We will not remain here to be slain like rats in a trap by the accursed
+  of God by whom we are attacked. No, rather will we perish, sword in
+  hand, as our fathers have done before us; but first there is a danger
+  against which we have to guard. Within these walls are twenty thousand
+  prisoners who will rise against us at the first opportunity; let us,
+  then, first put them to death, and then we will leave this place and
+  show our enemies how the true Moslems can die."
+
+Even those hardened men of blood shrank before the horror which was
+proposed to them by their chief, and Sinan-Reis took up his parable and
+spoke the minds of all when he said that follow him to the death they would
+cheerfully do, but stain themselves with so awful a massacre was to place
+themselves outside the pale of humanity for ever. It was seldom that they
+crossed his mood, and Barbarossa listened in frowning silence, accepting as
+a partial excuse that time pressed, and to put to death twenty thousand
+persons would occupy longer time than they could spare. On the morrow a
+battle was fought which, as Kheyr-ed-Din anticipated, ended in the complete
+rout of the Moslems. Everywhere the Corsair King was in the forefront of
+the battle, and it is said that he disposed of fifty thousand men on this
+occasion; but this is probably an exaggeration, and in any case the bulk of
+his forces consisted of those African levies which, in a pitched battle
+against European troops, were practically useless owing to their want of
+discipline and cohesion. Very soon the hosts of the Emperor had prevailed,
+and the Arabs and Berbers had fled back into the wilderness from whence
+they had come and whither it was useless to pursue. Barbarossa, at the head
+of such of his corsairs and Turks as were left--a number estimated at some
+three to four thousand--burst through all opposition and also escaped,
+travelling so rapidly that pursuit was abandoned almost at once. And then
+the event happened which the Moslem leader had foreseen: some of the
+Christian captives managed to get free from their shackles within the city
+and released others; they overpowered those left to guard them, and threw
+open the gates to the soldiery of the Emperor.
+
+Then occurred one of those awful horrors of which this time was so
+prolific: before Charles or his generals could prevent them the soldiery
+had swept into the town and commenced to slay, to plunder, and to ravish,
+without distinction of age, sex, or nationality. Ostensibly these Christian
+warriors had come to rescue the inhabitants of Tunis from the oppression of
+Barbarossa, but while that chieftain was in full flight across the
+mountains to Bona, those by whom he had been defeated entered the town,
+which they had come to save, and perpetrated a massacre so awful that it is
+said that no less than thirty thousand people perished. It is a terrible
+blot on the escutcheon of the Emperor; as, although he and his generals
+deprecated the massacre--and indeed to do them justice tried to prevent
+it--this is no excuse for allowing their men to get out of hand, when they
+must have been aware of the inevitable result: as the Moslem corsairs at
+their worst were equalled in their iniquities by the European soldiery,
+once the strong hand of discipline had relaxed its grip.
+
+It may have been that the Emperor was displeased with this excess of zeal
+on the part of his army; but, if it were so, the chroniclers are silent
+concerning the matter, being far too busy singing the praises of the Caesar
+to think of such a trifle as the massacre of most of the persons whom he
+had come to deliver. The wretched inhabitants of Tunis must have found it
+somewhat difficult to distinguish between the corsair, who killed three
+thousand of their fellow townsmen, and the Christian Emperor, who had
+massacred ten times that number. Charles, however, reaped great glory from
+an expedition which had but one good result, which was, that he succeeded
+in rescuing twenty thousand captives; these men, very naturally, on their
+return to their homes in every corner of Europe, magnified the wonderful
+deeds of that prince who had been instrumental in securing their release,
+and the massacre of the Tunisians was conveniently ignored. Charles had
+defeated Barbarossa and expelled him from Tunis; he had now displayed his
+magnanimity and altruism by the terms which he imposed on the miserable
+Muley Hassan. As far as that individual was concerned, he certainly
+deserved nothing better; but, as a _finale_ to an expedition blessed by the
+Pope, and looked upon almost in the light of a modern crusade, it certainly
+displays a remarkably keen eye for the main chance.
+
+The preamble of the treaty runs as follows:
+
+  That the King of Tunis, recognising that he had been expelled from his
+  kingdom by Barbarossa, and that the Emperor in person, with a powerful
+  armada, had come and expelled this tyrant, taking from him the fortress
+  and town of Tunis and restoring them to the King Muley Hassan: that this
+  monarch is most grateful for so magnificent a service, and in
+  recognition thereof contracts to liberate all Christian captives who may
+  be in his realm, to give them a free passage to their homes, and from
+  this time forward binds himself to extend to all Christians kind and
+  generous treatment.
+
+There can be no exception taken to this, which was the least which the
+Emperor had the right to expect; but this was only, as we have said, the
+preamble.
+
+Muley Hassan was further made to contract to hold his kingdom in fee to the
+Spanish Crown, to covenant that no corsair should use his ports for any
+purpose whatsoever, that the Emperor should not only retain the Goletta but
+that all other fortified seaports should be put into his hands, that the
+King of Tunis should in future pay twelve thousand crowns per annum 'for
+the subsistence of the Spanish garrison of the Goletta, that he should
+enter into no alliance with the enemies of the Emperor, and should annually
+present, as an acknowledgment of his vassalage, six Moorish horses and six
+hawks.
+
+Muley Hassan had exchanged the comparatively dignified position of a prince
+in exile, who has been expropriated by the strong hand, for that of the
+puppet of one of the greatest enemies of his religion. Neither he nor his
+people were one whit the better for the change, and, as far as vassalage
+was concerned, they would in all probability, in the state of religious
+feeling at the time, have sooner been subordinate to the Moslem corsair
+than to the Christian King.
+
+[Illustration: MULEY HASSAN, KING OF TUNIS.]
+
+Barbarossa, as we have seen, frankly acknowledged that he sought his own
+advantage, and, when he possessed himself of Tunis, made no pretence of any
+altruistic motive. The Emperor, on the other hand, having come in the guise
+of a Christian reformer, simply stole the kingdom from Barbarossa and kept
+it for himself. Incidentally he released the captives, which enabled him to
+pose once more as the great champion of the oppressed. But, however this
+may have been, there is no doubt that he had performed a notable feat of
+arms, and even the most mighty monarch then in Europe felt uplifted by the
+fact that he had defeated the greatest of the corsairs: accordingly, on
+July 25th Charles wrote to England, France, Portugal, Milan, Florence,
+Venice, Genoa, Siena, Mantua, and Naples: "De manera que en pocas dias se
+supo in toda Europa su buena fortuna." (So it was in a few days the whole
+of Europe was acquainted with his good fortune.)
+
+Martin Nunez, "Caballero de Toledo," was sent on a special embassy to the
+Pope to acquaint the Pontiff at first hand of all that happened, and the
+success which had attended the arms of the Emperor, and also to thank his
+Holiness for the assistance which he had rendered by sending the Papal
+galleys. Jorge de Melo, a Portuguese caballero, was sent to his own country
+with despatches, and other nobles and high officials were despatched to the
+Emperor's Viceroys in the various parts of his dominions. In the long
+circular letter which Charles addressed to all these potentates--and which
+is reproduced in its entirety by Sandoval--he says "that the Christian
+captives found in Tunis amounted to something like eighteen to twenty
+thousand, that Barbarossa had escaped with some five thousand Turks,
+corsairs, and renegadoes, of which three thousand were on horseback and two
+thousand afoot; that, as they suffered from great scarcity of provisions,
+and the almost total lack of water, many were falling by the way, and many
+others were being murdered by their quondam allies for such goods as they
+possessed, or for the value of their arms and clothing."
+
+We must now return to Kheyr-ed-Din. What the sufferings of that chieftain
+and the remnant of his gallant army must have been in their flight to Bona
+they alone knew. It was the height of summer, and burning tracks of desert
+and rugged mountain passes had to be surmounted; naturally they could have
+carried but very little food, and water they had to find on the way. In
+addition to this, as we have seen in the despatch of Charles, the tribesmen
+turned against them, cutting off stragglers and murdering and plundering as
+opportunity offered. Barbarossa himself was an old man, so old that it
+seems nothing short of a miracle that he should have survived the hardships
+of this awful march. Not only did he do this, but apparently arrived at
+Bona in condition to continue his journey by sea at once, had he cared to
+do so. He had lost his newly acquired kingdom, he had lost nearly his
+entire fleet, his arsenal and stores were in the hands of his enemies; if
+ever a man was completely crushed it was he on this memorable occasion. As
+we have said before, however, it was in times of the greatest stress when
+the indomitable character of this man rose to meet the occasion, and, while
+his foes were congratulating one another that at last there was an end of
+the scourge of the Mediterranean and the bugbear of Christendom, the hunted
+fugitive was merely preparing himself for fresh acts of aggression.
+
+The real fact of the matter was that he was above all and before all a
+seaman. The defeat of Kheyr-ed-Din meant merely the transference of his
+malign activities from one sphere to another--from the sea to the land, or
+from the land to the sea. King he called himself, and king _de facto_ he
+was both in Algiers and Tunis, reigning with unexampled cruelty, a
+prototype of those other corsair kings by whom he was succeeded. But the
+real source of his power lay, not in stone walls and fortifications, nor in
+ill-trained levies of African tribes, but in his own genius for command at
+sea, and the manner in which he was able to inspire with his own dauntless
+and desperate spirit those hardy mariners who followed in his train, the
+descendants of the "Moriscoes" who hailed from the ancient Moorish kingdoms
+of Cordoba and Granada.
+
+Thus it was in the present instance. He had been unable to withstand the
+might of Caesar and his legions, but Tunis was not the whole of Northern
+Africa, nor had quite all his eggs been kept in that one basket. He had
+kept fifteen galleys in reserve at Bona, and, in consequence, on his
+arrival there, was able to embark at once. This he did, and hardly had he
+done so when there appeared upon the scene fifteen galleys commanded by
+Adan Centurion and John Doria. Kheyr-ed-Din had had enough of fighting just
+for the present; his men and he were wearied out by the hardships of their
+flight, and accordingly he drew up his galleys under the fort at Bona and
+awaited an attack, should the enemy care to deliver one. But Adan
+Centurion's heart failed him; to cut out the old Sea-wolf from under one of
+his own batteries was more than he had the stomach for, and he accordingly
+sailed away. "Fue sin duda la perdida grande" (this no doubt was a great
+pity), is the comment of Sandoval, who goes on to say that, had the Genoese
+been the men that they had been aforetime, this would never have been, and
+that they would have gone in and burnt or disabled the galleys of the
+corsair, slain their leader, or driven him ashore. Hot on the tracks of
+Adan Centurion and his nephew John came the veteran Andrea Doria with forty
+galleys, but he was too late, and the bird had flown; had it been he who
+had arrived in the first instance, then it is more than probable that
+matters would have turned out differently, and Kheyr-ed-Din had then and
+there terminated his career. It is true that Andrea possessed himself of
+Bona, and the Corsair King was shorn of yet another of his land-stations,
+but for the time he had cut himself adrift from the land, and had gone back
+to that element in which he was particularly at home.
+
+Doria left Bona in the charge of Alvar Gomez and a company of Spanish
+troops and then sailed away, if possible to find and capture Barbarossa,
+thus to set the seal of completeness on the victory which had been won by
+his master the Emperor. Another stronghold of the corsairs was now in most
+competent hands, as Alvar Gomez Zagal was one of the most renowned
+caballeros of Spain, son of that Pero Lopez de Horusco on whom the Moors
+themselves had bestowed the title of "Al Zagal," or "The Valiant," on
+account of his extraordinary bravery.
+
+On August 17th Charles re-embarked his army and evacuated the country,
+leaving, however, one thousand Spanish veterans, under the command of
+Bernard de Mendoza, in charge of the Goletta, as a permanent memorial of
+the expedition, and as a guarantee that the wretched Muley Hassan should
+fully comply with the treaty obligations which had been imposed upon him.
+It is true that Barbarossa had not been captured, but his city had been
+taken, his fleet had been destroyed, and he himself was now a fugitive,
+unable any further to trouble the peace of Christendom or the dignity of
+the Emperor by whom he had been so soundly chastised. In consequence the
+Caesar departed well pleased with himself and with those who had been acting
+under his orders, to whom he distributed orders and titles, as a memento of
+the occasion upon which they had finally broken up the power of those by
+whom his peace had so long been troubled.
+
+One of the difficulties in dealing with the career of Kheyr-ed-Din
+Barbarossa is that, in times when he was unsuccessful, or when, as on the
+present occasion, he had received a severe setback, it is next to
+impossible to find out what he was doing or where exactly he was preparing
+for his next coup. In this case, in particular, the old-time historians
+were thanking God that the Emperor had rid the world of a particularly
+pestilent knave, and ceased to trouble themselves much about him until he
+forced himself once more upon their notice. Had Charles at this time
+recognised the greatness of the man whom he had just so signally defeated
+he might have changed the course of history. Had he, instead of sailing
+back to Europe, content with that which he had accomplished in Tunis,
+pushed his attack home on Algiers, he might have made himself master of the
+whole of Northern Africa, as, in the disorganised state in which the
+corsairs now found themselves, they could certainly have offered no
+effective resistance. But to the Emperor these rovers of the sea presented
+themselves merely in the light of robbers. Robbers, it is true, on a
+somewhat large scale, but still not persons of sufficient importance to
+detain him from the infinitely more pressing affairs which awaited him on
+the opposite shores of the Mediterranean Sea.
+
+In addition to the fifteen galleys which Kheyr-ed-Din picked up at Bona he
+had in reserve at Algiers some fifty others. Escaping the attention of Adan
+Centurion and John Doria, and the infinitely more formidable squadron of
+Andrea, he headed once more for Algiers, and for a time seems to have
+remained quiet, no doubt recuperating from the fatigues, disappointments,
+and physical hardships which he had so recently undergone. He was
+apparently undisturbed during the winter by his Christian enemies, and was
+in consequence able to think out his future plans of campaign and to
+collect and put heart into his scattered followers, who, in ones and twos,
+were gradually, such of them as were left, finding their way back to the
+headquarters of piracy and its indomitable chieftain.
+
+That cool calculator of the chances of life knew that this must be so; the
+power of the corsairs generally had received the worst blow it had ever
+encountered since the dispossessed Moriscoes had taken to the sea for a
+living; those of them who remained alive were without ships--that is to
+say, without their only means of making a livelihood--and that they should
+gravitate towards Algiers and its master was as nearly a certainty as
+anything human could be. And, as was anticipated by the chief, so it came
+to pass. Into the city straggled broken, starving, sullen men who had lost
+their all, for whom the future held nothing but misery and despair unless
+they could get to sea once more.
+
+It was on occasions such as this that the intellectual eminence of
+Barbarossa was so marked. Rough and cruel as he was, he possessed
+nevertheless a magnetic power over the minds of men, on which, when it so
+pleased him, he could play with the most extraordinary effect. And now,
+when the rank and file of the corsairs were ragged, hungry, and smarting
+under defeat, he dealt with them tenderly and graciously; and the sum of
+his teaching was to the effect that they had but to follow him once more
+and all the evils from which they were suffering would be presently
+remedied. So it came about that men who, before the defeat, had commanded
+ships of their own, were glad enough to become units on board the galleys
+of Kheyr-ed-Din, animated by the pleasing hope that soon again, under the
+leadership of this man, they might regain all, nay more, than they had
+lost. It must be remembered that Barbarossa argued from sound premises when
+he held out such hopes as these to the desperate remnant of the corsairs in
+Algiers in that sad winter of 1535. He was the greatest of them all, and
+they, as well as he, knew this to be a fact: if they had lost their all in
+the past battles, they had been fighting in a common cause to preserve
+their own lives and their liberty to plunder the Christian at sea. And now
+there was work and there was bread to eat for those who once again would
+throw in their lot with their old leader; and, although it may be said that
+these men had no alternative, still they threw themselves with heartiness
+into that which the master mind decreed should be their work, and this was
+none other than the preparation of the galleys for another campaign against
+the Christian.
+
+"What matter, comrades?" said the veteran on one occasion when he was
+superintending the fitting out of the galleys. "These dogs have gone back
+from whence they came, and they have left that creature, Muley Hassan, to
+do their will in Tunis. It is true that there is Mendoza and his thousand
+Spaniards in the Goletta, but did not Martin de Vargas hold the Penon here?
+And where is De Vargas, and in whose hands is the Penon now? We know from
+whence the garrisons of Spain draw their supplies, and believe me that
+there will be hungry men in the Goletta in this coming year. Once we get to
+sea again, there will be more than enough for every good man who believes
+in the Prophet, and who has the sense to follow Barbarossa. For every ducat
+that you have lost see, in the coming year, if you do not gain ten; the
+Christians are off their guard now, and they think that they have done with
+me because they have captured Tunis." He laughed his great, jovial laugh.
+"By the beard of the Prophet--upon whom be peace!--they have yet to find
+out the man with whom they have to deal."
+
+It took a master mind to instil heart of grace into men who so recently had
+had so bad a beating as these; but in the end they began to cheer up, and
+to recollect how Barbarossa had sooner or later always risen from defeat as
+strong or stronger than before; also they recalled the fact that he was the
+chosen of the Padishah, and that that potentate, the representative of the
+Prophet on earth, would assuredly come to his assistance now that Tunis,
+which had been taken in his name, had been reft from Barbarossa by the
+Christians. Gradually hope took the place of despair, and when the corsairs
+took to the sea in the early part of the following year it was with renewed
+confidence in both themselves and their leader.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+ROXALANA AND THE MURDER OF IBRAHIM
+
+At the coming of spring Barbarossa was at sea again with thirty-two ships
+ready for any eventuality, his crews aflame with ardour for revenge against
+those by whom they had been so roughly handled. He chose for the scene of
+operations a place on the coast of Majorca some fifteen miles from Palma;
+from here he commanded the route of the Spaniards from their country to the
+African coast, and it was against this nation that he felt a great
+bitterness owing to recent events. Eagerly did the corsair and his men
+watch for the Spanish ships, the heavier vessels lying at anchor, but the
+light, swift galleys ranging and questing afar so that none might be
+missed. Very soon the vigilance of the Moslems was rewarded by the capture
+of a number of vessels, sent by Bernard de Mendoza laden with Turkish and
+Moorish slaves, destined to be utilised as rowers in the Spanish galleys.
+These men were hailed as a welcome reinforcement, and joyfully joined the
+forces of Kheyr-ed-Din when he moved on Minorca, captured the castle by a
+surprise assault, raided the surrounding country, and captured five
+thousand seven hundred Christians, amongst whom were eight hundred men who
+had been wounded in the attack on Tunis--all these unfortunates were sent
+to refill the bagnio of Algiers.
+
+This private war of revenge was, however, destined soon to come to an end,
+as Soliman the Magnificent in this year became involved in disputes with
+the Venetian Republic, and recalled "that veritable man of the sea," as
+Barbarossa had been described by Ibrahim, to Constantinople.
+
+In this city by the sea there had taken place a tragedy which, although it
+only involved the death of a single man, was nevertheless far-reaching in
+its consequences; for the man was none other than that great statesman
+Ibrahim, Grand Vizier, and the only trusted counsellor of the Padishah. He
+who had been originally a slave had risen step by step in the favour of his
+master until he arrived at the giddy eminence which he occupied at the time
+of his death. It is a somewhat curious commentary on the essentially
+democratic status of an autocracy that a man could thus rise to a position
+second only to that of the autocrat himself; and, in all probability,
+wielding quite as much power.
+
+Ibrahim had for years been treated by Soliman more as a brother than as a
+dependent, which, in spite of his Grand Viziership, he was in fact. They
+lived in the very closest communion, taking their meals together, and even
+sleeping in the same room, Soliman, a man of high intelligence himself, and
+a ruler who kept in touch with all the happenings which arose in his
+immense dominions, desiring always to have at hand the man whom he loved;
+from whom, with his amazing grip of political problems and endless
+fertility of resource, he was certain of sympathy and sound advice. But in
+an oriental despotism there are other forces at work besides those of _la
+haute politique_, and Ibrahim had one deadly enemy who was sworn to compass
+his destruction. The Sultana Roxalana was the light of the harem of the
+Grand Turk. This supremely beautiful woman, originally a Russian slave, was
+the object of the most passionate devotion on the part of Soliman; but she
+was as ambitious as she was lovely, and brooked no rival in the affections
+of Soliman, be that person man, woman, or child. In her hands the master of
+millions, the despot whose nod was death, became a submissive slave; the
+undisciplined passions of this headstrong woman swept aside from her path
+all those whom she suspected of sharing her influence, in no matter how
+remote a fashion. At her dictation had Soliman caused to be murdered his
+son Mustafa, a youth of the brightest promise, because, in his intelligence
+and his winning ways he threatened to eclipse Selim, the son of Roxalana
+herself.
+
+This woman possessed a strong natural intelligence, albeit she was totally
+uneducated; she saw and knew that Ibrahim was all-powerful with her lover,
+and this roused her jealousy to fever-heat. She was not possessed of a cool
+judgment, which would have told her that Ibrahim was a statesman dealing
+with the external affairs of the Sublime Porte, and that with her and with
+her affairs he neither desired, nor had he the power, to interfere. What,
+however, the Sultana did know was that in these same affairs of State her
+opinion was dust in the balance when weighed against that of the Grand
+Vizier.
+
+Soliman had that true attribute of supreme greatness, the unerring aptitude
+for the choice of the right man. He had picked out Ibrahim from among his
+immense entourage, and never once had he regretted his choice. As time went
+on and the intellect and power of the man became more and more revealed to
+his master, that sovereign left in his hands even such matters as despots
+are apt to guard most jealously. We have seen how, in spite of the
+murmurings of the whole of his capital, and the almost insubordinate
+attitude of his navy, he had persevered in the appointment of Kheyr-ed-Din
+Barbarossa, because the judgment of Ibrahim was in favour of its being
+carried out. This, to Roxalana, was gall and wormwood; well she knew that,
+as long as the Grand Vizier lived, her sovereignty was at best but a
+divided one. There was a point at which her blandishments stopped short;
+this was when she found that her opinion did not coincide with that of the
+minister. She was, as we have seen in the instance of her son, not a woman
+to stick at trifles, and she decided that Ibrahim must die.
+
+There could be no hole-and-corner business about this; he must die, and
+when his murder had been accomplished she would boldly avow to her lover
+what she had done and take the consequences, believing in her power over
+him to come scatheless out of the adventure. In those days, when human life
+was so cheap, she might have asked for the death of almost any one, and her
+whim would have been gratified by a lover who had not hesitated to put to
+death his own son at her dictation. But with Ibrahim it was another matter;
+he was the familiar of the Sultan, his _alter ego_ in fact, It says much
+for the nerve of the Sultana that she dared so greatly on this memorable
+and lamentable occasion.
+
+On March 5th, 1536, Ibrahim, went to the royal seraglio, and, following his
+ancient custom, was admitted to the table of his master, sleeping after the
+meal at his side. At least so it was supposed, but none knew save those
+engaged in the murder what passed on that fatal night; the next day his
+dead body lay in the house of the Sultan.
+
+Across the floor of jasper, in that palace which was a fitting residence
+for one rightly known as "The Magnificent," the blood of Ibrahim flowed to
+the feet of Roxalana. The disordered clothing, the terrible expression of
+the face of the dead man, the gaping wounds which he had received, bore
+witness that there had taken place a grim struggle before that iron frame
+and splendid intellect had been levelled with the dust. This much leaked
+out afterwards, as such things will leak out, and then the Sultana took
+Soliman into her chamber and gazed up into his eyes. The man was stunned by
+the immensity of the calamity which had befallen him and his kingdom, but
+his manhood availed him not against the wiles of this Circe. Ibrahim had
+been foully done to death in his own palace, and this woman clinging so
+lovingly around his neck now was the murderess. The heart's blood of his
+best friend was coagulating on the threshold of his own apartment when he
+forgave her by whom his murder had been accomplished. This was the
+vengeance of Roxalana, and who shall say that it was not complete?
+
+The Ottoman Empire was the poorer by the loss of its greatest man, the
+jealousy of the Sultana was assuaged, the despot who had permitted this
+unavenged murder was still on the throne, thrall to the woman who had first
+murdered his son and then his friend and minister. But the deed carried
+with it the evil consequences which were only too likely to occur when so
+capable a head of the State was removed at so critical a time. Renewed
+strife was in the air, and endless squabbles between Venice and the Porte
+were taking place. With these we have no concern, but, in addition to other
+complaints, there were loud and continuous ones concerning the corsairs.
+Venice, "The Bride of the Sea," had neither rest nor peace; the pirates
+swarmed in Corfu, in Zante, in Candia, in Cephalonia, and the plunder and
+murder of the subjects of the Republic was the theme of perpetual
+representations to the Sultan. The balance of advantage in this guerilla
+warfare was with the corsairs until Girolame Canale, a Venetian captain,
+seized one of the Moslem leaders known as "The Young Moor of Alexandria,"
+The victory of Canale was somewhat an important one as he captured the
+galley of "The Young Moor" and four others; two more were sunk, and three
+hundred Janissaries and one thousand slaves fell into the hands of the
+Venetian commander. There being an absence of nice feeling on the part of
+the Venetians, the Janissaries were at once beheaded to a man.
+
+The whole story is an illustration of the extraordinary relations existing
+among the Mediterranean States at this time. Soliman the Magnificent,
+Sultan of Turkey, had lent three hundred of his Janissaries, his own picked
+troops, to assist the corsairs in their depredations on Venetian commerce.
+Having done this, and the Janissaries having been caught and summarily and
+rightly put to death as pirates, the Sultan, as soon as he heard of what
+had occurred, sent an ambassador, one Yonis Bey, to Venice to demand
+satisfaction for the insult passed upon him by the beheading of his own
+soldiers turned pirates. The conclusion of the affair was that the
+Venetians released "The Young Moor of Alexandria" as soon as he was cured
+of the eight wounds which he had received in the conflict, and sent him
+back to Africa with such of his galleys as were left. There was one rather
+comical incident in connection with this affair, which was that when Yonis
+Bey was on his way from Constantinople to Venice he was chased by a
+Venetian fleet, under the command of the Count Grandenico, and driven
+ashore. The Count was profuse in his apologies when he discovered that he
+had been chasing a live ambassador; but the occurrence so exasperated
+Soliman that he increased his demands in consequence.
+
+Barbarossa, who had spent his time harrying the Spaniards at sea ever since
+the fall of Tunis, was shortly to appear on the scene again. He received
+orders from the Sultan, and came as fast as a favouring wind would bring
+him. Kheyr-ed-Din had been doing well in the matter of slaves and plunder,
+but he knew that, with the backing of the Grand Turk, he would once again
+be in command of a fleet in which he might repeat his triumph of past
+years, and prove himself once more the indispensable "man of the sea."
+
+Soon after his arrival his ambitions were gratified, and he found himself
+with a fleet of one hundred ships. Since the death of Ibrahim, and the
+incident which terminated with the despatch of Yonis Bey to Venice, the
+relations between the Grand Turk and the Venetian Republic had become
+steadily worse, and at last the Sultan declared war. On May 17th, 1537,
+Soliman, accompanied by his two sons, Selim and Mohammed, left
+Constantinople. With the campaign conducted by the Sultan we are not
+concerned here; it was directed against the Ionian Islands, which had been
+in the possession of Venice since 1401. On August 18th Soliman laid siege
+to Corfu, and was disastrously beaten, re-embarking his men on September
+7th, after losing thousands in a fruitless attack on the fortress. He
+returned to Constantinople utterly discomfited. It was the seventh campaign
+which the Sultan had conducted in person, but the first in which the
+ever-faithful Ibrahim had not been by his side.
+
+This defeat at the hands of the Venetians was not, however, the only
+humiliation which he was destined to experience in this disastrous year;
+for once again Doria, that scourge of the Moslem, was loose upon the seas,
+and was making his presence felt in the immediate neighbourhood of Corfu,
+where the Turks had been defeated. On July 17th Andrea had left the port of
+Messina with twenty-five galleys, had captured ten richly laden Turkish
+ships, gutted and burned them. Kheyr-ed-Din was at sea at the time, but the
+great rivals were not destined to meet on this occasion. Instead of
+Barbarossa, Andrea fell in with Ali-Chabelli, the lieutenant of Sandjak Bey
+of Gallipoli. On July 22nd the Genoese admiral and the Turkish commander
+from the Dardanelles met to the southward of Corfu, off the small island of
+Paxo, and a smart action ensued. It ended in the defeat of Ali-Chabelli,
+whose galleys were captured and towed by Doria into Paxo. That veteran
+fighter was himself in the thickest of the fray, and, conspicuous in his
+crimson doublet, had been an object of attention to the marksmen of
+Chabelli during the entire action. In spite of the receipt of a severe
+wound in the knee, the admiral refused to go below until victory was
+assured. He was surrounded at this time by a devoted band of nobles sworn
+to defend the person of their admiral or to die in his defence. His
+portrait has been sketched for us at this time by the Dominican Friar,
+Padre Alberto Gugliel-motto, author of "La guerra dei Pirati e la marina
+Pontifica dal 1500 al 1560." The description runs thus: "Andrea Doria was
+of lofty stature, his face oval in shape, forehead broad and commanding,
+his neck was powerful, his hair short, his beard long and fan-shaped, his
+lips were thin, his eyes bright and piercing."
+
+Once again had he defeated an officer of the Grand Turk; and it may be
+remarked that Ibrahim was probably quite right in the estimation, or rather
+in the lack of estimation, in which he held the sea-officers of his master,
+as they seem to have been deficient in every quality save that of personal
+valour, and in their encounters with Doria and the knights were almost
+invariably worsted. For the sake of Islam, for the prestige of the Moslem
+arms at sea, it was time that Barbarossa should take matters in hand once
+more.
+
+The autumn of this year 1537 proved that the old Sea-wolf had lost none of
+his cunning, that his followers were as terrible as ever. What did it seem
+to matter that Venetian and Catalan, Genoese and Frenchman, Andalusian and
+the dwellers in the Archipelago, were all banded together in league against
+this common foe? Did not the redoubtable Andrea range the seas in vain, and
+were not all the efforts of the Knights of Saint John futile, when the son
+of the renegado from Mitylene and his Christian wife put forth from the
+Golden Horn? What was the magic of this man, it was asked despairingly,
+that none seemed able to prevail against him? Had it not been currently
+reported that Carlos Quinto, the great Emperor, had driven him forth from
+Tunis a hunted fugitive, broken and penniless, with never a galley left,
+without one ducat in his pocket? Was he so different, then, from all the
+rest of mankind that his followers would stick to him in evil report as
+well as in the height of his prosperity? Men swore and women crossed
+themselves at the mention of his name.
+
+"Terrible as an army with banners," indeed, was Kheyr-ed-Din in this
+eventful summer: things had gone badly with the crescent flag, the Padishah
+was unapproachable in his palace, brooding perchance on that "might have
+been" had he not sold his honour and the life of his only friend to gratify
+the malice of a she-devil; those in attendance on the Sultan trembled, for
+the humour of the despot was black indeed.
+
+But "the veritable man of the sea" was in some sort to console him for that
+which he had lost; as never in his own history--and there was none else
+with which it could be compared--had the Corsair King made so fruitful a
+raid. He ravaged the coasts of the Adriatic and the islands of the
+Archipelago, sweeping in slaves by the thousand, and by the end of the year
+he had collected eighteen thousand in the arsenal at Stamboul. Great was
+the jubilation in Constantinople when the Admiralissimo himself returned
+from his last expedition against the infidel; stilled were the voices which
+hinted disaffection--who among them all could bring back four hundred
+thousand pieces of gold? What mariner could offer to the Grand Turk such
+varied and magnificent presents?
+
+Upon his arrival Barbarossa asked permission to kiss the threshold of the
+palace of the Sultan, which boon being graciously accorded to him, he made
+his triumphal entry. Two hundred captives clad in scarlet robes carried
+cups of gold and flasks of silver behind them came thirty others, each
+staggering under an enormous purse of sequins; yet another two hundred
+brought collars of precious stones or bales of the choicest goods; and a
+further two hundred were laden with sacks of small coin. Certainly if
+Soliman the Magnificent had lost a Grand Vizier he had succeeded in finding
+an admiral!
+
+All through the earlier months of 1538 the dockyards of Constantinople
+hummed with a furious activity, for Soliman had decreed that the maritime
+campaign of this year was to begin with no less than one hundred and fifty
+ships. His admiral, however, did not agree with this decision; to the
+Viziers he raged and stormed. "Listen," he said, "O men of the land who
+understand naught of the happenings of the sea. By this time Saleh-Reis
+must have quitted Alexandria convoying to the Bosphorus twenty sail filled
+with the richest merchandise; should he fall in with the accursed Genoese,
+Doria, where then will be Saleh-Reis and his galleys and his convoy? I will
+tell you: the ships in Genoa, the galleys burned, Saleh-Reis and all his
+mariners chained to the rowers' bench."
+
+The Viziers trembled, as men did when Barbarossa stormed and turned upon
+them those terrible eyes which knew neither fear nor pity. "We be but men,"
+they answered, "and our lord the Sultan has so ordained it."
+
+"I have forty galleys," replied the corsair; "you have forty more. With
+these I will take the sea; but, mark you," he continued, softening
+somewhat, "you do right to fear the displeasure of the Sultan, and I also
+have no wish to encounter it; but vessels raised and equipped in a hurry
+will be of small use to me. In the name of Allah the compassionate and his
+holy Prophet give me my eighty galleys and let me go."
+
+In Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa sound strategical instinct went hand in hand
+with the desperate valour of the corsair. To dally in the Golden Horn while
+so rich a prey was at sea to be picked up by his Christian foes was
+altogether opposed to his instincts: never to throw away a chance in the
+game of life had ever been his guiding principle.
+
+Soliman, great man as he undoubtedly was, had not the adamantine hardness
+of character which enabled his admiral to risk all on the hazards of the
+moment; or possibly the Grand Turk was deficient in that clearness of
+strategical instinct which never in any circumstances forgoes a present
+advantage for something which may turn out well in a problematical future.
+Soliman, sore, sullen, and unapproachable, dwelt in his palace brooding
+over the misfortunes which had been his lot since the death of Ibrahim.
+Barbarossa, who so recently had lost practically all that he possessed, and
+who had reached an age at which most men have no hopes for the future, was
+as clear in intellect, as undaunted in spirit, as if he had been half a
+century younger: to be even once more with those by whom he had been
+defeated and dispossessed was the only thing now in his mind. The capture
+of Saleh-Reis and his convoy would be a triumph of which he could not bear
+to think. Further, it would add to the demoralisation of the sea forces of
+the Sultan, which were sadly in need of some striking success after the
+defeats which had so recently been their portion. The Sultan had decided
+that one hundred and fifty ships were necessary; his admiral thought
+otherwise. There was too much at stake for him to dally at Constantinople;
+his fiery energy swept all before it, and in the end he had his way. On
+June 7th, 1538, he finally triumphed over the hesitations of the Viziers
+and put to sea with eighty sail.
+
+The Sultan, from his kiosk, the windows of which opened on the Bosphorus,
+counted the ships.
+
+"Only eighty sail; is that all?" he asked.
+
+The trembling Viziers prostrated themselves before him.
+
+"O our Lord, the Padishah," they cried, "Saleh-Reis comes from Alexandria
+with a rich convoy; somewhere lurking is Andrea Doria, the accursed; it was
+necessary, O Magnificent, to send succour."
+
+There was a pause, in which the hearts of men beat as do those who know not
+but that the next moment may be their last on earth.
+
+The Sultan stared from his window at the retreating ships in a silence like
+the silence of the grave. At last he turned:
+
+"So be it," he answered briefly; "but see to it that reinforcements do not
+lag upon the road."
+
+If there had been activity in the dockyards before it was as nothing to the
+strenuous work that was to be done henceforward.
+
+Before starting on this expedition Kheyr-ed-Din had made an innovation in
+the manning of some of the most powerful of his galleys, which was of the
+utmost importance, and which was to add enormously to the success of his
+future maritime enterprises. The custom had always been that the Ottoman
+galleys had been rowed by Christians, captured and enslaved; of course the
+converse was true in the galleys of their foes. There were, for the size of
+the vessels, an enormous number of men carried in the galleys of the
+sixteenth century, and an average craft of this description would have on
+board some four hundred men; of these, however, the proportion would be two
+hundred and fifty slaves to one hundred and fifty fighting men. That which
+Kheyr-ed-Din now insisted upon was that a certain proportion of his most
+powerful units should be rowed by Moslem fighting men, so that on the day
+of battle the oarsmen could join in the fray instead of remaining chained
+to their benches, as was the custom with the slaves. It is, however, an
+extraordinary testimony to the influence which the corsair had attained in
+Constantinople that he had been able to effect this change in the
+composition of some of his crews; it must have been done with the active
+co-operation of the Sultan, as no authority less potent than that of the
+sovereign himself could have induced free men to undertake the terrible
+toil of rower in a galley. This was reserved for the unfortunate slave on
+either side owing to the intolerable hardship of the life, and results, in
+the pace at which a galley proceeded through the water, were usually
+obtained by an unsparing use of the lash on the naked bodies of the rowers.
+
+This human material was used up in the most prodigal manner possible, as
+those in command had not the inducement of treating the rowers well, from
+that economic standpoint which causes a man to so use his beast of burden
+as to get the best work from him. In the galley, when a slave could row no
+more he was flung overboard and another was put in his place.
+
+The admiral, however, even when backed by the Padishah, could not man a
+large fleet of galleys with Moslem rowers, and, as there was a shortage in
+the matter of propelling power, his first business was to collect slaves,
+and for this purpose he visited the islands of the Archipelago. The lot of
+the unhappy inhabitants of these was indeed a hard one. They were nearer to
+the seat of the Moslem power than any other Christians; they were in those
+days totally unable to resist an attack in force, and in consequence were
+swept off in their thousands.
+
+Seven islands cover the entrance to the Gulf of Volo. The nearest to the
+coast is Skiathos, which is also the most important; it was defended by a
+castle built upon a rock. This castle was attacked by Barbarossa, who
+bombarded it for six days, carried it by assault, and massacred the
+garrison. He spared the lives of the inhabitants of the island, and by this
+means secured three thousand four hundred rowers for his galleys. He had to
+provide motor-power for the reinforcements which he expected. In July he
+was reinforced from Constantinople by ninety galleys, while from Egypt came
+Saleh-Reis, who had succeeded in avoiding the terrible Doria, with twenty
+more; the fleet was thus complete.
+
+Barbarossa ravaged Skios, Andros, and other islands, putting them under
+contribution, and in this manner raised some eight thousand ducats; from a
+pen of guinea-fowl to a king's ransom, nothing escaped the maw of this most
+rapacious of corsairs. Candia and some other islands yielded up some small
+spoil, but the sufferings of such insignificant folk as the wretched
+islanders were soon lost to the sight of the Christian world in the
+magnitude of the events which were now impending.
+
+Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, Corsair, Admiral, and King, the scourge of the
+Mediterranean, and Andrea Doria, Prince of Oneglia, Admiral of the modern
+Caesar, Charles V., Emperor and King, were at last to meet face to face.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+THE PREVESA CAMPAIGN; THE GATHERING OF THE FLEETS
+
+Some thirty-five miles to the south-eastward of Cape Bianco (the
+southernmost point of the island of Corfu) lies Prevesa, at the entrance of
+the Gulf of Arta, or, as it was known in classic times, the Ambracian Gulf.
+In these seas, in the year 31 B.C., was fought one of the most memorable
+battles of antiquity, for it was here that Octavius, afterward Augustus
+Caesar, defeated the forces of Antony and Cleopatra. There have been many
+controversies of late years as to whom the original idea of breaking the
+line in naval combats is due: anyhow, it can claim a respectable antiquity,
+as it was practised at the battle of Actium by Octavius, who by a skilful
+manoeuvre caused Antony to lengthen his line, which he then cut through and
+attacked the ships of Cleopatra, which were in support: this was too much
+for the lady, who fled with her sixty ships, followed by Antony, to his
+eternal disgrace. The remainder of his fleet fought bravely for a time, but
+was eventually defeated, the land army also surrendering to Octavius. The
+date of the actual battle of Actium was September 2nd, 31 B.C.: it was in
+September 1538 that the battle of Prevesa between Andrea Doria and
+Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa took place, and the conditions of the battle were
+almost exactly similar.
+
+To this very place came, 1569 years later, the Christian and the Moslem,
+the Crescent and the Cross, each under its most renowned leader, each side
+burning with an inextinguishable hate. It was one of the peculiarities of
+this warfare that into it entered so much actual personal feeling, each
+side hating the other for the love of God in the most poisonous fashion.
+Save and except the battle of Lepanto in 1571 (with which we shall deal
+later in the story of Ali Basha, or Occhiali as he was called by his
+Christian opponents) the contest at Prevesa was far the most important ever
+fought by those strange oar-propelled vessels known as galleys. It was
+memorable in many ways, but particularly so for the ages of the men in
+chief command. Andrea Doria was at this time seventy years of age; in fact,
+Guglielmotti gives the date of his birth as 1466, thus making him two years
+older. That amazing veteran Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, who died in his bed at
+Constantinople on July 4th, 1546, at the age of ninety, must have been
+eighty-two. Vicenzo Capello was sixty-eight, as the epitaph on his tomb at
+Venice in the church of Santa Maria Formosa says that he was seventy-two in
+the year of his death, 1542.
+
+Once again Christendom was nerving itself for a supreme effort against the
+corsairs, and, during the time that Barbarossa was raiding and ravaging
+among the islands of the Archipelago, the Christian fleet was gradually
+assembling. At first it numbered some 150 galleys, 81 Venetian, 36
+Pontifical, and 30 Spanish; Charles V. sent, at the last moment, 50 ships
+on which were embarked 10,000 troops. The force totalled altogether 59,000
+to 60,000 men, 195 ships, and 2,594 cannons. This was no doubt a most
+formidable armada, but the policy of those by whom it was composed was not
+all directed to the same end. While Charles desired, above all things, to
+exterminate the corsairs for good and all, which was, in the circumstances,
+the only sound view of the matter, the Venetians were for fighting
+defensive actions to maintain their supremacy in the Ionian Islands, and
+were disposed to let the future take care of itself. There was not, in
+consequence, that absolute unanimity among the various commanders of the
+expedition as was necessary for its complete success.
+
+The concentration of the Christian fleet took place at Corfu. The Venetians
+arrived first, with Vincenzo Capello in command; Marco Grimani brought
+thither the Papal contingent; they anchored and waited, but Andrea Doria
+did not appear. Days lengthened into weeks, and Grimani and Capelli chafed
+and fumed; provisions were running low and the dignity of Venice and of the
+Pope were flouted by this strange remissness on the part of the Admiral of
+the Emperor. At last, furious with impatience, Grimani made a raid into the
+Gulf of Arta, which was defended at the entrance by the fortress of
+Prevesa. The only result of this ill-timed attack was that two Papal
+captains and a number of soldiers were killed. Grimani then returned to
+Corfu, to find Capello irritated to the last extent by the non-appearance
+of Doria.
+
+At last, on September 5th, the Imperial fleet hove in sight. It was
+composed of forty-nine galleys, but these were supplemented by a great
+number of sailing ships; the sailing craft, however, did not arrive till
+September 22nd. These vessels were gradually making way among the Spaniards
+since the discovery of the new world.
+
+At this time the Venetians possessed fourteen nefs. Doria had augmented
+these by twenty-two of his own, and the total number of thirty-six was
+commanded by Franco Doria, a nephew of the admiral. The Venetian nefs were
+commanded by Alessandro Condalmiero, captain of the _Galleon of Venice_.
+This was the most formidable fighting vessel in the Mediterranean; she was
+reckoned an excellent sailor, she was by far the most heavily armed sailing
+ship then afloat; in fact, in the opinion of contemporary seamen, she was
+"an invincible fortress."
+
+Doria, Grimani, and Capello had now nearly 200 ships carrying nearly 60,000
+men. Such a force, in all ages, has been considered great. William the
+Conqueror conquered Britain with a less number; it is almost half the total
+of the personnel of the British fleet in the present day which has to
+defend a country with 40,000,000 inhabitants, and all this force had been
+raised, armed, and equipped to combat with a Moslem corsair.
+
+Barbarossa had succeeded in assembling 122 ships. He was accompanied by all
+the most famous corsairs of the day, among whom was Dragut, who fell at the
+siege of Malta, and of whom we shall have more to say in due time. Far and
+wide ranged the swift galleys of the Ottoman fleet, for the plan of the
+commander of the Moslems was to locate and destroy his enemies in detail if
+possible. At last news came to him that Grimani's ships had been sighted in
+the Gulf of Arta. Not one moment did he lose; he would fall upon the Papal
+contingent with his whole force and destroy it utterly. Such, at least, was
+his plan when he sailed for Prevesa; but, notwithstanding his haste, he was
+too late. Happily for himself, Grimani had returned to Corfu before the
+arrival of his enemy.
+
+At this juncture Barbarossa hesitated; had he not done so, and had he
+followed Grimani to Corfu, he might have destroyed both him and Vincenzo
+Capello in detail before the arrival of Doria. The Prevesa campaign is a
+curious study of hesitation on both sides, and the idea naturally occurs
+were not the corsair and the Christian commanders-in-chief too old for the
+work on which they were engaged? Men of over seventy are not impetuous, but
+grave and deliberate as a rule; but there is no rule without its
+exceptions, and Doria and Barbarossa were not as other leaders. Up to the
+present their dash and initiative had been unimpaired. There was no
+question that Barbarossa not only made a mistake in hesitating, but that by
+it he lost the game. Instead of striking at once he did what he had never
+done before in the whole of his career, which was to send to Constantinople
+for instructions. Some of his galleys had captured a fishing-boat off
+Corfu, the crew of which had seen Doria's fleet. The Moslem leader sent the
+fishermen themselves to report to Soliman exactly what they had seen, and
+to ask for and bring back instructions from that potentate. What Barbarossa
+had discovered was that the odds were very much against him; so much, in
+fact, that he would have to act on the defensive. In consequence, he
+steered for Prevesa and entered the Gulf of Arta, which is approached by a
+long narrow strait, dominated by the castle of Prevesa. Once inside he
+anchored his galleys in such a position that they could fire direct out to
+sea, thus overwhelming with their fire any vessel attempting to enter.
+
+Barbarossa now occupied the same position as did Octavius in his combat
+with Antony. The role of the latter general was now taken by Doria. Antony,
+like Doria, had heavy ships which could not advance to the attack owing to
+their too great draught. Octavius, with his light-draught ships, could both
+attack and retreat into safety if overmatched.
+
+On September 22nd Doria, having collected all his ships, gave orders to
+fill up with wood, water, and fresh provisions. On the 25th, to the sound
+of the trumpet, the Commander-in-Chief, with his fleet of two hundred sail,
+weighed anchor and sped before the wind rapidly southwards. Grimani
+commanded the advance-guard, Doria was in the centre, Vincenzo Capello,
+with his Venetians, brought up the rear. Formed in two columns, the nefs
+followed the galleys; the _Galleon of Venice_, commanded by Condalmiero, a
+squadron in herself, preceded them.
+
+[Illustration: GALEASSE UNDER SAIL.]
+
+From the anchorage at Corfu to the entrance of the Gulf of Arta is about
+fifty-eight miles, and, traversing this distance during the hours of
+daylight, the fleet anchored, as night fell, under Cape Prevesa. The
+Galleon which acted as what we should now call the guide of the fleet,
+anchored in sixteen feet of water, which was barely sufficient to keep her
+afloat.
+
+The Gulf of Arta, in which, as we have said, the fleet of the Moslems were
+now anchored, presents very curious physical peculiarities: it is
+twenty-two miles in length from east to west, and fifteen miles in breadth
+from north to south. This sheet of water is formed into an immense bay by
+the configuration of the land, and its depth, in places, is from one
+hundred and thirty to two hundred feet. Inside it all the navies in the
+world might ride at anchor, were it not for the fact that the entrance is
+closed by a bar upon which the depth varies from six and a half to thirteen
+feet. With his light-draught ships Barbarossa occupied the interior
+position, while the heavy ships of Doria must in any event remain outside.
+A strong sea-breeze was blowing on shore; all night the nefs and the
+galleys were nearly rolling their gunwales under. In these packed and
+crowded vessels the misery and discomfort of their crews may be imagined.
+On the morning of the 26th, however, the west wind dropped, and a light
+wind sprang up from the northward.
+
+The position at this time was one of surpassing interest. Here at long last
+the two most renowned sea-captains of the time were face to face. Each was
+aware that his antagonist was worthy of his steel, also that great issues,
+political and national, hung upon this conflict; which was no mere affair
+of outposts, but a struggle to the death as to whether the Crescent or the
+Cross was in time to come to be supreme in the tideless sea. And yet--such
+is the irony of fate--this battle proved indecisive, and it was not until
+thirty years later, at the battle of Lepanto, that this momentous question
+was set at rest for a time.
+
+Would Doria, greatly daring, go in and risk all in attacking a fortified
+position; or would Barbarossa make a sally and fight it out to the death on
+the element on which he was so supremely at home?
+
+But Doria had no mind to attack a fleet anchored under the guns of a
+fortress; Barbarossa would not risk all in an encounter with a foe
+possessed of great numerical superiority without orders from
+Constantinople. On Doria's side nothing but a disembarkation and a
+land-attack would offer a fair security for success, Kheyr-ed-Din, who
+held, as we have said, the interior position, was well aware of this fact,
+and in this supreme moment of his career was not disposed to give away any
+advantage. The situation occupied by Kheyr-ed-Din at the battle of Prevesa
+was, in a sense, different from any which he had held before, as he was in
+this case hampered by his sense of responsibility as Admiralissimo to the
+Grand Turk. What happened on the distant shores of Africa mattered but
+little to that monarch, and he had been content to allow his admiral an
+entirely free hand; here in Europe, on the shores of Greece, so close
+relatively to his own capital city, it was a very different matter, and
+Soliman was kept in touch with the happenings of his fleet as far as was
+possible in those days. But if the great corsair did not add to his
+reputation in this eventful campaign he still displayed an aptitude in
+realising the situation which, it is safe to say, was shown by none of
+those under his command.
+
+Prevesa illustrates for us more than any other action the difficulties with
+which the path of the partisan leader in these days must always have been
+filled; and how it was that personal ascendancy was the only force to which
+such a leader had to trust Sheer dominance of the minds, the wills, and the
+bodies of others had placed Kheyr-ed-Din where he was; all his life he had
+commanded undisciplined pirates, and yet now, when he was the properly
+accredited officer of a mighty monarch, when he might have expected far
+more discipline and subordination than had ever been his lot in the past,
+he was met with a contumaciousness which he was unable to quell, and was
+forced into taking steps which, in his own unequalled knowledge of war, he
+knew to be doomed to disaster.
+
+Around him the Reis, or captains of the Moslem galleys, clamorously
+demanded that he should take precautions against a land-attack. It was true
+that the raid which had been made by Grimani had been easily repulsed, but
+in present circumstances there was no question of a mere raid, as, should
+the Christian admiral so decide, he could land twenty thousand men. Sinan
+Reis, an old Osmanli warrior, furious with jealousy that the chief command
+should be in the hands of a corsair, sustained his opinion in a manner
+which augured ill for the hearty co-operation of all the Turkish forces.
+Sinan was just one of those blindly valiant fighters from whom the politic
+Ibrahim had desired to deliver his master when he had urged the appointment
+of Kheyr-ed-Din: brave as a lion, keen as the edge of his own good
+scimitar, fanatical, as became a Hodja who had visited the Holy Places,
+Sinan was a type of the Turkish sea-officer: devoid of strategical instinct
+and tactical training, his one idea was a headlong attack, then victory or
+the houris of Paradise. It will be seen that Barbarossa had not only Doria
+and the Christian fleet and army against which to contend on this occasion.
+
+The peril conjured up by Sinan Reis on this occasion was not altogether an
+imaginary one: the idea of a disembarkation had, in point of fact, been
+seriously discussed that very morning by Andrea Doria and his council of
+war, at which Hernando de Gonzaga, Generalissimo of the troops embarked,
+had advised a landing. His argument, embodied in a long and technical
+harangue, may be reduced to the following:
+
+  If we cannot go straight at the enemy and force our way through the
+  entrance under his cannon why should we not reduce the fortress of
+  Prevesa by a siege? Once masters of this height, we could close the
+  strait by sinking in it vessels laden with stones, and we then have the
+  Ottoman fleet at our mercy.
+
+But Doria the sailor was not to be led by Gonzaga the soldier. He said:
+
+  The advice seems sound, but in reality it would prove most dangerous if
+  followed. Barbarossa must have landed some of his men, the cavalry which
+  defeated Grimani's raid will no doubt come again from the interior, if
+  necessary. If we deprive our ships of their soldiers we expose ourselves
+  to a sea-fight under most disadvantageous conditions. But most,
+  important of all is the fact that time presses; the season is far
+  advanced; at any time the fleet may be driven off these shores by a
+  storm, in which case what would become of the troops left on shore?
+  Again, if it comes on to blow a tempest from the westward we may lose
+  not only our troops, but our ships, in fact the whole expedition.
+
+At the battle of Actium, Octavius occupied the shore upon which Hernando
+Gonzaga wished to land and assault; but notwithstanding this fact Octavius
+did not attempt the passage of the gulf but waited for his enemy outside.
+Doria was therefore all the more justified in not sacrificing ships and men
+in attempting to force an entrance now that this same shore was in the
+hands of the enemy. He was asked, he said, to thrust his head into the
+mouth of the wolf, and this he was determined not to do.
+
+In the meanwhile Barbarossa was using much the same language to his
+captains as was Doria.
+
+"My brothers," said he, "you wish to transport cannon and raise redoubts on
+this uncovered shore because you think that the Christians will disembark
+and seize it: if you attempt this I tell you that the guns of the enemy
+will annoy you terribly., Not only this, supposing that Doria, profiting by
+the moment that our vessels are empty of troops, should attack in force, we
+cannot with five thousand men repulse twenty thousand. The fort of Prevesa
+will defend itself quite sufficiently well with its own garrison; our
+business is to think of the fleet and not to weaken in any way our means of
+attack and defence, If the infidels force, or attempt to force, an entry
+into the port, they will be most likely merely losing time and ammunition
+in cannonading us. You know that it is principally in this that these
+accursed dogs do trust, whereas we, O men of Islam, will place our
+confidence in God, in Mahomet his Prophet, in the strength of our right
+arms, in the keenness of our scimitars; we will carry them by boarding,
+therefore we must keep our crews on board,"
+
+But Barbarossa had not that absolute domination of the forces under his
+command which should be the prescriptive right of any leader. Sinan-Reis,
+the implacable be-turbaned old Osmanli, held him in bitter scorn. "Your
+advice may be good," he retorted, "but we think our plan the better."
+
+The admiral suggested a reconnaissance of the site, which was merely a ruse
+to gain time. This was carried out under his own supervision, and confirmed
+him in the idea that disembarkation was folly; but Sinan-Reis and the
+Janissaries held obstinately to their opinion, while the "Joldaks," or
+Turkish soldiers in the galleys, grumbled among themselves that
+Kheyr-ed-Din must indeed be full of vanity to reject the counsels of one
+like Sinan-Reis.
+
+Both commanders-in-chief, Christian and Moslem, seem on this occasion to
+have taken an absolutely correct view of the problem as it was presented;
+but whereas Andrea Doria was a real commander-in-chief, Barbarossa was
+forced to consider and to defer to the opinions of men whom he knew to be
+in the wrong.
+
+It was against his better judgment that Kheyr-ed-Din at last yielded; the
+men were backing up their officers, a spirit of disaffection was abroad in
+the armada: such a thing as this a wise chief must gauge at its true value,
+and stop before it goes too far. The Osmanli were murmuring against "the
+corsair"; it was time to let them see whether they or their war-worn leader
+possessed the greater wisdom.
+
+According to Moslem chroniclers the valour of Kheyr-ed-Din was only
+equalled by his piety; consequently he murmured a prayer into that famous
+beard of his, which was now so much nearer to white than red, and gave
+orders that the cannon shall be immediately disembarked. "Let the will of
+God and of His Prophet be accomplished; that which is written is that which
+will take place," exclaimed this pious man as he watched the preparations
+being carried out under the supervision of Mourad-Reis.
+
+That which "took place" was precisely and exactly what the Commander-in-
+Chief had predicted from the first: no sooner had Mourad-Reis landed upon
+the exposed beach, and attempted to open a trench, than he was met by a
+furious and concentrated fire from the galleys and nefs of the Christian
+fleet. To entrench themselves was impossible in the circumstances, as they
+had been told by the Admiral before they started on this harebrained
+adventure. There could be only one result, which was that, after a cruel
+and perfectly useless slaughter, the soldiers of Mourad-Reis had to retreat
+before the hail of shot poured upon them, and to return ignominiously to
+their vessels.
+
+It is not on record what Kheyr-ed-Din said to Sinan, Mourad, and those
+other tacticians who had recommended the landing; which perhaps is a pity.
+
+Doria then made a tentative movement against the strait by a detachment of
+galleys; Barbarossa told off an equal number to oppose them, and they
+mutually cannonaded and skirmished during the day. There was much noise and
+excitement, but practically no advantage was gained by either side, as
+Doria's men could not risk passing the guns of the fort, nor could those of
+Barbarossa the chance of being cannonaded by the heavy vessels lying in
+wait-for them outside. And so the day closed down with no success on either
+side, but with a decisive demonstration to the Moslems that, if they
+desired victory, to their admiral had better be left the organisation by
+which it was to be obtained.
+
+Whether Doria really desired a pitched battle can never be known; that
+which is certain is that, during the whole time the fleets were in touch,
+all his dispositions make it appear there was nothing of which he was so
+much afraid. And yet it was the opportunity of his life; he had superiority
+in numbers, he had valiant and experienced leaders, and sixty thousand men
+thirsting for battle, under his command. Also he had his opportunity,
+which, had he seized upon, must have ended in victory, did those who were
+under his orders only fight as he had every reason to believe that they
+would. As it was, he threw away the gift of fortune, and left to the
+Osmanli the practical dominance of the Mediterranean Sea until that great
+day in 1571 when Don John of Austria, the natural son of Charles V., proved
+to the world at Lepanto that the Turk was not invincible upon the waters.
+
+It is true that Doria was awkwardly situated; Kheyr-ed-Din held the
+interior position, and that leader was a great believer in the adage that
+"if Brag is a good dog, Holdfast is a better." He was well aware of his
+numerical inferiority, and in consequence refused to listen to the frenzied
+appeals of the excited Moslems to be led against the Christian dogs. It may
+seem a contradiction in terms to speak of the moral courage of a pirate;
+but if ever that quality were displayed to its fullest extent it was
+exhibited by Barbarossa in the Prevesa campaign. In his intellectual
+outlook on all that was passing, both inside and outside of the Gulf of
+Arta, in this September of 1538, we see Kheyr-ed-Din at his best. Ever a
+fighter, he knew when to give battle and when to refrain, when to sweep
+headlong upon the foe, but also when to hold back and to baffle by waiting
+till the psychological moment should arrive. Around him Sinan-Reis,
+Mourad-Reis, and half a hundred others of their kidney were clamouring;
+they hurled insults at his head, they heaped opprobrium on "the corsair,"
+they practically incited their troops to mutiny in their mad appeals to be
+led against the foe.
+
+But "the corsair" kept his head, and kept his temper, and saved the Ottoman
+fleet for his master from his great rival, Doria. That noble Genoese seaman
+was for once in his life "letting I dare not wait upon I would"; he would
+not order the attack for which his men were waiting, and no provocation,
+apparently, could tempt Barbarossa to play Antony to the Octavius of Doria;
+the Christian admiral was tempting Providence at that advanced season of
+the year in keeping the sea on an hostile coast on which at any time he
+might be driven by a tempest. His old and experienced antagonist was well
+aware that the winds and the waves might save him the trouble of destroying
+the fleet of the enemy; an equinoctial gale would do that far more
+effectually than could he. If Doria had an uneasy consciousness that he
+might at any time see the shore littered with oarless galleys and dismasted
+nefs, while the sea was filled with drowning men, the same vision had been
+vouchsafed to his imperturbable adversary. Had it been left to the entire
+initiative of Barbarossa, his Fabian tactics would assuredly have prevailed
+in the end; but as it was he was surrounded by a clamouring host of men,
+soldiers by trade, who, understanding nothing of the happenings of the sea,
+merely derided as cowardice any postponement of what they regarded as the
+inevitable battle. The admiral of the Sultan held out as long as it was
+possible, but at last, owing to a new factor in the case, was forced,
+against his better judgment, to offer the battle which it was in his power
+to have withheld.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+THE BATTLE OF PREVESA
+
+  How Alessandro Condalmiero fought the _Galleon of Venice_--"The
+  King of the Sea is dead."
+
+There is something almost pathetic in the spectacle of a really great
+leader badgered and importuned by lesser men to adopt a course which he,
+with a superior insight, knows to be unsound. In the matter of the landing
+Barbarossa had demonstrated that it was he whose knowledge of war was
+superior to those who were so ready to thrust upon him their opinions;
+this, however, did not content them, and they now desired to close with the
+foe waiting for them outside. If ever a commander was justified in waiting
+on events it was Barbarossa at this juncture; the business of a
+commander-in-chief is to ensure victory, and if he sees, as did the Moslem
+admiral on this occasion, that more is to be gained by delay than by
+fighting, then he is justified in refusing battle: particularly is this the
+case when the enemy is in greatly superior force blockading on an open and
+dangerous coast at an inclement season of the year. Every day that Doria
+was kept at sea added to his difficulties, as fresh water and provisions
+would be running short, and the energies of the human engines by which his
+galleys were propelled would be weakened; naked men chained to a bench were
+suffering from the blazing heat of the days, the cold and drenching dews of
+the nights. All these things had the veteran seaman weighed in his mind,
+they all inclined him to wait still longer in that secure anchorage where
+he could not be touched by his foe.
+
+There was one counsellor, however, whom even Kheyr-ed-Din could not resist,
+and who had hitherto kept silence; this was the eunuch Monuc, legal
+counsellor to Soliman, who had accompanied the armada. He now brought the
+weight of his influence to bear upon the side of Sinan-Reis and his
+colleagues.
+
+"Are you going," he asked the admiral, "to allow the infidels to escape
+without a battle? Soliman can find plenty of wood to build new fleets,
+plenty of captains to command them; he will pardon you if this fleet is
+destroyed: that which he will never pardon is that you should allow Doria
+to escape without fighting. You have brave men in plenty; why not lead them
+to the attack?"
+
+The patience of the veteran gave way at last; none who knew Barbarossa had
+ever seen him shrink from fighting--to this his whole career bore witness.
+He had delayed the issue from the soundest of strategical reasons, which
+those under his command were too stupid and too prejudiced to understand:
+what cared they for reason in their blind valour?--they wished only to do
+or die heedless of the fact that their lives might be spent in vain. Truly
+it was no thanks to the subordinates of Kheyr-ed-Din that this campaign did
+not end in disaster to the arms of the Ottoman Porte. Such backing as the
+admiral had came from among his own men, the corsairs whose lives had been
+spent at sea, but their opinions were but dust in the balance once the
+all-powerful Monuc ranged himself on the side of the malcontents.
+
+"Let us then fight," said the admiral to Saleh-Reis, "or this fine talker
+who is neither man nor woman will accuse us before the Grand Turk and we
+shall all probably be hanged."
+
+The Christian fleet during the night of September 26-7th had made some
+thirty miles to the southward; just before daybreak the wind freshened and
+drew right ahead; Doria approached the island of Santa Maura and anchored
+under the small islet of Sessola.
+
+Barbarossa had now decided to leave his anchorage, but the veteran seaman
+did not disguise from himself the risks which he ran: a greater sea captain
+than he once said "only numbers can annihilate," and it was at annihilation
+that both the Moslem and the Christian aimed: in this case, however, he
+knew that he could but hope for a hard-won victory, and only that if Allah
+and his Prophet were unusually favourable to his cause. He assembled his
+captains, many of whom had served with him during long periods of his
+career, and directed them to form line: he said, "I have but one order to
+give, follow my movements attentively and regulate your own accordingly."
+
+With fustas, brigantines, galleots, and galleys, the Ottoman fleet amounted
+in all to one hundred and forty sail. With shouts of joy the soldiers
+hailed the command to weigh the anchors, and in a very short time all were
+slowly moving seaward.
+
+The die was cast: Doria from his anchorage at Sessola saw the sea white
+with the sails of the enemy, the blue water churning to foam beneath the
+strokes of his oars; the Ottoman fleet was issuing from the Gulf of Arta
+manoeuvring with precision and deploying into a single line abreast; which
+line being slightly concave, either from accident or design, resembled the
+form of a crescent. In advance came six great fustas commanded by Dragut;
+the left wing hugged the shore as closely as possible; the Ottoman
+commander-in-chief intended to commence operations on the first principles
+of strategy by flinging his whole force on a portion of that of the enemy.
+
+Andrea Doria remained undecided: he was on a lee shore, and that shore was
+the coast of the enemy; although his foes were advancing to the attack it
+seemed as if he had no mind to fight: whether he had or had not he
+displayed a most remarkable sluggishness, hesitating for three hours before
+getting up his anchors; these he only weighed at last under pressure from
+the bellicose Patriarch of Aquilea, Vincenzo Capello, and the Papal
+captain, Antonio Grimani. Doria had counted on the support of the _Galleon
+of Venice_ and the nefs; but the galleon was becalmed four miles from the
+land and ten miles from Sessola, where Doria was at the beginning of the
+action.
+
+Condalmiero sent a light skiff from the _Galleon of Venice_ to the
+commander-in-chief demanding orders and help from the galleys.
+
+"Begin the fight," answered the admiral, "you will be succoured."
+
+The position of Condalmiero was that of a modern battleship which is
+disabled and surrounded by foes in full possession of their motive power;
+the great galleon floated inert upon the waters while the galleys could
+fight or fly as they wished. The captain of the galleon, however, had no
+alternative save to surrender or fight; but there was no hesitation on his
+part, for a more gallant officer never trod the decks of a warship of the
+proud Republic to which he belonged.
+
+The Moslem galleys were now close upon him, although as yet out of
+gun-shot; around him they wheeled and circled like a flight of great
+sea-birds, their ferocious crews shouting their war-cries calling upon
+Allah and the Prophet to give them the victory for which they craved; many
+a brave Venetian who heard for the first time the name of Barbarossa
+shouted in battle must have braced himself for the coming conflict, knowing
+all that was imported by that terrible name. The sun shone in a cloudless
+sky, the galleon lay becalmed in the middle of furious and ravening foes,
+the succour promised by Doria was ten miles away; they saw no movement
+which indicated help, and the odds against them were heavy indeed. But all
+the nervousness was not on one side, for the _Galleon of Venice_ was
+something new in the naval warfare of the time; she carried engines of
+destruction in the shape of great guns which the corsairs could by no means
+equal. Of this they were well aware, and the attack was delayed while the
+oarsmen in the galleys rested on their oars out of range to allow them
+breathing time before the supreme moment arrived. But the hounds were only
+held in leash; there came a signal which was answered by a concentrated
+yell of fury and of hate; then from right ahead, right astern, on the port
+side and the starboard, the galleys were launched to the attack. But all on
+board the great Venetian vessel was as still as that death which awaited so
+many of the combatants in this supreme struggle.
+
+Condalmiero had caused the crew of the galleon to lie down upon her decks,
+and stood himself, a gallant solitary figure in his shining armour, a mark
+for the hail of shot so soon to be discharged. It came, and with it the
+mast of the galleon bearing the Lion Standard of St. Mark crashed over the
+side into the water; renewed yells of triumph came from the Moslems, but
+still that ominous silence reigned on board the galleon. Untouched,
+unharmed, the Osmanlis came on firing as rapidly as possible until they
+were absolutely within arquebuss range. Closer they came and closer; then
+the sides of the galleon burst into sheeted flame, and the guns levelled at
+point-blank range tore through the attacking host. Condalmiero was throwing
+away no chances; he had directed his gunners to allow their balls to
+ricochet before striking rather than to throw them away by allowing them to
+fly over the heads of the enemy.
+
+The first broadside did terrible execution; a ball one hundred and twenty
+pounds in weight, fired by the chief bombardier, Francisco d'Arba in
+person, burst in the prow of a galley so effectually that all her people
+flew aft to the poop to prevent the water rushing in; but the vessel was
+practically split in twain, and sank in a few moments. All around were dead
+and dying men, disabled galleys, floating wreckage; the _Galleon of Venice_
+had taken a terrible toll of the Osmanli; the order to retreat out of range
+was given, and never was order obeyed with greater alacrity.
+
+With accuracy and precision the galleon played upon such vessels as
+remained within range, doing great execution. But she was now to be
+subjected to an even severer test than the first headlong attack. She had
+demonstrated to the Moslem leaders that here was no vessel to be carried by
+mere reckless valour; a disciplined and ordered offensive was the only plan
+which promised success; the Osmanli must use their brain as well as their
+courage if that tattered flag, rescued from the water, and nailed to the
+stump of the mast of the galleon, was ever to be torn down. There was
+something daunting in the very aspect of the solid bulk of the huge
+Venetian, something weird in the manner in which her crew never showed,
+save only the steadfast figure of her captain immovable as a statue of
+bronze, where he stood on her shot-torn poop.
+
+This Homeric conflict was a triumph of discipline and gunnery on the part
+of the Venetians; alert, accurate, and cool, the gunners of the galleon
+threw away none of their ammunition: inspired by the heroic spirit of their
+captain, great was the honour which they did on this stricken field to the
+noble traditions of their forbears and the service to which they belonged.
+
+The first attack had been most brilliantly repulsed, but this was only
+preliminary to a conflict which was to last all through the day; the Moslem
+galleys withdrew out of gunshot and re-formed; then a squadron of twenty
+advanced, delivered their fire, and retired; their place was then taken by
+a second squadron, which went through the same performance, and then came
+on a third. In this manner the attack, which began one hour after noon, and
+which was continued until sunset, was conducted. The galleon had thirteen
+men killed, and forty wounded; no doubt the slaughter would have been much
+greater had it not been for the enormous thickness of her sides and for the
+fact that the guns carried by the galleys were necessarily light.
+Notwithstanding, the galleon suffered terribly, she was a mass of wreckage;
+twice fire had broken out on board of her, she was cumbered by fallen
+masts, battered almost out of recognition, but still Condalmiero and her
+gallant crew fought on imperturbably with no thought of surrender. Covered
+with blood, wounded in the face and the right leg by flying splinters, her
+captain preserved his magnificent coolness, and his decimated crew
+responded nobly to his call. At eventide the fire from the galleon was
+almost as deadly as it had been at the first onslaught, and many galleys of
+the Turks were only saved from sinking by the activity and bravery of their
+carpenters, who, slung over their sides in "boatswains' chairs," drove home
+huge plugs of wood with their mallets into the shot-holes made by the
+Venetian guns.
+
+At the hour when the sun dipped below the horizon all the Turkish fleet
+seemed assembled to assault the colossus which so long had resisted their
+attack; there was a pause in the combat, and the firing died down.
+Condalmiero and his men braced themselves for the assault which they felt
+to be inevitable: for now the darkness was swiftly coming, in which they
+could no longer see to shoot, and under cover of which their numerous foes
+could assail them by boarding in comparative safety. Now the moment had
+come for the last act in this terrible drama of the sea. They had held
+their own at long odds throughout the whole of a hot September day, and as
+the level beams of the setting sun shone on their shattered ship they were
+prepared to die, fighting to the last man for the honour of Venice and the
+glory of St. Mark.
+
+Stiff and worn, wearied almost to the breaking strain, there was no man on
+board who even dreamt of surrender; all the guns were charged to the muzzle
+with bullets and broken stone, the artillerists match in hand stood grimly
+awaiting the order to fire, straining their eyes and their ears in the
+gathering darkness; in a few minutes at most they knew that the fate of the
+_Galleon of Venice_ must be decided.
+
+On board his galley, decorated for this occasion with scarlet banners,
+Barbarossa himself directed the assaulting line. Never before when the
+battle was joined had the gallant corsair been known to draw back; and yet
+on this occasion he not only hesitated but actually hauled off. The
+Venetians saw to their amazement that the expected attack was not to be
+pushed home; for Barbarossa and his captains fell upon some lesser vessels:
+the _Galleon of Venice_ was victorious.
+
+Meanwhile Doria was displaying his mastery of tactics when it was hard
+fighting that was wanted; he pretended that he wished to draw the Ottoman
+fleet into the high seas in order that he might destroy their galleys by
+means of the broadsides of his nefs; consequently he executed useless
+parade movements when he should by all the rules of warfare have closed
+with his enemy who was in distinctly inferior force; as he had a fair wind
+there is only one conclusion to be drawn, and that is that he did not want
+to fight.
+
+His manoeuvres certainly mystified the Turks, who viewed his tactics with
+mistrust, thinking them the outset of some deeply laid scheme; it never
+entered into their calculations for one moment that the great Andrea Doria,
+the terror of the Mediterranean sea, and the victor in scores of desperate
+engagements, was anxious to avoid a fight.
+
+Grimani and Capello, docile to the orders of their admiral, followed him
+full of uneasiness and distrust; they were fighting men of the most fiery
+description; to them the issue seemed of the simplest: there was the enemy
+in inferior force to themselves, they had the weather gauge, why delay the
+attack?
+
+"For much less than this," says Admiral Jurien de la Graviere, "the English
+shot Admiral Byng in 1756." The conduct of Doria on this occasion has
+certainly never been explained; the two other leaders went on board and
+remonstrated with their commander-in-chief; they were neither of them men
+who could be treated as negligible quantities on the field of battle; both
+belonged to that brilliant Venetian nobility so renowned in commerce and in
+war. Marco Grimani was in command of the Papal galleys, in itself a mark of
+the highest esteem and confidence from a potentate second to none in his
+influence in the civilised world. To Vincenzo Capello, Henry the Seventh of
+England confided his royal person and the command of his fleet when he
+crossed the Channel to encounter Richard the Second at Bosworth field. Five
+times had he filled the office of Providiteur in Venice, twice had he been
+commander-in-chief of her fleet, he was in perpetuity Procureur of St.
+Mark, to him Venice owed her naval discipline. He wore on this day the
+mantle of crimson silk with which the Republic invested her generals.
+Bitter was the rage in his heart, and bitterly must he have spoken to
+Doria, who, in spite of all remonstrances, continued his futile
+manoeuvrings.
+
+There was glory won on this day, but it was gained neither by Andrea Doria
+nor Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa. The _Galleon of Venice_ with Alessandro
+Condalmiero and his gallant crew had shown to all a splendid example of
+disciplined valour unexcelled in sixteenth-century annals.
+
+Barbarossa had captured a Venetian galley, a Papal galley, and five Spanish
+nefs, but he had recoiled from the assault on Condalmiero when the prize
+was actually within his grasp. For the rest it was a day of manoeuvring and
+tactics; tactics when sixty thousand men had been embarked on board two
+hundred ships for a specific and definite object on the side of the
+Christians and under the command of their most celebrated admiral; and yet
+the balance of advantage was actually gained by the inferior force. No
+subsequent glories can ever wipe this stain from the scutcheon of Doria, or
+can excuse the fact that at the most supreme moment of his career he failed
+to fight the battle that he was in honour, in conscience, and in duty bound
+to deliver. Next day the wind came fair for Corfu, and Doria, his ships
+untouched, unscathed, unharmed, put his helm up and sailed away followed by
+his fleet.
+
+Sandoval records the fact that Barbarossa, roaring with laughter the while,
+was accustomed to say that Doria had even put out his lanterns in order
+that no one might see whither he had fled. This was an allusion to the
+fact--or supposition--that Doria extinguished on that night the great poop
+lantern carried by him as admiral.
+
+When Soliman the Magnificent heard of the result of this battle he caused
+the town of Yamboli, where he was at the time, to be illuminated, and in
+the excess of his joy he added one hundred thousand aspres to the revenues
+of the conqueror; there were processions to the Grand Mosque, and all Islam
+rejoiced and sang the praises of the invincible admiral who had humbled to
+the dust the pride of the Christian and caused the dreaded Doria to fly
+from before the fleet of the Sultan.
+
+This, the most historical, if not the greatest feat in the life of
+Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, was for him a triumph indeed; with a vastly
+inferior force he had driven from the field of battle his "rival in glory,"
+as he himself had denominated Andrea Doria, and he had accomplished this
+feat notwithstanding the almost mutinous condition of his own forces. In
+spite of this it is with Condalmiero and with him alone that the glory of
+this day must rest; alone, absolutely unsupported as we have seen, he
+fought one of those fights which bring the heart into the mouth when we
+read of them; the stern pride of the Venetian noble, who despised as
+canaille the pirate hosts by whom he was assailed, had its counterpart in
+the sturdy valour of Chief Bombardier Francisco d'Arba and the other
+nameless heroes of which that good company was composed; to them we render
+that homage which so justly is their due.
+
+The whole campaign of Prevesa, as we have said, is a curious study in
+hesitation, in dilatoriness, in absolute lack of initiative and virility on
+the part of the two chief actors in the drama: that Doria should fly from
+the field of battle in an untouched ship is only one degree less incredible
+than that Barbarossa should have relinquished his attack on the _Galleon of
+Venice_. It would almost seem as if on this occasion each of the great
+rivals was hypnotised by the presence of the other; all their lives they
+had been seeking honour and riches on the sea, they knew, of course, that
+all men in both the world of Islam and that of Christendom looked upon them
+in the light of the special champions of the opposing sects, that the eyes
+of the entire world were fastened on this meeting of theirs in the classic
+waters of the Ambracian Gulf. In consequence neither man was at his best;
+indeed, we might go further than this, and say that on this occasion both
+lamentably failed. There is no fault to be found with the strategic
+preliminaries to the final conflict, each admiral acting with prudence and
+wisdom in the situation in which he found himself placed. That the
+perfectly correct idea of not giving battle to a superior force when he
+held so strong an interior position was given up by Barbarossa, was, as we
+have seen, not his fault; and when he issued from his anchorage, in
+deference to a sentiment among those under his command which he could no
+longer resist, his dispositions seem to have been made with his usual
+skill. Where he failed, however, was where, from all his previous history,
+we should least have expected failure, in his abandonment of the attack on
+the _Galleon of Venice_; this, of course, was inexcusable, and can only be
+set down to failure of nerve at the supreme moment. The ship had been
+battered by artillery all day long, a huge percentage of her company were
+dead and wounded, and the remainder worn out with fatigue. On the Moslem
+side we have seen that there were squadrons of galleys able to relieve one
+another with no interference from Doria, who was persisting in his futile
+manoeuvring miles away. Had the galleon been boarded, as she might and
+should have been, at nightfall, nothing could have saved Condalmiero and
+his crew: so strenuous, however, had been their resistance, that the
+Turkish seamen feared the issue; in consequence the battle between them and
+the Venetians was a drawn one, with all the honours on the Christian side.
+
+It is here that we shall take leave of Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, as although
+he was yet to live another eight years before he died in his bed at
+Constantinople in July, 1548, there are no further happenings of any great
+importance in his career.
+
+"Valorous, yet prudent, furious in attack, far-seeing in preparation, he
+ranks as the first sea-captain of his time;"[1] as the story of his life
+has unfolded itself in these pages we have seen what manner of man it was
+who terrified Europe, who made for himself a reputation which stands out
+clear and distinct among all the great men of which this century was so
+prolific. One of the surest methods of estimating a strenuous man of action
+is to seek for the names of those by whom he was surrounded: the men
+selected by him to assist in the carrying out of the work of his life; thus
+in reading of Napoleon Bonaparte we interest ourselves in his marshals, in
+reading of Nelson we note the captains by whom he was supported. In the
+case of Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, a great man of action if one ever lived,
+we find no trace of devoted adherents on that high plane of command we have
+indicated in the cases cited above. That he had devoted followers enough is
+absolutely certain, but of high officers we very seldom find a trace, and
+these he treated with contumely and offence on many occasions; witness the
+treatment meted out to Hassan and to Venalcadi. There is practically no
+trace of his domestic life to be found, we cannot discover that he
+possessed any intimate friend. There is none other in all history to whom
+he can be satisfactorily compared; there are few who in their generation
+have wielded such enormous powers, who have climbed so high from the sheer
+unassisted force of their own intellect and their own character.
+
+[Footnote 1: Stanley Lane Poole.]
+
+Physical strength such as is vouchsafed to one man in a million, a
+constitution nothing could impair, endurance incomparable, were his bodily
+attributes: an intellect cold, clear, and penetrating was his, joined to an
+imperturbability of temperament which enabled him to accept with a cheerful
+philosophy blows by which weaker men were absolutely prostrated; his
+outlook on life was not dimmed by any affections, and pity was a sensation
+which to him was entirely alien. In this record of his deeds the reader has
+been spared all mention of the atrocious tortures he was in the habit of
+inflicting on his victims for any or no provocation, and many of them are
+as incomprehensible as they are sickening. That in which he was supreme was
+his craft as a seaman in an age when real seamen were rare; on land he was
+frequently defeated, at sea there seems to be no record of such an
+occurrence. To sum up, he appears to us in the light of history as a body,
+a brain, and an intellect, without any trace of a heart. His path through
+life was one unending trail of blood and fire, moistened by the tears of
+his countless victims, followed by the curses of those whom he despoiled.
+Yet, in spite of this, it is impossible not to admire the man who, by his
+own superhuman energy, ever swept all obstacles from his path, and caused
+the whole of the civilised world to quail at the name of Barbarossa.
+
+He died peacefully in his bed at Constantinople in July, 1546, to the grief
+of the world of Islam and the inexpressible joy of Christendom. "The king
+of the sea is dead," expressed in three Arabic words, gives the numerical
+value 953, the year of the Hegira in which he died.
+
+For many years after his death no Turkish ship ever left the Golden Horn
+without her crew repeating a prayer and firing a salute over the tomb of
+Beshiktsah, where lie the bones of the first and greatest of Turkish
+admirals, the corsair who was at one and the same time admiral, pirate, and
+king.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+THE NAVY OF OARS. THE GALLEY, THE GALEASSE, AND THE NEF
+
+In the sixteenth century the vessel of war in the Mediterranean was
+essentially that oar-propelled craft known to us as the galley. As time
+went on she was gradually superseded by the sailing man-of-war which was
+able to carry that heavy ordnance which the light scantling of the galley
+did not permit of her mounting; but for the use of the corsairs who lived
+by means of raids and surprise attacks, whose business it was to lie perdu
+on the trade routes, the mobility of the galley was of prime importance,
+and they could not afford to trust to the wind alone as a motive power. The
+galley was analogous to the steam vessel in that it was independent of the
+wind to a large extent: human bone and muscle supplied the part of engines,
+and those who fought upon the sea caused themselves to be moved over the
+face of the waters by the exertions of their enemies. It is true that upon
+one occasion, as we have seen, Kheyred-Din Barbarossa did possess a fleet
+of galleys the rowers of which were all Moslems, which crew upon battle
+being joined dropped their oars, seized their weapons and assisted in the
+conquest of the foe. But this was an isolated instance, as it was almost
+impossible at any time and in any circumstances to procure free men ready
+to undertake a life of such intolerable suffering as that of a rower on
+board a galley; in consequence these men were almost invariably slaves, or
+else in later times condemned felons whose judges had sent them to work out
+their sentences upon the rowers' bench. The great characteristic of the
+galley was her mobility, and in a comparative degree her speed, as for a
+short burst, when her crew of rowers were fresh, their trained muscles were
+capable of tremendous exertion; for any length of time, however, it is
+obvious that her speed must have declined as the rowers became exhausted.
+She was long, narrow, of extremely low freeboard, and slight depth of hold;
+a galley of 125 feet between perpendiculars would perhaps be 180 feet over
+all taking in the poop and the prow. A galley of this length would only
+have a beam of 19 feet and a depth of hold of 7 feet 6 inches. The sailing
+ship of contemporary times would for the same length have had a beam of
+about 40 feet and an extremely high freeboard; she was in consequence
+necessarily slow and incapable of sailing on a wind.
+
+So distinct at this time was the line drawn between the sailing vessel and
+the galley that the actual terminology used was entirely different; that is
+to say, the names of such things as masts, sails, rudder, tiller, stern,
+stempost, cutwater, etc., were not the same words; the sailor who used
+sails could not understand his brother mariner who used oars, and _vice
+versa_.
+
+[Illustration: GALLEY UNDER OARS.]
+
+What was necessary of course in the galley was many oars and many hands to
+use them; the vessel was most skilfully constructed for this purpose so as
+to get the fullest power from her human engines; the result was that men
+were crowded on board of her to such an extent that there was scarcely room
+to breathe, such a craft as the one of which the dimensions have been given
+having on board some four hundred men.
+
+Barras de la Penne, a French officer who in 1713 first went on board a
+galley, thus describes what he saw:
+
+  "Those who see a galley for the first time are astonished to see so many
+  persons; there are an infinite number of villages in Europe which do not
+  contain an equal number of inhabitants; however, this is not the
+  principal cause of one's surprise, but that so many men can be assembled
+  in so small a space. It is truth that many of them have not room to
+  sleep at full length, for they put seven men on one bench; that is to
+  say, on a space about ten feet long and four broad; at the bows one sees
+  some thirty sailors who have for their lodging the floor space of the
+  rambades (this is the platform at the prow of the galley) which consists
+  of a rectangular space ten feet long by eight in width. The captain and
+  officers who live on the poop are scarcely better lodged, and one is
+  tempted to compare their grandeur with that of Diogenes in his tub.
+
+  "When the unpitying Libyan Sea surprises these galleys upon the Roman
+  coasts, when the Norther lashes to foam the Gulf of Lyons, when the
+  humid east wind of Syria is driving them off shore, everything combines
+  to make life on board a modern galley a hell of misery and discomfort.
+  The creaking of the blocks and cordage, the loud cries of the
+  sailors, the horrible maledictions of the galley slaves, the groaning of
+  the timbers, mingled with the clank of chains and the bellowings of the
+  tempest, produce sentiments of affright in the most intrepid breasts.
+  The rain, the hail, the lightning, habitual accompaniments of these
+  terrific storms, the waves which dash over the vessel, all add to the
+  horror of the situation, and although devotion is not as a rule very
+  strongly marked on board a galley, you will hear these folk praying to
+  God, and others making vows to the Saints; these would do much better
+  not to forget God and his Saints when the danger is past.
+
+  "Calm itself has also its inconveniences, as the evil smells which arise
+  from the galley are then so strong that one cannot get away from them in
+  spite of the tobacco with which one is obliged to plug one's nostrils
+  from morning till night."
+
+The gallant officer here goes into further details concerning the vermin on
+board which it will be as well to spare the reader.
+
+Jean Marteille de Bergeraq, who died at Culenbourg in 1777, was condemned
+to serve on board the galleys in 1707 "in his quality of Protestant"; he
+must indeed have been a man of iron constitution as he lived to the age of
+ninety-five. This is his description of the life of a _forcat_:
+
+  "They are chained six to a bench; the benches are four feet wide covered
+  with sacking stuffed with wool over which are thrown sheepskins which
+  reach to the floor. The officer who is master of the galley slaves
+  remains aft with the captain to receive his orders; there are two under
+  officers, one amidships and one at the prow; all of these are armed with
+  whips, with which they flog the absolutely naked bodies of the
+  slaves. When the captain gives the order to row, the officer gives the
+  signal with a silver whistle which hangs on a cord round his neck; the
+  signal is repeated by the under officers and very soon all the fifty
+  oars strike the water as one. Imagine six men chained to a bench as
+  naked as they were born, one foot on the stretcher the other raised and
+  placed on the bench in front of them, holding in their hands an oar of
+  enormous weight, stretching their bodies towards the after part of the
+  galley with arms extended to push the loom of the oar clear of the backs
+  of those in front of them who are in the same attitude. They plunge the
+  blades of the oars into the water and throw themselves back, falling on
+  to the seat which bends beneath their weight. Sometimes the galley
+  slaves row thus ten, twelve, even twenty hours at a stretch, without the
+  slightest relapse or rest, and on these occasions the officer will go
+  round putting into the mouths of the wretched rowers pieces of bread
+  soaked in wine to prevent them from fainting. Then the captain will call
+  upon the officers to redouble their blows, and if one of the slaves
+  falls fainting upon his oar, which is a common occurrence, he is flogged
+  until he appears to be dead and is then flung overboard without
+  ceremony."
+
+The Italian captain, Pantero Pantera, of the _Santa Lucia_ galley, in his
+work on "L'Armata Navale" published in 1614, gives it as his opinion that
+although soldiers and sailors could be obtained for service in the galleys
+if good pay were given, still no money could tempt any free man to
+adventure himself as a rower for any length of time owing to the
+intolerable sufferings which the "gallerian" was called upon to endure. As,
+however, in the opinion of the captain it was most necessary that the
+galleys should be manned, he thought that all judges should in future send
+criminals aboard; those who had committed murder as "lifers," those who had
+committed lesser crimes _pro rata_. Those who by the nobility of their
+birth or their physical incompetence were unable to handle the oar should
+be called upon to pay for substitutes to act for them; these were called
+"Buone-Voglie."
+
+There was not much difference after all between the methods used by the
+seventeenth-century Italian to those actually in force in England at a much
+later date when the Press Gang swept the honest and the dishonest into its
+net in its midnight raids.
+
+"The galley slaves," observes Pantera, "cherish repose and sincerely wish
+to avoid fatigue; in order to incite them to do their duty it is necessary
+to use the whip as well as the whistle; by using it with severity the
+officers will find that they are better obeyed, and it will in consequence
+be good for the service, for fear of the whip is the principal cause of
+good behaviour among the gallerians." Further on he observes that it is
+well not to flog them too severely and without reason, "for this irritates
+the gallerians, as I have frequently observed: this may cause them to
+despair and to wish for death as the only sure way out of their troubles."
+The excellent Pantera a little later on even says that he cannot agree that
+the attempt to cure a sick gallerian "is all nonsense, as is maintained by
+some persons," as sick men are a source of danger on board. He apparently
+was not prepared to throw them overboard alive, but urges that the best way
+to avoid such pestilences among them as killed forty thousand Venetians at
+the port of Zara in 1570 is to embark sound and good victuals.
+
+It is interesting to have a contemporary view of the correct treatment of
+the galley slave from those who had to do with him. In the case of the
+corsairs and their adversaries the gallerians were as a rule prisoners of
+war, but as time went on and wars became less frequent than they were
+throughout the sixteenth century, another source of supply was tapped by
+sending to the galleys the criminals of any country which desired to fill
+up the rowers' benches. In consequence there was always one thing which was
+feared above all others on board a galley, and that was a rising of the
+slaves.
+
+If they were not your enemies officially, they were a set of desperate
+criminals ripe for any mischief should they get loose, and chained,
+starved, beaten, frozen with the cold, baked by the summer heats, tortured,
+murdered, they had nothing earthly for which to hope except escape. If in
+the heat of battle there should occur a rising of the slaves, then their
+masters knew that victory would declare itself surely on the side of the
+enemy. Therefore that they should be securely chained was the first and
+most important thing to which the boatswain of a galley and his mates had
+to see. If by a bold stroke they once freed themselves from their shackles
+it was a fight to the death for those who erstwhile had been in command, as
+the gallerians, outnumbering them and caring nought for their lives in
+comparison to their liberties, were far the most formidable foes that they
+could be called upon to encounter. When men are so treated that their daily
+life is one long martyrdom they become the most dangerous force in
+existence, and on the occasions which sometimes happened that the slaves
+got the upper hand, there were none left of the fighting men of the galley
+to tell the tale of their discomfiture.
+
+In time of battle the gallerians were of course equally exposed to death
+and wounds from the projectiles of the enemy as were the orthodox fighting
+men; but to them came no rejoicing at the sound of victory; rather they
+prayed for the defeat of their masters, as it frequently happened that
+those against whom they were arrayed were their own countrymen and friends
+by whom they hoped for release. Thus at Lepanto, the Christian slaves,
+seeing the right wing of the Turkish fleet thrown into disorder by the
+galleys of the Allies, broke out into furious mutiny, succeeded in
+shattering their fetters and chains, attacked their masters the Turks in
+the rear with incredible energy with any weapons upon which they could lay
+their hands, and thus contributed in no small measure to the ultimate
+triumph of the Christian arms.
+
+The Captain Pantero Pantera and Barras de la Peine have written
+exhaustively on the galley, her crew, her armament, her manner of
+provisioning, her masts, sails, rigging, etc., and Admiral Jurien de la
+Graviere has given a most painstaking exposition concerning the
+technicalities of these craft. But to enter into too much detail would be
+to weary the reader unnecessarily, who, it is apprehended, merely desires
+that a general idea should be given of the way in which these vessels were
+handled and fought.
+
+It would appear that during the whole time that oar-propelled vessels were
+used as warships their form did not differ to any material extent, as
+certain limitations of size were obviously imposed on them by the mere fact
+that they had to be moved by so finite and feeble a force as human muscles,
+hearts, and lungs. No cruelty, however ghastly, could extract from the
+gallerians more than a certain amount of work, and the Captain Pantero
+Pantera, as we have seen, even advocates that a certain minimum of
+consideration should be shown to them in order that better work might be
+obtained. It was probable, however, that in the case of the Christian
+slaves captured by the corsairs even this minimum was to seek, as the
+numbers swept off by them were so enormous that they could be used up and
+replaced without inconveniencing these rovers of the sea, to whom
+compassion for suffering was absolutely unknown.
+
+The Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, or the Knights of Malta as they were
+also called, used the galley in their unceasing warfare with the Moslem.
+The General of the Galleys was a Grand Cross of the Order; the captains
+were knights, and the second officer, or first lieutenant, was known as the
+Patron. The crew of a galley of the knights had twenty-six rowing benches
+and carried two hundred and eighty rowers and two hundred and eighty
+combatants; the armament consisted of one bow cannon which discharged a
+forty-eight pound ball, four other small guns, eight pounders, and fourteen
+others which discharged stones.
+
+"The Religion," as the Knights were in the habit of describing themselves,
+had certain definite stations assigned to each knight, seaman, or officer
+during action. It is to be imagined, however, that these were merely for
+the preliminary stages of the fight, as it was seldom that time allowed for
+more than one discharge, or at the most two, of the artillery, before the
+opposing galleys met in a hand-to-hand conflict which must have immediately
+become an indiscriminate melee.
+
+The manner in which the galley should engage is thus contained in an answer
+to a question of Don John of Austria, the victor of Lepanto. He wrote to
+Garcia de Toledo, fourth Marquis of Villafranca, and General of the Galleys
+of Sicily, to ask his opinion as to what distance it was most efficacious
+to open fire in a naval action. Toledo replied that "one cannot fire more
+than twice before the galleys close. I should therefore recommend that the
+arquebussiers should hold their fire until they are so close to the enemy
+that his blood will leap into the face of him who discharges his piece.
+have always heard it said, and this by captains who are well skilled in the
+art of war, that the last discharge of the cannon should be coincident with
+the noise made by the breaking of the spurs carried in the prows of the
+galleys; in fact that the two noises should be as one; some propose to fire
+before the enemy does: this is by no means my advice."
+
+Artillery, it will be seen from this, played a comparatively unimportant
+part in the combats between galley and galley; that in these craft men
+still relied on the strength of their right arm and the edge of their
+swords; there was still a certain contempt for villainous saltpetre, which
+was looked upon as a somewhat cowardly substance, preventing the warrior
+from settling his disputes in the good old fashion of his forbears. In any
+case, when you practically had to push the muzzle of your gun against your
+enemy's body in order to hit him, it was not a weapon upon which much
+reliance was to be placed.
+
+There were, in addition to the galley, the nef and the galeasse; the former
+of these was a sailing vessel pure and simple like those remarkable
+caravels in which Columbus discovered America.
+
+What these caravels were exactly like it was the good fortune of the writer
+to see in the year 1893. This was the date of the great exhibition of
+Chicago, and the American Government were most anxious to have, and to
+exhibit if possible, an exact replica of these historic craft. They
+accordingly communicated with the Spanish Government and inquired if by any
+chance they possessed the plans and specifications of the caravels of
+Columbus? Search was made in the archives of Cadiz Dockyard and these
+priceless documents were discovered. From them the ships were built in
+every respect the same as the wonderful originals and then towed across the
+Atlantic by the United States cruiser _Lancaster_. On their way they were
+brought to Gibraltar, where the writer's ship was then stationed, and were
+anchored inside the New Mole. The _Santa Maria_, the flagship of Columbus,
+was a three-masted vessel with a very high "forecastle" and "sterncastle"
+and very deep in the waist; she had three masts, the foremast carrying one
+square sail, the mainmast having both mainsail and main-topsail, the mizzen
+was rigged with a lateen sail, on the mainsail was painted the Maltese and
+on the foresail the Papal cross, and on deck she carried a brick-built
+cooking galley. A most beautiful model of this vessel is to be seen in the
+Science and Art Department of the South Kensington Museum.
+
+The nef in its later manifestations became a much more seaworthy vessel
+than this, with four masts, the two foremost ones square-rigged and
+carrying courses and topsails, the two after ones carrying lateen sails;
+the latter from their small size and their proximity to one another could
+not have had much effect on the sailing qualities of the ship. The nefs in
+the fleet of Don John of Austria in 1571 were rigged in this fashion and
+comprised vessels of eight hundred, nine hundred, and even one thousand
+tons, while a contemporary English vessel, the _Great Harry_ or _Henri
+Grace a Dieu_, was as much as fifteen hundred tons, and carried no less
+than one hundred and eighty-four pieces of ordnance. It was from the nef
+and the galeasse that the sailing man-of-war arrived by the process of
+evolution. The galley in the first instance was the vessel of men who
+fought hand to hand, the men in whom personal strength and desperate valour
+were blended, who desired nothing so much as to come to close grips with
+their enemy. Such rude engines of war as the pierriers, or short cannons
+which discharged some forty or fifty pounds of broken stone upon the enemy,
+were first mounted in the galley; these were followed by improved artillery
+as time went on. But although the galleys eventually carried quite big
+guns, as instanced by the forty-eight pounder in the galleys of the Knights
+of St. John, still it soon became apparent that the limit was reached by
+guns of this weight; the galley was essentially a light vessel and was not
+built to withstand those rude shocks caused by firing heavy charges of
+powder.
+
+The galeasse was the connecting link between the navy of oars and the navy
+of sails. The navy of oars was in its generation apt for warlike purposes;
+but it was in its essence a force analogous to the light cavalry of the
+land; useful for a raid, a sudden dash, but without that great strength and
+solidity which came in later years to the building of the sailing line of
+battleship.
+
+The galeasse was really a magnified galley, one which used both sails and
+oars, on board of which the rowers were under cover; she was built with a
+forecastle and a sterncastle which were elevated some six feet above the
+benches of the rowers, and her very long and immensely heavy oars were of
+course proportionate to the size of the vessel. The description of a
+galeasse of nearly one thousand tons burden is set forth as follows by
+Jurien de la Graviere:
+
+  "Her draught of water was about 18 feet 6 inches, she was propelled by
+  52 oars, 48 feet in length, each oar being worked by 9 men. Her crew
+  consisted of 452 rowers, 350 soldiers, 60 marines, 12 steersmen, 40
+  ordinary seamen, 86 cannoneers, 12 petty officers, 4 boatswains' mates,
+  3 pilots, 2 sub-pilots, 4 counsellors, 2 surgeons, 4 writers, 2
+  sergeants, 2 carpenters, 2 caulkers, 2 coopers, 2 bakers, 10 servants, a
+  captain, a lieutenant, a purser. In all some thousand men, or about the
+  same number as the crew of a three-decker of a later date."
+
+The fleet of the "Holy League" at the battle of Lepanto had in it six
+galeasses from the arsenal of Venice; and whereas an average galley carried
+110 soldiers and 222 galley slaves, the crews of these galeasses comprised
+270 soldiers, 130 sailors, and 300 galley slaves.
+
+The speed of the galley was calculated by the French engineer Forfait to be
+in the most favourable circumstances, that is to say in a flat calm, but
+four and a half knots for the first hour, and two and a quarter to one and
+a half miles per hour for subsequent hours; the exhaustion of the rowers
+consequent on their arduous toil would not admit of a greater speed than
+this. The studies of Forfait were made when the invasion of England by
+rowing boats was a topic of burning interest. It is evident from this that
+long voyages, trusting to the oar alone, could not be undertaken; but as we
+have seen, the galley was also provided with motive power in the shape of
+two masts carrying the lateen sail, which may be still seen in so many
+Mediterranean craft.
+
+That the galley was no vessel in which to embark in bad weather is
+instanced for us by the disasters which befell a Spanish fleet of these
+craft in 1567 under the Grand Commander of Castile, Don Luiz de Requesens.
+A revolt of the Moors in Granada had caused Philip the Second to wish to
+withdraw a certain number of Spanish troops from Italy. Requesens was sent
+to Genoa with twenty-four galleys to embark a detachment of an army corps
+then stationed in Piedmont. Each galley embarked one hundred and fifty
+soldiers; they then got under way and reached the island of Hyeres, where
+they anchored, the weather being too bad to proceed. At the end of their
+eighth day in port a number of vessels were seen flying to the eastward
+before the wind; it was a squadron of Genoese.
+
+Requesens, who was no seaman, was furious. Here were the Genoese at sea,
+and he wasting his time in harbour; if they could keep the sea why could
+not he, he demanded? He instantly ordered the anchors to be weighed. The
+commander of the Tuscan galleys, of which there were ten in the fleet,
+immediately went on board the galley in which Requesens was embarked and
+represented that the wind was foul and that should they leave their
+anchorage they could make no headway once they got clear of the land. But
+Requesens was obstinate: "if others can go on their way it is shameful that
+I should not proceed on mine," he protested. Alfonso d'Aragona argued with
+him in vain, representing that his master, the Duke of Tuscany, would hold
+the Grand Commander responsible for damage to his galleys. It was all in
+vain, as the Grand Commander was too arrogant and stupid to listen to
+advice from anybody. The fleet put to sea and struggled out a mile from the
+land; when they got thus far Requesens discovered his mistake and regretted
+that he had not taken the advice of the mariners; but it was now too late,
+they had drifted to leeward of their anchorage and could not get back
+again.
+
+One galley, a new vessel, ran into another which was an old one, and sank
+her on the spot, carrying all her luckless crew to the bottom. The
+remaining vessels scattered far and wide; Alfonso d'Aragona found refuge in
+the Bay of Alghieri, two more of his galleys reached an anchorage in the
+Isle of St. Pierre, another sheltered in the Gulf of Oristano; three
+galleys were shipwrecked on the coast in this neighbourhood and lost many
+of their men; yet another, called the _Florence_, was twice nearly wrecked
+on the coast of Barbary, and eventually reached the Bay of Cagliari. A
+Genoese captain found himself as far afield as the Island of Pantellaria,
+two galleys were never heard of again, and the Grand Commander himself
+anchored eventually in the Bay of Palamos on the Spanish coast. Of the
+twenty-four galleys which left their anchorage twelve were lost and the
+twelve which remained were practically valueless until large sums had been
+spent in repairs.
+
+It is small wonder in the light of these events that the seamen who ranged
+the Mediterranean in vessels propelled by oars regarded the winter as a
+close season and laid up their galleys in harbour. They were seaworthy
+enough for ordinary weather, but could not withstand such a tempest as the
+one in which Requesens put to sea. The whole story is only a further proof
+of the folly of putting supreme command of a sea-going venture in the hands
+of a man totally ignorant of the hazards he was called upon to encounter.
+In the sixteenth and even in the seventeenth centuries this was done
+perpetually, and if no disaster occurred it was because no bad weather was
+encountered.
+
+[Illustration: Brigantin donnant chasse a une Felouque, et prest a la
+ border. BRIGANTINE CHASING FELUCCA.]
+
+As time went on the sailing ship became larger and larger and was able to
+mount more and more powerful ordnance; this had the effect of discounting
+the value of the galley as a fighting ship; in consequence she became
+practically obsolete, for the line of battle, after the combat at Lepanto.
+In spite of this she was to linger on for many long years to come as the
+weapon of the corsairs who had established themselves on the coast of
+Africa. The "long ship" was still to be the cause of many an awful sea
+tragedy, whether the actors therein were the pirates who hailed from the
+Barbary coast or their most capable imitators the notorious rovers of
+Sallee.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+DRAGUT-REIS
+
+  How he became Lieutenant to Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa--His capture by
+  Jannetin Doria--His four years as a galley slave--His ransom by his old
+  chief.
+
+In character, in capability, in strategic insight, in tactical ability, not
+one of the predecessors or the successors of Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa can be
+compared to him; he was the greatest and most outstanding figure of all
+those corsairs of whose deeds we hear so much during the sixteenth century,
+the man above all others who was feared and hated by his contemporaries in
+Christendom. He lived, as we have said, for another eight years after the
+battle of Prevesa, but his great age prevented him from pursuing a very
+active career. There were, however, other and younger men, trained in the
+terrible school of hardship in which his life had been passed, who proved
+themselves to be his very worthy successors, even if they did not display
+the same genius in war and statecraft. The conditions of this period are
+somewhat remarkable when we come to consider them; Europe, which had been
+sunk in a rude and uncultured barbarism during the middle ages, was
+emerging under the influence of the Renaissance into a somewhat higher and
+nobler conception of life. It is true that the awakening was slow, that
+morally the plane on which the peoples stood was far from being an elevated
+one, that altruism was far from being the note of the lives lived by the
+rulers of the so-called civilised nations. For all this they had emerged
+from that cimmerian darkness in which they had lived so long, and the dawn
+of better things, of more stable government, of some elementary recognition
+of the rights of those governed, was beginning to show above the murky
+horizon.
+
+But if the sun of European progress was slowly and painfully struggling
+through the clouds, the light which had shone brightly for over seven
+centuries of Moslem advance was certainly and surely dying. Beneath the
+mail-clad heel of the Christian warrior the torch of learning which had
+burned so brightly in Cordova and Granada had been extinguished and ground
+into the dust, and the descendants of the alumni of those universities were
+seeking their bread in the Mediterranean Sea in the guise of bloodthirsty
+and desperate pirates.
+
+There were no longer among the Moors of Andalusia learned philosophers,
+expert mathematicians, wise astronomers, and practical agriculturists;
+there was among them but one art, one science, one means of gaining a
+livelihood--the practice of war--and their very existence depended on the
+spoils which could be reft from the hereditary enemy. The corsair who grew
+to man's estate, brought up in Algiers, Tunis, Tenes, Jerba, or any other
+of the lurking places in which the sea-wolves congregated, had as a rule no
+chance but to follow the sea, to exist as his father had existed before
+him; he must fight or starve, and in a fighting age no youngster was likely
+to be backward in taking to the life of wild excitement led by his elders.
+Unless following in the train of one of the leaders, such as Barbarossa,
+the Moslems were apt to take to the sea in a private capacity; a certain
+number of them joining together to man a small craft which was known as a
+brigantine. As has been said in a previous chapter, this word must not be
+understood in the light of the terminology of the modern seaman: the
+brigantines of the Moslem corsairs were really large rowing boats, carrying
+fourteen to twenty-six oars, and made as seaworthy as the small size of
+such craft would allow. Should the venture of the crew of a brigantine
+prove successful, then the reis, or captain, might blossom out into the
+command of a galley, in which his oars would be manned by his slaves; but,
+in the first instance, he would man his brigantine with a crew of Moslem
+desperadoes working on the share system and dividing anything that they
+could pick up; in this manner most of those corsairs who became famous
+commenced their careers, and rose as we have seen from the thwart of a
+brigantine to the unstable eminence of a throne in Algiers, Tunis, or
+Tlemcen.
+
+This life which they led made of them what they were, namely desperate
+swordsmen, efficient men at arms, incomparably skilful in the management of
+the craft in which they put to sea; but it did nothing else for them in the
+way of education; in consequence he who would rise to the top, who aspired
+to be a leader amongst them and not to remain a mere swash-buckling
+swordsman all his life, was bound to acquire that dominance necessary for
+control of the wild spirits of the age. Nor was this ascendancy by any
+means easy to obtain, as the rank and file led lives of incredible
+bitterness, almost inconceivable to modern ideas. What they suffered they
+alone knew, but it was compounded of hunger, thirst, heat, cold, sickness
+unrelieved by care or tending, wounds which festered for lack of
+medicaments, death which ever stared them in the face, and last, and worst
+of all, the risk of capture by some Christian foe, by whom they would be
+chained to the rowers' bench and taste of a bitterness absolutely
+unimaginable. As a set-off to this the man who aspired to lead must offer
+to his followers at least a record of success in small things; also he had
+to be something of an enthusiast, something of an orator, some one subtly
+persuasive. Against all the disagreeables of the strenuous life of the
+corsair he had to hold before the dazzled eyes of Selim, Ali, or Mahomet
+the promise of fat captures of the merchant vessels of the foe; when they
+had but to slit a few throats and to return with their brigantines laden to
+the gunwale with desirable plunder. Again he had to hearten them for
+possible encounters with Spaniards, with the terrible Doria, or worst of
+all with the dreaded Knights of St. John themselves; to point out that to
+die in conflict with the infidel was a sure passport to heaven and its
+houris, and to invoke great names, such as that of Barbarossa to show to
+what dizzy heights the fighting Moslem could climb. In such an age and
+among such men as these it was no mean feat to become a leader by whom men
+swore and to whom they yielded a ready obedience.
+
+Fashioned by the hammer of misfortune on the anvil of racial expropriation,
+such leaders arose among the Moslems, men of iron, before whom all who
+worshipped at the altars of Islam bowed the knee. These men, whose fame
+extended throughout all the length and breadth of the Mediterranean, taught
+to European rulers something of the value of that great force which is
+known to us under the modern name of "Sea Power."
+
+Next in importance to Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa himself and in many ways his
+very worthy successor, was Dragut Reis. We have it on the authority of
+Messire Pierre de Bourdeille, the Seigneur de Brantome, that Dragut was
+born at a small village in Asia Minor called Charabulac, opposite to the
+island of Rhodes, and that his parents were Mahommedans. Being born within
+sight and sound of the sea, the youthful Dragut naturally graduated in the
+school of the brigantine and completed his education on board of a galley.
+His training was that which makes the best of fighting seamen, as from
+contemporary records he appears to have passed all his life actively
+engaged on board ship. At a very early age he entered the service of a
+master gunner who served on board the galleys of the Grand Turk. Under his
+auspices the youngster became an expert pilot in his own home waters, and
+likewise a most excellent gunner. Dragut was evidently a youth of ability
+and determination, as almost before he reached man's estate he had
+succeeded in buying a share in a cruising brigantine where his venture
+prospered so exceedingly that he was soon able to become sole proprietor of
+a galeasse. Here again fortune favoured the enterprising young man; his
+name began to be known as a formidable corsair in the Levant, where he was
+remarkable for his knowledge of that portion of the Mediterranean.
+
+To better his condition he offered his services to Barbarossa at Algiers,
+who accepted this new subordinate with joy, delighted to have so valiant
+and capable a man under his orders.
+
+"During some years," says J. Morgan in his _Compleat History of Algiers_,
+1728, "he was by that basha intrusted in the direction of sundry momentous
+expeditions; in which he acquitted himself much to the satisfaction of his
+principal: as having never once been unsuccessful." When we remember the
+treatment meted out by Barbarossa to some of his unsuccessful lieutenants,
+Dragut must be esteemed a very fortunate man. His master, we are told,
+advanced him to all the military offices of the State--it would be
+interesting to know what these were in a purely piratical confederation
+ruled by a pirate! In the end Dragut was appointed to be kayia, or
+lieutenant, and given entire command of twelve galleys.
+
+  "From thenceforward this redoubtable corsair passed not one summer
+  without ravaging the coasts of Naples and Sicily; nor durst any
+  Christian vessel attempt to pass between Spain and Italy; for if they
+  offered it he infallibly snapped them up, and when he missed his prey at
+  sea, he made himself amends by making descents along the coasts
+  plundering villages and towns and dragging away multitudes of
+  inhabitants into captivity."
+
+That "no vessel durst pass from Spain to Italy" is no doubt a picturesque
+form of exaggeration on the part of the historian; at the same time, when
+Dragut was at the height of his activities there is no doubt that any one
+passing through those seas ran a great risk of capture; so much so in fact
+that at this period, from 1538, the date of the battle of Prevesa, until
+Lepanto in 1571, all maritime commerce in the Mediterranean was greatly
+circumscribed. At the beginning of this epoch, which saw the rise of the
+Moslem corsairs, these robbers perforce confined themselves more to the
+North African coast than was the case later on. The pioneers of the
+piratical movement, after the fatal date 1492, which saw the wholesale
+expulsion of the Moors from Spain, were comparatively speaking inexpert
+practitioners in the art and mystery of piracy; they had not the habit of
+the sea, and in consequence confined their depredations to the
+neighbourhood of their own selected ports in Africa, which dominated that
+sea lane running east and west through the Mediterranean, which then, as
+now, was one of the greatest highways of commerce of the world. Gradually,
+as we have seen, under the able guidance of the two Barbarossas, but
+particularly that of the second and greater of the two, piracy became a
+commonplace in the north, as well as in the south, of the tideless sea; the
+corsairs, as time went on, even devoting more time and attention to the
+coast of Italy and the islands of the archipelago than they did to the
+recognised trade routes. These latter had become by 1540 similar to an
+estate which has been shot over too frequently; birds had become both wild
+and scarce, it was hardly worth while to go over the ground, except now and
+again on the chance of picking up a straggler. Towns and islands, on the
+other hand, even if they did not yield much in the way of actual plunder,
+were always good cover to beat for slaves, which had a certain value in the
+markets of Algiers and Tunis. Another circumstance which had led to the now
+frequent raids on the littoral of the European countries was the
+countenance and support accorded to the corsairs by the Grand Turk: so
+admirably did they fit into the scheme of his ambitions, that by the time
+Dragut arrived at a commanding position they were, so to speak, officially
+recognised as a fighting asset of the Sublime Porte; and, as we have seen,
+the Sultan did not hesitate to lend his picked troops, the Janissaries, to
+the corsairs when engaged in their ordinary piratical business. To the
+Grand Turk the corsairs were Moslems who were prepared to fight on his
+side, and who, taking it all in all, really cost him hardly anything; in
+fact, at this date, owing to the magnificent gifts made to the Sultan by
+Kheyr-ed-Din, the Padishah must have made something out of his association
+with the sea-wolves.
+
+By the year 1540 Dragut had distinctly "arrived"; that is to say, he had
+succeeded in making himself so dreaded that Charles V. ordered Andrea Doria
+to seek him out and destroy him at any cost. The Christian admiral was "to
+endeavour by all possible means to purge the sea of so insufferable a
+nuisance."
+
+Andrea got ready a fleet, which he entrusted, together with the care and
+management of this affair, to his nephew Jannetin Doria. This was the
+nephew who, in the disastrous attack by Charles on Hassan Aga at Algiers in
+the following year, was so nearly lost in the storm which destroyed the
+fleet of the emperor; and of whom Andrea Doria is reported to have said,
+"It was decreed that Jannetin should be reduced to such an extremity
+purposely to convince the world that it was not impossible for Andrea Doria
+to shed a tear." Certainly from what we know of the celebrated Genoese
+admiral it is hard to imagine him in a tearful mood. Jannetin Doria put to
+sea, and, after a long hunt, found the object of his quest at Andior on the
+coast of Corsica; Dragut was at anchor in the road of Goialatta, under a
+castle situated between Cabri and Liazzo. The corsair knew nothing of his
+enemies being at sea, and was in consequence keeping no particular
+look-out. Although we are not told the composition of the fleet of Jannetin
+Doria, it must have been a large one, as Dragut had under his orders
+thirteen galleys, and was unable to withstand the attack to which he was
+subject. He was also assailed from the shore, as well as the sea, as the
+castle under which he was at anchor opened fire upon him as soon as it was
+discovered by its garrison that the new arrivals were Christians. The fire
+was too hot for the corsair to withstand, and, to add to his
+embarrassments, the beach soon became lined by hundreds of the fierce
+Corsi, awaiting the inevitable end when they should be able to fall upon
+the defeated Moslems and wipe them from off the face of the earth; it was a
+warfare in which there was no mercy, and if the pirates were to fall into
+the hands of the islanders they knew well that they would be exterminated.
+
+In all his venturesome life things had never gone so badly with Dragut as
+upon this occasion. On the one side, should he and his men land they would
+be massacred; on the other hand, his road to the open sea was barred by an
+immensely superior force. Recognising the logic of circumstances, and
+seeing no way of escape, the white flag was hung out by the Moslem leader.
+The only terms, however, which he could obtain were immediate surrender or
+instant death. It must have been a moment of anguish to the man who
+hitherto had always ridden on the crest of the wave of success and
+achievement to be thus trapped like a rat; and to have the added bitterness
+of the thought that had he exercised seamanlike care and precaution in
+keeping a good look-out he might have escaped. As it was, he was allowed no
+time for reflection, but had to decide on the instant: he did the only
+thing possible in the circumstances, which was to haul down his flag and to
+become the thrall of his lifelong foes.
+
+The principal captives were made to pass before young Doria. When Dragut
+beheld him he cried out in a fury: "What! Am I a slave to that effeminate
+Caramite?" for Doria was but a beardless youth. These opprobrious epithets
+being interpreted to the young nobleman, "highly incensed he flew at
+Dragut, tore out his beard and moustaches, and buffeted him most
+outrageously: nay his passion was so great it is said that had he not been
+prevented, he certainly would have sheathed his sword in the bowels of that
+assuming prisoner."
+
+For four long years Dragut rowed in Doria's galley. No distinctions were
+made in those days, and knight or noble, companion or grand master, basha
+or boy, was, if caught, condemned to the rowers' bench to slave at the oar
+beneath the boatswain's lash, perchance alongside some degraded criminal,
+filthy and swarming with vermin. While Dragut was employed as a galley
+slave there came on board the craft in which he rowed Monsieur Parisot,
+Grand Master of the Knights of Malta. This high officer, recognising his
+old enemy, called out to him in Spanish:
+
+"Hola, Senor Dragut, usanza de guerra" ("The usage of war, Senor Dragut").
+
+To which the undaunted corsair merely replied with a laugh:
+
+"Y mudanza de fortuna" ("And a change of luck").
+
+The Grand Master, who had known the chain and lash himself, smiled and
+passed on--there was no pity in those days.
+
+But Dragut was not destined to end his life as a galley slave, for, when
+indeed hope must have died within him, after more than four years of this
+veritable hell upon earth, there sailed one day into the harbour of Genoa
+the great Kheyr-ed-Din himself. The Admiralissimo of the Grand Turk, full
+of years, honours, and booty, was on his last cruise, and one of the last
+acts of his active life was the rescue of Dragut, the man who had served
+him so well, and for whom he had so high a regard as a resourceful mariner,
+from the degrading servitude into which he had fallen. The Spanish
+historian, Marmol, recounts that the sum of three thousand ducats was paid
+by Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa for the redemption of Dragut. As this history
+was published in 1573, we must conclude that the author who wrote of these
+events so soon after they had happened is correct; at the same time,
+Barbarossa was in command of one hundred galleys of the Grand Turk, and it
+was never his custom to pay for anything which he could take by force.
+However this may have been, and the point is not one of very great
+importance, the Genoese Senate was terrified lest their territory should be
+ravaged; they wrote accordingly to their Grand Admiral, requesting that
+Dragut might be released and sent on board of the galley of the admiral
+basha. This was immediately done, and the man who for four years had tugged
+at the Christian oar was once again in a position to make war on those who
+had been for that period his masters.
+
+Not only had he tugged at the Christian oar, but also he had tasted of the
+Christian whip--and of very little else, as the food of the rower was as
+scanty as it was disgusting; in consequence, if he had been an implacable
+foe to Christendom before this event, he was not likely to have become less
+so while toiling in the Genoese galley.
+
+The practical retirement of Barbarossa from that sphere of activity in
+which his life had been passed now left Dragut-Reis the most feared and the
+most formidable of all the Moslem corsairs in the Mediterranean. From the
+time of his release by Barbarossa until the day of his death at the siege
+of Malta in 1565, he followed the example shown him by that prince among
+pirates with so much assiduity as to render him only second to Kheyr-ed-Din
+in the detestation in which he was held. Says Morgan: "The ill-treatment he
+had met with during his four years' captivity was no small addition to the
+Innate Rapaciousness of his Disposition."
+
+In the year 1546, Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa died, and to replace him the
+Sultan Soliman ordered all the mariners in his dominions to acknowledge
+Dragut-Reis as their admiral, and to obey him in the same manner as they
+had obeyed his predecessor. From this date he was the foremost corsair in
+the Mediterranean, and the feats which were performed by him showed that
+the Padishah had not erred in his selection.
+
+The ambition of Dragut increased with his power, and he determined,
+following the example of the Barbarossas, to seize and hold some strong
+place of arms possessed of a commodious port in which he might be the
+supreme ruler. Accordingly, in the depth of winter in the year 1548, at a
+time which was, as we have pointed out, a close season for piratical
+enterprises, and during which attack from the sea was not expected, he
+collected all the corsairs whom he could gather, and fell upon the
+Spaniards on the coast of Tunis, at Susa, at Sfax, and at Monastir. These
+places had been taken from the corsairs in the previous summer by Andrea
+Doria; they formed a sort of regular battle-ground when the combatants were
+in want of something to do, and were held alternately by the King of Tunis,
+the Spaniards, and the corsairs.
+
+Dragut was well aware that as soon as the spring arrived he would be
+attacked; he also knew that the attack would come in sufficient force to
+drive him out, as none of these towns was really strong or easily defended;
+in consequence he concentrated his attention on the town of "Africa,"
+otherwise known as Mehedia, and in the Roman histories as Adrumentum.
+
+This great city lay some leagues to the east of Tunis on a tongue of land
+projecting into the sea; its fortifications were regular, its walls of
+great thickness, height, and solidity, and were strengthened by many towers
+and bulwarks; the guns were large, numerous, and in good condition. At the
+back of the town, on an eminence, stood a large fortress, the citadel of
+the place; the harbour was large and secure, with an inner basin forming a
+port for galleys; the entrance to this was closed by a strong chain. The
+sea washed the walls of the city; indeed, it was entirely surrounded,
+except where by a narrow neck of land it joined the shore.
+
+The inhabitants, natives of the place, had shaken off the yoke of the King
+of Tunis, and had formed themselves into a kind of independent republic.
+They admitted neither Turk nor Christian within their walls, trusting
+neither party, and fearing from them the fate which befell Susa, Sfax, and
+Monastir.
+
+"Africa" was the goal of the desires of Dragut-Reis: once in possession of
+this, by far the strongest city on the littoral of Northern Africa, he
+thought that he might abide secure against the attacks of Charles and of
+Andrea Doria. He had seen the enormous expedition of 1541 against Algiers
+come to naught on account of the wholesale wrecking of the fleet in which
+it had sailed by a tempest of unexampled violence. But he was too
+level-headed a man to think that a miracle like this would be likely to
+come to pass a second time for his own special behoof, and preferred to act
+the part of the strong man armed who keepeth his goods in peace. He had,
+however, first to gain over the inhabitants of "Africa" to his views, and
+they proved anything but anxious to listen to his blandishments. The more
+he tried to ingratiate himself the less inclined did these people seem to
+listen.
+
+"My ambition," said the silver-tongued corsair, "is to become a citizen of
+your great and beautiful city. If you will admit me to its privileges it
+shall be my business to render you the richest people in the whole
+Mediterranean, and your city the most dreaded place in the world."
+
+The "Africans," however, were obdurate; they knew a pirate when they saw
+him quite as well as any one else, and they were quite aware that, should
+they open their gates to Dragut, sooner or later they would have to stand a
+siege from the Christian forces, which was a thing they by no means
+desired.
+
+But Dragut was not yet at the end of his resources; he was rich, and he
+spent money freely in order to gain over to his side those men of
+importance by whom such a question as this was bound to be decided. By rich
+presents and other blandishments he succeeded in securing the friendship of
+one Ibrahim Amburac, who was not only a leader among the inhabitants, but
+also governor of one of the towers by which the city was surrounded.
+Through him he approached the Council by which the town was ruled, only to
+receive a very decided negative: the Council observed the outward forms of
+politeness to this formidable person who was speaking them so fair: in
+reality, they hated and feared the corsairs only one degree less than they
+did Andrea Doria and his Christians. To admit the one was to bring upon
+themselves the vengeance of the other; therefore if they could keep them
+both out they intended so to do. The ill-omened courtesy of the corsair
+filled their hearts with apprehension, and they viewed his immediate
+departure, after the refusal of the council had been conveyed to him, with
+undisguised relief. Had they but known their man a little better, their
+uneasiness would have been far greater than their joy at his temporary
+absence. Those things desired by Dragut which he could not obtain by fair
+means he usually seized by the strong hand; and when he left so hurriedly,
+and at the same time so unostentatiously, he had already entered into a
+plot with Ibrahim Amburac. This leader, furious at the rebuff which he had
+received at the hands of his fellow councillors on the subject of the
+admittance of Dragut to the citizenship of "Africa," was now ready to
+deliver that city into the hands of the corsairs by treachery.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+DRAGUT-REIS
+
+  How the corsairs captured the town of "Africa"; of its recapture by
+  Andrea Doria and its eventual total destruction by Charles V.
+
+Dragut had made it a practice never to appear in the harbour of "Africa" in
+any great force, as he had no desire to frighten the birds whom he desired
+to snare; on the occasion of which we are now speaking he had but two
+galleys, and their departure from the outer harbour passed almost
+unnoticed, as the ruck of the population were accustomed to visits from the
+corsairs, who came to fill up with provisions and fresh water. Swiftly as
+hawks his vessels swept along the coast collecting the garrisons of Susa,
+Sfax, and Monastir to aid him in his latest design; they were all picked
+men and singularly apt for the stern business which their leader destined
+them to undertake. In this manner he soon collected five hundred of the
+stoutest and most reckless fighters who sailed out of the ports of Northern
+Africa, and, when it became noised abroad among them what the service was
+for which they were required, there was universal joy and eagerness. True
+the adventure was a formidable one: to capture "Africa" was no light task,
+even for such men as these under so renowned a leader; there was further
+the difficulty that the persons against whom they went up to fight were no
+Christians but Moslems like themselves. But against this was the
+declaration of Dragut, who represented to his following that there was
+really no choice in the matter; that to these stiffnecked and singularly
+ungrateful people he had offered the protection of the corsairs, that they
+had refused in the most contumelious manner, and in consequence there was
+nothing for it but the strong hand. They--that is to say the corsairs--knew
+right well that some strong place of arms in which to shelter themselves
+and their vessels was an absolute necessity for their continued existence,
+as at any moment Doria or the Knights of Malta might be on their track in
+superior force, and then what was their fate likely to be if they had no
+harbour under their lee in which to shelter? Further it was hinted that
+"Africa" would provide very nice pickings in the way of loot, and when this
+came to be generally understood the promptings of the Mahommedan conscience
+yielded easily to the sophistries with which it was lulled.
+
+The council of the town of "Africa" troubled themselves but little more
+concerning Dragut, his ships, and his corsairs; he had departed, and as the
+days wore on and no further tidings of him came to hand, these simple folk
+thanked God that they were rid of a knave and went about their usual
+avocations as unconcernedly as if no sea-wolves lurked under the shadowed
+headlands of that continent in which their homes were situated. They were a
+people essentially of the land; although they dwelt on the confines of the
+ocean the ways and habits of those who earned a precarious living on the
+waters were a sealed book to them, and with the "Africans" it was a case of
+"out of sight out of mind" so far as the corsairs were concerned. But that
+black-hearted traitor Ibrahim Amburac and the few others who had been
+gained over by the gold of Dragut watched and waited for the attack which
+they knew to be impending.
+
+The inhabitants of the doomed city never saw their assailants until they
+were actually upon them, so well had the surprise attack been planned by
+the leader of the corsairs. He had collected five hundred men, and this was
+but a small number with which to assail so strong a place; but Dragut knew
+exactly what he was doing and the effect likely to be produced by the
+introduction of this number of highly trained men-at-arms among a
+population which, although brave and warlike, lacked the elements of
+organisation for the defence of their city.
+
+So it was that, all preparations being completed, he stood along the coast
+anchoring out of sight of his objective, but close enough to reach it by
+midnight after darkness had fallen. He had every confidence in himself, an
+absolute trust in the hardbitten fighters whom he was about to lead;
+success or failure now rested in the hands of traitors within the city.
+
+"Faith unfaithful kept them falsely true," for when Dragut and his
+followers arrived at a certain rendezvous outside the walls which had been
+agreed upon previously, there they found Ibrahim Amburac and his men ready
+to assist them in scaling this obstacle. It will be remembered that Ibrahim
+Amburac was personally in charge of one of the towers with which the walls
+were guarded, and thus his task of aiding those who came from without was a
+singularly easy one. But even at midnight the passage of five hundred men
+could not remain long undiscovered as they clambered in over the walls.
+Soon an alarm was raised and the "Africans" rushed to arms and hurried to
+the quarter from which danger threatened. The townsmen were well armed and
+brave, also they were numerous; but it was the old story of the break-up of
+undisciplined valour by highly organised attack.
+
+In the choking heat of the African night townsmen and corsairs wrestled in
+deadly conflict hand to hand and foot to foot; but these untrained landsmen
+stood but a poor chance against the picked fighting men of the Moslem
+galleys who had been inured to bloodshed from their earliest youth and
+trained by such a master in the art of war as Dragut. That warrior, his
+great curved scimitar red to the hilt, the blood dripping from a gash in
+his cheek, his clothing torn and in disarray, followed by a gigantic negro
+bearing a flaming torch, was ever in the thickest of the fray. Behind him
+his lieutenants Othman and Selim strove to emulate his prowess, while all
+around surged his devoted band of fanatics.
+
+"Allah! Allah!" and "Dragut! Dragut!" pealed the war-cry of the corsairs;
+foot by foot and yard by yard that spearhead of dauntless dare-devils
+pressed onwards into the packed masses of the "Africans," who, fighting
+stubbornly, nevertheless were borne back by the fury of the terrible
+onslaught. Torch-bearers among the pirates leaped into houses and set them
+ablaze, the flames volleyed and crackled, the dense smoke rolled upwards to
+the stainless sky, the night was a hell of blood and fire.
+
+There was a sharp order repeated and passed on, the corsairs drew back, and
+the "Africans" shouted that the triumph was theirs; but they little knew
+Dragut, the sea-hawk who poised to strike anew. A blazing beam dropped
+across the street, the townsfolk shouted in insult and derision; but the
+joy which they had experienced at seeing their adversaries recoil was but a
+short and fleeting emotion. Giving himself and those who had hitherto been
+engaged time to breathe and recover themselves, Dragut waited while the
+noise of the strife died down, and nought was heard but the roar of the
+flames and the crash of the burning buildings.
+
+The leader turned to his followers, among whom dwelt an ominous silence.
+"Dost remember Prevesa," he cried, "when Andrea Doria and the best of the
+Christian warriors fled before you like sheep before a dog: are these
+miserable townsmen to stay your onward march?"
+
+There remained for an appreciable period after he had spoken a tense
+silence; the red light from the burning houses shone on the lean faces
+alight with the fierce fire of fanaticism, with an inextinguishable lust of
+slaughter. There came an answering frenetic roar, "Lead! Lead! Dragut!
+Dragut! Dragut!" It was enough: the corsair had tried the temper of the
+steel, he had now but to use the edge. There was an ordered movement on the
+part of the pirates: a fresh hundred men, who had hitherto taken no part in
+the combat, now pressed to the front and formed the advance, those who had
+been before engaged now forming the supports; that which had been the shaft
+of the spear now forming its head. With Dragut leading, these fresh
+unwounded men swept forward over the burning beam; irresistible as some
+mighty river in spate, these disciplined ruffians, headed by this master
+spirit, burst through the ill-organised resistance opposed to them, and
+slew and slew and slew.
+
+Behind them, alert and wary, came the supports, asking no quarter and
+giving none, cutting up the wounded, trampling under foot friend and foe
+alike who fell in the weltering shambles which marked the onward path of
+their leader and the advanced party. Very soon the broken hosts of the
+"Africans" cried piteously for mercy; the fight was over, and Dragut-Reis,
+wounded, breathless, but victorious, stood master of the strongest place of
+arms in all the continent of Africa. It is true that treachery had given
+him his opportunity, but once that was obtained the rest he had done for
+himself: the stealthy advance by sea, the midnight march to the exact spot
+on the walls where he was awaited by Ibrahim Amburac, the marshalling of
+his five hundred for the conflict, and the actual conduct of the fight
+itself, were all to the credit of this apt pupil of the great Kheyr-ed-Din
+Barbarossa, As warriors his followers were worthy of their leader: defeated
+the corsairs frequently were, but, in the combats in which they engaged,
+they were frequently, as we have seen in the course of this story, largely
+dependent upon auxiliaries in whom no trust could be placed; and at
+Prevesa, at the siege of Malta, and later on at the battle of Lepanto, the
+spot on which they fought, were it on the land or on the sea, was ever the
+one which formed the nucleus of resistance. It was not only that fighting
+was their particular trade; that, of course, might be said also of any man
+who trailed a pike or carried an arquebus and marched in the ranks of
+Spain, France, Genoa, or Venice. In the case of the sea-wolves it was the
+perpetual practice in the art of war, as it was then understood, that
+caused them to be the men that they were. Much of their fighting could
+hardly be dignified by such a name, as in their everlasting raids on
+villages and undefended places they seldom lost many of their number: when,
+however, it came to the real thing, as it did on the occasion we have just
+recounted, the long years of training told, and opposition had to be strong
+indeed if it were not to be beaten down by such a leader as Dragut, by such
+men as his picked five hundred.
+
+What passed between Dragut and the council of "Africa," who in so
+unqualified a manner had refused that warrior as a citizen, is not on
+record; all that we know is that the Moslem leader dispensed with their
+services, and did not invite his new fellow-townsmen to share with him the
+burden of government. There was hurry in the administration of the corsair
+states, as the form of rule which they adopted was apt to irk the rulers in
+Christendom. In this particular instance Dragut, having expelled the
+Spaniards from the coast towns, knew that a reckoning with the Emperor and
+his militant admiral, Andrea Doria, was but a matter of time, and, in all
+probability, of a very short time.
+
+Promptly, hurriedly, but efficiently, the corsair organised his new
+possession: such laws as he decreed did not err on the side of tenderness
+towards a people so ungrateful as to have refused his protection in the
+first instance, and who had only accepted the gift at the point of the
+sword. His nephew Aisa, a man young in years but a past-graduate in the
+school of his terrible uncle, was left in charge, while Dragut himself
+sailed once more with his fleet, for, as it is put by the Spanish historian
+Marmol, "truly the sea was his element."
+
+Once again had a Moslem corsair bid defiance to that ruler whom Sandoval
+and Marmol in their histories greet by the name of the "Modern Caesar." It
+was told to Charles that Susa, Sfax, and Monastir had fallen, that "Africa"
+was in the hands of the corsairs; "was he never to be free from these
+pestilent knaves," he demanded of his trembling courtiers? Hot-foot came
+the couriers from Charles to Andrea Doria, with orders to take Dragut dead
+or alive, but alive for choice; and up and down the tideless sea in the
+summer of 1549 did the great Genoese seaman range in search of the bold
+corsair. Doria was getting a very old man now, but his eye was undimmed,
+his strength yet tireless, his vigilance and zeal in the service of his
+master unabated.
+
+Dead or alive, great was the reward offered for the capture of Dragut, but
+the veteran admiral required no stimulus of this sort to urge him to put
+forth his utmost endeavours, to strain every nerve and sinew in the chase.
+All his life he had been fighting the corsairs, mostly with conspicuous
+success; but what Andrea could never forget--and what his enemies never
+allowed him to forget even had he been so inclined--was the fact that, at
+the supreme crisis of his valiant life, when he met with Kheyr-ed-Din
+Barbarossa at the battle of Prevesa, he had come off so badly that his
+under officers of the Papal and Venetian fleets had made representations,
+on their return to their respective headquarters, which had detracted from
+his fame, and lowered him in the estimation of Europe. Further than this,
+he knew that Barbarossa had laughed at and made game of him among his wild
+followers: this to the aristocrat, the Prince of Oneglia, the admiral who
+treated on almost equal terms with such men as the Pope, Charles of Spain,
+and Francis of France, was an insult hard to be borne; the next corsair
+with whom he should meet should not escape so easily as had Kheyr-ed-Din,
+that the admiral had sworn.
+
+Personal pique and vanity, racial detestation, and religious fanaticism
+were in his case all allied together to spur him on in the chase of this
+the last of the Emperor's foes; but, search as he might, during that summer
+Doria could never get on to the track of Dragut. The corsairs, as we have
+just remarked, were fine fighters on occasion when it was necessary for the
+purposes of loot, or of escape from those who, like Doria, interfered with
+their particular method of gaining a livelihood; but, on the other hand,
+they were no fools, they did not covet hard knocks and the possibility of
+defeat from such a one as the admiral of the Emperor, when by the exercise
+of a little ingenuity they could keep out of his way. Dragut was not going
+to fight a general action at sea merely to please Doria; in this summer his
+luck stood to him, and he never came across this man, who, with a sombre
+hatred in his heart, was seeking him high and low. If the corsair were bold
+as a lion when occasion offered, he was no less as slippery as an eel when
+he desired to escape; to face twenty-two royal galleys with Doria in
+command was no part of his programme. An occasion might arise when he would
+be forced to action; should this happen Dragut had not forgotten his four
+years in the galley of Jannetin Doria, the nephew of the admiral, and next
+time he intended to fight to win. Just at present the Christian admiral was
+in too great strength for him to do aught but keep out of his way, and much
+to Andrea's annoyance this was what he succeeded in doing.
+
+Doria got information that Dragut was at Monastir, information that was
+perfectly correct; but by this time the corsair knew that not only had he
+raised all Christendom, but that the admiral was on his track. In
+consequence, he slipped out of Monastir, "for," as it is pithily put by
+Marmol, "our corsair cared not to be shut up in so defenceless a port; he
+had good heels and loved sea-room."
+
+Dragut did not fear for his new possession, "Africa," as he knew that Doria
+had not sufficient force to attack so formidable a place; therefore,
+leaving it to its destiny and the valour and conduct of his nephew Aisa, on
+whom he knew that he could rely, "he went," according to the chronicler,
+"on his old trade making Horrid Devastations on the coast of Spain and its
+islands."
+
+While Dragut was pursuing his "Horrid Devastations," Doria was not idle,
+but was ranging the northern coast of Africa in his fruitless search; in
+the course of this he landed at Cape Bona, on which was the castle of
+Calibia, held by the corsairs; these men, who were a portion of Dragut's
+following, made a most valiant defence; they were, however, few in number,
+and when their captain was killed by the ball from an arquebus they
+surrendered. Encouraged by this success, the Christian fleet then stood
+along the coast to inspect "Africa." Sailing quite close to the shore they
+came within range of the guns of the garrison, who, under the direction of
+Aisa, were very much on the alert. As the admiral's galley at the head of
+the line passed the walls of the town, she was received with a hot fire,
+and one large cannonball struck the stern of Doria's ship, doing
+considerable structural damage, and killing five of his men. This
+occurrence took place in broad daylight in full view of all the garrison,
+who signalled their delight at the discomfiture of their foes by the noise
+of cymbals and atambours, and by wild and ferocious yells. Doria, who was
+in no position to land and make reprisals, fell into the greatest paroxysm
+of fury, and we are told that "he swore the destruction of that detested
+city."
+
+The season being now advanced, Doria returned home, where he found orders
+awaiting him from Charles that preparation was to be made for the capture
+of "Africa". While the admiral was in harbour, Dragut, finding the seas
+open to him once more, returned from his "Horrid Devastations," and
+employed his time profitably in throwing provisions and men into the city,
+which he knew would be beleagured in the following year.
+
+During the ensuing winter Doria, in conjunction with the viceroys of Naples
+and Sicily, prepared the expedition which was to accomplish not only the
+capture of "Africa," but what was, in his opinion, equally important, the
+destruction of Dragut-Reis, Early in the spring of 1550, all was in
+readiness, and the armada of Charles sailed from Palermo to Trapani, where
+it met with the forces of Don Juan de Vega, Viceroy of Sicily, those of Don
+Garcia de Toledo, the son of the Viceroy of Naples, and likewise the
+Maltese squadron. The galleys, accompanied by a fleet of transports, set
+sail early in June, and on the 20th of that month landed an army a little
+to the east of Mehedia or "Africa".
+
+It must be remembered that the inhabitants of Mehedia were by no means
+enamoured of Dragut-Reis and his piratical followers: King Stork had
+succeeded to King Log, the part of the former monarch being taken by that
+singularly capable and ferocious person, Aisa, whose rule was far from
+being to the liking of the richer and more respectable portion of the
+townsfolk.
+
+When, therefore, Andrea Doria and his captains laid siege to the city, they
+murmured against its defence, desiring ardently to enter into some sort of
+treaty with the besiegers; they had had enough of war, they said, and
+wished to end their days in peace if possible.
+
+Aisa Reis, however, would hear no word of surrender, telling those who
+murmured against the defence that "if he heard a word more of these plots
+he would infallibly sacrifice every mother's son amongst them, and then lay
+the town in ashes." Having already had a taste of the quality of this
+redoubtable corsair, and feeling perfectly certain that should the occasion
+arise he would be as good as his word, there was no more disaffection among
+the inhabitants, who had to put up with their native place being made a
+cockpit for Doria and Dragut to fight out their quarrel. It is permissible
+to sympathise very sincerely with these unfortunates, who, having been
+betrayed in the first instance, were compelled to stand a siege in the
+second.
+
+Aisa had a picked force of his uncle's men, some seventeen hundred foot and
+six hundred horse, all seasoned and formidable veterans, inured to warfare
+by land and sea. On these of course he could rely to the death. The common
+folk of the town were inclined to make common cause with the corsairs in
+resistance to their hereditary enemy the Christians; but the magistrates
+and members of the council, the grave and reverend signiors, held so
+conspicuously aloof that Aisa was constrained into forcing them to aid in
+the defence when he had time to attend to the matter. As Dragut was not
+actually present at the siege it falls outside the scope of this chronicle;
+he was without the walls when the besiegers arrived, but all that he could
+do, that he did. With a body of his own men reinforced by a rabble rout of
+Berber tribesmen, he harassed the Christian army; they were, however, in
+far too great numbers for him to make any impression, and after several
+desperate skirmishes he recognised that the day was lost, and re-embarking
+in his galleys sailed away. The town after a desperate and prolonged
+resistance was at last taken by storm; and Doria captured Aisa, a Turkish
+alcaid, and ten thousand prisoners of the baser sort. Of these, however,
+there was scarce one who owed allegiance to Dragut; the warriors of this
+chief neither gave nor accepted quarter, as they feared the wrath of the
+terrible corsair even more than death itself.
+
+Don Juan de Vega put his son Don Alvaro in command of the city and set out
+in search of Dragut with twenty galleys, but the sea leaves no traces by
+which a fugitive can be tracked, and his search proved as fruitless as had
+been that of Doria in the previous year. The rage and the disappointment of
+the admiral were beyond all bounds; what to him was the value of the
+capture of Aisa, of the Turkish alcaid, of the ten thousand of the baser
+sort; nay, what to him was the value of "Africa" itself when once again
+like a mocking spirit Dragut had glided beyond the sea horizon to
+devastate, to plunder, and to slay once more, the scourge and the menace of
+Christendom.
+
+It will be interesting to record briefly the fate of this city which we
+have seen taken and retaken. Don Alvaro de Vega remained as governor till
+the end of July, 1551, when his place was taken by Don Sancho de Leyva; at
+which time there took place one of those curious military mutinies so
+characteristic of the sixteenth century. The soldiers, unpaid for months,
+possibly for years, mutinied, expelled the governor and other officers,
+even the sergeants, from the city, and placed themselves under the
+direction of a stout soldier called Antonio de Aponte, to whom they gave
+the title of "Electo Mayor."
+
+Don Sancho repaired to Brussels to report matters to the Emperor, and
+during his absence a circumstance which is also singularly characteristic
+of this faithless epoch took place, for the Prior of Capua, then general of
+the French galleys, entered into negotiations with the mutineers for the
+surrender of the city to the French King.
+
+Bluff Antonio de Aponte would have none of this treachery; he held the city
+for the Emperor Charles and only wanted his pay. Eventually a mutiny within
+a mutiny was fomented from without, and with the mutineers divided the
+Emperor regained possession of the city; some of the mutineers were hanged,
+and Aponte, who had been captured by the Turks, died at Constantinople.
+
+The Emperor offered "Africa" to the Knights of Malta with a yearly
+allowance of twenty-four thousand ducats; the Knights refused, much to the
+chagrin of Charles, who gave orders for its complete destruction. This was
+accomplished by blowing up with gunpowder the walls, towers, and
+fortifications which Al-Mehedi, after whom the city had been named, "had
+erected with such art and strength, and had his mind so fixed upon that
+work that he used to say, 'If I thought building these fortifications with
+iron and brass would render them more durable, I would certainly do it.'"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+DRAGUT-REIS
+
+  How Dragut was blockaded in the Island of Jerbah--How he left Andrea
+  Dona "with the dog to hold"--His return to Constantinople, and how he
+  sailed from thence with a great expedition against the Knights of Malta.
+
+Charles V. had "smoked out the fox," but his admiral in so doing had not
+succeeded in capturing that remarkably wily animal; for Dragut was not only
+still at liberty, but was burning for revenge on those by whom he had been
+dispossessed. He had lost "his city," as he called "Africa"; he had lost
+two thousand five hundred men--among them some of the fiercest and most
+experienced of his corsairs; he had lost ten thousand slaves, representing
+a large sum of money, and much wealth besides. The corsair, however, was
+not one of those who merely sit down and repine; for him strenuous and
+continued action was the law of his being, and he at once repaired to
+Constantinople. Here he was well known as an adroit and skilful seaman and
+a most determined enemy of the Christians, and, in consequence, was not
+only certain of a welcome, but of substantial help as well, if he could but
+win over the Grand Turk to take the same view of his grievances as he did
+himself. In reality, the corsairs, as we have seen, played the game of the
+Padishah, as a rule, at no expense to that potentate; when they were in
+trouble he was therefore by no means indisposed to render them assistance.
+
+Dragut, like all the sea-wolves, was fond of money, fonder still of what
+money could buy; he now hankered after revenge as the sweetest morsel that
+his hoarded ducats could procure for him. That the Sultan was well disposed
+to him he had every reason to think; none the less did he spend royally
+among the venal favourites of the Court in order that nothing might be left
+undone to inflame the ardour of Soliman against those whom he considered to
+be his hereditary foes.
+
+With such skill and address did the corsair manage his suit that he
+prevailed upon the Sultan to address a letter to Charles demanding the
+immediate return of the towns of Susa, Sfax, Monastir, and "Africa." This,
+of course, meant war; as Charles immediately replied that these places were
+dependencies of the King of Tunis, and that that ruler was under his
+special protection; further that they were his by right of conquest;
+finally that the matter was no concern whatever of the Sultan of
+Constantinople. The stern and imperious Christian Emperor was in no mood to
+brook interference, the more so that he discerned plainly that though the
+demand was that of Soliman, the mover in the affair was none other than
+Dragut. He therefore by way of a rider to his answer to the Sultan informed
+that monarch that these places which he had taken on the coast of Africa
+had been reft by him "from one Dragut, a corsair odious to both God and
+man"; that without in any way departing from the treaty which he had made
+with Soliman "he intended to pursue this pirate whithersoever he might go."
+
+Whether or no this denunciation of Dragut had any influence on the Sultan
+it is impossible to say; he was in the habit of employing the corsairs, and
+apparently cared nothing about their piratical reputation, so long as their
+depredations were confined to Christian vessels. Shortly after the receipt
+of the answer of Charles, however, the Sultan conferred upon Dragut the
+title of Sandjak or governor of the island of Santa Maura, thus
+constituting him a Turkish official.
+
+Once again was Andrea Doria ordered to put to sea to fight against neither
+small nor great save Dragut alone; he was to take him dead or alive, but
+alive for choice, in order that he might be made to answer at the bar of
+Christian justice for all the atrocities committed by him both by land and
+sea. The corsair had returned in the meanwhile to Jerbah, an island on the
+east coast of Tunis much affected by the sea-wolves, and which in
+contemporary histories is known as Jerbah, as Los Gelues (by the Spanish
+writers), as Gelves, and various other names which greatly confuse its
+identity.
+
+Doria put to sea with twenty-two royal galleys before Dragut was aware of
+the fact. The Genoese admiral heard that his prey was at Jerbah; he
+repaired thither without losing a moment, found that he had been correctly
+informed, and anchored at the mouth of the harbour, at a place known as La
+Bocca de Cantara. Dragut was completely hemmed in, Doria was in such
+strength that he could not, reckless as he was, attempt to force the
+passage. But as the hour came the spirit of the corsair rose to answer the
+challenge: it was one thing to get Dragut-Reis into a trap, it was quite
+another to keep him there. Accordingly, he assembled all his troops,
+dragged cannon to the mouth of the harbour, and opened so brisk a foe on
+the Christian ships as to compel them to haul out of range. These tactics
+left Doria unaffected; there was but one way out of the harbour, and he
+felt quite convinced that when Dragut had had enough of starvation he would
+either surrender or else fight a hopeless action. The admiral surveyed his
+anchored fleet with a contented mind; his enemy had been delivered into his
+hand, he had nothing to do now but wait for that final triumph of appearing
+before his master the Emperor with the famous corsair as his prisoner. He
+saw a great fort rising before his very eyes at the mouth of the harbour,
+and merely smiled serenely; he sent off to Sicily and Naples for
+reinforcements in order that when the psychological moment should arise he
+might crush the corsair stronghold so thoroughly that it should never rise
+again. In the despatches which he sent he said "the fox is trapped"--"which
+news rejoiced all parts of Christendom, and most powerful succours came
+daily flocking to the seaports from every quarter; so eager were the
+sufferers to revenge themselves on this so much dreaded corsair."
+
+The history of what now happened is given by Don Luys de Marmol Caravajal
+in his "Descripcion general de Affrica," which was printed in Granada, "en
+casa de Rene Rabat impresor de libros ano de 1573," or only some twenty
+years or so after these occurrences; it is set forth in his chapter
+entitled "Como Andrea Doria fue en buscar de these occurrences; it is set
+forth in his chapter Dragut Arraez." We have also the authority of that
+eminent historian, M. L'Abbe de Vertot.
+
+Captain Juan Vasquez Coronado journeyed to Naples carrying with him letters
+from Andrea Doria to Don Pedro de Toledo, requesting that the Viceroy would
+send him all the galleys in Naples, carrying as many soldiers as possible,
+pointing out that he had Dragut in a trap, from which he could not possibly
+escape, but that this time he wished to make security doubly secure.
+Letters to the same purport were also sent to Don Juan de Vega, the Viceroy
+of Sicily, and to Marco Centurion at the admiral's own city of Genoa. Doria
+was leaving nothing to chance this time. Meanwhile, great earthworks had
+been thrown up at the Bocca de Cantara at the entrance of the harbour by
+Dragut, and any ship which approached within range was most furiously
+bombarded. This served to amuse Andrea Doria, who, confident that the jaws
+of the trap had closed, kept a sharp look-out for vessels issuing from the
+harbour, but otherwise concerned himself not at all about the
+entrenchments. Was not Naples humming with the note of preparation? Would
+not the Genoese come in their thousands to the summons of their renowned
+chieftain? Could not the Viceroy of Sicily be trusted to work his best to
+gain the favour of his Imperial master?
+
+"Time and I are two" was the favourite expression of King Philip II. of
+Spain; the same idea might have crossed the mind of Doria on this memorable
+occasion. He had only to wait; the longer he waited the more secure he
+would be of success, the more certain would he be of the complete undoing
+of his enemy. But even yet the admiral did not know the man to whom he was
+opposed; in all the years in which he had done battle against Dragut, he
+had never gauged the limitless resource and calculated audacity of this
+lineal successor of Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa. While the admiral had been
+sending his despatches, and idly watching that which he considered to be
+the futile construction of earthworks on the shore at the Bocca de Cantara,
+his enemy was preparing for him that surprise which was shortly afterwards
+to make of him the laughing-stock of the whole of Europe. Dragut was in a
+trap, and he was quite aware of the fact; by way of the Bocca de Cantara
+escape was impossible, and neither a tame surrender nor complete
+annihilation was by any means to the taste of the pirate leader. Had Doria
+gone in and attacked at once, the fate of the corsair had been sealed; the
+policy of delay adopted by the Christian admiral was his salvation.
+
+A man less able, less determined, than Dragut, might well have despaired;
+but he brought to bear on the problem with which he was confronted all the
+subtlety of his nature, all the resourcefulness of the born seaman that he
+was. His mind had been made up from the very beginning: the earthworks at
+the Bocca de Cantara, the movements of troops, the furious cannonading, had
+all been nothing but a blind to hide the real design which he had in view.
+In addition to his fighting men he had at his command some two thousand
+islanders, stout Mohammedans to a man, ready and willing to assist him in
+his design of cheating the Christians of their prey. Day and night, with
+ceaseless silent toil, had garrison and islanders been at work on the
+scheme which the leader had devised. From the head of the harbour Dragut
+had caused a road to be made right across the island to the sea on the
+opposite side: on this road he caused planks to be laid, bolted to sleepers
+and then thickly greased. The vessels of the day were of course
+comparatively speaking light, and capable of being manhandled, supposing
+that you had sufficient hands. At dead of night Dragut assembled his
+forces, and before morning every galley, galeasse, and brigantine had been
+dragged across the island and launched in the sea on the opposite side.
+There was then nothing left to do but to embark stores, guns, and
+ammunition and to sail quietly away, and this was what happened. Once again
+Dragut faded away beyond the skyline, "leaving Andrea Doria with the dog to
+hold," in the quaint language of the chronicler of these events, Don Luys
+de Marmol Caravajal.
+
+Not only did the indefatigable corsair get clear away without any suspicion
+on the part of the admiral, but his first act on gaining the open sea was
+to capture the _Patrona_ galley sent from Sicily by Don Juan de Vega to say
+that reinforcements were on the road. In this ill-fated craft was Buguer,
+the son of Muley Hassan, King of Tunis, who was sent as prize to Soliman at
+Constantinople, where the Sultan caused him to be shut up in the "Torre del
+Mar Negro." Here he remained till he died, as a punishment for that he, a
+Mussulman, had aided the Christians.
+
+Never again was Dragut to be in such sore straits as he was on this
+occasion at the island of Jerbah, when, by sheer wit and cunning, he
+escaped from the trap in which he had been held by Doria. What the emotions
+of the admiral must have been when he found that once again he had been
+fooled, it is not difficult to imagine, as by no possible means could the
+story be hushed up; and, in spite of the annoyance of Christendom generally
+at the escape of Dragut, no one could help admiring his extraordinary
+cleverness, or roaring with laughter at the discomfiture of Doria and the
+viceroys of Naples and Sicily.
+
+Dragut now returned to Constantinople to receive congratulations upon his
+escape, and to take part in a fresh design of stirring up the Sultan
+against the Christians. All who professed this faith were naturally
+obnoxious to the corsair; but his private and personal hatred was entirely
+directed against the Knights of Malta, with whom he had been at war all his
+life. The present preoccupation of the Sultan was to regain the towns on
+the coast of Africa which had been taken by the Spaniards; but it was
+represented to him by Dragut that "until he had smoked out this nest of
+vipers he could do no good anywhere." The Bashaws and the Divan, heavily
+bribed by the corsair, held the same language, until Soliman heard of
+nothing from morning till night but the ill deeds of the Knights of Malta.
+They were represented to him as corsairs who ruined his commerce and
+defeated his armadas, who let slip no opportunity of harrying the Moslem
+wheresoever he was to be found. In this there was more than a grain of
+truth, as we shall see when we come to the next chapter, which will be
+devoted to a sketch of this militant order. Suffice it to say here that the
+Knights fought for what they termed "the Religion" (it was in this manner
+they designated their confederacy), and to harry and enslave the Mussulman,
+to destroy him as a noxious animal wherever he was to be found, was the
+reason for which they existed. It is true that they plundered not for
+individual gain, but many was the rich prize towed into Malta past St. Elmo
+and the ominously named "Punta delle Forche" (the "Point of the Gallows,"
+where all captured pirates were hanged), the proceeds of which went to the
+enrichment of the Order; to buy themselves the wherewithal to fight with
+the Mahommedan again.
+
+The abuse of the Knights fell upon sympathetic ears; in his early days
+Soliman the Magnificent had expelled the Knights from Rhodes; since then
+Charles V. had given them the islands of Malta and Gozo, and the town of
+Tripoli in Barbary as their abiding place; from Malta they had never ceased
+their warfare against the corsairs, and incidentally against the Sultan and
+his subjects. Therefore, in this year 1551, Soliman ordained that an
+expedition should be prepared with the object of crushing once and for all
+these troublers of the peace of Islam. The preparations were on so large a
+scale that very soon it became noised abroad in Europe that something
+really serious was in the wind: in Constantinople, however, men kept their
+own counsel; it was ill talking of the affairs of the Padishah, and,
+further than that, beyond Dragut and the proposed leaders of the
+expedition, the Sultan took no one into his confidence. Charles V., well
+served as he was by his spies, was as much in the dark as to the
+destination of this new armada as were humbler folk; in it he recognised
+the hand of Dragut again, and Doria had standing orders to catch that
+mischievous person if he could. At present, however, there was no chance of
+so desirable a thing happening, as Dragut was superintending the fitting
+out of the new expedition at Constantinople.
+
+Anxious and suspicious of the designs of the Turks, Charles ordered a
+concentration of his fleet at Messina.
+
+The Grand Master of the Knights of Malta at this time was a Spaniard, one
+Juan d'Omedes; he was, says de Vertot, "un Grand Maitre Espagnol," meaning
+by this that he was completely under the domination of the Emperor and
+ready at any time to place the galleys of "the Religion" under the orders
+of that monarch. The Knights, like every one else, had watched with anxiety
+the preparation of this great expedition in Constantinople, and when the
+Grand Master proposed to send the galleys of the Order to join forces with
+Doria at Messina, there was great dissatisfaction at the Council Board.
+That which it behoved them to do, the members informed the Grand Master,
+was not to help a great potentate like Charles, but to make provision for
+their own security by attending to their fortifications, which were in
+anything but a satisfactory condition. D'Omedes maintained that this
+expedition was destined to serve with the King of France against the
+Emperor, and that Malta was not the objective. He accordingly sent away the
+galleys of "the Religion" under the Chevalier "Iron-Foot," the General of
+the Galleys, to join the fleet which had its rendezvous at Messina. Hardly
+had he done so when news came from the Levant that the fleet of the Grand
+Turk was at sea heading for Sicily. The fleet was composed of one hundred
+and twelve royal galleys, two great galeasses, and a host of brigantines
+and transport vessels. Sinan-Reis was in command with twelve thousand
+Janissaries, numerous pioneers and engineers, and all the necessary
+appliances for a siege.
+
+The embarkation of so large a number of Janissaries was the measure of the
+serious purpose of the expedition, as the Sultan did not readily part with
+the men of this _corps d'elite_ unless he was in person taking the command.
+It may be as well to explain here exactly what the Janissaries were, and it
+cannot be better done than by an extract from the famous historian
+Prescott:
+
+  "The most remarkable of the Turkish institutions, the one which may be
+  said to have formed the keystone of the system, was that relating to the
+  Christian population of the Empire. Once in five years a general
+  conscription was made by means of which all the children of Christian
+  parents who had reached the age of seven and gave promise of excellence
+  in mind or body were taken from their homes and brought to the capital.
+  They were then removed to different quarters and placed in seminaries
+  where they might receive such instruction as would fit them for the
+  duties of life. Those giving greatest promise of strength and endurance
+  were sent to places prepared for them in Asia Minor. Here they were
+  subjected to a severe training, to abstinence, to privations of every
+  kind, and to the strict discipline which should fit them for the
+  profession of a soldier. From this body was formed the famous corps of
+  the Janissaries.... Their whole life may be said to have been passed in
+  war or in preparation for it. Forbidden to marry, they had no families
+  to engage their affections, which, as with the monks and friars of
+  Christian countries, were concentrated in their own order, whose
+  prosperity was inseparably connected with that of the State. Proud of
+  the privileges which distinguished them from the rest of the army, they
+  seemed desirous to prove their title to them by their thorough
+  discipline and by their promptness to execute the most dangerous and
+  difficult services. Clad in their flowing robes, so little suited to
+  war, armed with the arquebus and the scimitar--in their hands more than
+  a match for the pike or sword of the European--with the heron's plume
+  waving above their head, their dense array might ever be seen bearing
+  down in the thickest of the fight; and more than once when the fate of
+  the Empire trembled in the balance it was this invincible corps which
+  turned the scale, and by their intrepid conduct decided the fortune of
+  the day. Gathering fresh reputation with age, so long as their
+  discipline remained unimpaired they were a match for the best soldiers
+  in Europe. But in time this admirable organisation experienced a change.
+  One Sultan allowed them to marry; another to bring their sons into the
+  corps; a third opened the ranks to Turks as well as Christians; until,
+  forfeiting their peculiar character, the Janissaries became confounded
+  with the militia of the Empire. These changes occurred in the time of
+  Philip the Second."
+
+But to resume: just before the sailing of the galleys of "the Religion"
+from Malta there had arrived in that island from France the famous
+Chevalier, the Commandeur de Villegagnon. This great noble told the Grand
+Master to his face that he was neglecting his duty, that the expedition of
+the Grand Turk was bound for Malta and Tripoli: further, that he was
+charged by Anne de Montmorency, Constable and First Minister of France, to
+advise the Grand Master that this armament was directed against "the
+Religion." The interview between the Grand Master and de Villegagnon took
+place at a chapter of the Grand Crosses of the Order; when the Commandeur
+had finished speaking, he was coldly thanked by D'Omedes, who then bowed
+him out. Turning to the Knights Grand Cross he said with a sneer, "Either
+this Frenchman is the dupe of the Constable or he wishes to make us his."
+He then proceeded to give at length the reasons why Soliman would not
+direct so huge an expedition against "the Religion." Many of the Knights
+dissented vehemently from his conclusions, but D'Omedes refused to listen
+to their arguments. Even advices which arrived on July 13th, representing
+that the armada was moving southwards devastating the Italian ports, did
+not move him from his obstinate pre-occupation; till on July 16th the
+arrival of the Ottoman fleet put an end to all speculation.
+
+The armada which had sailed from Constantinople was under the command of
+Sinan Basha: but he had explicit orders that he was to take no important
+step without first consulting Dragut, who was nominally his lieutenant. It
+was well for the Knights that on this occasion the corsair was not in
+supreme command; had this been the case the islands must have been taken,
+as no preparations had been made to repulse an attack in force, and Juan
+D'Omedes was a Grand Master who excited little enthusiasm either among the
+Knights or the inhabitants. The choice of Sinan was not one which did great
+credit to the penetration of the Sultan. Let us explain. We are all of us
+conscious at one time or another of a desire to express some fact in the
+fewest possible words; to place the transaction or the circumstance which
+we wish to describe in the searchlight of truth in so undeniable a fashion
+that the illumination consequent upon this mental effort of our own shall
+throw up our meaning in immediate relief on the intelligences of those whom
+we address. This attribute is possessed by but few even among great
+writers--indeed, some historic sayings which have come down to us have not
+emanated from the writing fraternity at all, but from soldiers, sailors,
+statesmen, and other busy men of affairs. The quality which distinguishes a
+man of action above all others is fearlessness of responsibility; the
+possession of sufficient greatness of soul and of moral fibre to seize upon
+an opportunity and to make the most thereof when an occasion arises which
+has not been foreseen by those in authority over him. But far more often in
+the history of the world has it happened that brave and capable leaders
+have failed for the lack of the indefinable quality that separated their
+sterling merits from that absolute and real supremacy which marks the
+first-class man.
+
+How then is it possible to differentiate, to describe where and in what
+manner this luck occurs?
+
+Fortunately, this has been done for us in seven words by Seignelay, the
+Minister of Marine to Louis Quatorze in 1692. Speaking of Admiral de
+Tourville, who defeated the English and Dutch at the Battle of Beachy Head,
+July 10th, 1690, Seignelay says of him that he was "poltron de tete mais
+pas de coeur." The judgment was just: de Tourville, as recklessly gallant
+as any French noble of them all, failed to live up to his responsibilities
+two years later at the Battle of La Hogue. Mahan says: "The caution in his
+pursuit of the Allies after Beachy Head, though so different in appearance,
+came from the same trait which impelled him two years later to lead his
+fleet to almost certain destruction at La Hogue because he had the King's
+order in his pocket. He was brave enough to do anything, but not strong
+enough to bear the heaviest burdens."
+
+We see the application of this truth in the period which we are
+considering; particularly is it borne in upon us in the case of the leaders
+of the Ottoman Turks. Serving as they did a despot of unlimited powers,
+failure in the success of his arms was apt to lead to the immediate and
+violent death of the man in command. If, therefore, precise instructions
+were issued, they were, as a rule, carried out to the letter; as in case of
+defeat an effort could be made to shift responsibility on to the shoulders
+of the Padishah. Failure owing to initiative was certain of prompt
+retribution; success complete and absolute would be the only justification
+for a departure from orders.
+
+Far otherwise was it with the Sea-wolves, who were a law to themselves and
+to themselves alone. Should they care "to place it on the hazard of a die
+to win or lose it all," there was none to say them nay, there was no
+punishment save that of defeat. This it was that so often conduced to their
+success. Despots as were such men as Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa and Dragut,
+they were none the less dependent on the goodwill of their followers. If,
+therefore, they decided on a desperate enterprise, they appealed to the
+fighting instincts, the cupidity, and the fanaticism of these men. Should
+they succeed in gaining their good will for the attempt which they
+meditated, then all was well with them, and behind them was no grim
+sinister figure whose word was death and whose breath was destruction.
+
+Freed from all the trammels which bound the ordinary warrior of the day in
+which they lived, they were able, as we have seen, to go far; for the man
+in whom supreme ability is united to absolute unscrupulousness is the most
+dangerous foe of the human race. The despotism of the leaders among the
+sea-wolves was not theirs by right divine, as men considered it to be in
+the case of the Padishah; none the less in its practical application it was
+but little inferior to that wielded by the Sultan. For reasons of policy,
+the Sea-wolves allied themselves to the Grand Turk; for reasons of policy
+that monarch employed them and entrusted them with the conduct of important
+affairs. The bargain was really a good one on both sides; as to the
+sea-wolves was extended the aegis of one of the mightiest empires of the
+earth; while to the Sultan came "veritable men of the sea," hardened in
+conflict, as fearless of responsibility as of aught else; capable in a
+sense that hardly any man could be capable who had grown up in the
+atmosphere of the court at Constantinople. To Kheyr-ed-Din the Sultan had
+extended his fullest confidence; he had been rewarded by seeing the
+renowned Doria forsake the field of battle at Prevesa, and by the perpetual
+slights and insults put upon his Christian foes by that great corsair. To
+Dragut he had now turned, and, as we have said, when Sinan Basha sailed
+from the Golden Horn he had orders to attempt nothing important without the
+advice of the corsair. It is impossible to say why the command-in-chief had
+not been entrusted to him, as the Sultan had the precedent of Kheyr-ed-Din
+upon which to go. It can only be conjectured that Soliman, having
+discovered how unpopular that appointment had been amongst his high
+officers, did not care to risk the experiment the second time; and in
+consequence employed Sinan. To this officer the aphorism of Seignelay
+applies in its fullest force. He was as brave a man as ever drew a sword in
+the service of his master; he was, however, a hesitating and incompetent
+leader, with one eye ever fixed on that distant palace on the shores of the
+Golden Horn in which dwelt the arbiter of his destiny and of all those who
+sailed beneath the banner of the Crescent.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+THE KNIGHTS OF ST. JOHN
+
+  The Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem, afterwards known as the Knights
+  of Rhodes, and eventually as the Knights of Malta--A brief sketch of the
+  Order, including the relation of how Gozon de Dieu-Donne, subsequently
+  Grand Master, slew the great Serpent of Rhodes; also some account of
+  Jean Parisot de la Valette, forty-eighth Grand Master, who commanded at
+  the Siege of Malta, in which the arms of Soliman the Magnificent were
+  defeated after a siege lasting one hundred and thirteen days.
+
+Amongst all those principalities and powers against which Dragut contended
+during the whole of his strenuous existence, there was no one among them
+which he held in so much detestation as the famous Knights of Saint John,
+known in the sixteenth century as the Knights of Malta. This militant
+religious organisation had its origin in Jerusalem in peculiar and
+interesting circumstances. After the death of Mahomet, his followers,
+burning with zeal, put forward the tenets of their religion by means of
+fire and sword; during the years which followed the Hegira, 622 A.D., the
+arms of the Moslems were everywhere successful, and amongst other places
+conquered by them was Palestine. So great was the renown acquired by the
+Emperor Charlemagne that his fame passed even into Asia, and Eginard states
+that the Caliph Haroun Raschid permitted the French nation to maintain a
+house in Jerusalem for the reception of pilgrims visiting the holy places,
+and that, further, the Prince permitted the Patriarch of Jerusalem to send
+to the Christian Emperor, on his behalf, the keys of the Holy Sepulchre and
+those of the Church of Calvary, together with a standard which was the sign
+of the power and authority delegated by the Moslem ruler to his mighty
+contemporary. In the middle of the eleventh century Italian merchants
+coming from Amalfi, who had experienced the hard lot of the Christian
+pilgrims in reaching the Holy City, secured from the Caliph Moustafa-Billah
+a concession of land, on which they built a chapel known as St. Mary of the
+Latins, to distinguish it from the Greek church already established at
+Jerusalem, and also constructed a hospice in which to receive the pilgrims,
+whether in sickness or in health, known as the Hospice of St. John.
+
+In 1093 the untiring efforts of Peter the Hermit, with the support of Pope
+Urbain II., brought about the first Crusade, and in 1099 we first hear of
+Gerard, the founder of the Order of St. John. Gerard was a French monk who,
+seeing the good work done by the Hospice of St. John, had attached himself
+to it, and had at this time been working in the cause of charity, and
+devoting himself to the pilgrims for many years.
+
+Godfrey de Bouillon, having defeated the Saracens outside the walls of
+Jerusalem, entered that city and visited the Hospice of St. John; he there
+found many of the Crusaders who had been wounded during the siege, and who
+had been carried thither after the taking of the place: all of these men
+were loud in their praises of the loving kindness with which they had been
+received and tended.
+
+Great was the honour and reverence in which these simple monks were held
+ever after by the Crusaders; for was it not common talk that these holy men
+had themselves subsisted on the coarsest and most repulsive fare in order
+that the food in the hospice should be both pure and abundant? Fired by
+this fine example of Christian charity, several noble gentlemen who had
+been tended in the hospice gave up the idea of returning to their own
+countries, and consecrated themselves to the Hospice of St. John, and to
+the service of the pilgrims, the poor, and the sick. Among these was
+Raimond Dupuy.
+
+The great Prince Godfrey de Bouillon fully approved of the steps taken by
+these gentlemen, and for his own part contributed to the upkeep of the
+hospice the seigneurie of Montbirre, with all its dependencies, which
+formed a part of his domain in Brabant. His example was widely copied by
+the Christian princes and great nobles among the Crusaders, who enriched
+the hospice with many lands and seigneuries, both in Palestine and in
+Europe. All these lands and properties were placed unreservedly in the
+hands of the saintly Gerard to do with as he would for the advancement of
+his work. In 1118 Gerard died in extreme old age; "he died in the arms of
+the brothers, almost without sickness, falling, as it may be said, like a
+fruit ripe for eternity."
+
+The choice of the Hospitallers as his successor was Raimond Dupuy, a
+nobleman of illustrious descent from the Province of Dauphiny, and it is he
+who first held rule under the title of Grand Master. In all charity and
+loving kindness the life of Gerard had been passed, the brethren of St.
+John occupying themselves merely in tending the sick, in helping the poor
+and the pilgrims; but Raimond Dupuy was a soldier of the Cross, and he laid
+before the Order a scheme by which, from among the members thereof, a
+military corps should be formed, vowed to a perpetual crusade against the
+Infidel. This, in full conclave, was carried by acclamation, and the most
+remarkable body of religious warriors that the world has ever seen then
+came existence.
+
+This pact against the Infidel was in the first instance directed against
+the barbarians who swarmed around the Holy City, and the Hospitallers, who
+nearly all had been knights and soldiers of Godfrey de Bouillon, joyfully
+took up their arms again to employ them in the defence of this locality
+which they cherished, and in defence of the pilgrims who were robbed,
+murdered, and maltreated in all the surrounding country. In becoming
+warriors once more, they vowed to turn their arms against the Infidel, and
+against him alone; to neither make nor meddle with arms in their hands in
+any dispute between men of their own faith. The composition of the Order as
+it was arranged by Raimond Dupuy caused it to consist of three classes. In
+the first were placed men of high birth and rank who, having been bred to
+arms, were capable of taking command. In the second came priests and
+chaplains, who, besides the ordinary duties attached to their religious
+profession, were obliged, each in his turn, to accompany the fighting men
+in their wars. Those who were neither of noble houses nor belonging to the
+ecclesiastical profession were known as "serving brothers": they were
+employed indifferently in following the knights into battle or in tending
+the sick in the hospital, and were distinguished by a coat-of-arms of a
+different colour from that worn by the knights.
+
+As the Order prospered amazingly, and as to it repaired numbers of the
+young noblesse from all parts of Europe to enrol themselves under its
+banner, it was accordingly divided into seven "Languages"; those of
+Provence, Auvergne, France, Italy, Arragon, Germany, and England. To the
+Language of Arragon was in later years allotted those of Castile and of
+Portugal. The dress consisted of a black robe, with a mantle of the same
+colour, the whole being called _manteau a bec_, having upon the left side
+thereof a white cross in cloth, with light points. The eight-pointed cross,
+or the Maltese Cross, as it came to be known in subsequent centuries, will
+be seen upon the armour, engraven on the breastplate, of all the pictures
+of the Grand Masters.
+
+In the year 1259 the Pope, Alexander IV., finding that men of noble birth
+objected to be habited as were the "serving brothers," ordained that the
+knights on a campaign should wear a "sopraveste" of scarlet embroidered
+with the cross in white; further, that should any knight abandon the ranks,
+and fly from the battle, he should be deprived of his order and his habit.
+The form of government was purely aristocratic, all authority being vested
+in the Council, of which the Grand Master was the chief, the case of an
+equal division of opinion being provided for by giving to the Grand Master
+the casting vote. There were in the Order certain aged knights who were
+called "Preceptors," who, under authority delegated to them by the Council,
+administered the estates and funds accruing, and also paid for the hire of
+such soldiers or "seculars" whom the Knights took into their service.
+
+Incidentally, it may be mentioned that the establishment of the Knights of
+St. John led to the foundation of the famous Order of the Knights Templars.
+In 1118 Hugues de Payens, Geoffrey de St. Aldemar, and seven other French
+noblemen, whose hearts were touched by the sufferings which the pilgrims
+underwent in their journey to Jerusalem, formed themselves into a society
+with the object of the protection of these inoffensive persons on their
+transit from the coast inland. Hugues de Payens, received in audience by
+Pope Honore II., was sent by the Pontiff to the Peers of the Council, then
+assembled at Troyes in Champagne; the Council approving of so charitable an
+enterprise, the Order was formed, and Bernard, known as "Saint" Bernard,
+drew up the code of regulations by which it was to be governed. The
+movement spread, and many princes and nobles returned to the Holy Land in
+the train of de Payens and his companions.
+
+So famous did the Order of St. John become, that in 1133 Alfonzo, King of
+Navarre and Arragon, who called himself Emperor of Spain, carried his zeal
+so far as to bequeath to the knights his kingdoms of Navarre and Arragon:
+this, however, was naturally and hotly contested in these places, and
+Raimond Dupuy, who attended a Council to regulate the matter, was content
+to compromise on certain lands and benefits being allocated to those whom
+he represented.
+
+On August 15th, 1310, the knights, under the Grand Master, Fulke de
+Villaret, conquered the Island of Rhodes and established themselves there,
+and from this time onward, while they held the island, were known as the
+Knights of Rhodes. No sooner were the knights firmly established in Rhodes
+and the fortifications placed in a proper state of repair, than a tower was
+built on the highest point of the island, of great height, from which a
+view could be obtained of the sea and the surrounding islands, and from
+which information could be signalled as to the movements of any vessels
+which were observed. It was then decided to fortify the small island of Cos
+or Lango in the vicinity, as it contained an excellent harbour; a fortress,
+planned by the Grand Master himself, was erected on the island, a knight
+was left in command, and we are told that under the successors of de
+Villaret--himself twenty-fourth Grand Master--the island, which was very
+fertile, flourished exceedingly, producing much fruit and some most
+excellent wine.
+
+There was reigning in Bithynia, at the time when the knights seized upon
+Rhodes, that Ottoman whose name has come down to us when we speak of the
+Ottoman Empire; it is a somewhat strange coincidence that the Christian
+warriors, sworn foes of the Mussulman, should have so established
+themselves just when the tide of the Mohammedan conquest was about to rise
+and sweep away Byzantium; that they should arrive upon the scene just as
+the curtain was about to rise on the tragedy which, in its onward march,
+was to make of the church of St. Sophia a mosque for the worship of the
+Ottoman Turks.
+
+Ottoman--the descendant of one Soliman, the chief of a nomadic tribe of
+Tartars who had been chased from the Empire of Persia in the year 1214--was
+not only a soldier and a conqueror, but also a great and beneficent ruler
+in those regions in which he held sway. Approached by those of his
+co-religionists who had been driven out of Rhodes by the Knights, Ottoman
+embarked an army and attacked the place, assuring himself of an easy
+conquest. In spite, however, of the fortifications having been hastily
+constructed, his troops were defeated with great loss, and he was obliged
+to raise the siege. In this manner did the indomitable champions of
+Christendom begin that long and bloodthirsty war between the Cross and the
+Crescent in the Mediterranean which was to endure for nearly another five
+centuries.
+
+[Illustration: GOZON DE DIEU-DONNE SLAYING THE GREAT SERPENT OF RHODES.]
+
+In the long, chequered, and glorious history of the Knights there are many
+strange and semi-miraculous deeds recounted of them in the wars and
+adventures in which they took so prominent a part; the following, which is
+gravely set out by the historians of the time, may be left to the judgment
+of the reader. In 1324 Fulke de Villaret was succeeded in the Grand
+Mastership by Helion de Villeneuve, a knight of exemplary piety and a
+strict disciplinarian. Under his rule the Order regained those habits of
+severe simplicity from which they had been allowed to lapse by his
+predecessor. In 1329 Rhodes was greatly agitated by the fact that a
+crocodile or serpent--as it is indifferently described--had taken up its
+abode in the marshes at the foot of Mount St. Etienne, some two miles from
+the town. This ferocious creature devoured sheep and cattle; also several
+of the inhabitants had lost their lives by approaching the neighbourhood in
+which it dwelt. Several attacks were made upon it, but, as there were no
+firearms, all the missiles projected against it rebounded harmlessly from
+the scales with which it was covered. So dangerous had it become, that the
+Grand Master thought it his duty to forbid any of the knights to attempt
+its destruction; an order which was obeyed with a right good will. There
+was, however, a knight of the Language of Provence called Gozon de
+Dieu-Donne, who secretly determined that he would slay the serpent, and he
+accordingly made it his occupation to observe as closely as possible the
+habits of the monster. Having satisfied himself on certain points, he then
+returned to his chateau of Gozon in the province of Languedoc. The point
+which Gozon had wished to determine was in what portion of its body was the
+serpent vulnerable; and he had convinced himself that the belly of the
+creature was unprotected by scales. He accordingly modelled in wood as
+exact a representation of the serpent as he could accomplish, colouring it
+the same as the original; the belly of the model was constructed of
+leather. He then trained some large and ferocious hounds, at a certain
+signal, to dash in under the model and fix their teeth in its leathern
+underpart. For months did the ingenious knight persevere with the training
+of his dogs, himself on horseback in full armour cheering them to the
+assault. At last he considered them to be perfect in their parts, and,
+taking two servants and the hounds with him, returned to Rhodes. Avoiding
+everybody, he caused his arms to be carried to a small church in the
+neighbourhood of Mount St. Etienne by his servants. The knight went into
+the church, where he passed some time in prayer, recommending his soul to
+God in the enterprise which he was about to undertake.
+
+He then donned his armour and mounted his horse, ordering his servants, if
+he were killed, to return to France but if he succeeded in killing the
+serpent to come at once to him, or to aid him if he were wounded. He then
+rode off in the direction of the marsh accompanied by his hounds. No sooner
+did the serpent hear the ring of bit and stirrup-iron, the trampling of the
+charger and the baying of the hounds, than it issued forth with wide-open
+slavering jaws and terrible burning eyes to slay and to devour. Gozon,
+recommending his soul to his Maker, put spurs to his horse and charged. But
+his lance shivered on the hide of the serpent as though it had struck a
+stone wall. His horse, mad with terror at the sight and the foul odour of
+the serpent, plunged so furiously as to unseat him. He fell to the ground,
+uttering as he did so his call to the hounds; had it not been for these
+faithful auxiliaries he would instantly have been slain, but they rushed in
+and, fastening their teeth in the belly of the serpent, caused it to writhe
+and twist in its anguish. Instantly Gozon was upon his feet again, and,
+watching his opportunity, plunged his sword into the exposed vitals of his
+enemy. Mortally wounded, the serpent flung itself high in the air with a
+convulsive effort, and falling backwards pinned the knight to the ground
+beneath its enormous bulk. The servants, who had been the horrified
+spectators of this terrific conflict, now rushed to the assistance of their
+master, and succeeded in freeing him from his unpleasant predicament.
+Gozon, they thought, was dead, but upon dashing some water in his face he
+opened his eyes, to behold the pleasing spectacle of his monstrous enemy
+lying by his side a corpse.
+
+Naturally elated, he returned to Rhodes, where he became on the instant the
+popular hero; for who could say or do enough for the man who had slain the
+serpent. He was conducted in triumph to the palace of the Grand Master by
+his fellow knights, but here a remarkably unpleasant surprise was in store
+for him. Very austerely did Helion de Villeneuve regard the triumphant
+warrior, and stern and uncompromising was the voice in which he asked him
+how he had dared to contravene the express order of his Grand Master by
+going forth to combat with the serpent? Calling a Council immediately the
+implacable de Villeneuve, in spite of all entreaties, deprived Gozon de
+Dieu-Donne of the habit of a knight. "What," said this just and severe
+disciplinarian, "is the death of this monster, what indeed do the deaths of
+the islanders matter, compared with the maintenance of the discipline of
+this Order of which I am the unworthy chief?"
+
+But Helion de Villeneuve was of too wise and kindly a nature to make his
+decree absolute, and having thus vindicated his authority he shortly
+afterwards released Gozon and made him happy by his praises and more
+material benefits.
+
+The Abbe de Vertot tells us that the learned Bochart argues that the
+Phoenicians gave to this island the name of Gefirath-Rod (from whence the
+name "Rhodes"), or the Isle of the Serpents, and that when the Romans were
+at war with the Carthaginians Attilius Regulus slew a monster in the island
+of Rhodes the skin of which measured one hundred feet. Thevenot, in his
+Travels published in 1637, states that he saw the head of Gozon's serpent
+still attached to one of the gates of the town of Rhodes, and that it was
+as large as the head of a horse.
+
+Upon the death of Helion de Villeneuve in 1346, a Chapter of the Order was
+held as usual to elect his successor. When it came to the turn of the
+Commander Gozon de Dieu-Donne to speak, he said:
+
+  "In entering this conclave I made a solemn vow not to propose any knight
+  whom I did not consider to be most worthy of this exalted office, and
+  animated by the best intentions for the glory and well-being of the
+  Order. After considering carefully the state of the Christian world, of
+  the wars which we are perpetually obliged to wage against the infidel,
+  the firmness and vigour necessary for the maintenance of discipline, I
+  declare that I find no person so capable of governing our 'Religion' as
+  myself."
+
+He then proceeded to speak in a purely impersonal tone of the magnificent
+services which he had rendered, not forgetting the famous episode of the
+serpent, and drew their attention to the fact that the late Grand Master
+had constituted him, Gozon, his principal lieutenant. He ended: "You have
+already tried my government, you know well that which you may hope to
+expect. I believe that in all justice I shall receive your suffrages."
+
+Naturally the assemblage was stupefied at hearing a man thus recommend
+himself; on reflection, however, they decided that he had spoken no less
+than the truth, and Gozon de Dieu-Donne, "the hero of the serpent," became
+twenty-sixth Grand Master of the Order. He died in 1353, when he was
+succeeded by Pierre de Cornillan, and upon his tomb were graven these
+words:
+
+  "Cy Gist le Vainqueur du Dragon."
+
+In the years 1480 and 1485 under the Grand Master Pierre D'Aubusson, Rhodes
+withstood two great sieges from the Turks. The first of these is described
+at length by the knight Merri Dupuis "temoin oculaire" who sets down: "Je,
+Mary Dupuis gros et rude de sens et de entendement je veuille parler et
+desscrire au plus bref que je pourray et au plus pres de la verite selon
+que je pen voir a lueil." The description of that of 1485 is written by
+another eye-witness, the Commandeur de Bourbon, to whom "ma semble bon et
+condecent a raison declairer premierement les causes qui out incite mon
+poure et petit entendement a faire cest petit oeuvre."
+
+But we have no space to follow these gallant Knights, and it must suffice
+to say that on both occasions, after incredible exertions and terrible
+slaughter on both sides, the attacks of the Turks were eventually repulsed.
+
+It was reserved for Soliman the Magnificent to finally vanquish the Knights
+and to expel them from Rhodes; from July 1522 until January 1523 the
+Knights under the heroic Villiers de L'Isle Adam maintained an all unequal
+struggle against the vast hosts of the Crescent, which were perpetually
+reinforced. At last, on January 1st, 1523, the Knights, by virtue of a
+treaty with Soliman, which was honourably observed on both sides, evacuated
+the island in which they had been established for nearly two hundred and
+twenty years.
+
+By favour of Charles V. the Knights on October 26th, 1530, took charge of
+the islands of Malta and Gozo, and established themselves therein; still
+under the Grand Mastership of L'Isle Adam, whose sword and helmet are still
+religiously kept in a small church in Vittoriosa, just at the back of the
+Admiral Superintendent's house in the present dockyard.
+
+The knights fortified the islands and there abode, until in 1565 the
+Ottoman returned once more to the attack.
+
+It may be said that heroism is a relative term, that it has many uses and
+applications all equally truthful. On the side of mere physical courage
+almost every man who took part in that memorable siege of Malta in the year
+1565 may have been said to have earned the title of hero. No man's foot
+went back; no man's courage quailed; no man's face blanched when called
+upon to face perils so appalling that they meant an almost inevitable and
+speedy death; this was true or Christian and Moslem alike. The death-roll
+on either side was so tremendous as to prove this contention up to the
+hilt. From May 18th to September 8th, 1565--that is to say, in one hundred
+and thirteen days--thirty thousand Moslems and eight thousand Christians
+perished--an average of some three hundred and thirty-six persons per day.
+In that blazing torrid heat the sufferings of those who survived from day
+to day must have been accentuated beyond bearing by the myriads of unburied
+corpses by which they lived surrounded; and that the contending forces were
+not swept away by pestilence is an extraordinary marvel.
+
+[Illustration: CARRACK IN WHICH THE KNIGHTS ARRIVED AT MALTA, 1530.]
+
+In many, nay, in most campaigns, personal feeling enters but little into
+the contest. Nationality strikes against nationality, army against army, or
+navy against navy; but no burning hatred of his adversary animates the
+breast of the combatant on either side; it may even be said that frequently
+some pity for the vanquished is felt, when all is over, by the side which
+has conquered. At Malta the element of actual personal individual hatred
+was the mainspring by which the combatants on both sides were moved; each
+regarded the other as an infidel, the slaying of whom was the sacrifice
+most acceptable to the God they worshipped. "Infidel" was the term which
+each hurled at the other; to destroy the infidel, root and branch, was the
+act imposed upon those whose faith was the one only passport to a blessed
+eternity, and those who fell in the strife, whether Christian or Moslem,
+felt assured that for them the gates of heaven stood wide open. Great as
+were those others who perished, faithful to the death as were those noble
+knights who died to a man in the culminating agony of St. Elmo, adroit,
+resourceful, master of himself and others as was the famous Dragut, there
+is one name and one alone that shines like a beacon light upon a hill-top
+when we think of the siege of Malta. Jean Parisot de la Valette, whose name
+is enshrined for ever in that noble city which crowns Mount Sceberass at
+the present day, was the forty-eighth Grand Master of the Noble Order of
+the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem the charter for which, contained in
+the original Bull of Pope Paschal II., dated 1113 (in which the Holy Father
+took the Order under his special protection), may be seen to this day in
+the armoury of the palace at Valetta. At the time when the supreme honour
+was conferred upon him, in the year 1557, he had passed through every grade
+of the Order: as soldier, captain, general, Counsellor, Grand Cross: in all
+of them displaying a valour, a piety, a self-abnegation beyond all praise,
+A man of somewhat austere manner, he exacted from others that which he gave
+himself--a whole-hearted devotion to the Order to which he had consecrated
+his life. Fearing no man in the Council Chamber, even as he feared no foe
+in the field, he ever spoke his mind in defence of that which he deemed to
+be right. Proud, with the dignity becoming a man of his ancient lineage, he
+merged all personal haughtiness in the zeal he felt in upholding the rights
+and privileges of that splendid confederation of knights of the best blood
+in Europe over which he had been called upon to preside at the mature age
+of sixty-three. There is no instance in history of any man more absolutely
+single-minded than La Valette; that in which he believed he cherished with
+an ardour almost incredible in these days, and that the sword of the Lord
+had been confided into his hand for the utter extermination and extirpation
+of the Moslem heresy was the leading feature in his creed. That he had been
+advanced to a dignity but little less than royal in achieving the Grand
+Mastership was but as dust in the balance to him compared with the
+opportunities which it gave him to harry his life-long foes; and he who had
+known so well how to obey throughout all his youth and manhood was now to
+prove, in the most emphatic manner, that he had learned how to command. In
+all those terrible hundred and thirteen days during which the siege lasted
+there was none to be compared to him. As occasion occurred this man's soul
+rose higher and ever higher; beseeching, imploring, commanding, by sheer
+force of example did he point out the way to the weaker spirits by whom he
+was surrounded.
+
+To speak of weaker spirits in connection with the siege of Malta seems
+almost an insult; these gallant knights and soldiers were only so in
+comparison with their leader. Twice during the siege of St, Elmo did the
+garrison send to La Valette and represent that the place was no longer
+tenable; but Garcia de Toledo, Viceroy of Sicily for Philip of Spain, was
+writing specious letters instead of sending reinforcements, and every
+moment gained was of importance. Coldly did La Valette remind the Knights
+of their vows to the Order, and when renewed assurances came that it was
+only a matter of a few hours before they should be overwhelmed he replied
+that others could be found to take their places, that he, as Grand Master,
+would come in person to show them how to die. A passion of remorse overcame
+these noble gentlemen, who, thus nerved by the indomitable spirit of their
+chief, died to the last man in the tumbled ruins of that charnel-house
+which had once been a fortress.
+
+La Valette was ready to die; there was no man in all that garrison so
+ready. With pike and sword this veteran of seventy-one years of age was
+ever at the post of the greatest danger, repelling the assaults of
+Janissaries and corsairs, fighting with the spirit of the youngest among
+the Knights in the breaches rent in the walls of Il Borgo. In vain did his
+comrades try to prevent him from this perpetual exposure; in vain did they
+point out that the value of his life outnumbered that of an army. He was
+very gentle with these remonstrances, but quite firm. There were plenty as
+good as he to take his place should he fall, he insisted; till that time
+came it was his duty to inspire all by his example, to show to the simplest
+soldier that he was cared for by his Grand Master.
+
+As things went from bad to worse, when Il Borgo became in little better
+case than had St. Elmo before it, La Valette never hesitated, never looked
+back, never ceased to hope that the sluggard Garcia de Toledo might send
+relief; and, if he did not, then would they all perish with arms in their
+hands, as had their brethren across that narrow strip of water who had held
+St. Elmo to the last man. What man or woman can read without something of a
+lump coming in their throat of those noble words of the Grand Master in the
+last few days of the siege when all had utterly abandoned hope?
+
+Grimed, emaciated, covered with sweat and blood and dust, did La Valette
+move from post to post exhorting and encouraging his soldiers. So few had
+the gallant company of the Knights become that command was necessarily
+delegated to the under-officers; yet who among them did not find fresh
+courage and renewed strength when that great noble, the head of the Order,
+stood by their sides and spoke thus to them as man to man?--
+
+  "My brothers, we are all servants of Jesus Christ; and I feel assured
+  that if I and all these in command should fall you will still fight on
+  for the honour of the Order and the love of our Holy Church."
+
+We have to think of what it all meant, we have dimly to try and realise the
+burden which was laid upon this man, before we come to a right conception,
+not only of what he endured but the terrible sacrifices he was called upon
+to make. Here was no man of iron lusting for blood and greedy of conquest
+for the sake of the vain applause of men; but one full of human love and
+affection for those among whom he had lived all the days of his life. Upon
+him was laid the charge of upholding the honour of the Order, the majesty
+of the God whom he served. To this end he doomed to certain death those
+brethren of his in St. Elmo, his own familiar friends, reminding them that
+it was their duty so to die, while his heart was breaking with the agony of
+this terrible decision, which no weaker man could have given. When his
+beloved nephew was slain, together with another gallant youth, he smiled
+sadly and said that they had only travelled the road which they all had to
+tread in a few days; that he grieved as much for the one as for the other.
+In speaking of this man, it may truly be said that there is no character in
+history more elevated; there is none which shows us the picture of a more
+perfect, gentle, and valiant knight.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+DRAGUT-REIS
+
+  How Sinan Basha and Dragut raided the islands of Malta and Cozo and
+  captured the town of Tripoli. How the Knights of Malta captured "the
+  puissant galleon" belonging to the Kustir-Aga and the Odalisques of the
+  harem of the Grand Turk. The despair of the ladies and the advice of the
+  Imaum to Soliman the Magnificent. A great armada is fitted out in
+  Constantinople. The preparations for defence on the part of La Valette
+  and the Knights. The expedition sails from Constantinople and lands in
+  Malta.
+
+Great must have been the consternation of the Knights when the armada,
+commanded by Sinan Basha, appeared off their coasts, and bitter must have
+been the reflections of Juan d'Omedes, the Grand Master, who had all along
+contended that so formidable an expedition could not possibly be directed
+against Malta. The inhabitants of that island were, however, not left long
+in doubt, as Sinan, immediately on his arrival, entered the Grand Harbour,
+or "the Great Port," as it was called in those days. Sinan, in his royal
+galley, led the way in, contemptuously assured of an easy victory over so
+insignificant a place of arms. He had his first rude awakening before he
+had traversed some quarter of a mile of the placid waters of the Great
+Port. The harbour, as is well known, though long, is very narrow, and, on
+the starboard hand of the Turkish galleys as they entered, the Commandeur
+de Guimeran, a Spanish Knight, had ambushed three hundred arquebusiers. As
+the galley of Sinan came abreast of the ambush, the Commandeur gave the
+order to fire. The volley at so close a range had a terrible effect,
+especially among the "chiourme," or the slaves who rowed the galley, some
+hundred of whom were placed _hors de combat_. Sinan, in a furious rage,
+ordered an immediate disembarkment; but when his men landed and scaled the
+heights of Mount Sceberras (the elevated land on which the city of Valetta
+now stands) there was no one to be found, the Commandeur and the men who
+had formed the ambush having disappeared. Gazing from the heights at Il
+Borgo, the fortress on the opposite side of the harbour where the Knights
+then dwelt, Sinan demanded of Dragut, "If that," pointing to the fortress,
+"was the place which he had told the Sultan could easily be taken?"
+
+Dragut, whom no peril ever daunted, coolly replied:
+
+"Certainly, no eagle ever built his nest on a rock more easy of access."
+
+A corsair, who had been slave to the Knights, now approached Sinan, and
+told him that he had assisted at the building of the fortress; which, he
+averred, was so strong that if the admiral delayed until he had taken it
+that the winter would be upon them, although it was then only the month of
+July. Sinan, as we have said, was a hesitating commander. He had the
+ever-present fear of the Grand Turk before his eyes, and was not inclined
+for so difficult and dangerous an enterprise as this was represented to be.
+Leaving the fortress in his rear, he marched off to the high land in the
+centre of the island, on which was situated the Citta Notabile, the capital
+of Malta, some seven miles distant from the sea. On their march through the
+island the Turks committed their usual atrocities, murdering the wretched
+inhabitants, firing their dwellings, destroying their crops, and carrying
+off their women. Had the siege of Notabile been pressed, the city must have
+fallen; but Sinan declared to Dragut that the principal object of the
+expedition was the reduction of Tripoli, and, in consequence, he had not
+the time to devote to its reduction. Dragut, furious at this temporising
+policy, urged an immediate assault, and, while the contention was waxing
+sharp between the two leaders, a letter was brought to Sinan which had been
+captured in a Sicilian galley. It was from the "Receiver" of the Order, who
+dwelt at Messina, to the Grand Master, informing him that he had expressly
+sent this ship to inform him that Andrea Doria had just returned from Spain
+and was hastening with a large fleet to attack the Turks. The letter was a
+ruse on the part of the "Receiver," and contained not a particle of truth.
+It was, however, quite enough for Sinan, who immediately called a council
+of war and imparted this alarming news to its members. The council, after
+the invariable fashion of such bodies, decided to take the safest and
+easiest course: the name of the terrible Andrea was one of evil omen to the
+Ottomans, and, as one man, they voted for prosecuting their voyage to
+Tripoli before the Genoese seaman should put in an appearance. In vain was
+the fury of Dragut, who had counted on a full revenge on his ancient
+enemies the Knights. The armada sailed to the adjacent island of Gozo,
+which was thoroughly sacked with every refinement of cruelty. Every house
+on the island was burned, and six thousand of its inhabitants carried off
+to slavery. One incident is deserving of record. In Gozo dwelt a certain
+Sicilian with his wife and two daughters: sooner than that they should fall
+into the hands of the Turks this man stabbed his wife and daughters and
+then threw himself, sword in hand, into the ranks of his enemies, where he
+slew two of them, wounded several others, and was then hacked to pieces.
+The fleet then proceeded to Tripoli, which was taken almost without
+opposition, as it was defended by a mere handful of the Knights and some
+utterly unreliable Calabrian infantry, who had never before seen a shot
+fired: these men very soon mutinied and refused to fight any longer. Dragut
+became the autocrat of Tripoli, as his great predecessor Kheyr-ed-Din
+Barbarossa had been of Algiers: from hence, in the years that were to come
+before his death, he carried on his sleepless and unending warfare with his
+Christian foes, on whom he was destined to inflict another terrible defeat
+when they attacked this stronghold which he had made his own.
+
+Claude de la Sangle dying on August 18th, 1557, Jean Parisot de la Valette
+was chosen Grand Master of the Knights of Malta in his stead on August 21st
+of the same year. He was, as we have said before, in succession, soldier,
+captain, councillor, general, and Grand Cross; he was as wise in council as
+he was terrible in battle; he was as much esteemed by his brethren as he
+was feared by the infidel. Under his governorship "the Religion" regained
+the ancient authority which it had once possessed, especially in some of
+the German Provinces and in the Republic of Venice. So great was the
+influence of La Valette that he succeeded in making the "Languages" (or
+confederations of Knights) of Germany and Venice pay their "responsions,"
+which had been allowed to get into arrear. These "responsions" were a tax
+levied on the "Languages " exclusively for the purpose of combatting the
+infidel, and La Valette brought all the firmness of his high character to
+bear, in order to induce these Knights to do what, he reminded them, was
+their simple and obvious duty. Fired by the highest conception of the
+office he had been called upon to execute, La Valette allowed none of those
+under his command to be slack in their performance of their duties. In him
+dwelt the real old crusading spirit. He saw life with the single eye, for
+that which was paramount was the utter destruction of the infidel. There
+are many men who have a high conception of duty; there are but few who can
+inspire those with whom they are brought in contact. Of these latter was
+Jean Parisot de la Valette; in him the pure flame of religious enthusiasm
+burnt with so clear a light as to act as an illuminant for the paths of
+others. In him dwelt that rare quality of lifting others almost to that
+plane on which he dwelt himself, of making men nobler and better almost in
+spite of themselves. So it was that, when La Valette stooped to remind
+others of his brother Knights that they owed money to the Order, that money
+was paid at once.
+
+Having thus restored order to the finances, the Grand Master turned his
+attention to the state of affairs (as he had received them from his
+predecessor) connected with the territorial possessions of the Knights. For
+long years now the fortress of Tripoli had been in the hands of the
+renowned Dragut, who was the scourge and the terror of the Christians. The
+corsair dwelt in his stronghold in insolent defiance of the Knights, whose
+property it once had been. Years before he had wrested it from them by the
+strong hand: what, then, more necessary in the eyes of such an one as La
+Valette than to expel this audacious pirate? The Grand Master invited the
+co-operation of Juan la Cerda (a Spanish Grandee, Duke of Medina-Celi, and
+Viceroy of Sicily for the King of Spain) in this enterprise. The Viceroy
+joyfully acceded to the request, and informed his master. Philip II.
+approved the project, and sent orders to the Duke of Sesse, Governor of
+Milan, to the Duke of Alcala, Governor of Naples, and to John Andrea Doria,
+General of the Galleys, to join forces and to repair to Sicily, placing
+themselves under the orders of the Duke of Medina-Celi, who was expressly
+charged to take no action save by the advice of the Grand Master. The
+expedition assembled, the Duke took it to Malta, where it wintered, and in
+the spring it sailed and attacked Tripoli.
+
+They found this fortress, however, in a very different state from that
+which they expected. Dragut, says De Vertot, "avoit faire terasser les
+murailles de cette place." Bastions had been constructed, and every
+advantage taken for defence which was permitted by the terrain, or that the
+art of fortification admitted at this epoch. The castle, which was not
+advantageously placed, was, notwithstanding, put in a state of defence by
+an enormous expenditure of money. Great towers, in which were mounted many
+big guns, defended the entrance to the port, which had become the
+headquarters of the vessels owned by Dragut, and also of those corsairs who
+sailed their craft under the crescent flag of the Sultan of Constantinople.
+It was against such a fortress as this that the Duke of Medina-Celi went
+up: we have no space to deal here with the details of this attack, which
+ended in the hopeless and irremediable defeat of the Christian forces. The
+Duke was an incompetent commander; he was opposed to one of the greatest
+leaders of the age--an expert in almost every branch of the science of war,
+in command of a large body of the fiercest fighters of the day, who ever
+feared the wrath of Dragut more than the swords of the enemy.
+
+La Valette, though he mourned over the repulse of the Christian forces from
+Tripoli, did not on that account allow his pursuit of the infidel to grow
+faint; the galleys of "the Religion" were always at sea, and both the
+corsairs and the Ottoman Turks were perpetually losing valuable ships and
+costly merchandise. Under the General of the Galleys, the Commandeur Gozon
+de Melac, and that celebrated chevalier, the Commandeur de Romegas, the sea
+forces of the Knights were everywhere in evidence. Into the hands of the
+Christians fell the Penon de Velez, situated on the northern coast of
+Africa opposite to Malaga--a fortress much frequented by the corsairs; the
+Goletta at Tunis was also taken, and the pirates became so much alarmed
+that they demanded succour from Constantinople. They represented to Soliman
+that, at this rate, the whole of Northern Africa would soon be in the hands
+of the Christians to the total exclusion of the true believer.
+
+Soliman listened to their complaints and promised that soon he would send
+forth an armament which should put an end to the misfortunes from which
+they were suffering. Once again preparations were begun in the arsenals of
+Constantinople, and while these were in progress an event took place which
+had an important bearing on the situation. Just after the taking of the
+Penon de Velez seven galleys of "the Religion," under the command of the
+chevaliers de Giou and De Romegas, which were cruising in the neighbourhood
+of Zante and Cephalonia, fell in with "a puissant galleon" filled with the
+richest merchandise of the East, armed with "twenty great cannons of
+bronze," and a number of smaller guns, under the command of the Reis
+Bairan-Ogli, having on board "excellent officers of artillery," as well as
+two hundred Janissaries for her defence. This great ship was the property
+of Kustir-Aga, the chief Eunuch of the Seraglio of the Sultan, and many of
+the ladies of the harem were interested in a pecuniary sense in the safe
+arrival of this vessel at Constantinople. The galleys of "the Religion"
+attacked, and, after a most obstinate resistance, in which one hundred and
+twenty of the Christians and an even larger number of the Turks were
+killed, the galleon was captured. If there had been an outcry in
+Constantinople before this occurrence it was all as nothing to that which
+now arose. Kustir-Aga and the Odalisques of the Harem prostrated themselves
+at the feet of Soliman the Magnificent, and with streaming eyes,
+dishevelled hair, and frantic gestures, demanded the instant despatch of an
+expedition to utterly exterminate these barbarian corsairs, the Knights of
+Malta, who had thus injured them and lacerated their tenderest
+susceptibilities. The Grand Turk, autocrat as he was, had no peace day or
+night; he was surrounded by wailing women and sullen officials, all of whom
+had lost heavily by the capture of the puissant galleon. The Imaum, or
+preacher in the principal mosque, called upon the Sultan in his discourse
+to fall upon the audacious infidel and smite him hip and thigh. He reminded
+the Padishah that, in the dungeons of the Knights, true believers were
+languishing; that on the rowers' benches of the galleys of "the Religion"
+Moslems were being flogged like dogs. In a furious peroration he concluded:
+"It is only thy invincible sword which can shatter the chains of these
+unfortunates, whose cries are rising to heaven and afflicting the ears of
+the Prophet of God: the son is demanding his father, the wife her husband
+and her children. All, therefore, wait upon thee, upon thy justice, and thy
+power, for vengeance upon their cruel and implacable enemies."
+
+Contrary to all precedent, which enjoins the most perfect silence in the
+mosque, these bold utterances were received with something more than
+murmurs of applause: never in all his long and glorious reign had the great
+and magnificent despot heard so plainly the voice of his people. Apart,
+however, from eunuchs, women, and Mullahs, Soliman had long been importuned
+by Dragut to take the course which was now being urged upon him with so
+much insistence. There was at this time no warrior in all his _entourage_
+for whose opinion the Sultan had the same respect as he had for that of the
+ruler of Tripoli. Dragut had more than a tincture of learning: he was first
+of all an incomparable leader of men and an entirely competent seaman. He
+was also a scientific artillerist, and was learned in the technique of the
+fortification of his time. Added to this he was--albeit by no means so
+cruel as most of his contemporaries--one of those men before whom all
+trembled: as we have seen in the case of the corsairs who defended
+"Africa," "they feared the wrath of Dragut more than death itself."
+
+It was this renowned leader who warned Soliman against the Knights; he
+pointed out that they were far more dangerous now than they had been in
+1523, the year of their expulsion from Rhodes. When established there they
+were, so to speak, surrounded by the Turkish Empire; in Malta, on the
+contrary, they were easily succoured from Sicily, which belonged to Spain,
+another implacable enemy of the Moslem; that Malta lay right on the route
+which all the ships of the Sultan must take on passage from the East to
+Constantinople; and in consequence the Order was a standing and perpetual
+menace to the trade of the Empire. All this was so undeniably true that so
+shrewd a man and so competent a ruler as Soliman could not fail to be
+impressed by the soundness of the reasoning.
+
+Besides all this, he knew quite well that now he could not hold back, had
+it been even against his inclination--which was by no means the case; for
+there had arisen one of those storms of popular opinion--all the more
+formidable because of their infrequency--before which even the most
+hardened of despots must bend. Accordingly the Sultan called a conference
+of his fighting men, which was held on horseback in the open-air. The
+inclination of the Sultan being known, most of the generals, like good
+courtiers, voted for immediate war with the Knights. At this conference was
+present that Ali Basha, or Occhiali, or Uluchali, as he was indifferently
+called, of whom we shall have more to say later on. Upon this occasion he
+was present as the representative of Dragut, and urged, on behalf of his
+master, that the time was not yet ripe for an attack on Malta. First, he
+contended, it was necessary to recapture the Goletta and the Penon de
+Velez, and to defeat the Moors of Tunis, who were feudatories of the
+Spanish king and avowed enemies of the Ottoman Empire. Ali was supported by
+one Mahomet, an old warrior who had grown white in the service of the
+Sultan, who strongly opposed the contemplated campaign on the ground that
+the Knights would in all probability have the full strength of Europe at
+their backs.
+
+Numbers, however, added to the personal inclination of the Sultan, carried
+the day. The die was cast, the memorable expedition was decided upon, and
+all the Sultan's vast Empire soon rang with the note of preparation. The
+Capitan Basha, Piali, was in command of the fleet, and the direction of the
+land forces was confided to Mustafa, an old officer sixty-five years of
+age, a severe disciplinarian, and of a sanguinary and cruel disposition to
+any of his enemies who had the misfortune to fall into his hands.
+
+Once again did Europe lose itself in speculation: against whom, all men
+were asking, was this new expedition to be directed? Spain feared for her
+African possessions, as the Goletta was the key to the kingdom of Tunis,
+while the Penon de Velez was one of the bulwarks of Algeria. In consequence
+Don Garcia de Toledo passed over from Sicily to confer with the Grand
+Master of the Knights. Garcia de Toledo was by no means a favourable
+specimen of the illustrious race from which he sprang, and was a complete
+antithesis to La Valette; he was to prove himself in the terrible days that
+were to come to be sluggish, incompetent, a ruler who could not rule, a
+person for ever letting "I dare not wait upon I would." Just as long as
+Spain considered this new expedition was directed against herself
+considerable activity was shown; when the attack developed and it was seen
+that the objective of the Turks was Malta, the procrastinating Spanish king
+and his incompetent viceroy allowed matters so to drift that, had any other
+man than La Valette been in command at Malta, the fall of that island had
+been inevitable.
+
+We have seen how Juan d'Omedes had dealt with a previous crisis in the
+affairs of the Order; very different was it in the opening months of the
+year 1565. La Valette was well served by his spies in Constantinople, and
+the Grand Master was under no illusions from the very first as to what the
+destination of the army of the Sultan would be. He recognised that against
+the small islands of Malta and Gozo all the strength of the mightiest
+Empire in the world was about to be directed, and with serene confidence
+set about the task of preparation. His first care was to send out "a
+general citation" to those Knights living in their own homes in different
+countries in Europe, commanding them to repair at once to Malta and take
+part in the defence of that Order to which they had vowed to consecrate
+their lives. The agents of the Order in Italy succeeded in raising two
+thousand infantry, and the Viceroy of Sicily sent over two companies of
+Spanish infantry which he had promised. All the galleys of "the Religion"
+were called in from distant service and were set to work importing
+ammunition, stores, provisions, and all requisites for the withstanding of
+a siege. As the galleys passed backwards and forwards to Sicily, in each
+returning vessel came noble gentlemen of every country in Europe, in answer
+to the summons of their Grand Master. They were received with the tenderest
+affection by him and by those others already assembled; never in all its
+long and glorious history had the Order assembled in circumstances more
+grave; never in its history, either in the past or in the future, did it
+quit itself with so supreme a heroism as in those days of 1565 which were
+yet to come. In Malta the orderly bustle of preparation went on
+ceaselessly; the Italian and Spanish troops and the inhabitants of the
+island, for the most part hardy mariners well accustomed to the ceaseless
+_guerre de course_ of the Knights, were formed into companies, officered by
+the members of the Order, and assigned to different posts.
+
+Meanwhile the Grand Master caused copies of the letters which he had
+received from Constantinople to be sent to all the great princes of Europe;
+showing them the straits to which the Order was shortly to be reduced and
+imploring of them to send timely succour. But it was not upon outside aid
+that La Valette counted overmuch; he was preparing to confront the Turks
+with such forces as he had at his own disposal; content, if necessary, to
+leave the issue in the hands of the God in whom he trusted. As the
+chevaliers came flocking to the standard of St. John he received them, we
+are told, "as a kind father receives his beloved children, having provided
+in advance for their food and lodging." He personally entered into the most
+minute details of his charge; he reviewed his infantry, he instructed his
+artillery, he planned sites for hospitals, he sketched out new
+fortifications, and then went among the humblest of his followers and
+wielded the pick and shovel in the burning sun. Everywhere his cheering
+presence was felt, his equable and serene temperament diffused confidence
+and hope.
+
+All things being thus in train he assembled his brethren and addressed them
+in the following terms:
+
+  "A formidable army, composed of audacious barbarians, is descending on
+  this island; these persons, my brothers, are the enemies of Jesus
+  Christ. To-day it is a question of the defence of our faith as to
+  whether the book of the Evangelist is to be superseded by that of the
+  Koran? God on this occasion demands of us our lives, already vowed to
+  His service. Happy will those be who first consummate this sacrifice.
+  But that we may indeed be worthy to render it come, my dear brothers, to
+  the foot of the altar, where we may renew our vows. Let each one rely on
+  the blood of the Saviour of men and in the faithful practice of the
+  sacraments; in them we shall find so generous a contempt for death that
+  we shall indeed be rendered invincible."
+
+The Knights then, headed by the Grand Master, took themselves in procession
+to the church. Here they confessed and received the sacrament. "They went
+out from thence as men who had received a new birth." The Knights, we are
+then told, tenderly embraced one another in all solemnity; vowing to shed
+the last drop of their blood in defence of their religion and its holy
+altars. It was in this lofty frame of mind that the Knights of Malta
+awaited the coming of their hereditary foe. Into the hearts and minds of
+these gallant gentlemen of the best blood in the world the Grand Master had
+instilled some leaven of the greatness by which he himself was inspired.
+When belief is so wholehearted as it was in the case of La Valette; when it
+is allied to a genius for war, and a supreme gift for the inspiration of
+others, then that man and the force which he commands are as near to
+invincibility as it is permitted to fallible human beings to attain. There
+were two things in which the Knights were supremely fortunate on this
+occasion: the first was that they had La Valette as Grand Master, the
+second that Dragut was not in supreme command of the Turks, and that the
+siege had opened before he arrived upon the scene. In this expedition, as
+in previous ones, the Turkish commanders had orders to attempt nothing
+really important without the advice of Dragut. They found themselves
+without him when they arrived and made an initial mistake. With La Valette
+in command there was no room for blundering; the ultimate result of their
+blunder was the defeat which they sustained.
+
+Grand Master, Knight, and noble, soldier, peasant, and mariner, strove
+valiantly with the task of putting the island into a state of defence, and
+when at last the long-expected armada of their foes rose above that distant
+blue horizon in the north all had been done that skill and experience could
+dictate.
+
+It was upon May 18th in the year 1565 that the Turkish fleet arrived at
+Malta. It was composed of one hundred and fifty-nine galleys and vessels
+propelled by oars: on board of these was an army for disembarkation of
+thirty thousand men, composed of Janissaries and Spahis, the very pick and
+flower of the Turkish army. Soliman the Magnificent was leaving as little
+to chance as was possible on this occasion; he well knew the temper of the
+Knights, and that this expedition had before it a task which would try both
+the army and its leaders to the very utmost of their strength. Behind the
+main body of the fleet came a host of vessels, charged with provisions, the
+horses of the Spahis, the siege-train of the artillery, all the innumerable
+appliances and engines of war which were in use at that day. The initial
+mistake on the part of the Turks was in embarking cavalry for a siege; they
+knew, or they should have known, of the extreme smallness of the island
+which they were about to attack, and that they were by no means likely to
+be met with armies in the field owing to the enormous preponderance of
+numbers which they had assured to themselves.
+
+Piali, as we have said, was in command of the fleet, and Mustafa of the
+army; the corsairs did not arrive on the scene till some days afterwards.
+
+The Turks landed some men who encountered the Chevalier La Riviere and some
+Maltese troops, with whom they had some lively skirmishes. Unfortunately,
+in one of these the Chevalier was captured, put to the torture, and
+eventually beheaded for having wilfully misled the Turks. A council of war
+was held by Piali, Mustafa, and their principal officers, to deliberate on
+the best manner of prosecuting the enterprise on which they were engaged.
+The admiral, wishing to conform strictly with the instructions of Soliman,
+voted to delay all initiative until the arrival of the famous corsair.
+Mustafa, however, held a different opinion: the unfortunate Chevalier La
+Riviere had, before his death, informed the Turkish general that large and
+powerful succours were expected daily from Sicily. Secretly disquieted by
+this news, which he had at the time affected to disbelieve, Mustafa now
+urged immediate action. His opinion was that, in the first instance, they
+had better attack the castle of St. Elmo. It was a small and insignificant
+fort which at best would only delay them some five or six days; when this
+had fallen they could proceed to the more serious business of taking Il
+Borgo, the principal fortress on the island in which the Grand Master and
+most of the Knights were established. By the time St. Elmo had been taken
+they might reasonably expect that Dragut and his corsairs would have
+arrived, and, with these seasonable reinforcements, proceed to the really
+formidable portion of their task. In their decisions both admiral and
+general were wrong; to delay attack, once the troops were landed, was a
+counsel of pusillanimity hardly to be expected of Piali, but showing at the
+same time how he dreaded above all else departing one iota from the
+instructions which he had received. To attack the castle of St. Elmo first
+was a military mistake, because it could be--and was during the whole of
+the siege--reinforced from its larger sister Il Borgo.
+
+The discourse of Mustafa prevailed in the council of war, and the siege of
+St. Elmo was decided upon and immediately begun.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+THE SIEGE OF MALTA
+
+  The siege of Malta by the Turks; The capture of the fortress of St.
+  Elmo; The death of Dragut-Reis
+
+[Illustration: JEAN PARISOT DE LA VALETTE, GRAND MASTER OF THE KNIGHTS OF
+MALTA, AT THE SIEGE OF THAT ISLAND BY THE TURKS IN 1565.]
+
+There was an entire disregard of human life among the leaders of the
+Ottoman Turks at this time which is almost incredible; to attain their end
+in war they sacrificed thousands upon thousands of men with an absolutely
+callous indifference. In no chapter of the bloodstained history of their
+Empire was this trait more in evidence than it was at the siege of Malta.
+There was, however, a reason for this, which developed itself more and more
+as the ceaseless assaults on the positions of the Knights went on. From a
+military point of view, all the operations which took place were those of
+the siege of a fortress; as when at length St. Elmo fell the Turks turned
+their attention to the fortress of Il Borgo. The time-honoured method of
+the attack on a fortress, of approaching it by sap and mine, was here
+almost an impossibility, as the island of Malta is composed of solid rock
+through which it was practically impossible to drive trenches. It is true
+that the rock is of an exceptionally soft nature, easily cut through with
+proper tools; but you cannot cut through rock, no matter how soft it may
+be, when your operations are opposed at every step by a brave and vigilant
+enemy. Mustafa and the council of war had, as we have said, decided to
+begin operations by the siege of the fortress of St. Elmo. This place had
+been built from the designs of the Prior of Capua, an officer of the Order,
+and was situated at the extreme end of the promontory of Mount Sceberass,
+which juts out between the Great Port and the harbour of Marsa Muzetto. The
+fort was in a commanding position and dominated the entrance to the two
+principal harbours in the island. It was admirably adapted for repulsing an
+attack from the sea; but, owing to the proximity of other points of land
+upon which artillery could be mounted, was easily capable of attack by such
+an enemy as that by which it was now assailed.
+
+The principal preoccupation of the militant Prior of Capua had been to make
+it formidable on the side facing the sea; perhaps the designer had never
+contemplated the possibility that the day might dawn when it would be
+attacked from the landward side! However this may have been, Mustafa
+decided that it could and should be carried on this, its weakest face, and
+made his preparations accordingly.
+
+As far as it was possible to open trenches this was done, at the most
+prodigal expenditure of the lives of the pioneers. Where the rock proved
+absolutely impossible of manipulation redoubts were constructed of massive
+beams on which thick planks were bolted, the whole covered with wet earth
+which had to be collected with incredible toil from the country at the
+back. Disembarking their siege-guns, and utilising the cattle of the
+islanders for transporting them, the great cannon of the Turks were dragged
+up the slopes of the Mount and got into position; and by the 24th of May
+fire was opened on St. Elmo with ten guns which threw balls weighing eighty
+pounds. Besides these there were two culverins which threw balls of sixty
+pounds, and a huge basilisk, the projectile from which weighed no less than
+one hundred and sixty pounds. A terrible fire was opened against the walls
+of the fort, and so destructive did it immediately become that the Bailli
+of Negropont, the Knight in command, very soon became aware that his trust
+must be in the stout hearts and strong arms of his garrison; as the walls
+by which they were surrounded were hourly crumbling into nothingness.
+
+Regarding the matter from this point of view, he sent at once to the Grand
+Master by the Chevalier La Cerda demanding succour; this officer, "rendered
+eloquent by fear," exaggerated the peril to which the fort was exposed and
+stated that it could not possibly hold out for more than another eight
+days.
+
+"What losses have you had?" demanded the Grand Master.
+
+"Sire," replied La Cerda, "the fort may be compared to a sick man in his
+extremity, in the last stage of weakness, unable to sustain himself except
+by perpetual cordials and remedies."
+
+"Then I myself will be your physician," said the Grand Master with
+contempt, "and I will bring others with me. If that cannot cure you of fear
+it will, at all events, prevent the infidels from seizing upon the fort."
+
+There was no real hope in the mind of La Valette that St. Elmo could be
+saved from the enemy. The place was too weak, and none knew this fact
+better than the man to whom all the defences of the island were as familiar
+as the hilt of his own good sword; but, though he secretly deplored the
+necessity, he felt that if Malta were to be preserved it could only be done
+by delaying until succour should come from outside; every day, nay, every
+hour, was of importance, and he was prepared to sacrifice St. Elmo and the
+lives of its entire garrison to attain his end. He did not, however--to
+continue the simile of La Cerda--prescribe for others a medicine which he
+himself was not prepared to take, and when he said that he would go to the
+fort of St. Elmo it was no mere figure of speech. The council of the
+Knights, however, would not hear of the Grand Master thus sacrificing
+himself; well did these noble gentlemen know that there was none among them
+like unto him, that his name and his influence were worth an army in
+themselves. The outcry was so loud that La Valette had to yield; which he
+did the more readily when he saw the splendid emulation among his brethren
+to cross over to the beleaguered and crumbling fortress which promised
+nothing but the grave to those who should pass within the circle of fire by
+which it was now surrounded. To the Chevaliers Gonzales de Medran and de la
+Motte was conceded the proud privilege for which all the Knights were
+clamouring; and, accompanied by the tears and the prayers of their
+brethren, they passed to that place where, if death were certain, honour at
+least was immortal. Truly the heart warms somewhat to the days of chivalry
+when one reads of what was done at the siege of Malta. The motto of
+_Noblesse oblige_ was no dead letter in the sixteenth century. By this time
+the whole of Europe was awake to the peril of the Order, and, galloping for
+dear life across Europe, came the Knights, anxious and willing to share in
+the danger. For most of these gentlemen Sicily was the goal at which they
+aimed; arrived there they flung themselves into any boat or shallop which
+they could hire, and, heedless of the risk of capture by the Turkish fleet,
+totally ignorant of what was passing in Malta save that the infidel was at
+her gates, they passed across the channel which separates the two islands
+and joined their fellows at Il Borgo.
+
+Greatly heartened by the reinforcements brought to them by de Medran and de
+la Motte, the garrison of St. Elmo made a sortie, surprised the Turks in
+their entrenchments, and, under cover of the guns of the fort, succeeded in
+destroying nearly all the works which the enemy had so painfully built up.
+The Turks, however, when they had recovered from the surprise, were in such
+large numbers as to be able to rally and drive the Christians from the
+vantage points which they had gained; and to oblige them once again to
+retire into the fort. From this time onward there was never a day in which
+the garrison and the besiegers were not hand to hand in the trenches.
+
+Just after the first reinforcements had been thrown into St. Elmo there
+arrived on the scene Ali, the Lieutenant of Dragut. This corsair came from
+Alexandria with six galleys, on board of which were nine hundred men,
+reinforcements for the Turkish army. A few days after this the famous
+Dragut himself appeared, with thirteen galleys and two galleots, on board
+of which were sixteen hundred men.
+
+What must not have been the despairing feelings with which the defenders
+viewed the arrival of this augmentation to the swarming ranks of their
+foes! From afar they noted the vessels and knew, while Philip of Spain and
+Garzia de Toledo still procrastinated, that now was added to the number of
+their enemies the most famous captain who served the autocrat of the
+Eastern world. Very naturally the arrival of Dragut was hailed with
+acclamation by the Turks: every gun in that vast armada spoke in salute,
+every trumpet blared, every drum rolled to welcome the man honoured of the
+Padishah, notorious throughout the whole world of Europe for his implacable
+enmity to the Knights. The first preoccupation of the corsair was to inform
+himself as to the conduct of the operations. These, when disclosed to him,
+by no means met with his approval. This real leader immediately made it
+clear to Piali and Mustafa that which they should have done. In the first
+place they should have made themselves masters of the castle of Gozo, and
+then captured the Citta Notabile. By doing this the supplies to the town
+and fortress of Il Borgo would have been cut off: besides--and more
+important than aught else--they would in this manner have closed the road
+to those succours expected by the Christians. Piali, who had desired from
+the first to undertake nothing without the advice of Dragut, now said that
+the siege of St. Elmo was not so far advanced after all, and, if the Basha
+of Tripoli should so direct, it could be raised at once. To this, however,
+Dragut would by no means consent.
+
+"That would have been well enough," he said, "if the affair had not gone so
+far; but, after the opening of the trenches and several days of attack, it
+is not possible to raise the siege without sullying the honour of the
+Sultan and discouraging the valour of the soldiers."
+
+It cannot be denied that, in acting as he did, the corsair displayed a
+self-restraint and a loyalty to the Sultan hardly to be expected in the
+circumstances. The jealousy which so often obtains among rival commanders
+was singularly in evidence in the forces of the Padishah: Dragut had good
+cause to be dissatisfied with the dispositions which had been made, and
+yet, for the reasons which we have quoted, he allowed them to proceed.
+Before the Basha had left Tripoli he had been engaged in communications
+with Muley Hamid, the then King of Tunis, who was feudatory of Spain.
+Anxious as was the corsair to aid in attacking his implacable enemies, the
+Knights, he could not afford to leave his own flank unguarded in Africa. He
+succeeded, however, in arriving at an understanding with the King of Tunis,
+and, further than this, he had assured himself, by means of his spies, that
+the succours which were to be sent from Sicily by the Spanish King could
+not possibly arrive for another two months. It was the negotiations which
+he was obliged to undertake with Muley Hamid which had caused his late
+arrival. As far as it is possible to judge, it was this circumstance, which
+(added to their own incomparable valour) turned the scale in favour of the
+Knights.
+
+Among all those brave men at Malta, on both sides, in this flaming month of
+June 1565, there were none who excelled the Basha of Tripoli. "No one had
+ever seen a more intrepid general officer," says de Vertot. "He passed
+entire days in the trenches and at the batteries. Among his different
+talents none understood better than did he the direction and conduct of
+artillery, which was his special _metier_. By his orders on June 1st a
+second battery was constructed closer to the fort and parallel to the one
+already in existence, in order that an absolutely continuous fire might be
+maintained. He mounted four guns on the opposite side of Marsa Muzetto
+Harbour on a projecting point of land, from which a further enfilading fire
+smote the doomed fortress on the flank: this point has been known ever
+since as the Point Dragut."
+
+A ravelin in advance of the fortress on the land side was scourged without
+ceasing by the arquebus fire of the Janissaries. One evening, as the return
+fire had slackened and all seemed quiet within this work, some Turkish
+engineers stole forth from the trenches to reconnoitre. Approaching the
+cavalier, all was still as death; the bold sappers pushed on as far as the
+ditch by which the work was surrounded, creeping on hands and knees. They
+let themselves down noiselessly into the ditch, and then, one standing on
+the shoulders of another, peeped in upon their Christian foes. Whether or
+no the sentry had been slain by a stray shot, or whether he too slept, can
+never be known; but the cavalier was unguarded; all within it slept the
+sleep of men utterly exhausted. The sappers crept back to their trenches,
+fetched scaling-ladders, swept like a flood over the rim of the cavalier,
+and put to death every man whom they found. Profiting by their advantage,
+the Turks dashed over the bridge connecting the cavalier with the fort;
+here, however, they were met by Sergeant-Major Guerare and a handful of
+soldiers aroused by him. These men were instantly succoured by the
+Chevaliers de Vercoyran and de Medran, who were immediately followed by the
+Bailli of Negropont and several other Knights. An obstinate hand-to-hand
+combat now ensued; fresh Turks came up to the attack, but were mown down in
+swathes by an enfilading fire from two cannons which the defenders of the
+fort managed to bring to bear upon them. More pioneers arrived from the
+trenches, carrying planks and sacks filled with wool. These men tried to
+effect a permanent lodgment, but the fire was too hot on the Christian
+side, and men fell in hundreds. Nothing daunted, the Turks reared their
+scaling-ladders against the sides of the fortress itself, and attempted to
+scale the walls; but for this the ladders were too short, and the
+assailants were hurled back into the ditch. This attack, in which the
+Turkish arms were rewarded by the capture of the ravelin behind the
+cavalier, is said to have cost them the lives of three thousand men. It
+lasted from daybreak until midday.
+
+On the side of the Christians twenty Knights and one hundred soldiers were
+slain; but worst of all, from their point of view, the ravelin remained in
+the hands of their enemies. The chevalier Abel de Bridiers de la Gardampe
+having received a ball through his body, some of his comrades ran to place
+him under cover. "Count me no longer among the living," said the Knight.
+"You will be better employed in defending the rest of our brethren." He
+then, unassisted, dragged himself to the foot of the altar in the chapel,
+where his dead body was discovered when all was over.
+
+So far communication remained established between St. Elmo and their
+comrades in Il Borgo on the opposite side of the harbour; in consequence
+the wounded were removed and their places taken by one hundred fresh men
+under the Chevalier Vagnon. To the Bailli of Negropont and the Commandeur
+Broglio, La Valette sent a message to return to Il Borgo. These gallant and
+aged veterans, both of whom were wounded, whose faces were scorched by the
+sun and blackened with powder, whose bodies were well-nigh worn out with
+perpetual vigil and hand-to-hand fighting, refused stoutly to quit their
+post, which now was naught but a dreadful shambles filled with corpses
+mangled out of recognition and heads and limbs which had been torn and
+hacked from their bodies.
+
+Dragut now proposed to erect batteries on the same side of the Great Port
+as that on which Il Borgo was situated; on the point now known as Ricasoli,
+but which was then and for centuries afterwards known as the Punta Delle
+Forche (or Point of the Gallows, because it was here that all pirates was
+executed; and their bodies, swinging in chains, were the first objects that
+met the eye on entering the Great Port). In this he was overruled ruled by
+Piali, who declared that he had not sufficient men to spare, and the
+Knights of II Borgo would soon render the battery untenable even if they
+should succeed in erecting it, which the Turkish admiral now considered
+extremely doubtful. The siege of St. Elmo, which Mustafa had said would
+last at the outside for five or six days, had now been in progress for four
+weeks; and, although the fort was in a ruinous condition, nothing seemed
+capable of daunting those invincible warriors by which it was held.
+
+The position in St. Elmo now was that the Turks still held on to the
+ravelin which they had captured; this they had built up to such a height
+that they could look over the parapet of the fortress and shoot down with
+arquebus fire any one whom they could see. Meanwhile the Turkish sappers
+delved night and day in their endeavour to undermine the parapet, which, if
+blown up, would give them free access to the interior of the fort; while
+another party, by use of the yards of galleys and huge planks of wood,
+busied themselves in constructing a bridge to connect the ravelin with the
+parapet. Lamirande, one of the most active of the defenders of the fort,
+viewed these preparations without undue alarm, as he was aware that, by the
+nature of the ground, it would be almost impossible to excavate
+sufficiently under the parapet to place an effective mine. As, however, the
+sapping was causing the parapet to incline outwards, and it was possible
+that it might almost at any moment fall over into the ditch, he caused a
+second parapet to be erected inside the first and artillery to be mounted
+thereon. Having done this he caused a false sortie to be made on the
+following night, and when the Turks rushed to the attack he, accompanied by
+a party of sappers, sallied out into the ditch and burned the bridge which
+had been made. The Turks, returning after their fruitless assault, found
+their bridge destroyed, but with untiring activity set to work and
+constructed it afresh. Dragging cannon to the very edge of the ravelin,
+they, on the very next evening, revenged themselves by also making a false
+attack: they swarmed into the ditch, and, placing their scaling-ladders
+against the walls, pretended that an escalade was to be attempted. The
+garrison, deceived, appeared on the parapet in large numbers, when a
+murderous fire at point-blank range was opened upon them from the ravelin.
+So great was the execution done on this occasion that the garrison lost
+more men than had hitherto been the case in the most determined attacks
+which they had sustained.
+
+It now seemed as if indeed the end had come, that the garrison had done all
+that was in the power of mortal man and nothing was left for them but to
+retire while there was yet time. Accordingly choice was made of the
+chevalier Median to represent the desperate extremities to which they were
+reduced to La Valette. It was well known that for none among the Knights
+had the Grand Master more respect than he had for Medran, one of the
+bravest and most chivalrous of them all. He, at least, could never be
+suspected of cowardice, feebleness, at a desire to desert his post. This
+gallant Knight crossed the harbour on his dolorous errand and was received
+by his chief: to him he represented the state of affairs as it has here
+been set down, assuring him that at best the fort could but hold out for a
+few days longer.
+
+A chapter of the Knights Grand Cross was immediately held and the most part
+of them were of opinion that the time had come to abandon a hopeless
+position. But this decision did not meet with the approval of the Grand
+Master. No one was more sensible than he of the peril to which their
+brethren were exposed; at the same time, he contended, that there were
+occasions on which it was necessary to sacrifice a certain number for the
+good of the whole Order. He had certain information that, if St. Elmo were
+abandoned, the Viceroy of Sicily would hazard nothing for the relief of the
+island; that upon the arrival of succours depended the existence of their
+ancient and honourable confederacy: therefore, at no matter what cost, they
+were bound to hold out as long as possible. So dominant was the personality
+of the Grand Master that, in a short time, he had won over the votes of the
+chapter and Medran was ordered to return to St. Elmo and deliver to the
+garrison a message that the siege must take its course.
+
+Medran accordingly returned and reported to his comrades the result of his
+embassy. Several of the older Knights received the command with due
+submission, but among those who were younger there were murmurings. These
+men deemed the answer to their appeal hard and cruel; they could see no
+object in the loss of their lives, which they well knew would all be
+sacrificed in the next assault. They accordingly, to the number of
+fifty-three, wrote a letter to the Grand Master, demanding permission to
+abandon St. Elmo and retire to Il Borgo. If their request were denied they
+announced their design to sally forth, sword in hand, and perish in the
+ranks of the enemy. The Commandeur de Cornet was the bearer of this letter,
+which was received by the Grand Master with sorrow and indignation. To
+reassure them, he sent three commissioners to inspect the place. This was
+done, and one of them, a Knight of Greek descent named Constantine
+Castriot, reported that the fort could still hold out a while longer. When
+he announced this at St. Elmo the recalcitrant Knights were so furious with
+him that the Baili of Negropont had to sound "the alarm" to prevent a
+disgraceful fracas. The commissioners returned to Il Borgo. After hearing
+their report La Valette wrote a letter to those by whom he had been
+memorialised to the following effect:
+
+  "Return to the convent, my brothers; you will there be in greater
+  security; and on our part we shall feel a greater sense of security in
+  the conservation of so important a place, on which depends the safety of
+  the island and the honour of our Order."
+
+Never were men so taken aback as were the Knights in St. Elmo when they
+received this response; here it was intimated to them that that which they
+refused to do on account of the danger thereof was to be undertaken by
+others. This was no more than a fact, as La Valette was besieged with
+applications from, not only the Knights, but also the simple soldiers of
+the garrison, to be allowed to pass over to St. Elmo and die if necessary
+to the last man. It was, therefore, with prayers and tears that the Knights
+besought the Grand Master to allow them to remain. At first La Valette was
+adamant. He preferred, he said, the rawest militia which was prepared to
+obey his orders, to Knights who knew not their duty. In the end, however,
+he yielded, and in the fortress of St. Elmo, that crushed and ruined
+charnel-house, its defences gaping wide, its every corner exposed night and
+day to a sweeping murderous fire, there remained a host of men sadly torn
+and battered, but animated by such a spirit that nothing the Turks could
+devise made upon it the least impression. These great and gallant gentlemen
+had had their moment of weakness; they had been heartened to the right
+conception of their duty by the noble veteran who was their chief. To him
+had they turned at last, as his obedient children who had had their moment
+of rebellion in a trial as hard as was ever undergone by man. And now, as
+the inevitable end drew near, it was as if they would imitate the Roman
+gladiator with that terrible chorus of his: "Ave Caesar morituri te
+salutant."
+
+All day and every day did the garrison fight, snatching such repose as was
+possible when their pertinacious enemies, worn out by fatigue and the
+terrible heat, could no longer be led to the attack against those whom they
+now firmly believed to be in league with Shaitan himself; "For how else,"
+demanded Janissary and Spahi alike, "could infidels like these make head
+against those chosen of the Prophet like ourselves."
+
+At this time the garrison took into use a device attributed to the Grand
+Master himself. This consisted in hoops of wood which were first thoroughly
+soaked in alcohol and then boiled in oil; they were then tightly bound with
+cotton or wool, also soaked in inflammable liquids mixed with saltpetre and
+gunpowder. Once these fiendish contrivances were set alight nothing availed
+to put them out, and they were feared as was naught else by the Turks
+during the remainder of the time they were in Malta. They were particularly
+deadly against the Turks, and at times two or more soldiers mounting the
+breach would be caught in one of these fiery circles, and the unfortunate
+wretches would be burnt alive. Even the Janissaries refused to advance at
+times when these fireworks were being flung down upon their flowing
+garments.
+
+On June 16th another attack was made on the fortress, and, incredible as it
+may seem, it was repulsed with such awful slaughter that at last the Turks
+would not face the swords of the garrison. Alter this the enemy succeeded
+in drawing so close a cordon round the place that no more succours could
+reach it, and the end was but a matter of time. The day before it came
+Dragut, who, with his usual intrepidity, was standing in the midst of a hot
+fire, was struck on the side of the head by a stone dislodged from a wall
+by a cannon-ball. At the moment when this happened he was holding a council
+of war in the trenches with Piali, a Sanjak, and the principal Turkish
+engineer. The same shot which wounded Dragut killed the Sanjak on the spot.
+Piali caused a cloak to be thrown over the body of the corsair in order
+that his state should not be observed by the soldiers, and as soon as
+possible had him removed to his tent, where he lay unconscious till the
+following day.
+
+The council on which the corsair had been engaged when he received his
+mortal wound had for its object the complete isolation of St. Elmo from Il
+Borgo; his dispositions were completed and his orders given to the engineer
+just before he was struck.
+
+The agony of St. Elmo was drawing to an end; completely hemmed in by the
+latest dispositions of Dragut, the fortress was at its last gasp; a brave
+Maltese swimmer managed to slip through the cordon, swim the harbour, and
+deliver to the Grand Master a letter from the Bailli of Negropont. The
+Grand Master made one last effort to throw succours and reinforcements into
+the place, but these were beaten off with terrible slaughter: nothing now
+remained but to await the inevitable tragedy.
+
+[Illustration: DEATH OF DRAGUT AT THE SIEGE OF MALTA.]
+
+On the night of June 22nd the defenders of St. Elmo, having now lost all
+hope of being supported, made ready for death. Into them La Valette had
+breathed his own heroic spirit, and none among them counselled or dreamed
+of surrender. The Order to which they had given their allegiance now
+demanded of them the last sacrifice which it was in their power to make,
+and this was offered in the manner most fitting to its tenets. These
+exhausted, war-worn, battle-scarred warriors repaired to the chapel, where
+they confessed, and made ready by partaking together of the sacrament,
+"and, having thus surrendered their souls to God, each retired to his post
+to die on the bed of honour with arms in his hand." Those among the Knights
+who were too severely wounded or too ill to stand caused chairs to be
+carried to the breach in which they seated themselves and awaited the
+assault. For four hours did these indomitable men withstand the might of a
+host innumerable: at the conclusion of this period there remained alive but
+sixty of the garrison. Mustafa ceased the assault for a few moments only to
+replace the storming party by fresh troops, and then the end came. Almost
+the last to fall were the Chevalier Lamirande and the veteran Bailli of
+Negropont, and when the crescent banner was planted on the walls there
+remained alive not one of those defenders who had held the fort. Several of
+Dragut's officers ran to his tent and announced the taking of St. Elmo. The
+great captain was in his last extremity and unable to speak, "He, however,
+manifested his joy by several signs, and, raising his eyes to heaven as if
+in thankfulness for its mercies, immediately expired: a captain of rare
+valour and even abundantly more humane than are ordinarily these corsairs."
+
+The Basha Piali, on entering the fort and observing with what miserable
+resources it had so long been held exclaimed, as he looked across the
+harbour to Il Borgo:
+
+"What will not the parent do to us, when so small a son has cost us the
+lives of our bravest soldiers?"
+
+There is no record of what that cruel savage, Mustafa, said on this
+occasion; his deeds, however, spoke eloquently. He caused the bodies of the
+Knights to be decapitated and nailed to wooden crosses, while across their
+corpses were slashed a cross in derision of the religion of his foes. The
+bodies were then cast into the harbour, and were washed up at the foot of
+Il Borgo. Instantly the Grand Master ordered the decapitation of all the
+Turkish prisoners, and their heads were fired from cannon into the camp of
+Mustafa.
+
+With the remainder of the siege, which was yet to last till September 18th,
+we have no concern in this book. It is only necessary to say that the men
+of Il Borgo were worthy to stand in the same category with the defenders of
+St. Elmo, which is equivalent to stating that in them also was discovered
+the last limit of heroism. The Grand Master survived the siege, his
+monument is the noble city of "Valetta" built on Mount Sceberras. The Turks
+abandoned the siege and returned to Constantinople on the arrival of some
+insignificant reinforcements from Sicily. So terrible had been the
+resistance of the Knights that no heart was left in their armada. Of Dragut
+there remains but little to be said: he was perhaps the best educated of
+the corsairs and less cruel than was usually their habit. Although not so
+renowned as his more celebrated master, Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, this is,
+perhaps, because his career was cut short at the siege of Malta at a
+comparatively early age. Although he never attained the rank of
+Admiralissimo to the Grand Turk, that potentate, as we have seen, placed in
+him the greatest confidence, and relied largely on his judgment, especially
+when sea-affairs were in question. Like the Barbarossas before him, he rose
+from nothing to the height to which he eventually attained by sheer force
+of intellect and character. In the stormy times in which his lot was cast
+he never faltered in his onward way, never repined, never looked back,
+sustained as he was by a consciousness of his own capability to rule the
+wild spirits by whom he lived surrounded. So it is that, whatever other
+opinion we may hold of Dragut, we cannot deny that in this captain of the
+Sea-wolves were blended rare qualities, which caused him to shine as a
+capable administrator, a fine seaman, but above all as a supreme leader of
+men. Dragut died with arms in his hands fighting those whom he considered
+to be his bitterest enemies. He did not live to see the repulse of Piali
+and Mustapha, and it is to be presumed that he died assured in his own mind
+that victory would rest with the Moslem host. For such a man as this no
+death could have been more welcome.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+ALI BASHA
+
+  Ali, the Basha of Algiers, succeeds to Dragut--He conquers the Kingdom
+  of Tunis, captures four galleys from the Knights of Malta, joins Piali
+  Basha in his raidings preliminary to the battle of Lepanto--The
+  gathering of the Christian hosts and the arrival of Don John of Austria
+  in the Mediterranean to take command.
+
+"Now I have heard several mariners and captains of the sea, nay, even
+Knights of Malta, debate among themselves this question, as to which was
+the greater and better seaman, Dragut or Occhiali? And some held for one
+and some for the other; those who held for Occhiali declaring that he had
+held greater and more honourable charges than Dragut, because he commanded
+as General and Admiral for the Grand Turk and that _il fit belle action_ at
+the battle of Lepanto." Pierre de Bourdeille, the Seigneur de Brantome,
+from whom we make the above quotation, was himself present at the siege of
+Malta and, besides this, as is well known, gossiped in his own inimitable
+way concerning men and women of his time, from corsairs to courtesans. When
+such contemporary authorities as those mentioned could not agree it is
+quite certain that we of the twentieth century cannot decide on the rival
+claims to distinction between the Bashaw of Tripoli and his follower
+Occhiali, as he was known to the Christians, or Ali Basha, as he was called
+by the Turks. Ali Basha has a title to fame in the fact that he is
+mentioned by Cervantes in his _Don Quijote de la Mancha_ under the name of
+"Uchali" in chapter xxxix., "Donde el cautivo cuenta su vida y sucesos."
+The captive is supposed to have been no less a person than the famous
+Cervantes himself, and he briefly describes how Uchali became "Rey de
+Argel," or King of Algiers.
+
+Ali was a Christian, having been born at a miserable little village in
+Calabria called Licastelli. Nothing whatever is known of his birth and
+parentage, and he does not appear even to have possessed a Christian name,
+although born in a Christian land. He followed from his earliest youth the
+calling of a mariner; "he was from infancy inured to salt water," says
+Joseph Morgan, in his _Compleat History of Algiers_, and he was, as a mere
+boy, captured by Ali Ahamed, Admiral of Algiers, and was chained to the
+starboard-bow oar in the galley of that officer. He was thus very early in
+life "inured" to suffering, and must have possessed a constitution of iron
+to withstand thus, in boyhood, the hardships of the life of a galley-slave,
+which as a rule broke down the endurance of strong men in a very few years.
+Morgan presents us with a description of him at this period which in these
+more squeamish days can certainly not be set down in its entirety: suffice
+it to say that he suffered all his days from what is known as "scald-head,"
+and that personal filthiness was one of his principal characteristics.
+
+For some years Ali remained at the heart-breaking toil of the rower's
+bench: cut off from home, which to him meant nothing, devoid of kinsfolk,
+alone--miserably alone in a world which, so far, had given him naught but
+the chain and the whip--it is not a matter for surprise that he became a
+Mussulman, thus freeing himself from slavery. From the time that he took
+this step his fortunes mended rapidly in that strange medley of savagery
+and bloodshed in which his lot was cast.
+
+Alert, strong, capable, and vigorous, he became in early manhood chief
+boatswain in the galley in which his apprenticeship had been passed--a
+position which enabled him to accumulate a small store of ducats, with
+which he bought a share in a brigantine. Here he soon acquired sufficient
+wealth to become captain and owner of a galley, in which he soon gained the
+reputation of being one of the boldest corsairs on the Barbary coast.
+Having in some sort made a name for himself, his next step was to seek for
+a patron who could make use of his valour, address, and capability for
+command. His choice was soon made, as who in all the Mediterranean, in his
+early days, held such a name as Dragut? He accordingly entered the service
+of the Basha of Tripoli, and, under his command, became well known to the
+officers of the Grand Turk, particularly to the Admiral, Piali Basha, to
+whom he was able to render some important services.
+
+There is no object to be gained in lingering over the earlier years of this
+notable corsair, as we should thus only be repeating what has been said
+about Dragut, whose lieutenant and trusted follower he became. He
+accompanied his master to the siege of Malta, and when Dragut was slain the
+Capitan-Basha, Piali, named him as successor to his chief as Viceroy of
+Tripoli. Ali sailed from Malta to Tripoli, taking with him the remains of
+Dragut, to be buried as that chieftain had directed. When he arrived on the
+Barbary coast he made himself master of the slaves and treasure which had
+been left behind by Dragut; shortly after this he was confirmed in his
+Vice-royalty of Tripoli by the Grand Turk; thenceforward increasing, both
+his wealth and the terror in which his name was held, by continual raids
+upon the Christians, more particularly on the coasts of Sicily, Calabria,
+and Naples. It is curious to observe the sort of spite which all the
+renegadoes seem to have harboured against the countries in which they were
+born.
+
+In March 1568, owing to the fall of Mohammed Basha, the Vice-royalty of
+Algiers became vacant, and, through the good offices of his old friend
+Piali, Ali became Governor. He thus returned to occupy a position of
+literally sovereign power to the city which he had first entered as a
+galley-slave.
+
+That he was no negligent Governor and that he took an entirely intelligent
+view of his functions, is proved by an occurrence which took place in this
+same year in Spain. The Moriscoes in the Kingdom of Granada revolted
+against their Spanish Governor, by whom they were sorely oppressed. They
+sent messages to Ali at Algiers, begging for succour against their
+persecutor. But the Basha would send no expedition; he permitted all and
+sundry to go as volunteers, but gave out publicly that "it more concerned
+him to defend well his own State than to interfere in the affairs of
+others." He even went farther than this, and when a number of Moriscoes,
+who were settled at Algiers, embarked a quantity of arms for transportation
+to the coast of Andalusia, he put an embargo on the vessels and would not
+allow them to sail, saying "he would never suffer the exportation of what
+was so necessary for the defence of his own dominions." At last, after much
+importunity, he consented "that all such as had two of a sort--as muskets,
+swords, or other weapons--might, if they thought fit, send over one of
+them, provided they did it gratis and purely for the cause' sake; but he
+would never allow any of them to strip themselves of their arms for lucre."
+
+Ali, being now firmly established at Algiers, took up arms against the
+neighbouring State of Tunis. For long years now the King of Tunis had been
+protected by the Spaniards--a nation whom the Sea-wolves always held in
+singular abhorrence as the most bigoted of the Christian Powers, and who
+held in thrall many of their co-religionists. Hamid, son of Hassan, who now
+ruled in Tunis, had reduced that unfortunate State to anarchy bordering on
+rebellion, and the whole country, torn by internal feud, was ready to rise
+against him. The Goletta was in the hands of the Spaniards; Carouan, an
+inland town, had set up a king of its own, while the maritime towns passed
+from the domination of the Sea-wolves to that of the Christians, and from
+the Christians back to the Sea-wolves, according to which party happened to
+be the stronger for the time being.
+
+El Maestro Fray Diego de Haedo, "Abad de Fromesta de la Orden del Patriarca
+San Benito" and "natural del Valle de Carranca," whose _Topografia e
+Historia de Argel_ (or Algiers) was printed in Valladolid in the year 1612,
+gives an account of Hamid at this time in which he describes that monarch
+as an "unpopular tyrant who sadly persecuted his vassals and the friends of
+his father; who could by no means suffer his tyrannies and those of his
+ministers, the scum of the earth ("hombres baxos"), to whom he had given
+the principal offices of the kingdom. Accordingly, since the time that Ali
+had become Basha of Algiers, letters had been written to him importuning
+him to come to Tunis that he might possess himself of that city and
+kingdom."
+
+There were three principal conspirators--the Alcaid Bengabara, General of
+the Cavalry, the Alcaid Botaybo, and the Alcaid Alcadaar. Ali, however, was
+too shrewd a man to move until he had satisfied himself by reports from his
+own adherents; he, therefore, awaited the result of investigations made by
+spies from Algiers. At last, in the beginning of the year 1569, when the
+offers from the Alcaids had been three times renewed and the Basha was
+assured that the people in Tunis were sincere in their offer to him of the
+sovereignty of the kingdom--which they begged him to conquer and hold in
+the name of the Ottoman Empire--the ex-galley-slave no longer hesitated. He
+left Algiers in the month of October, leaving that city in charge of one
+Mami Corso, a fellow renegado. Unlike Dragut, who would have gone by sea,
+he set out by land with some five thousand corsairs and renegadoes. On the
+way he was reinforced by some six thousand cavalry of the wild tribes of
+the hinterland, then as ever ready to join in a fray with promise of booty:
+doubly ready in this case, as it was to harass so unpopular a tyrant as
+Hamid. Passing through Constantine and Bona, he continued to march towards
+Tunis, his following augmenting as he proceeded, and adding to his forces
+ten light field-guns. Arriving at Beja, a town which Haedo describes as
+being but two short days' march from Tunis, he came upon a fortress,
+recently erected by Hamid, mounting fourteen brass cannon. Here he halted,
+whereupon Hamid sallied out to give him battle at the head of some three
+thousand troops, horse and foot. The engagement had scarcely begun when the
+three Alcaids, who had been in communication with Ali, deserted with all
+their following. Hamid fled to Tunis, expecting to find shelter there, but
+he was hotly pursued by the corsairs, who followed him up to Al-Burdon,
+where his summer palace was situated. Hamid, finding that his people were
+everywhere in revolt, fled to the Goletta, carrying with him a quantity of
+money, jewels, and portable valuables, and placed himself under the
+protection of the Spanish garrison--not, however, without the loss of the
+major portion of his baggage, plundered from him by certain Moors in the
+course of his flight.
+
+Like Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, Ali was now lord of Algiers and Tunis, and as
+he was, for a corsair, a man of wide views, he treated his new subjects
+with consideration. He made, however, one curious mistake not to have been
+expected from one so politic: he demanded tribute from the tribes of the
+hinterland. In those days, particularly in Northern Africa, men paid
+tribute to an overlord because he was stronger than they; because
+retribution followed swiftly and suddenly upon refusal. To order tribute to
+be paid without being ready to strike was merely to expose the man making
+the demand to derision. Particularly was this the case with the fierce
+land-pirates of the desert, whose habit it was to exact and not to pay
+tribute. To Ali the Sheiks replied that "if he wanted tribute from them he
+must demand it lance in hand in the field, for there and nowhere else were
+they accustomed to pay: that their coin was steel lance-heads and not
+golden aspers." After this, says Morgan, "the Basha thought it well to
+dissemble."
+
+Ali, being in no position to wage war in the desert against these people,
+had to swallow the insult and to turn his attention to regulating the
+internal affairs of his newly acquired kingdom. This he succeeded in doing
+sufficiently by the month of June in the following year to enable him to
+leave Tunis in the hands of one Rabadan, a Sardinian renegado, and to start
+himself for Constantinople. His reason for doing this was the old one of
+attempting to consolidate his power in Northern Africa by appealing to the
+Sultan for help. As long as the Goletta remained in the hands of the
+Spaniards no corsair could feel himself secure in either Tunis or Algiers.
+The object of Ali was to beg from the Grand Turk men and ships to assist
+him to chase the Spaniards out of Africa.
+
+The month of June 1570, in consequence, saw Ali once more at sea in his
+"Admiral galley," steering northwards to the Golden Horn. Carrying with
+them a favourable breeze from the south-east, the galleys spread their huge
+lateen sails, and the straining rowers had rest awhile. The squadron
+consisted of twenty-four galleys. Off Cape Passaro, in Sicily, a small
+vessel was captured which gave information that five galleys of the Knights
+of Malta were at anchor at Licata, a small harbour in the neighbourhood,
+and that they were on the point of sailing for Malta. The decision of Ali
+was taken on the instant: were he to go in and attack them with the
+overwhelming force at his command the crews might escape to the shore; even
+the Knights of Malta could hardly be expected to fight twenty-four galleys
+with five. He was anxious to capture the ships, but above all to capture
+those by whom they were manned: to have the satisfactory revenge of seeing
+the proud Knights stripped naked and chained to the benches of his own
+fleet.
+
+The hot Mediterranean sun poured down out of a cloudless sky as the
+Sea-wolves made their offing; out of sight of land they lay, but right in
+the course which the galleys of the Christians were bound to take. The
+great yards, with their lateen sails, were got down on deck, and, oar in
+hand, the Moslems awaited their prey. Presently the Maltese galleys were
+discovered coming leisurely along, under oars and sails, and then--when it
+was too late--the Knights discovered the snare into which they had fallen.
+There was but scant time for preparation or deliberation, and who shall
+blame four out of the five if they decided to try to escape? for it was
+escape or annihilation.
+
+But there was one which did not fly, "Una galera hizo cara a los Turcos"
+(One single galley turned her bows towards the Turks), says that faithful
+chronicler Haedo. She was named the _Santa Ana_, but the name of her heroic
+commander has not come down to us. Even as Grenfell "at Flores in the
+Azores," stood upon the deck of the little _Revenge_ on that memorable
+August day in 1591, when "he chose to die rather than to dishonour himself,
+his country, and her Majesty's ship," so also did this Knight of Malta bear
+down on the twenty-four that were his foes.
+
+When Don John of Austria, being at the time young and inexperienced in
+warfare on the sea, wrote to the Marquis of Villafranca, General of the
+Galleys of Sicily, requesting advice on the subject of galley attacking
+galley, that officer replied to him, "Never fire your arquebus at the foe
+until you are so close at hand that his blood will leap into your face at
+the discharge." If we bear in mind such an instruction as this it will help
+us to picture that close-packed sanguinary conflict upon which the
+Mediterranean sun looked down on this day. Eight to one, all that could
+find room to get alongside of the _Santa Ana_, fought with the Knight and
+his followers. The issue was, of course, never in doubt for a moment.
+"Muertos y cansados" (Dead and deadbeat), says Haedo, the caballeros and
+soldados of the Christian ship could at length hold out no longer. The
+Sea-wolves were victorious, the proud banner of Saint John was lowered; but
+never in all its history had it been more nobly upheld, and the galley
+_Santa Ana_, commanded by that unknown member of the great Christian
+military hierarchy of the sixteenth century, may well stand in the roll of
+fame alongside of the _Revenge_, the _Vengeur_, and the _Victory_.
+
+The _Capitana_, or "Admiral's galley," of the Knights, being hotly pursued,
+ran ashore with one of her consorts at Licata: the crews landed, but were
+pursued and overtaken. One galley escaped altogether, but four out of the
+five were taken. So notable a victory as this over the Knights caused so
+much rejoicing in the fleet of the Sea-wolves that Ali determined to
+celebrate it by a triumphal return to Algiers instead of proceeding
+directly to Constantinople. Accordingly, the ships' heads were turned south
+once more, and upon July 20th, 1570, the fleet arrived in the African port,
+"on sus galeras todas llenas de muchas banderas"--with galleys gaily
+beflagged.
+
+[Illustration: A GALLEY OF THE KNIGHTS OF MALTA.]
+
+The procession entered the harbour in three divisions of eight galleys: and
+towing behind each division was one of the captured galleys of the Knights.
+In memory of his prowess Ali ordered that the shields and bucklers taken
+from the Maltese galleys, which bore upon them emblazoned the white cross
+of "the Religion," should be hung up in the great arched gate of the
+Marina. Also there was placed here the image of Saint John the Baptist,
+taken from the _Capitana_ galley, "all of which remain," says Haedo, "until
+this day" _(i.e._ 1612), except the image of Saint John, which in the reign
+of Hassan Basha, a Venetian renegado, was taken down and burned at the
+instance of the Morabutos, "los letrados de los Moros" (the learned among
+the Moors). It is an instructive commentary on the fear and respect in
+which the Knights of Malta were held that such a man as Ali should have
+considered it a triumph worth the celebrating when he defeated five of
+their vessels with twenty-four of his own.
+
+The next occurrence in the life of Ali was one of those to which the
+Sea-wolves were subjected from time to time, and which do not seem to have
+caused them much trouble or anxiety. This was a mutiny of the Janissaries
+in Algiers, who very reasonably objected to being left without their pay. A
+mutiny of the Janissaries, however, was somewhat a serious matter, as they
+were accustomed to the enjoyment of many privileges, and were, as we have
+said elsewhere, a picked corps who had it in their power even to coerce the
+Sultan himself upon occasions.
+
+Those of them who were in Algiers demanded "Who was this corsair who dared
+to keep the picked men of the army of the Grand Turk waiting for their pay,
+as if they were no better than his slaves?" Such a thing as a mutiny was,
+in the days of which we speak, a matter for which any prudent corsair had
+to be prepared. Ali was in no means discomposed, and, as the crisis had
+become acute on shore, he went to sea, where he was under no obligation to
+pay his men, who paid themselves at the expense of their enemies. He put to
+sea with twenty galleys, and, shortly after leaving Algiers, he met with a
+galley from the Levant, from which he received information that a powerful
+armada was preparing in Constantinople for an expedition against the
+Christians. He steered for Coron in the Morea, where he was almost
+immediately joined by the Ottoman fleet, the commander of which force was
+overjoyed to find so formidable a reinforcement under so renowned a captain
+as Ali.
+
+Soliman the Magnificent had died in 1566, and had been succeeded by his
+son, Selim; this prince, bred in the Seraglio, was weak and licentious,
+given to that strong drink forbidden by the Prophet to an extent which
+caused him to be nicknamed by the Spaniards as "el ebrio," or "el bebedor."
+
+This was a state of affairs which boded ill for the Turkish Empire, and
+Selim II. had been educated in a very different manner from that which had
+hitherto been the custom. Speaking of this, Gibbon says, "Instead of the
+slothful luxury of the Seraglio, the heirs of royalty were educated in the
+council and the field. From early youth they were entrusted by their
+fathers with the command of provinces and of armies; and this manly
+institution, which was often productive of civil war, must have essentially
+contributed to the discipline and vigour of the monarchy."
+
+Drunkard and weakling as he was, Selim had his ambitions. He wished to
+signalise his reign by some great conquest, such as had added lustre to the
+rule of his father; and in consequence he laid claim to the island of
+Cyprus, then belonging to Venice, The Venetians, having strengthened the
+fortifications of the island and fitted out their navy, sought alliances in
+Europe to curb the pretensions of the Porte. In this they found support,
+instant and generous, from the Pope Pius V. Of this great ecclesiastic
+Prescott says: "He was one of those Pontiffs who seemed to have been called
+forth by the exigencies of the time to uphold the pillars of Catholicism as
+they were yet trembling under the assaults of Luther."
+
+The Pope, Philip II. of Spain, and Venice formed what was known as the
+"Holy League," and, having formed it, immediately began to quarrel among
+themselves as to what its functions were to be. The Venetians wished all
+its efforts to be directed to safeguarding Cyprus, while Philip and his
+viceroys were anxious to attack the Sea-wolves on the coast of Africa in
+their strongholds. After much squabbling, an agreement was come to. The
+principal items of this were, that the Pope should pay one-sixth of the
+expenses, Venice two-sixths, and Spain three-sixths; that each party should
+appoint its own Commander-in-Chief, and that Don John of Austria should be
+in supreme command of the whole forces assembled. The contracting parties
+were to furnish 200 galleys, 100 transports, 50,000 foot, 4,500 horse, and
+the requisite artillery and stores.
+
+While the Christians were negotiating and talking, the Turks were acting.
+It was in May that the Pope caused the treaty to be publicly read in full
+consistory; in April the Turkish fleet had got to sea and committed
+terrible ravages in the Adriatic, laying waste to Venetian territory.
+
+While ships and men were gathering, and while the fleet which it was to be
+his fortune to defeat was pursuing its career in the Mediterranean, Don
+John of Austria left Madrid for the south on June 6th, 1571. When he
+arrived at Barcelona he made a pilgrimage to the Hermitage of Our Lady of
+Montserrat, where his father Charles V. had confessed and received the
+sacrament before he sailed on his voyage to the Barbary coast in his
+expedition against Barbarossa. From Barcelona he sailed with thirty galleys
+to Genoa, where he arrived on the 25th, and was lodged in the palace of
+Andrea Doria. In August he arrived by water at Naples.
+
+By this time all Europe was aflame with excitement: warriors of noble birth
+were flocking to serve under the standard of the brother of the King of
+Spain, who was regarded as the very mirror of chivalry. The following
+description of Don John, at Naples, is from the pen of that great historian
+Prescott:
+
+  "Arrangements had been made in that city for his reception on a more
+  magnificent scale than any he had witnessed on his journey. Granvelle,
+  who had lately been raised to the post of Viceroy, came forth at the
+  head of a long and brilliant procession to welcome his royal guest. The
+  houses which lined the streets were hung with richly tinted tapestries
+  and gaily festooned with flowers. The windows and verandahs were graced
+  with the beauty and fashion of the pleasure-loving capital, and many a
+  dark eye sparkled as it gazed upon the fine form and features of the
+  youthful hero, who at the age of twenty-four had come to Italy to assume
+  the baton of command and lead the crusade against the Moslems. His
+  splendid dress of white velvet and cloth of gold set off his graceful
+  person to advantage. A crimson scarf floated loosely over his breast,
+  and his snow-white plumes drooping from his cap mingled with the yellow
+  curls that fell in profusion over his shoulders. It was a picture which
+  the Italian maiden might love to look on. It was certainly not the
+  picture of the warrior sheathed in the iron panoply of war. But the
+  young Prince, in his general aspect, might be relieved from the charge
+  of effeminacy by his truly chivalrous bearing and the dauntless spirit
+  which beamed from his clear blue eyes. In his own lineaments he seemed
+  to combine all that was comely in the lineaments of his race."
+
+At Naples Don John found a fleet at anchor under the command of Don Alvaro
+de Bazan, first marquis of Santa Cruz, of whom much was to be heard in the
+future in his capacity as Admiral of Castile. Here also he received from
+the hands of Cardinal Granvelle a consecrated banner sent to him by the
+Pope at a solemn ceremony in the church of the Franciscan Convent of Santa
+Chiara. On August 25th he left Naples and proceeded to Messina, where he
+landed under a triumphal arch of colossal dimensions, embossed with rich
+plates of silver and curiously sculptured with emblematical bas-reliefs.
+The royal galley in which the hero embarked was built at Barcelona: she was
+fitted with the greatest luxury, and was remarkable for her strength and
+speed; her stern was profusely decorated with emblems and devices drawn
+from history; no such warship had ever been seen in the world before.
+
+Cayetano Rosell, in his _Historia del combate naval de Lepanto_, says that
+the number of vessels, great and small, in the Christian armada was over
+300, of which 200 were galleys, the ordinary warships of the time. He goes
+on to say:
+
+  "In this spacious harbour [Messina] there were collected the squadrons
+  of the League; the people who managed the oars and sails and the
+  innumerable combatants making an immense number when added together.
+  Since the days of Imperial Rome, never had been seen in these seas so
+  imposing a spectacle, never had there been collected so many ships
+  moving towards a single end dominated by a single will. Never was there
+  a spectacle more gratifying in the eyes of justice, nor of greater
+  incentive to men to fight for the cause of religion."
+
+The Spanish fleet comprised 90 royal galleys, 24 nefs, and 50 fregatas and
+brigantines "los mejores que en tiempo alguno se habrian visto" (the finest
+that ever were seen at any time), as they were described by Don John. The
+Pope sent 12 galleys and 6 fregatas, under the command of Mark Antony
+Colonna. The Pope had also made a grant of the "Crusada" and "Excusada,"
+and other ecclesiastical revenues which he drew from Spain, to the King of
+that country, to meet expenses.
+
+Venice appointed Sebastian Veniero to the command of her fleet, which
+consisted of 106 galleys, 6 galeasses of enormous bulk and clumsy
+construction carrying each 40 guns, 2 nefs, and 20 fregatas. These vessels
+were, however, so miserably manned and equipped that Don John had to send
+on board Spaniards and Genoese to complete their complements. In a
+manuscript of the Bibliotheque du Roi (Number 10088) is an account of the
+battle of Lepanto by Commandeur de Romegas. He gives the number of the
+Turkish fleet at 333 ships, of which 230 were galleys, the rest galeasses
+and smaller craft. The total which he gives for the Christian fleet is 271.
+Ali Basha was in supreme command of the Turkish forces, "a man of an
+intrepid spirit, who had given many proofs of a humane and generous
+mature--qualities more rare among the Turks, perhaps among all nations,
+than mere physical courage." With Ali was the Basha of Algiers, that other
+Ali, the corsair, who since his arrival at Coron had done more than his
+share of the fighting, marauding, and devastating which were the
+preliminaries to the battle of Lepanto. In this historic conflict he was to
+show once again how, on the face of the waters, the Sea-wolves were
+supreme; as it was he and his corsairs, out of the whole of the Moslem
+host, who acquitted themselves with the greatest credit on that day so
+fatal to the arms of the Ottoman Turk.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+LEPANTO
+
+  How Ali Basha fought at the battle of Lepanto: his subsequent
+  career--Conclusion.
+
+Lepanto, the last battle of first-class importance in which the Sea-wolves
+bore a leading part, is memorable in many ways. It is one of the most
+sanguinary which was ever fought, the element of personal hatred between
+the combatants, to which we have alluded more than once, being singularly
+in evidence on this occasion. As we have said, this campaign was brought
+about at the initiative of the Venetians, and an incident which occurred
+not long before the battle exacerbated the feelings with which the Turks
+were regarded by the Christians to the point of madness. The city of
+Famagusta, in Cyprus, had been captured by that Mustafa of whom we heard so
+much at the siege of Malta. The Venetian defenders made an honourable
+capitulation, but when the four principal Venetian captains were brought
+before Mustafa, that general caused three of them to be beheaded on the
+spot; the fourth, a noble and gallant gentleman who had been responsible
+for the magnificent defence of the city entrusted to his charge, he caused
+to be flayed alive in the market-square. He then had the skin stuffed with
+straw, and, with this ghastly trophy nailed to the prow of his galley,
+returned in triumph to Constantinople. Bragadino, the defender of
+Famagusta, did not die in vain; his terrible fate excited such a passion of
+anger in the whole of the armada of Don John that each individual of which
+it was composed felt that the sacrifice of his own life would be but a
+small thing if it only led to the destruction of such fiends as those
+against whom they were arrayed.
+
+[Illustration: DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA.]
+
+Lepanto was a magnificent triumph for the arms of Christendom, and taught a
+much-needed lesson to Europe that the Ottoman Turk was not invincible upon
+the sea; it was not, however, an interesting battle from the point of view
+of the student of war and its combinations. Of all the high officers in
+command on that memorable day there was only one who displayed real
+generalship and a proper appreciation of the tactical necessities of the
+situation; that officer was Ali Basha, the leader of the Sea-wolves. The
+account of the battle is somewhat obscured by the fact that on the side of
+the Moslems the name of the Ottoman Commander-in-Chief was also "Ali"; in
+order to avoid confusion in this narration, we shall allude to the Basha of
+Algiers by the name given to him by the Christians, "Occhiali."
+
+It was on Sunday, October 7th, 1571, that the Christian fleet weighed
+anchor from Cephalonia and stood southwards along the Albanian coast, which
+is here fringed with rocky islets. The right wing was commanded by John
+Andrea Doria, the left wing by the Provediteur Barbarigo, the centre, or
+"battle," as it was called, by Don John in person, who had on the one side
+of him Mark Antony Colonna, the General of the Galleys of the Pope, and on
+the other that fiery veteran Sebastian Veniero, the commander of the
+Venetians. Here also were stationed the Prince of Parma, nephew to Don
+John, Admiral of Savoy; Duke Urbino, Admiral of Genoa; the Admiral of
+Naples, and the Commandeur of Castile. The reserve, under the command of
+the Marquis of Santa Cruz, consisted of thirty-five galleys. Immediately in
+rear of the _Real_, or royal galley of Don John, was that of the Grand
+Commander Requesens. The number of seamen, soldiers, officers, and
+galley-slaves in the fleet amounted to over eighty thousand persons;
+twenty-nine thousand infantry had been embarked, of which number nineteen
+thousand were Spaniards. Opposed to the Christians on this day was a
+Turkish fleet which had on board no less than one hundred and twenty
+thousand men embarked in two hundred and fifty galleys, without counting an
+innumerable host of smaller vessels.
+
+[Illustration: SEBASTIAN VENIERO. Inset, portraits of Don John and Pope
+Pius V. Heroic statue of Don John dominating Christian and Turkish Fleets.
+The breath of the Almighty destroying the Turkish fleet at Lepanto.]
+
+The authorities on whose accounts of the battle this description is based
+are Prescott, the famous historian; P. Daru, a member of the Academie
+Francaise, who wrote an exhaustive _Histoire de Venise_ and Don Cayetano
+Rosell, member of the Spanish Academy, who is responsible for an exposition
+of the subject, known as _Historia del combate naval de Lepanto_. From a
+comparison of the works of these eminent men one fact emerges with great
+clearness, which is that the battle of Lepanto was an indiscriminate melee
+which was decided by some of the most desperate fighting ever recorded, but
+which depended hardly at all upon the tactical abilities of the men in
+chief command. It is true that we are told Don John issued written
+instructions to the commander of each ship, but we are left in the dark as
+to what these instructions were, while at the same time we discover that in
+his line of battle, which in the first instance appears to have been that
+of "single line ahead," the galleys of all nationalities were inextricably
+mixed up; making it thereby impossible for the Papal, Spanish, and Venetian
+commanders to deal, as they should have done, exclusively with their own
+men. On the other hand, Occhiali kept together the squadron of the
+Sea-wolves; he outgeneralled and had all but defeated John Andrea Doria,
+when the end came and he was obliged to retreat.
+
+We are, however, anticipating. Don John passed down his own line in a light
+"fregata" giving a few words of exhortation and advice to each ship under
+his command. If the bastard brother of the King of Spain did not exhibit
+any large measure of ability as a leader on this occasion, he was perhaps
+none the less the right man in the right place, as he had about him so
+winning a way, he was so striking and gallant a figure, that the hearts of
+all under his command went out to him. The seamen and soldiers of the great
+armada greeted him with enthusiastic shouts of delight as he bade them
+remember in whose cause it was that they fought. The last of the
+Knights-errant must have made a brave show as he passed down that line four
+miles in length, the sun shining on his damascened armour, and his yellow
+curls streaming out from beneath his helmet.
+
+Soon after sunrise the Turkish fleet was descried sailing towards the
+Christians, in such apparently overwhelming force that several of the
+Spanish commanders represented to Don John that it would be imprudent to
+risk a battle. To his honour be it recorded that he replied he had come out
+to fight the Turks and that the time for talk was now over. He then hoisted
+all his banners, and the executive signal for the combat to begin was given
+by displaying at his mainmast head the sacred banner blessed by the Pope.
+As this standard floated out upon the breeze there went up a great shout in
+unison from all that were under the command of Don John. The scene of the
+combat was that area of the Ionian Sea which is enclosed on the east by the
+coasts of Albania and Morea and on the west by the islands of Ithaca and
+Cephalonia, Just to the northward, at the entrance to the Gulf of Arta,
+sixteen hundred years before had been fought the battle of Actium between
+Antony and Octavius; the same spot had witnessed, in 1538, the memorable
+battle of Prevesa between Andrea Doria and Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa.
+
+From the point of view of the seaman, who is naturally anxious to discover
+the dispositions of their fleets made by the rival Commanders-in-Chief,
+Lepanto is an almost hopeless puzzle. As far as can be gathered, however,
+it was that the two armadas approached one another in what is known as
+"line ahead," each ship being immediately astern of its next ahead in one
+long continuous line; and that, when they got within striking distance,
+these lines turned so that they formed "line abreast," when each ship,
+having turned at right angles, simultaneously the line advances abreast,
+the ships forming it being broadside to broadside.
+
+When the Turks discovered the allies they were issuing from between the
+islets and the shore. Seeing John Andrea Doria moving to the right, they
+judged that he was executing a turning movement with the object of escaping
+to the northwards, from whence he had come; they were, at the time, unable
+to see the rest of the fleet, which was hidden by the land. With sound
+tactical judgment they accordingly advanced to attack the allies before
+they should have time to issue from the strait. They were, however, too far
+off to accomplish this, and, by the time they arrived within striking
+distance, the Christian fleet had cleared the strait and was ready for
+them, "drawn up for battle," says Monsieur Daru, which is somewhat vague in
+describing the disposition of a fleet. What is certain, however, is that in
+advance of the galleys of Don John were six great galeasses, which were
+armed with guns of immensely superior power to anything which could be
+mounted in galleys. As the Turks advanced to the attack these vessels
+opened fire, and did so much execution that Ali, the Turkish
+Commander-in-Chief, ordered his line to open out and thus avoid their fire.
+Whatever formation the fleet was in at the time--which was, as far as we
+can gather, "line abreast"--this opening-out process, to avoid the
+galeasses, threw it into hopeless confusion. The Turkish right wing, which
+was hugging the coast, and was the first to come into action, passed on in
+an endeavour to turn the left wing of the allies. While this manoeuvre was
+in progress Ali, the Capitan-Basha of the Turks, arrived in his vessel
+opposite to the royal galley of Don John. At the masthead of the galley of
+the Capitan-Bashaw floated the sacred standard of the Ottomans. This, the
+ancient banner of the Caliphs, was covered with texts from the Koran, and
+had upon it the name of Allah emblazoned no less than twenty-eight thousand
+nine hundred times in letters of gold. "It was," says Prescott, "the banner
+of the Sultan, having passed from father to son since the foundation of the
+dynasty, and was never seen in the field unless the Grand Seigneur or his
+lieutenant was there in person." Ali, the Commander-in-Chief, a favourite
+of the Sultan, had been entrusted with this most precious of all the
+possessions of the Padishah, as an incentive to him and all under his
+command to fight their hardest to do honour to the Prophet, and to prevent
+this symbol of their religion from falling into the hands of the Christian.
+Ali, like Don John, was young, and burning to distinguish himself;
+accordingly, as soon as the ships of the two leaders came opposite to each
+other neither regarded any enemy save his rival Commander-in-Chief. Ali
+drove his great galley straight on board of the vessel of Don John, and a
+most obstinate conflict ensued. Veniero and Colonna hastened to the
+assistance of their chief, who was sore beset.
+
+The combat now became general, and, as has been said, was for the most part
+nothing but a melee, in which each ship sought out the nearest of her foes
+and closed with her. For some time the fight went hard with Don John; time
+and again the galley of the Moslem leader was boarded, but on each occasion
+the Spaniards were hurled back upon their own decks. Loredano and Malipier,
+two Venetian captains, fell upon seven Turkish galleys which were hastening
+to reinforce the attack on Don John, and sank one of them. They then fought
+with such fury and resolution with the six that remained that, although
+both captains were killed, it was conceded that they had saved their
+general, entirely altered the complexion of the battle in their
+neighbourhood, and facilitated the capture of the Turkish admiral. The
+determined conduct of the two Venetians allowed the Spanish division to
+close in on the Turkish flagship, which, after an heroic resistance, was
+captured, principally because there were practically none left alive to
+fight. The head of Ali was struck off by a Spanish soldier, the banner of
+the Moslems was replaced by the flag of the Cross, the head of Ali on a
+pike being exhibited in derision above it. The conquerors seem to have seen
+no incongruity in this performance. The lowering of the sacred standard of
+the Capitan-Basha had a disheartening effect upon the Turks; they knew by
+this that their Commander-in-Chief was dead and his ship captured, the
+result being that the resistance of the Ottomans began to weaken. Then
+thirty galleys took to flight from the neighbourhood of the Christian
+flagship; so hotly were they pursued that they ran on shore, the crews
+swimming or wading to the beach and making off inland.
+
+On the right of the Christian line things had not been going so
+propitiously for them. Here Occhiali had managed, by his apparently
+persistent attempts to outflank John Andrea Doria, to decoy that commander
+away from his supports and from the main body of the Christians. This
+tactical manoeuvre of the corsair was successful; having drawn off some
+fifteen of the Christian galleys, he suddenly flung the whole of his
+greatly superior force into the gap and surrounded them. These galleys were
+Spanish, Venetian, and Maltese, and, although they offered a most vigorous
+resistance, they were mostly destroyed or captured. Doria, in spite of all
+his efforts, was on this day both outgeneralled and outfought: the
+Sea-wolves, under their grim leader, manoeuvring for position, obtaining
+it, and then falling like a thunderbolt on the foe. They were all brave men
+at Lepanto on this memorable October day; but few there were like the
+corsair king, in whom a heart of fire was kept in check by a brain of ice,
+who, during the whole combat, never gave away a chance, or failed to swoop
+like an eagle from his eyry when the blunders of his enemy gave him the
+opportunity for which he watched. It was the old story of "the veritable
+man of the sea" pitted against gallant soldiers fighting on an unfamiliar
+element. And yet it was against the best seaman on the Christian side that
+Occhiali pitted himself on this stricken field; and none can deny that with
+him rested such honour as was gained by the Turks on this day, the day
+which broke up for ever the idea of the invincibility of the Ottomans on
+the water. It needs not to say, to those who have read the story of the
+siege of Malta, how the Knights comported themselves in the battle; and yet
+Occhiali captured the _Capitana_, or principal galley of the Order, He was
+towing her out of action, a prize, when the Marquis of Santa Cruz bore down
+upon him with the reserve. By this time the battle was lost; the Moslems
+were in full retreat.
+
+The corsair recognised that he could do no more: sullenly he cast off the
+tow, and, forming up some thirty of his galleys, still in a condition to
+navigate, stood boldly through the centre of where the battle had once
+raged, and escaped. The _Capitana_ of Malta had been taken; and to the
+Sultan did Occhiali present the great standard of Saint John, as an earnest
+of his achievement.
+
+Bernardino de Escalente, in his work _Dialogos del arte militar_, printed
+in Seville in 1583, says that the Captain Ojeda, of the galley _Guzmana_,
+recaptured the _Capitana_ of Malta; and that, in recognition thereof, "the
+Religion" pensioned him for life. Ojeda, it is to be presumed, was under
+the orders of the Marquis of Santa Cruz during the battle.
+
+There remains one incident connected with the battle of Lepanto which must
+be told. In the _Marquesa_ galley, in the division of Doria, was lying in
+his bed sick of a fever a young man twenty-four years of age; a Spaniard of
+Alcala de Henares, "de padres hidalgos y honrados," we are told, although
+these parents were poor. When this young man heard that a battle was
+imminent he rose from his bed and demanded of his captain, Francisco San
+Pedro, that he should be placed in the post of the greatest danger. The
+captain, and others, his friends, counselled him to remain in his bed.
+"Senores," replied the young man, "what would be said of Miguel de
+Cervantes should he take this advice? On every occasion up to this day on
+which his enemies have offered battle to his Majesty I have served like a
+good soldier; and today I intend to do so in spite of this sickness and
+fever." He was given command of twelve soldiers in a shallop, and all day
+was to be seen where the combat raged most fiercely. He received two wounds
+in the chest and another which cost him the loss of his left hand. To those
+to whom he proudly displayed them in after-years he was accustomed to say,
+"wounds in the face or the chest are like stars which guide one through
+honour to the skies." Of him the chronicler says: "He continued the rest of
+his life with honourable memory of this wonderful occurrence, and, although
+he lost the use of his left hand, it added to the glory of his right." How
+glorious was that right hand is known to all readers of _El Ingenioso
+Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha._
+
+The losses at the battle of Lepanto are something so prodigious that
+imagination boggles at them. It is said that the Christians lost five
+thousand men and the Turks no less than thirty thousand. Enormous as these
+numbers are, they represent probably a very conservative estimate of the
+loss. The Turks lost two hundred vessels, and when we recollect the number
+of men embarked on board of the sixteenth-century galleys we can see that
+the numbers are by no means exaggerated, especially as no quarter was given
+on either side. When the Captain Ojeda recaptured the battered wreck which
+had been the _Capitana_ of Malta, we are told that on board of her were
+three hundred dead Turks; if this were the cost of the capture of one
+galley we need not be surprised at the total.
+
+With the results to Europe of this amazing battle we have nothing to do in
+this book. That which it demonstrated, as far as the Sea-wolves were
+concerned, was that they still remained the most competent seamen and
+sea-fighters in the Mediterranean, and that the legend of the invincibility
+of the Ottomans at sea rested on what had been accomplished during a long
+period of years by these insatiable pirates and magnificent warriors.
+
+That which the fighting Pontiff, Pius V., said when he heard of the victory
+is in character with everything which history has told us of this
+remarkable occupant of the chair of Saint Peter. It was short but very much
+to the point, consisting of the one sentence, "Fuit homo misus a Deo cui
+nomen erat Joannes."
+
+In a collection of epitaphs printed in Colonia in 1623 (and edited by one
+Franciscus Swertius) is one in Spanish by an anonymous author on Don John
+of Austria. In this, which takes the form of question and answer, it is
+asked of him "who with so much real glory lies so humbly 'neath this
+stone," what it is that Spain can do for him, what temple or what statue
+can she raise to his honour. To this the hero is made to reply that "My
+temple is found in my works, my statue has been my fame." This is not only
+a pretty conceit, but it is very substantially true when we think of the
+place in history which this man attained.
+
+It remains to speak of the future career of Ali Basha after his experiences
+at Lepanto. He now returned to Constantinople, where he found that the
+bitter complaints of the Janissaries concerning their lack of pay had
+preceded him; this must have been annoying, as by this time so
+insignificant a circumstance had probably escaped his memory. His old
+friend and patron Piali Basha was still in power; the Basha used his
+influence, and the corsair laid at the feet of the Sultan the great
+Standard of Saint John captured by him from the Knights--which was the only
+trophy which came to Constantinople from that disastrous battle; and in
+consequence we are told that "instead of reprimands he was loaded with
+caresses and applauses."
+
+There was in Ali the same dauntless quality of never knowing when he was
+beaten which had distinguished Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa. His exploits at
+Lepanto had secured him the high favour of the Sultan, which he used in a
+manner most grateful to that sovereign by approaching him with a request
+that he might be allowed to fit out another fleet to revenge himself on the
+Christians. The Sultan acceded to his request, and such diligence did he
+use that in June 1572, only eight months after the crushing defeat of the
+Turks, Ali took the sea with two hundred and fifty galleys besides smaller
+vessels. So powerful had he now become that Selim nominated him as his
+Admiralissimo, allowing him also to retain the Bashalic of Algiers. With
+his new fleet he sought out the allies once more, finding them at anchor in
+a port in the Morea. He lay outside the harbour defying them to come out,
+which they refused to do--"but they parted without bloody noses"--is
+Morgan's comment. Haedo attributes this inertia on the part of the allies
+to dissension among their leaders; but, however that may have been, Ali
+gained almost as much favour with the Sultan as if he had defeated them in
+a pitched battle. "But these are the judgments of God and things ordered by
+His divine providence and infinite wisdom," says Haedo. The connection is
+somewhat hard to establish.
+
+In 1573 the Bashalic of Algiers passed into the hands of Arab Ahmed, and in
+this same year Don John of Austria recaptured Tunis from the Turks. Ali,
+with a fleet of two hundred and fifty galleys and forty smaller vessels,
+recaptured it again in a siege lasting forty days, and once more returned
+to Constantinople in triumph with thousands of Spanish captives. He was yet
+to live some years to harass the Christians, against whom he ever displayed
+a most inveterate rancour. In 1576 he set out from Constantinople with
+sixty galleys and ravaged the Calabrian coast, where he had been born. In
+1578, the Janissaries of Algiers having assassinated Arab Ahmed the Basha,
+he was sent to chastise them, which he did with a heavy hand.
+
+Ali was never married, and left no descendants; in the later years of his
+life he built himself a sumptuous palace some five miles from
+Constantinople, and no man in all the realm save the Sultan himself was so
+great a man as the Calabrian renegado, the unknown waif from Southern Italy
+who possessed neither name nor kindred. He was tall and robust in stature,
+but all his life suffered from "scald-head"; for a definition of which
+ailment we may refer the curious to the dictionary. He possessed, for a
+chieftain and a fighting man, the disadvantage of a voice so hoarse as to
+be inaudible at a few paces distant. In default of offspring he maintained
+at his charges five hundred corsairs, whom he called his children. He died
+in the year 1580, and with him what has been called the "Grand Period of
+the Moslem Corsairs" in this book may be said to have come to an end.
+
+By the men whose deeds have been here chronicled the pirate States of
+Northern Africa were established; and, as we have seen, they maintained an
+unceasing warfare against all that was mightiest in Christendom, aided and
+abetted by the Sultans of Constantinople. In the sixteenth century the
+Sea-wolves had this at least to recommend them, that they feared neither
+King nor Kaiser, albeit these great ones of the earth were bent on their
+destruction. Villains as they were, they were none the less men to be
+feared, men in whom dwelt wonderful capabilities of leadership. Such,
+however, was not the case with those by whom they were succeeded; and the
+great and civilised nations of the world tolerated for centuries in their
+midst a race of savage barbarians whose abominable insolence and fiendish
+cruelty were only equalled by their material weakness and military
+impotence. Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli became recognised States, and the
+Great Powers degraded themselves by actually accrediting diplomatic agents
+to the "Courts" of these people.
+
+"The Algerines are robbers, and I am their chief," was the remark made by
+the Dey of Algiers to the English Consul in 1641, and the man spoke the
+plain unvarnished truth. Yet at this time the Algerines had no more than
+sixty-five ships, and no organisation which could have held out for
+twenty-four hours against such attacks as had been successfully resisted on
+many occasions in the previous century.
+
+On April 10th, 1682 (O.S.), "Articles of peace and commerce between the
+most serene and mighty Prince Charles II., by the Grace of God King of
+Great Britain, etc., and the most illustrious (_sic_) Lord, the Bashaw,
+Dey, and Aga, Governor of the famous city of Algiers in Barbary," were
+concluded by "Arthur Herbert, Esquire, Admiral of His Majesty's Fleet." It
+need hardly be said that such a treaty as this was not worth the paper on
+which it was written; that the barbarians by whom it was signed were as
+ignorant as they were unprincipled, and that the only argument which they
+understood at that, or any other time, was that of the right of the
+strongest.
+
+When we of the present day read of the deeds of the corsairs we are filled
+with horror, we fail to understand how such things could have been
+tolerated, we seek for some explanation. When we hear of a "League of
+Christian Princes," and find that all its members could accomplish was to
+turn their arms the one against the other, we are even still more puzzled.
+What was it, then, that lay at the root of this problem? The answer would
+appear to be in the ethical standpoint of the sixteenth century. We are so
+accustomed in the present day to hear of the rights of man that we are apt
+to forget that, in the time of Barbarossa, of Dragut, of Charles V., and
+the Medicean Popes such a thing did not exist, and the only rights
+possessed by the common man were those vouchsafed to him by his sovereign
+lord. We have also to take another factor into consideration, which is that
+what we call "humanity" simply did not exist, the result being that the
+raids of the Sea-wolves were not judged by the great ones of the earth from
+the standpoint of the amount of suffering which they inflicted, but in what
+manner these proceedings affected the wealth and power of the lord of the
+territory which had been despoiled. So differently was society constituted
+in those days that the very victims acquiesced more or less meekly in their
+fate, each one unconsciously voicing that most pathetic saying of the
+Russian peasant that "God is high and the Czar is far away."
+
+The fact of the intolerable lot of the common man in these times helps us
+to understand one thing which otherwise would be an insoluble problem:
+which was, why did Christian soldiers so often become renegadoes and fight
+for the corsairs under the banner of those who were the fiercest and most
+irreconcilable foes of themselves and their kindred? The life of the common
+soldier or sailor did not offer many advantages; it was generally a short
+and anything but a merry one, and the thing by which it was most
+profoundly affected was capture by the corsairs.
+
+When this happened he became either a "gallerian," rowing out his heart on
+the benches of the Moslem galleys, or he festered in some noisome dungeon
+in Algiers, Oran, or Tlemcen. For him, however, there was always one avenue
+of escape open: he had but to acknowledge that Mahomet was the Prophet of
+God and the prison doors would fly open, or the shackles be knocked off the
+chain which bound him to the hell of the rower's bench. Many of the
+Christian captives had really nothing to bind them to the faith of their
+fathers--neither home nor lands, wealth nor kindred, and they were
+doubtless dazzled by the amazing success which accompanied the arms of the
+leaders of the pirates. Is it wonderful, then, that such men in such an age
+should grasp at the chance of freedom and throw in their lot with their
+captors?
+
+It was treachery, it was apostasy, and no amount of sophistry can prove it
+to have been otherwise; but the man who would sit in judgment in the
+present day must try to figure to himself what the life of a galley-slave
+meant--a life so horrible and so terrible that it is impossible, in the
+interest of decency, to set down a tithe of what it really was.
+
+We who in the present day sit in judgment upon the virtues and vices of a
+bygone age can, in the ordered security of our modern civilisation, see
+many things which were hidden from our forefathers, even as in another
+three hundred years our descendants will be able to point the finger of
+scorn at the mistakes which we are now committing. We have seen how it was
+that the pirate States arose; we have seen also how, in future generations,
+they were allowed to abide. We cannot, in common honesty, echo the words
+already quoted of the historian that "these are the judgments of God, and
+things ordered by His divine providence and infinite wisdom," neither can
+we acquit the heirs of the ages for that slackness which prevented them
+from doing their duty; we have, however, to ask ourselves this question,
+that, had it fallen to our own lot to deal with the problem of the
+extermination of the pirates, should we have done better?
+
+One word in conclusion. That which they did has been set down here; the
+record, however, is not complete, as many of their acts of cruelty, lust,
+and oppression are not fitted for publication in the present day. It has
+been said, with truth, that no man is much better or much worse than in the
+age in which he lives; and to hold the scales evenly--if one were tempted
+to shock contemporary opinion by too literal a transcript of all that was
+done by the corsairs--it would also be necessary to cite the reprisals of
+their Christian antagonists. It has seemed better to leave such things
+unchronicled: to present, with as much fidelity as possible, the public
+lives and acts of these troublers of the peace of the sixteenth century.
+Looking back, as we do, over three hundred and fifty years, and judging as
+fairly as is possible, it would seem that there is little which can be said
+in their favour.
+
+But we may at least concede that, no matter how infamous were the
+Barbarossas, Dragut, and Ali, they proved that in them dwelt one rare and
+supreme quality, which, in all the ages, has covered a multitude of sins.
+At a time when every one was a warrior and the whole world was an armed
+camp, men sought great captains in whose following to serve. Among the
+Moslems of Northern Africa, in ordered succession, there rose to the
+surface "veritable men of the sea," in the wake of whose galleys ravened
+the Sea-wolves. When we consider how undisciplined and how stupidly violent
+these pirates were by nature, and how they were welded into a homogeneous
+whole by those of whom we speak, we are forced to the conclusion that
+seldom, in all the ages, have abler captains arisen to take fortune at the
+flood, to dominate the minds and the bodies of a vast host, to prove that
+they were, in deed and in truth, supreme as leaders of men.
+
+
+
+
+AUTHORITIES CONSULTED
+
+Sailing Ships and their Story. E. Keble Chatterton.
+
+Barbary Corsairs: Story of the Nations. Stanley Lane Poole.
+
+Compleat History of the Present Seat of War in Africa between Spaniards
+  and Algerines. 1632. Joseph Morgan.
+
+History of Philip II. William Hickling Prescott.
+
+History of Charles V. Robertson.
+
+Histoire de Barberousse. Richer.
+
+Vie des plus celebres marins. Richer.
+
+Histoire de Barberousse. Sander Rang et Ferdinand Denis.
+
+Doria et Barberousse. Les derniers jours de la Marine aux Rames. Admiral
+  Jurien de la Graviere.
+
+Histoire de Barbarie et ses corsaires. Pierre d'An. Paris, 1637.
+
+Histoire d'Alger. Laugier de Tassy.
+
+Messire Pierre de Bourdeille Seigneur de Brantome. Vie des hommes
+  illustres et grands capitaines etrangers de son temps. 1594.
+
+Histoires de les Chevaliers de Malte. Mons l'Abbe de Vertot. Paris, 17S6.
+
+Histoire de Venise. P. Daru.
+
+Topografia e Historia general de Argel El Senor Don Diego de Haedo.
+
+Reverendissimo Arcobispo de Palermo. Presidente y Capitan-General del
+  Reyno de Sicilia por el Rey Felipe Segundo. Nuestro senor.
+  Valladolid, 1612.
+
+Descripcion general de Africa. Don Luys de Marmol Caravajal. Granada,
+  1573.
+
+Historia de Carlos Quinto. El Maestro Don Fray Prudencio
+  de Sandoval, Obispo de Pampluna. 1612.
+
+El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha. Cervantes.
+
+Arte de Navegar. Martin Cortes.
+
+Dialogos del arte militar. Bernardino de Escalante.
+  Seville, 1583.
+
+Historia del combate naval de Lepanto. Cayetano Rosell.
+
+Epitaphia joco-seria. Francisco Swertius. 1623.
+
+La Guerra dei pirati e la marina Pontifica dal 1500 al 1560.
+  Padre Alberto Guglielmotti.
+
+Storia della sacra religione et illustrissima milizia de San
+  Giovanii Gerosolimitano. Jacopo Bosio.
+
+Lo Assedio di Malta, 18 Maggio-8, Settembre, 1565. Conte
+  Carlo, Sanminiatelli, Zabarella, Colonello.
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF THE KINGS OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, SPAIN, SULTANS OF TURKEY, POPES OF
+ROME, AND GRAND MASTERS OF MALTA, BETWEEN THE DATES 1492-1580, THE PERIOD
+COVERED IN THIS BOOK.
+
+
+ENGLAND
+
+Henry VII., 1485-1509.
+Henry VIII., 1509-47.
+Edward VI., 1547-53.
+Mary, 1553-58.
+Elizabeth, 1558-1603.
+
+
+FRANCE
+
+Charles VIII., 1483-98.
+Louis XII., 1498-1515.
+Francis I., 1515-47.
+Henry II., 1547-59.
+Francis II., 1559-60.
+Charles IX., 1560-74.
+Henry III., 1574-89.
+
+
+SPAIN
+
+Granada, taken by Ferdinand and Isabella, the sovereigns of Aragon and
+Castile ("Los Reyes Catolicos") in 1492. Their daughter, Joanna, married
+Philip, son of the Emperor Maximilian of Germany. Ferdinand died 1516, and
+was succeeded by Charles V., son of Philip and Joanna, as King of Spain, in
+1517. On the death of his grandfather Maximilian, in 1519, Charles was
+elected Emperor of Germany. He resigned all his dignities and retired to
+the monastery of Yuste in 1555, and was succeeded by his son, Philip II.
+Charles died 1558. Philip II., who married as his first wife Mary Tudor, of
+England, reigned from 1555 till 1598.
+
+
+SULTANS OF TURKEY
+
+Bajazet II., 1481-1512; Selim the Cruel, 1512-20; Soliman the Magnificent,
+1520-66; Selim II., known to the Spaniards as "el bebedor" (the
+drunkard), 1566-74; Murad III., 1574-95.
+
+
+POPES OF ROME
+
+Pius III., 1503; Julius II., 1503; Leo X., 1513; Hadrian VI., 1522; Clement
+VII., 1523; Paul III., 1534; Julius III., 1550; Marcellus II., 1555; Paul
+IV., 1555; Pius IV., 1559; Pius V., 1566; Gregory XIII., 1572; Sixtus V.,
+1585.
+
+
+GRAND MASTERS OF THE KNIGHTS OF MALTA
+
+Pierre d'Aubusson, 1476-1503; Emeri d'Amboise, 1503-13; Fabrice Carette,
+1513-21; Villiers de L'Isle Adam, 1521-36; Juan d'Omedes, 1536-53; Claude
+de la Sangle, 1553-57; Jean Parisot de la Valette, 1557-68; Pierre Dumont,
+1568-72; Jean Levesque de la Cassiere, 1572-82.
+
+
+
+
+DISTANCES IN SEA MILES ON THE COAST OF NORTHERN AFRICA
+
+Gibraltar to Oran                                   225'
+Oran to Tenes                                       110'
+Tenes to Shershell                                   41'
+Shershell to Algiers                                 40'
+Algiers to Bona                                     104'
+Bona to Jigelli                                      30'
+Jigelli to Bizerta                                  205'
+Bizerta to Tunis                                     55'
+Tunis to Susa                                       120'
+Susa to Sfax                                         86'
+Sfax to Jerbah, otherwise known as Los Gelues        54'
+Jerbah to Tripoli                                   130'
+Gibraltar to Algiers                                410'
+Algiers to Tunis                                    391'
+Algiers to Tenes                                     91'
+Tunis to Malta                                      232'
+Malta to Tripoli in Barbary                         200'
+Tripoli to Cape Serrano                             350'
+Jerbah to Malta                                     210'
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+Abdahar, 141.
+
+Abu-Abd-Allah-Mahomed, 40.
+
+Actium, battle of, 189, 199, 366.
+
+Adam, Prince Philippe Villiers L'Isle, Grand Master of the Knights of St.
+    John, 42, 124, 299.
+
+Adorno, Antony, 103.
+
+Adriatic, coasts of the, 182.
+
+Adrumentum, 251.
+
+"Africa," town of, position and fortifications, 251,
+  attacked and taken by Dragut, 257-259;
+  besieged by Andrea Doria, 265;
+  captured, 267;
+  mutiny, 268;
+  blown up, 268.
+
+Ahmed, Arab, Basha of Algiers, 375,
+  assassinated, 375.
+
+Albania, coast of, 363, 366.
+
+Al-Burdon, 350.
+
+Alcadaar, Alcaid, 349.
+
+Alcala, Duke of, 311.
+
+Alcala de Henares, 371.
+
+Alcaudite, Count of, his defence of Marzaquivir, 10.
+
+Aldemar, St., Geoffrey de, 291.
+
+Aleppo, 120, 125.
+
+Alexander IV., Pope, 290.
+
+Alexander VI., Pope, 99.
+
+Alexander VII., Pope, initiates the "Alliance of Christian Princes," 38.
+
+Alexandria, 49.
+
+"Alexandria, The Young Moor of," defeated, 177,
+  released, 178.
+
+Alfonso, King of Navarre and Aragon, 291.
+
+Alghieri, Bay of, 235.
+
+Algiers, 2,
+  attacks on, 30, 88;
+  captured, 62, 64;
+  Moorish refugees at, 63;
+  appeal for help, 66;
+  surrenders, 89;
+  mutiny of Janissaries, 355;
+  treaty with King Charles II., 377.
+
+Ali Ahamed, Admiral of Algiers, 345.
+
+Ali, at the siege of Malta, 328.
+
+Ali Basha, or Occhiali or Uluchali, 6, 14, 22,
+  present at the conference held by Soliman, 316;
+  his birthplace, 345;
+  endures the life of a galley-slave, 345;
+  becomes a Mussulman, 346;
+  enters the service of Dragut, 346;
+  at the siege of Malta, 346;
+  appointed Viceroy of Tripoli, 347;
+  Governor of Algiers, 347;
+  view of his duties,347;
+  offered the sovereignty of Tunis, 349;
+  expedition against Hamid, 349;
+  captures Tunis, 350, 375;
+  captures galleys of the Knights, 352-355;
+  at the battle of Lepanto, 363,368-371;
+  his banner, 368;
+  captures the _Capitana_, 370;
+  withdraws and escapes, 371;
+  returns to Constantinople, 373, 375;
+  nominated Admiralissimo, 374;
+  his palace, 375;
+  ailment of "scald-head," 375;
+  death, 376.
+
+Ali Basha, in command of the Turkish forces, 361,
+  at the battle of Lepanto, 367;
+  beheaded, 369.
+
+Ali-Chabelli defeated, 180.
+
+Al-Mehedi, his fortifications of "Africa" blown up, 268.
+
+Amalfi, 287.
+
+Ambracian Gulf, 189.
+
+Amburac, Ibrahim, his plot with Dragut, 253, 256.
+
+Ampasta, Rio de, 83.
+
+An, Rev. Frere Pierre d', on the dangers from the corsairs of
+    Barbary, 20-22, 27.
+
+Andalusia, 4, 15.
+
+Andior, 246.
+
+Andrade, Captain Diego de, 73.
+
+Andros, island of, 187.
+
+Angelo, Michel, 139.
+
+Aponte, Antonio de, "Electo Mayor" of "Africa," 268.
+
+Aragon, Alfonso d', 235.
+
+Aragon, Ferdinand of, acquires Granada, 29,
+  attempts to recover Naples, 99.
+
+Arba, Francisco d', 210, 217.
+
+Archipelago, islands of the, 182,
+  raid on, 187.
+
+Arta, Gulf of, 189, 191, 195, 366.
+
+Aubusson Pierre D', Grand Master of the Knights of St. John, 37,
+    38, 39, 298.
+
+Augustus Caesar, at the battle of Actium, 189, 199.
+
+Austria, Don John of, 23, 230,
+  in command of the forces of the "Holy League," 357;
+  at Barcelona, 357;
+  reception at Naples, 358;
+  dress, 358;
+  appearance, 359, 365;
+  at Messina, 359;
+  his fleet, 364;
+  instructions, 365;
+  at the battle of Lepanto, 366-371;
+  recaptures Tunis, 375
+
+
+Baetio, 141.
+
+Bairan-Ogli, the Reis, in command of the "puissant galleon," 313.
+
+Balearic Islands, 32, 66.
+
+Barbarigo, Provediteur, at the battle of Lepanto, 363.
+
+Barbarossa, Hassan, left in charge of Algiers, 312.
+
+Barbarossa, Khoyr-ed-Din, 6, 14, 17, 22, 108,
+  King of the Sea, 24;
+  his birth, 43;
+  title, 45, 51;
+  joins his brother at the island of Jerba, 50;
+  attacks _The Galley of Naples_, 51-54;
+  his wealth, 56;
+  captures Jigelli, 56-58;
+  his embassy to Soliman, 60, 76;
+  character, 67, 75, 114-116, 127, 219;
+  treatment of Hassan, 85-87;
+  defeated by Venalcadi, 87;
+  his allies, 88;
+  fight against Venalcadi, 88;
+  assisted by Spanish captives, 89;
+  captures Algiers, 89;
+  lays siege to the fortress of Navarro, 92-95;
+  his plunder of the Christians, 108;
+  requested to take the command of the Ottoman fleet, 111;
+  voyage to Constantinople, 112-117;
+  his captures, 113, 133;
+  cruelty, 115, 133, 220;
+  entry into Constantinople, 117;
+  gifts to Soliman, 118;
+  reception, 120;
+  at Aleppo, 125;
+  appointed head of the fleet, 127;
+  his age, 127, 190;
+  appearance, 127;
+  speech to the Sultan, 128-130;
+  raids on the coast of Italy, 133-137;
+  sacks Reggio, 133;
+  captures 11,000 Christian slaves, 133;
+  his attempt to capture Julia Gonzaga, 134-136;
+  enters Tunis 138;
+  massacre of the inhabitants, 141;
+  his fame, 142;
+  appeal for help against the Christian hosts, 146;
+  preparations for defence, 152;
+  joined by the tribesmen, 153;
+  defeated, 158;
+  flight, 159;
+  sufferings of his army, 163;
+  at Bona, 164;
+  embarks, 165;
+  retires to Algiers, 168;
+  return of his men, 169;
+  captures the castle of Minorca, 172;
+  recalled to Constantinople, 173, 178, 182;
+  ravages, 182;
+  number of slaves, 182;
+  sets sail, 185;
+  his innovation in the manning of galleys, 185-187;
+  raid on the islands of the Archipelago, 187;
+  his age, 190;
+  hesitates to fight, 193;
+  anchored in the Gulf of Arta, 194-207;
+  at the battle of Prevesa, 208-216;
+  withdraws from the battle, 213, 2l5, 2l7;
+  his death, 220, 250;
+  ransoms Dragut, 248.
+
+Barbarossa, Uruj, 7, 74,
+  his birth, 43;
+  character, 44;
+  first attempt at piracy, 45;
+  taken prisoner, 46;
+  escapes, 47, 48;
+  presented with a ship, 48;
+  winters at Alexandria, 49;
+  at the island of Jerba, 50;
+  joined by his brother, 50;
+  treaty with the Sultan of Tunis, 51;
+  attackes _The Galley of Naples_, 51-54;
+  wounded, 54;
+  attacks on Bougie, 55, 58;
+  loses an arm, 55;
+  appeal from the Algerines, 66;
+  treatment of Kara-Hassan, 66;
+  besieges Navarre's Tower, 67;
+  slaughters the Berbers, 68-70;
+  defeats Don Diego, 71;
+  marches on Tlemcen, 72;
+  blockaded, 73;
+  killed, 73.
+
+Barbary, coast of, 236.
+
+Barbary, corsairs of, their character, 21.
+
+Barbezieux, his attempt to seize Andrea Doria, 104.
+
+Barcelona, 148, 357.
+
+Bazan, Don Alvaro de, General of the Galleys of Spain, at Barcelona, 149,
+  Admiral of Castile, 359.
+
+Beachy Head, battle of, 283.
+
+Beja, 350.
+
+Bengabara, Alcaid, 349.
+
+Berber tribes, their character, 57,
+  number, 57;
+  conspiracy against Uruj Barbarossa, 68;
+  slaughtered, 69.
+
+Bergerac, Jean Marteille de, on the treatment of slaves on board
+    the galleys, 224.
+
+Bianco, Cape, 189.
+
+Biba, island of, 113.
+
+Bizerta, 2, 40,
+  captured, 41;
+  massacre of, 141.
+
+Boabdil el Chico, yields up Granada, 29.
+
+Bona, 153, 164, 350,
+  Cape, 264.
+
+Bonifacio, Straits of, 113, 136.
+
+Borgo, Il, fortress, siege of, 32, 324, 342.
+
+Bosworth, battle of, 215.
+
+Botaybo, Alcaid, 349.
+
+Bougaroni, Cape, 56.
+
+Bougie, 2, 153,
+  attacks on, 55, 58.
+
+Bouillon, Godfrey de, defeats the Saracens, 287.
+
+Bourdeille, Pierre de, 242, 344.
+
+Bragadino, his defence of Famagusta, 362,
+  killed, 362.
+
+Brigantines, 18, 151, 240.
+
+Broglio, Commandeur, at the siege of Malta, 333.
+
+Byzacena, 40.
+
+Byzantine, Empire, fall of the, 33.
+
+
+Cabri, 246.
+
+Cachidiablo, 88, 90.
+
+Cadiz, 4.
+
+Cadolin, defeated, 100.
+
+Cagliari, Bay of, 152, 236.
+
+Calabria, 345.
+
+Calibia, castle of, surrender, 264.
+
+Canale, Girolame, his victory over the Moslems, 177.
+
+Candia, 187.
+
+Canete, Marquis de, Viceroy and Captain General of Navarre, 147.
+
+Cantara, La Bocca de, 272, 274.
+
+Capello, Vicenzo, his age, 190,
+  in command of the Venetian fleet, 191, 215;
+  at Corfu, 191.
+
+_Capitana_, the, captured, 354, 370,
+  retaken, 371.
+
+Capua, Prior of, his designs for the building of St. Elmo fortress, 325.
+
+Caracosa, Marie, 98.
+
+Caramania, coast of, 35, 37, 45, 48.
+
+Caravajal, Don Luys de Marmol, his "Descripcion general de Affrica," 272.
+
+Caravels, 231.
+
+Carouan, 348.
+
+Castel Rosso, Isle of, 47.
+
+Castile, Isabella of, 29.
+
+Castriot, Constantine, his report on the condition of St. Elmo, 337.
+
+Centurion, Adan, fails to attack Barbarossa, 165.
+
+Cephalonia, 313, 363, 366.
+
+Cervantes, Miguel de, his mention of Ali Basha, 345,
+  at the battle of Lepanto, 371;
+  his wounds, 372.
+
+Charabulac, 242.
+
+Charlemagne, Emperor, his renown, 286.
+
+Charles II., King of England, his treaty with Algiers, 377.
+
+Charles V., Emperor, 14, 79,
+  history of, 43;
+  determines to crush the corsairs, 80;
+  total fleet and army, 81,191;
+  caught in a storm, 82;
+  his wrath on the fall of Navarro, 97;
+  acquisitions, 98;
+  suzerain of Genoa, 101;
+  joined by Andrea Doria, 105;
+  his trust in him, 107;
+  preparations for his attack on Barbarossa, 143;
+  at Barcelona, 148;
+  joined by his allies, 148-150;
+  reviews the armada, 150;
+  embarks in the _Galera Capitana_, 150;
+  attack on the fortress of La Goletta, 156;
+  defeats Barbarossa, 159;
+  letter to the potentates, 163;
+  evacuates Tunis, 166;
+  his mistaken policy, 167;
+  at Corfu, 191;
+  orders the destruction of Dragut, 245, 261;
+  orders the capture of "Africa," 265;
+  denunciation of Dragut, 271;
+  concentrates his fleet at Messina, 278.
+
+"Christian Princes, Alliance of," formed, 38,
+  artillery, 39;
+  seize Naples, 40.
+
+Christian slaves, number of, captured, 133.
+
+Citta Notabile, 308.
+
+Civita Lavinia, 140.
+
+Coeva, Andrea, 98.
+
+Colonna, Camille, taken prisoner, 101.
+
+Colonna, Mark Antony, in command of the Papal fleet, 360, 364.
+
+Colonna, Vespasian, 134.
+
+Columbus, his caravels, 231.
+
+Comares, Marquis de, 80.
+
+Condalmiero, Alessandro, Captain of the _Galleon of Venice_, 192, 194,
+  attacked by the Moslems, 209-213;
+  his victory, 213.
+
+Constantine, 350.
+
+Constantinople, fall of, 33,
+  entry of Barbarossa into, 117.
+
+Cordoba, Don Martin de, his defence of Oran, 10.
+
+Cordoba, Gonsalvo de, the "Great Captain," 39,
+  war against Roverejo, 99;
+  besieges the fortress of Rocca Guillelma, 99.
+
+Cordoba, Mosque at, 64.
+
+Corfu, siege of, 179.
+
+Cornet, Commandeur de, 337.
+
+Cornillan, Pierre de, appointed Grand Master of the Knights of
+    St. John, 298.
+
+Coron, 355.
+
+Coronado, Capt. Juan Vasquez, 273.
+
+Corsairs, Moslem, their iron and rigid discipline, 7.
+  _See_ Moslem
+
+Corsica, coast of, 246.
+
+Corso, Mami, left in charge of Algiers, 349.
+
+Cos, or Lango, island of, fortifications of, 292.
+
+Curtogali, at Bizerta, 40,
+  his depredations, 41;
+  attempt to carry off the Pope, 41, 140;
+  Governor of Rhodes, 42.
+
+Cyprus, island of, 34, 356.
+
+
+Daoud Pasha, Admiral, defeats Grimani, 38.
+
+Dardanelles, 116,
+  fortification of the, 34.
+
+Daru, P., _Histoire de Venise_, 364, 367.
+
+Delizuff, joins forces with Barbarossa, 112,
+  killed, 113.
+
+Diou-Donne, Gozon de, his mode of killing a serpent, 294-296,
+  praises of his services, 297;
+  appointed Grand Master of the Knights of St. John, 298;
+  his death, 298.
+
+Doria Andrea, 6, 22, 108,
+  his birth, 98;
+  parents, 98;
+  sent to Rome, 98;
+  at the court of Urbino, 99;
+  in the service of the King of Aragon, 99;
+  joins Roverejo, 99;
+  takes service with Lodovico Sforza, 100;
+  appointed General of the Galleys, 100;
+  captures the Fort of the Lantern, 100;
+  defeats Cadolin, 100;
+  appointed Captain-General of the Galleys of France, 101;
+  the treatment of Francis I., 102, 104;
+  letter to him, 103;
+  joins Charles V., 105;
+  honours received from Genoa, 105;
+  Admiralissimo of the Navy, 107, 151;
+  defeats the Turks at Patras, 109;
+  at Barcelona, 148;
+  captures Bona, 166;
+  pursuit of Barbarossa, 166;
+  defeats Ali-Chabelli, 180;
+  wounded, 180;
+  appearance, 180;
+  age, 190;
+  his fleet, 192;
+  anchors outside the Gulf of Arta, 194-207;
+  at Sessola, 207;
+  tactics at the battle of Prevesa, 214;
+  sails away, 216;
+  ordered to capture Dragut, 261, 271;
+  his pursuit of him, 262-264;
+  expedition against "Africa," 265;
+  blockades Dragut at Jerbah, 271-275;
+  allows him to escape, 275.
+
+Doria, David, 99.
+
+Doria, Dominique, 98.
+
+Doria, Franco, 192.
+
+Doria, Jannetin, captures Dragut, 245-247.
+
+Doria, John, 165.
+
+Doria, John Andrea, at the battle of Lepanto, 363, 367, 370.
+
+Doria, Philippin, defeats Moncada, 101.
+
+Dragut-Reis, 10, 14, 22,
+  his birth and parents, 242;
+  career, 242;
+  offers his services to Barbarossa, 243;
+  in command of twelve galleys, 243;
+  his destruction ordered, 245, 261;
+  captured by Jannetin Doria, 245-247;
+  employed as a galley slave, 248;
+  ransomed, 248;
+  increase of power, 250;
+  his desire to capture "Africa," 251;
+  plot with Ibrahim Amburac, 253;
+  preparations for the attack, 254-256;
+  wounded, 257;
+  attack on the city, 257-259;
+  pursued by Andrea Doria, 262-264, 271;
+  his "Horrid Devastations," 264;
+  in the siege of "Africa," 265;
+  escapes, 267;
+  at Constantinople, 269, 276;
+  denounced by Charles V., 270;
+  appointed Sandjak, or governor, of the island of Santa Maura, 271;
+  blockaded at Jerban, 271-275;
+  mode of escape, 275;
+  hatred of the Knights of Malta, 276, 286;
+  autocrat of Tripoli, 309;
+  characteristics, 315;
+  at the siege of Malta, 329-339;
+  mortally wounded, 339;
+  death, 341.
+
+Dupuy, Raimond, joins the Hospice of St. John, 288,
+  appointed Grand Master, 289;
+  forms a military corps, 289.
+
+
+Eginard, 286.
+
+Egypt, Soldan of, his treatment of the Knights of Saint John, 34,
+  besieges Rhodes, 36.
+
+Elmo, St., siege of, 6, 301-305, 323-341,
+  appeal of the garrison to abandon the fortress, 335-337;
+  their use of fireworks, 339;
+  fall, 341.
+
+Escalente, Bernardino de, his "Dialogos del arte militar," 371.
+
+Esquemelin, John, his literary labours, 1.
+
+Etienne, St., Mount, 294.
+
+Eutemi, Selim, besieges Algiers, 65,
+  assassinated, 68.
+
+Exmouth, Lord, bombards Algiers,30.
+
+
+Famagusta, captured, 362.
+
+Ferdinand V., King of Spain, joins the "Alliance of Christian Princes," 38,
+  his death, 65.
+
+_Florence_, the, 236.
+
+Floreta, M. de., 144.
+
+Forfait, on the speed of the galley, 234.
+
+Francis I., 14,
+  appoints Andrea Doria Captain of his fleet, 101;
+  attempts to levy a fine, 102;
+  treatment of him, 102;
+  fortifies Savona, 103;
+  letter from Andrea Doria, 103;
+  attempts to take him prisoner, 104;
+  refuses to join in the war against Barbarossa, 144;
+  treachery, 144.
+
+Fundi, 134,
+  sacked by the corsairs, 136.
+
+
+Galeasse, the, 18,
+  description of a, 233.
+
+_Galera Capitana_, 150,
+  number of flags and banners on board, 151.
+
+_Galleon of Venice_, 192, 194, 208,
+  attacked by the Moslems, 209-213;
+  victory, 213.
+
+Galley, 2, 18,
+  sufferings of the rower, 19, 221;
+  innovation in the manning, 185;
+  mobility, 222;
+  length, 222;
+  number of men on board, 223;
+  treatment of the slaves, 223-229, 379;
+  size, 229;
+  mode of opening fire, 230;
+  speed, 234;
+  obsolete, 236.
+
+_Galley of Naples, The_, attacked by the brothers Barbarossa, 51-54.
+
+Gardampe, Chevalier Abel de Bridiers de la, killed at the siege of
+    Malta, 333.
+
+Gelves, 271.
+
+Genoa, 32,
+  arrangement with the Grand Turk, 34;
+  confers honours on Andrea Doria, 105.
+
+Gerard, the founder of the Order of St. John, 287,
+  death, 288.
+
+Gibraltar, Straits of, 15.
+
+Giou, Chevalier de, 313.
+
+Goialatta, 246.
+
+Goletta, La, 348,
+  attack on the fortress, 156;
+  fall, 157;
+  captured, 313.
+
+Gomez, Alvar, left in charge of Bona, 166.
+
+Gonzaga, Hernando de, his advice at the battle of Prevesa, 198.
+
+Gonzaga, Julia, attempt to capture her, 134-136,
+  escape, 136.
+
+Gozo, island of, Knights of St. John at, 277, 299,
+  sacked, 309.
+
+Granada, fall of, 4, 8, 22,
+  expulsion of the Moors from, 8, 29;
+  revolt in, 347.
+
+Grandenico, Count, 178.
+
+Granvelle, Cardinal, 7, 359.
+
+Graviere, Admiral Jurien de la, 17, 54, 127, 214,
+  his description of a Galeasse, 233.
+
+_Great Harry_, 232.
+
+Grimani, Antonio, the Venetian Admiral, defeated at Zonchio, 38.
+
+Grimani, Marco, in command of the Papal contingent, 191, 214,
+  at Corfu, 191;
+  raid on Arta, 191.
+
+Guasto, Marquis de, taken prisoner, 101,
+  his suggestion to Andrea Doria, 104;
+  in command of the army, 156.
+
+Guerare, Sergeant-Major, at the siege of Malta, 332.
+
+Guglielmotti, Alberto, his work "La Guerra dei Pirati," 39, 41, 180.
+
+Guimeran, Commandeur de, success of his ambush, 307.
+
+_Guzmana_, the galley, 371.
+
+
+Hadj-Hossein, his embassy to Selim I., 76-78.
+
+Haedo, Don Fray Diego de, his _History of Algiers_, 96, 348, 353, 374.
+
+Hamid, King of Tunis, character of his rule, 348,
+  conspiracy against, 349;
+  flight, 350.
+
+Hassan Ali, 53,
+  ravages towns and villages, 83;
+  repulsed by Spaniards, 84;
+  flogged and imprisoned, 86;
+  released, 87;
+  attacks Barbarossa, 87.
+
+Hassem, his attack on Oran, 10,
+  retreat, 10.
+
+Henry II., 34.
+
+Henry VII., 215.
+
+Henry VIII., 14.
+
+Herbert, Arthur, concludes a treaty with Algiers, 377.
+
+Himeral, Basha, 114, 125.
+
+Hogue, La, battle of, 283.
+
+Honore II., Pope, 291.
+
+Horusco, Pero Lopez de, 166.
+
+Hunyadi, John, 14.
+
+Hyeres, island of, 234.
+
+
+Ibrahim, Grand Vizier to Soliman, 9,
+  his mission to Aleppo, 120;
+  advice, 123;
+  impressions of Barbarossa, 126;
+  return from Aleppo, 132;
+  his relations with Soliman, 173;
+  murdered, 176.
+
+Innocent VIII., Pope, 98.
+
+Ionian Islands, 179.
+
+Ionian Sea, 49.
+
+Ithaca, island of, 366.
+
+Iviza, 82.
+
+
+Janissaries, their character as soldiers, 8,
+  institution, 279;
+  system of training, 280;
+  mutiny in Algiers, 355.
+
+Jerbale, 2, 50, 153, 251.
+
+Jerusalem, Hospice of St. John at, 287.
+
+Jigelli, 2, 56,
+  siege of, 57.
+
+John of Jerusalem, St., Knights of, 18.
+  _See_ Knights
+
+Judeo, El, 88.
+
+
+Kara-Hassan, takes possession of Shershell, 66,
+  beheaded, 67.
+
+Khorkud, Governor of Caramania, 48.
+
+Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, or Knights of Malta, their bigotry, 18,
+  take refuge at Limasol, 34;
+  characteristics, 35, 36;
+  fortifications of Rhodes, 35;
+  faith, 36;
+  repulse the Turks, 37;
+  expelled from Rhodes, 42, 277;
+  forced to retreat to Malta, 42, 277, 292;
+  their use of galleys, 229;
+  fight for their "Religion," 277;
+  warfare against the corsairs, 277;
+  history of the Order, 286-291;
+  founded at Jerusalem, 287;
+  Grand Masters, 289-298, 301;
+  crusade against the Infidel, 289;
+  composition of the Order, 289;
+  languages, 290;
+  dress, 290;
+  form of government, 291;
+  in the siege of Malta, 300, 324-342;
+  number of deaths, 300;
+  capture fortresses, 312;
+  capture the "puissant galleon," 313;
+  at Licata, 352;
+  their galleys captured by Ali Basha, 352-355.
+
+Knights Templars, foundation of the Order, 291,
+  code of regulations, 291.
+
+Kustir-Aga, chief Eunuch of the Seraglio, 313.
+
+
+Lamirande, Chevalier, at the siege of Malta, 334,
+  killed, 341.
+
+_Lancaster_, the cruiser, 231.
+
+Lanciani, extract from "The Golden Age of the Renaissance," 139.
+
+Lantern, Fort of the, captured, 100.
+
+Lautrec, Marshal de, 104.
+
+Leo X., Pope, 41,
+  attempt on his life, 140;
+  flight to Rome, 141.
+
+Lepanto, battle of, 6, 23, 362-372;
+  number of killed and wounded, 372.
+
+Lerici, 104.
+
+Leyva, Antonio de, 143.
+
+Leyva, Don Sancho de, Governor of "Africa," 267.
+
+Liazzo, 246.
+
+Licastelli, 345.
+
+Licata, 352.
+
+Limasol, 34.
+
+Loredano, Jacques, 34.
+
+Loredano, Captain, at the battle of Lepanto, 369.
+
+Los Gelues, 112, 271.
+
+Louis XII., 100,
+  joins the "Alliance of Christian Princes," 38.
+
+
+Magliana, Castle of, 140.
+
+Mahan, Rear-Admiral, his books on "Sea Power," 14.
+
+Mahomedi, banished from Constantinople, 43,
+  his sons, 43.
+
+Mahomet, result of his death, 286.
+
+Mahomet II., Caliph, captures Constantinople, 33,
+  fortifies the Dardanelles, 34;
+  defeated Rhodes, 38;
+  death, 38.
+
+Majorca, 172.
+
+Malipier, Captain, at the battle of Lepanto, 369.
+
+Malta, siege of, 6, 22, 299-305, 324-342,
+  number of deaths, 300;
+  position, 315;
+  expedition against, 316;
+  preparations for the siege, 318-321.
+
+Malta, Knights of.
+  _see_ Knights
+
+_Marquesa_, the galley, 371.
+
+Marsa Muzetto harbour, 325, 331.
+
+Marsaquivir, attack on, 10.
+
+Maura, Santa, island of, 207, 271.
+
+Mecca, 4.
+
+Medina-Celi, Juan la Cerda, Duke of, expedition against Tripoli, 311.
+
+Medran, Chevalier Gonzales de, at the siege of St. Elmo, 327, 332, 335.
+
+Mehedia, 251.
+
+Melac, Commandeur Gozon de, 312.
+
+Mendoza, Bernard de, in command of La Goletta, 166.
+
+Mendoza, Don Luis Hurtado de, 143.
+
+Messina, 180, 278, 359.
+
+Minorca, 172.
+
+Mitylene, island of, 43.
+
+Monastir, 2, 250.
+
+Moncada, Don Hugo de, Viceroy of Sicily, 80,
+  escapes to Iviza, 82;
+  defeated and slain, 101.
+
+Mondejar, Marquis de, 143.
+
+Monferrato, Monastery of Nuestra Senora de, pilgrimages to, 150, 357.
+
+Monte Cristo island, 113.
+
+Montmorency, Anne de, 281.
+
+Monuc, the eunuch, 206.
+
+Moors, their characteristics, 4,
+  expulsion from Granada, 8, 29;
+  their condition in Algiers, 63.
+
+Morea, the, 355, 366.
+
+Morgan, Sir Henry, his capture of Panama, 24.
+
+Morgan, J., his _Compleat History of Algiers_, 243, 250, 345.
+
+Moriscoes, their persecutions, 5,
+  revolt in Granada, 347.
+
+Mosca, Lodovico del, 39.
+
+Moslem corsairs, their cupidity, 3,
+  driven out of Spain, 4, 29;
+  characteristics, 4, 67, 241;
+  fanaticism, 5, 17;
+  supremacy on the sea, 8;
+  frequent defeats, 10;
+  tyranny, 11;
+  ships, 18;
+  booty, 24;
+  cruel methods, 24, 32;
+  retrogression, 239;
+  mode of commencing their careers, 240;
+  conquer Palestine, 286;
+  at the siege of Malta, 300;
+  number of deaths, 300.
+
+Motte, Chevalier de la, at the siege of St. Elmo, 327.
+
+Mourad-Reis, 201.
+
+Moustafa-Billah, Caliph, 287.
+
+Muley Hamid, negotiations with, 330.
+
+Muley Hassan, King of Tunis, 130, 137,
+  restored to his kingdom, 161;
+  terms of his vassalage, 162.
+
+Mustafa, in command of the land forces against Malta, 316, 322,
+  captures Famagusta, 362.
+
+
+Naples, seized, 40,
+  invasion of, 90;
+  reception of Don John of Austria at, 358.
+
+Navarro, Count Pedro de, seizes the town of Bougie, 55,
+  captures Algiers, 62, 64;
+  his Tower, 64.
+
+Navarro's Tower, siege of, 65, 67, 91-95,
+  captured, 95;
+  pulled down, 97.
+
+Nef, the, 18, 232.
+
+Negropont, Bailli of, at the siege of Malta, 326, 332, 333,
+  killed, 341.
+
+Nunez, Martin, his embassy to the Pope, 163.
+
+
+Occhiali.
+  _See_ Ali Basha.
+
+Ojeda, Captain, rescues the _Capitana_ at the battle of Lepanto, 371.
+
+Omedes, Juan d', Grand Master of the Knights of St. John, 278,
+  warned of the approach of the corsairs, 281;
+  refuses to take alarm, 281, 306.
+
+Oneglia, 98.
+
+Oran, 2, 73,
+  attack on, 10.
+
+Oristano, Gulf of, 236.
+
+Osmanli, their warlike achievements on land, 15.
+
+Ottoman, 292,
+  his siege of Rhodes, 293.
+
+_Our Lady of the Conception_, 45.
+
+
+Palamos, Bay of, 236.
+
+Palermo, 265.
+
+Palestine, conquered by Moslems, 286.
+
+Palma, 172.
+
+Panama, capture of, 24.
+
+Pantellaria, island of, 236.
+
+Pantera, Captain Pantero, "L' Armata Navale," 225.
+
+Parma, Prince of, at the battle of Lepanto, 364.
+
+Paschal II., Pope, 301.
+
+Passaro, Cape, 352.
+
+Patras, Turks defeated at, 109.
+
+_Patrona_ galley, capture of, 275.
+
+Paul III., his scheme of defence for Rome, 139.
+
+Paxo, island of, 180.
+
+Payens, Hugues de, founds the Order of the Knights Templars, 291.
+
+Pedro, Francisco San, 371.
+
+Penne, Barras de la, on the treatment of men on board the galleys, 223.
+
+Peter the Hermit, 287.
+
+Philip II., King of Spain, 274, 311,
+  forms the "Holy League," 357;
+  his fleet, 360.
+
+Piali, Admiral, 10,
+  in command of the fleet against Malta, 316, 322.
+
+Pierre, St., Isle of, 235.
+
+Pius V., Pope, 356, 373,
+  forms the "Holy League," 357.
+
+Portugal, Don Juan, King of, his armada at Barcelona, 148.
+
+Portugal, Prince Luis of, at Barcelona, 148, 150.
+
+Prescott, William Hickling, 4,
+  his description of the Janissaries, 279;
+  of Don John of Austria, 358;
+  of the battle of Lepanto, 364, 368.
+
+Press-gang, methods of the, 226.
+
+Prevesa, battle of, 6, 22, 108, 189, 190, 194-218, 366.
+
+Punta delle Forche, 277, 333.
+
+
+Rabadan, Celebi, 92, 112.
+
+Rabadan, left in charge of Tunis, 351.
+
+Raschid, 130, 137.
+
+Raschid, Caliph Haroun, 287.
+
+Ravenstein, Count Philip of, 39.
+
+_Real_, the, 364.
+
+Reggio, 32,
+  sack of, 133.
+
+Reis, Aisa-, left in charge of "Africa," 261, 264,
+  his defence, 266;
+  captured, 267.
+
+Reis, Dragut-,
+  _See_ Dragut
+
+Requesens, Don Luiz de, disaster to his fleet, 234.
+
+_Revenge_, the, 354.
+
+Rhodes, island of, 242,
+  seized by the Knights of St. John, 35, 292;
+  besieged, 36, 293;
+  serpent at, 294-296;
+  derivation of the name, 297.
+
+Ribera, Don Perisan de, 80.
+
+Ricasoli, 333.
+
+Richard II, 215.
+
+Rio, Juan del, taken captive, 71.
+
+Riviere, Chevalier La, 322.
+
+Robeira, Captain, repulses the corsairs, 84.
+
+Rocca Guillelma, fortress of, besieged, 99.
+
+Rodas, Capitan de, 111.
+
+Roderick the Goth, conquered by the Osmanli, 15, 29.
+
+Rome, fortifications of, 139.
+
+Romegas, Commandeur de, 312, 313,
+  his account of the battle of Lepanto, 360.
+
+Rosell, Don Cayetano, his _Historia del combate naval de
+    Lepanto_, 359, 364.
+
+Roverejo, Juan, war with Cordoba, 99.
+
+Roxalana, Sultana, her influence over Soliman, 174,
+  characteristics, 174;
+  jealousy, 174;
+  murders Ibrahim, 176.
+
+
+Salaerrez, 88.
+
+Saleh-Reis, 187.
+
+Salerno, Gulf of, 101.
+
+Sallee, the rovers, 237.
+
+Sandoval, El Maestro Don Fray Prudencio de, his history of
+    Charles V., 43, 70, 71, 108, 142, 144, 150, 155.
+
+Sangle, Claude de la, his death, 309.
+
+Sangullo, Antonio de, 139.
+
+_Santa Ana_, bravery of the, 353.
+
+Santa Cruz, Marquis of, at the battle of Lepanto, 364,
+  rescues the _Capitana_, 371.
+
+_Santa Maria_, the flagship of Columbus, 231.
+
+Sardinia, 136.
+
+Satalie, Gulf of, 47.
+
+Savona, fortification of, 103.
+
+Sceberass, Mount, 301, 307, 325, 342.
+
+Scutari, 38.
+
+Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean,
+  take refuge in Northern Africa, 1;
+  their deeds of terror, 2;
+  cupidity, 3;
+  fanaticism, 5, 17;
+  autocratic rule, 7, 25;
+  equality, 7;
+  aptitude for the sea, 8;
+  defeats, 10;
+  nefarious doings, 15;
+  characteristics of their leaders, 16, 25, 284, 376;
+  ships, 18;
+  character of the men, 26;
+  leagues against, 29;
+  relations with the Turks, 33.
+
+Seignelay, his criticism of Admiral de Tourville, 283.
+
+Selim I., Sultan of Turkey.
+  _See_ Soliman
+
+Selim II., Sultan of Turkey, 356,
+  his character, 356;
+  lays claim to the island of Cyprus, 356.
+
+Serpent, method of killing, 294-296.
+
+Sesse, Duke of, 311.
+
+Sessola, islet of, 207.
+
+Sfax, 2, 250.
+
+Sforza, Lodovico, Duke of Milan, 100.
+
+Shershell, 2, 66.
+
+Shott-el-Jerid, 153.
+
+Sinan-Reis, in command of La Goletta fortress, 156,
+  at the battle of Prevesa, 197;
+  in command of the Janissaries, 279, 281;
+  character as a leader, 285, 307;
+  his expedition against Malta, 306;
+  sacks the island of Gozo, 309;
+  captures Tripoli, 309.
+
+Skiathos, 187.
+
+Skios island, 187.
+
+Slaves, on board galleys, their treatment, 223-229,
+  mutiny at Lepanto, 228.
+
+Smyrna, Basha of, 48.
+
+Soliman the Magnificent, Sultan of Turkey, 9, 14, 109,
+  expels the Knights of St. John from Rhodes, 42, 277, 299;
+  embassy from Barbarossa, 60, 76;
+  sends reinforcements, 61;
+  recalls his ships, 61;
+  his conquest of the Mamelukes, 77;
+  invites the cooperation of Barbarossa, 110;
+  appoints him commander of his fleet, 111, 117, 127;
+  receives gifts from him, 118;
+  his reception of him, 120;
+  relations with Ibrahim, 173;
+  under the influence of Roxalana, 174;
+  declares war against Venice, 179;
+  defeated, 179;
+  preparations for campaigns, 183, 277, 316;
+  his demands from Charles V., 270;
+  loss of his "puissant galleon," 313;
+  lamentations of his people, 314;
+  holds a conference, 316;
+  expedition against Malta, 316;
+  his death, 356.
+
+Spaniards, under Moorish rule, 30,
+  expedition against the Barbarossas, 62;
+  repulse Hassan, 84;
+  captives, assist in the capture of Algiers, 89;
+  restored to liberty, 89.
+
+Spartivento, Cape, 136.
+
+Spezzia, Gulf of, 104.
+
+Susa, 2, 250.
+
+Swertius, Franciscus, his collection of epitaphs, 373.
+
+
+Tabas, 88.
+
+Taranto, 32.
+
+Tarik, 15, 29.
+
+Tenes, 2,
+  fall of, 72.
+
+Thevenot, his Travels, 297.
+
+Tiber, the, 139.
+
+Tineo, Garzia de, kills Uruj Barbarossa, 73.
+
+Tlemcen, 2.
+
+Tlemcen, Sultan of, his flight to Fez, 72.
+
+Toledo, Don Garcia de, 230;
+  in the expedition against Dragut, 265;
+  his character as a ruler, 317.
+
+Toledo, Don Pedro de, 273.
+
+Tours, Viscomte de, sent to Genoa, 102.
+
+Tourville, Admiral de, criticism on, 283.
+
+Traparni, 265.
+
+Tripoli, 2, 153,
+  defence of, 10;
+  capture, 309;
+  fortifications, 311;
+  expedition against, 311.
+
+Trivulce, Theodore, 104.
+
+Tunis, 2,
+  captured by the corsairs, 137, 375;
+  massacre in, 141, 159;
+  fortifications repaired, 146;
+  rebellion in, 348;
+  appeal to Ali Basha, 349;
+  flight of Hamid, 350.
+
+Tunis, Sultan of, his treaties with the Barbarossas, 51, 61,
+  repudiates treaty, 59.
+
+Turks, their character as soldiers, 8, 124,
+  relations with the Sea-wolves, 33;
+  attack on Rhodes, 37;
+  defeated at Patras, 109.
+
+Tuscany, Duke of, 235.
+
+
+Urbain II., Pope, 287.
+
+Urbino, Duke of, 99,
+  at the battle of Lepanto, 364.
+
+
+Vagnor, Chevalier, 333.
+
+Valentia, ravaged by corsairs, 83.
+
+Valetta, position of, 307, 342.
+
+Valette, Jean Parisot de la, Grand Master of the Knights of
+  St. John, 6, 248;
+  his characteristics, 301, 309;
+  creed, 302;
+  personal example in the siege of Malta, 302-305;
+  his high conception of duty, 310;
+  expedition against Tripoli, 311;
+  repulsed, 312;
+  summons help, 318;
+  preparations for the siege, 318-321;
+  address to his brethren, 319;
+  at the siege of Malta, 324-328;
+  reinforcements, 328.
+
+Vargas, Martin de, in command of the fortress of Navarro, 91,
+  besieged, 91-95;
+  wounded and taken prisoner, 95;
+  beheaded, 96.
+
+Vasto, Marquis de, 143.
+
+Vega, Don Alvaro, in command of "Africa," 267.
+
+Vega, Don Juan de, Viceroy of Sicily, 273,
+  in the expedition against Dragut, 265.
+
+Velez, Penon de, captured, 312.
+
+Venalcadi, 73,
+  escapes, 86;
+  attacks Barbarossa, 87;
+  fight, 88;
+  beheaded, 88.
+
+_Vengeur_, the, 354.
+
+Venice, 32,
+  treaty of commerce concluded, 34;
+  relations with Soliman, 179;
+  war declared, 179;
+  "Holy League" formed, 357.
+
+Veniero, Sebastian in command of the Venetian fleet, 360, 364.
+
+Vera, Don Diego de, sent to capture Algiers, 70,
+  defeated, 71.
+
+Vercoyran, Chevalier de, at the siege of Malta, 332.
+
+Vertot, M. L'Abbe de, 273, 297, 311.
+
+_Victory_, the, 354.
+
+Villaret, Fulke de, Grand Master of the Knights of St. John, 35,
+  seizes Rhodes, 35, 292.
+
+Villegagnon, Commandeur de, his interview with the Grand Master, 281.
+
+Villeneuve, Helion de, Grand Master of the Knights of St. John, 293,
+  character of his rule, 293;
+  death, 297.
+
+Vittoriosa, 299.
+
+Volo, Gulf of, 187.
+
+
+Ximenes, Fray Francisco, Cardinal Bishop of Toledo, 70.
+
+
+Yamboli, 216.
+
+Yonis Bey, sent to Venice, 178.
+
+
+Zante, island of, 114, 313.
+
+Zara, port of, 227.
+
+Zay, Basha, 114, 125.
+
+Zonchio, battle of, 38.
+
+
+
+
+PRINTED BY
+
+HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LTD.,
+
+LONDON AND AYLESBURY.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean
+by E. Hamilton Currey
+
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+Project Gutenberg's Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean, by E. Hamilton Currey
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
+
+
+Title: Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean
+
+Author: E. Hamilton Currey
+
+Release Date: October 10, 2004 [EBook #13689]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SEA-WOLVES OF THE MEDITERRANEAN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Robert Connal and the Online Distributed Proofreading
+Team, from images generously provided by the Million Books Project.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+SEA-WOLVES OF THE MEDITERRANEAN
+
+
+
+[Illustration: KHEYR-ED-DIN BARBAROSSA--CORSAIR, ADMIRAL, AND KING.]
+
+
+
+SEA-WOLVES OF THE MEDITERRANEAN
+
+
+THE GRAND PERIOD OF THE MOSLEM CORSAIRS
+
+
+
+
+BY COMMANDER E. HAMILTON CURREY, R.N.
+
+
+WITH PORTRAITS AND ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+  "Ships be but boards, sailors but men:
+  There be land rats and water rats, land thieves and water thieves,
+  I mean pirates."
+
+  _Merchant of Venice_.
+
+
+LONDON
+
+JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W
+
+1910
+
+
+
+
+TO THAT GRACIOUS LADY TO WHOSE COUNSEL AND ENCOURAGEMENT I OWE SO MUCH MORE
+THAN ANY ONE--SAVE I--CAN IMAGINE...
+
+TO MY WIFE
+
+I DEDICATE THIS BOOK
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+When the ship is ready for launching there comes a moment of tense
+excitement before the dogshores are knocked away and she slides down the
+ways. In the case of a ship this excitement is shared by many thousands,
+who have assembled to acclaim the birth of a perfected product of the
+industry of man; the emotion is shared by all those who are present. It is
+very different when a book has been completed. The launching has been
+arranged for and completed by expert hands; she like the ship gathers way
+and slides forth into an ocean: but, unlike the ship which is certain to
+float, the waters may close over and engulf her, or perchance she may be
+towed back to that haven of obscurity from which she emerged, to rust there
+in silence and neglect. There is excitement in the breast of one man
+alone--to wit, the author. If his book possesses one supreme qualification
+she will escape the fate mentioned, and this qualification is--interest. As
+the weeks lengthened into months, and these multiplied themselves to the
+tale of something like twenty-four, the conviction was strengthened that
+that which had so profoundly interested the writer, would not be altogether
+indifferent to others. For some inscrutable reason the deeds of sea-robbers
+have always possessed a fascination denied to those of their more numerous
+brethren of the land; and in the case of the Sea-wolves of the sixteenth
+century we are dealing with the very aristocrats of the profession.
+Circumstances over which they had no control flung the Moslem population of
+Southern Spain on to the shores of Northern Africa: to revenge themselves
+upon the Christian foe by whom this expropriation had been accomplished was
+natural to a warrior race; and those who heretofore had been land-folk pure
+and simple took to piracy as a means of livelihood. It is of the deeds of
+these men that this book treats; of their marvellous triumphs, of their
+apparently hopeless defeats, of the manner in which they audaciously
+maintained themselves against the principalities and the powers of
+Christendom always hungering for their destruction.
+
+The quality which Napoleon is said to have ascribed to the British
+Infantry, "of never knowing when they were beaten," seems to have also
+characterised the Sea-wolves; as witness the marvellous recuperation of
+Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa when expelled from Tunis by Charles V.; and the
+escape of Dragut from the island of Jerba when apparently hopelessly
+trapped by the Genoese admiral, Andrea Doria. All through their history the
+leaders of the Sea-wolves show the resourcefulness of the real seamen that
+they had become by force of circumstances, and it was they who in the age
+in which they dwelt showed what sea power really meant. Sailing through the
+Mediterranean on my way to Malta in the spring of this year, as the good
+ship fared onwards I passed in succession all those lurking-places from
+which the Moslem Corsairs were wont to burst out upon their prey. Truly it
+seemed as if
+
+  "The spirits of their fathers might start from every wave,"
+
+and in imagination one pictured the rush of the pirate galley, with its
+naked slaves straining at the oar of their taskmasters, its fierce,
+reckless, beturbaned crew clustered on the "rambades" at the bow and stern.
+It might be that they would capture some hapless "round-ship," a
+merchantman lumbering slowly along the coast; or again they might meet with
+a galley of the terrible Knights of St. John or of the ever-redoubtable
+Doria. In either case the Sea-wolves were equal to their fortune, to
+plunder or to fight in the name of Allah and his prophet.
+
+That which differentiated the Sea-wolves from other pirates was the
+combination which they effected among themselves; the manner in which these
+lawless men could subordinate themselves to the will of one whom they
+recognised as a great leader. To obtain such recognition was no easy
+matter, and the manner in which this was done, by those who rose by sheer
+force of character to the summit of this remarkable hierarchy, has here
+been set forth.
+
+E. HAMILTON CURREY.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY                                                 1
+
+CHAPTER I
+THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS                                  13
+
+CHAPTER II
+THE COMING OF THE CORSAIRS                                  28
+
+CHAPTER III
+URUJ BARBAROSSA                                             43
+
+CHAPTER IV
+THE DEATH OF URUJ BARBAROSSA                                59
+
+CHAPTER V
+KHEYR-ED-DIN BARBAROSSA                                     75
+
+CHAPTER VI
+THE TAKING OF THE PE�ON D'ALGER; ANDREA DORIA               91
+
+CHAPTER VII
+THE APOTHEOSIS OF THE CORSAIR KING                         107
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+THE RAID ON THE COAST OF ITALY; JULIA GONZAGA              123
+
+CHAPTER IX
+BARCELONA, MAY 1535; THE GATHERING OF THE
+CHRISTIAN HOSTS                                            139
+
+CHAPTER X
+THE FALL OF TUNIS AND THE FLIGHT OF BARBAROSSA             155
+
+CHAPTER XI
+ROXALANA AND THE MURDER OF IBRAHIM                         172
+
+CHAPTER XII
+THE PREVESA CAMPAIGN; THE GATHERING OF THE
+  FLEETS                                                   189
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+THE BATTLE OF PREVESA                                      205
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+THE NAVY OF OARS. THE GALLEY, THE GALEASSE,
+  AND THE NEF                                              221
+
+CHAPTER XV
+DRAGUT-REIS                                                238
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+DRAGUT-REIS                                                254
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+DRAGUT-REIS                                                269
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+THE KNIGHTS OF ST. JOHN                                    286
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+DRAGUT-REIS                                                306
+
+CHAPTER XX
+THE SIEGE OF MALTA                                         324
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+ALI BASHA                                                  344
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+LEPANTO                                                    362
+
+AUTHORITIES CONSULTED                                      383
+
+LIST OF THE KINGS OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, SPAIN,
+  SULTANS OF TURKEY, POPES OF ROME, AND GRAND
+  MASTERS OF MALTA FROM 1492 TO 1580                       385
+
+DISTANCES IN SEA MILES ON THE COAST OF NORTHERN
+  AFRICA                                                   387
+
+INDEX                                                      389
+
+
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+I wish to record my cordial recognition of the kindness shown to me at
+Malta by Mr. Salvino Sant Manduca. The picture of the carrack opposite to
+page 300 was a gift from him. The galley of the Knights of Malta is a
+reproduction of a picture hanging in his house. I should also like to thank
+him for the time and trouble which he took on my behalf during my stay at
+Malta, and the keen interest he displayed in my subject.
+
+R. HAMILTON CURREY.
+
+
+KHEYR-ED-DIN BARBAROSSA--CORSAIR, ADMIRAL, AND KING      _Frontispiece_
+
+                                                            FACING PAGE
+
+URUJ AND KHEYR-ED-DIN BARBAROSSA                                     44
+
+ANDREA DORIA, PRINCE OF ONEOLIA, ADMIRAL TO CHARLES V.               92
+
+SOLIMAN THE MAGNIFICENT                                             110
+
+THE EMPEROR CHARLES V                                               150
+
+MULEY HASSAN KING OF TUNIS                                          162
+
+GALEASSE UNDER SAIL                                                 194
+
+GALLEY UNDER OARS                                                   222
+
+BRIGANTINE CHASING FELUCCA                                          236
+
+GOZON DE DIEU-DONN� SLAYING THE GREAT SERPENT OF RHODES             294
+
+CARRACK IN WHICH THE KNIGHTS ARRIVED AT MALTA, 1530                 300
+
+JEAN PARISOT DE LA VALETTE, GRAND MASTER OF THE KNIGHTS
+  OF MALTA, AT THE SIEGE OF THAT ISLAND BY THE TURKS
+  IN 1565                                                           324
+
+DEATH OF DRAGUT AT THE SIEGE OF MALTA                               340
+
+A GALLEY OF THE KNIGHTS OF MALTA                                    354
+
+DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA                                                 362
+
+SEBASTIAN VENIERO                                                   364
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY
+
+In all the ages of which we have any record there have been men who gained
+a living by that practice of robbery on the high seas which we know by the
+name of Piracy. Perhaps the pirates best known to the English-speaking
+world are the buccaneers of the Spanish Main, who flourished exceedingly in
+the seventeenth century, and of whom many chronicles exist: principally
+owing to the labours of that John Esquemelin, a pirate of a literary turn
+of mind, who added the crime of authorship to the ill deeds of a sea-rover.
+The Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean in the preceding century did not raise
+up a chronicler from among themselves: for not much tincture of learning
+seems to have distinguished these desperate fighters and accomplished
+seamen, descendants of those Spanish Moslems who had, during the Middle
+Ages, lived in a land in which learning and culture had been held in the
+highest estimation. Driven from their homes, their civilisation crushed,
+their religion banned in that portion of Southern Spain in which they had
+dwelt for over seven centuries, cast upon the shores of Northern Africa,
+these men took to the sea and became the scourge of the Mediterranean. That
+which they did, the deeds which they accomplished, the terror which they
+inspired, the ruin and havoc which they wrought, have been set forth in the
+pages of this book.
+
+It was the age of the galley, the oar-propelled vessel which moved
+independently of the wind in the fine-weather months of the great inland
+sea. Therefore to the dwellers on the coast the Sea-wolves were a perpetual
+menace; as, when booty was unobtainable at sea, they raided the towns and
+villages of their Christian foes. During all the period here dealt with no
+man's life, no woman's honour, was safe from these pirates within the area
+of their nefarious activities. They held the Mediterranean in fee, they
+levied toll on all who came within reach of their galleys and their
+scimitars. Places unknown to the geography of the sixteenth century became
+notorious in their day, and Christian wives and mothers learned to tremble
+at the very names of Algiers and Tunis. From these places the rovers issued
+to capture, to destroy, and to enslave: in Oran and Tlemcen, in Tenes,
+Shershell, Bougie, Jigelli, Bizerta, Sfax, Susa, Monastir, Jerbah, and
+Tripoli they lurked ready for the raid and the foray. At one time all
+Northern Africa would thrill to the triumph of the Moslem arms, at another
+there would go up the wail of the utterly defeated; but in spite of
+alternations of fortune the Sea-wolves abode in the localities of their
+choice, and ended in establishing those pirate States which troubled the
+peace of the Mediterranean practically until the introduction of steam.
+
+The whole record of the sixteenth century is one of blood and fire, of
+torture and massacre, of "punic faith" and shameless treason; the deeds of
+the sea-rovers, appalling as they were, frequently found a counterpart in
+the battles, the sieges, and the sacking of towns which took place
+perpetually on the continent of Europe.
+
+There was so much history made at this period, the stage of world politics
+was occupied by so many great, striking, and dazzling personalities, that
+the Sea-wolves and all they accomplished were to a great extent
+overshadowed by happenings which the chroniclers of the time considered to
+be of greater importance. In this no doubt they were right in the main;
+but, in spite of this opinion which they held, we find that time and again
+the main stream of events is ruffled by the prows of the pirate galleys.
+Such men as the Barbarossas, as Dragut, and Ali Basha could only have been
+suppressed and exterminated had the whole might of Christendom been turned
+against them, for they held in their hands two weapons, the keenest and
+most powerful with which to attain the objects which they had in view.
+
+The first and more powerful of these was the appeal in a rough and warlike
+age to the cupidity of mankind. "Those who are content to follow us," they
+said in effect, "are certain to enrich themselves if they are men stout of
+heart and strong of hand. All around us lie rich and prosperous lands; we
+have but to organise ourselves, and to take anything that we wish for; we
+can, if we like, gather a rich harvest at comparatively small trouble."
+Such counsels as these did not fall on deaf ears. Driven from the land of
+plenty--from glorious Andalusia with its fruitful soil, its magnificent
+cities, its vines and olives, its fruit and grain, its noble rivers and
+wide-spreading _vegas_--the Spanish Moslem of the day of the Sea-wolves was
+an outcast and a beggar, ripe for adventure and burning for revenge on
+those by whom he had been expropriated.
+
+Great historians like William Hickling Prescott tell us that, in the course
+of the seven centuries of the Moslem domination in Spain, the Moors had
+become soft and effeminate, that "the canker of peace" had sapped, if it
+had not destroyed, the virile qualities of the race, that luxury and
+learning had dried up at their source those primitive virtues of courage
+and hardihood which had been the leading characteristics of those stark
+fighters who had borne the banner of the Prophet from Mecca even to Cadiz.
+Tom by faction, by strife among themselves, they had succumbed to the arms
+of the Northern chivalry; by its warriors they had been driven out, never
+to return.
+
+When this was accomplished, when the curtain fell on the final scene of the
+tragedy, and the Moors, after the fall of Granada, were driven across the
+sea into Africa, there came to pass a most remarkable change in those who
+had been expropriated. The learning, the culture, the civilisation, by
+which they had been so long distinguished, seemed to drop away from them,
+cast away like a worn-out garment for which men have no further use. In
+place of all these things there came a complete and desperate valour, a
+bitter and headstrong fanaticism.
+
+It was one of the attributes of the Moslem civilisation in Spain, and one
+of the most enlightened thereof, that religious toleration flourished in
+its midst. Jew and Christian were allowed to worship at the altars of their
+fathers, no man hindering or saying them nay; one rule, and one alone, had
+to be preserved: none must blaspheme against Mahomet, the Prophet of God,
+as he was considered to be by the Moslems. The penalty for infraction of
+this rule was death; otherwise, complete liberty of conscience was
+accorded.
+
+We have spoken of the two weapons held by the leaders of the Sea-wolves.
+The first, as we have, said, was cupidity; the second was fanaticism, the
+deadly religious hatred engendered, not only by the wholesale expropriation
+of the Moslem population, but also by the persecution to which the
+Moriscoes--as those Moslems were known who remained in Spain--were
+subjected by their Christian masters. It requires little imagination to see
+how these two weapons of avarice and intolerance could be made to serve the
+purpose of those dominant spirits who rose to the summit of the piratical
+hierarchy. Not only did they dazzle the imaginations of those who followed
+in their train by promises of wealth uncounted, but they added to this the
+specious argument that, in slaying and robbing the Christian wheresoever he
+was to be found, the faithful Moslem was performing the service of God and
+the act most grateful to his holy Prophet.
+
+Could any rule of life be at the same time more simple and more attractive
+to the beggared Mohammedan cast on the sterile shores of Northern Africa to
+starve?
+
+With the main stream of history, to which we have before referred, we have
+no concern in this book. He who would embark thereon must sail a powerful
+vessel which must carry many guns. Also for the conduct of this vessel many
+qualities are necessary: a commanding intellect, acute perceptions,
+indefatigable industry, complete leisure, are among those things necessary
+to the pilot. These must be supplemented by a genius for research, a
+knowledge of ancient and modern languages, and an unerring faculty for
+separating the few precious grains of wheat from those mountains of chaff
+which he will have to sift with the utmost care. There are, however,
+subsidiary rivulets which feed the onward flow of events, and of such is
+the story of the Sea-wolves of the Mediterranean. On these the adventurous
+mariner can sail his little cockboat, discreetly retiring before he becomes
+involved and engulfed in the main stream. That he cannot altogether avoid
+it is shown by the fact that the men who are here chronicled took part in
+events of first-class importance in the age in which they lived.
+Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa fought the battle of Prevesa against his lifelong
+antagonist, Andrea Doria. Dragut was killed at the siege of Malta, at the
+moment almost of the fall of the castle of St. Elmo; had he lived it is
+more than probable that Jean Parisot de la Valette and his heroic garrison
+would have been defeated instead of being victorious. Ali Basha was the one
+Moslem commander who increased his reputation at the battle of Lepanto,
+because, as was usual in all maritime conflicts of the time, the corsairs,
+who had the habit of the sea, were more than a match for soldiers embarked
+to fight on an unfamiliar element.
+
+We shall speak, later on, of the autocratic rule of these leaders who
+possessed so absolute a domination over the men by whom they were followed.
+The fact of this absolute supremacy on the part of the chiefs is very
+curious, as theoretically in the confederacy of the Sea-wolves all were
+equal; we are, in fact, confronted with pure democracy, where every man was
+at liberty to do what seemed best in his own eyes. He was a free agent,
+none coercing him or desiring him to place himself under discipline or
+command. This, be it observed, was the theory. As a matter of fact the
+corsairs, who were extraordinarily successful in their abominable trade,
+abode beneath an iron and rigid discipline. This was enforced by the lash,
+as we shall see later on when it is related how Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa
+flogged one Hassan, a captain who, he considered, had failed in his duty:
+or by the actual penalty of death, which Uruj Barbarossa inflicted on one
+who had dared to act independently of his authority.
+
+The theory of equality obtained among the Mediterranean pirates; but the
+Barbarossas, Dragut, and Ali believed that, in practice, the less
+interference there was with their designs by those, whom Cardinal Granvelle
+denominated in a letter to Philip II. as "that mischievous animal the
+people," the better it would be for all concerned. The conception held of
+rights and duties of "the mischievous animal" by these militant persons
+was, that it should behave as did those others recorded of the Roman
+centurion in Holy Writ: if it did not, and difficulties arose, the leaders
+were not troubled with an undue tenderness either towards the individual or
+the theory. Of this we shall see examples as we go on.
+
+This period has been called "The Grand Period of the Moslem Corsairs"
+because it was in something less than a century, from the year of the
+expulsion of the Moors from Granada in 1492 to the death of Ali Basha in
+1580, that the Sea-wolves were at the height of their power, that the
+piratical States of the Mediterranean were in the making. That subsequently
+they gave great cause of trouble to Christendom is written in characters of
+blood and fire throughout the history of the succeeding centuries; but the
+real interest in the careers of these men resides in the fact that they
+established, by their extraordinary aptitude for sea-adventure, the
+permanent place which was held by their descendants. Time and again in the
+sixteenth century the effort was made to destroy them root and branch: they
+were defeated, driven out of their strongholds on shore, crushed apparently
+for ever. But nothing short of actual extermination could have been
+successful in this; as, no matter how severe had been the set-back, there
+was always left a nucleus of the pirates which in a short time grew again
+into a formidable force. The Ottoman Turk, magnificent fighter as he was on
+land, seemed to lose his great qualities when the venue was changed from
+the land to the sea. The Janissaries, that picked corps trained as few
+soldiers were trained even in that age of iron, who never recoiled before
+the foe but who fought only to conquer or die, seem to have failed when
+embarked for sea-service. That which the hard teaching of experience alone
+could show--that the man who fights best upon the sea is he who has the
+habit of the sea--was at this time not generally recognised, and this it
+was that rendered the corsairs so supreme on the element which they had
+made their own. Some among the great ones of the earth there were who
+appreciated this fact, who, like that great statesman Ibrahim, Grand Vizier
+to Soliman the Magnificent, recognised what it was to lay their hands upon
+"a veritable man of the sea"; but the rule was to embark men from the shore
+and to entrust to them the duty of fighting naval actions.
+
+When "the Grand Period" came to an end, as it did about the date already
+indicated, the corsairs had become a permanent institution; they remained
+established at Algiers, Tunis, and other ports on the littoral of Northern
+Africa as a recognised evil. Pirates they remained to the end of the
+chapter, the scourge of the tideless sea; but no longer did they array
+themselves in line of battle against the mightiest potentates of the earth
+allied for their complete destruction. It was the men of the sea who set up
+this empire; it was they who defied Charles V., a whole succession of
+Popes, Andrea Doria and his descendants, the might of Spain, Venice, Genoa,
+Catalonia, and France. It was they who taught the so-called civilised world
+of the age in which they lived that sea-power can only be met and checked
+by those who dispose of navies manned by seamen; that against it the master
+of the mightiest legions of the land is powerless.
+
+This contention is by no means invalidated by the fact that frequently the
+corsairs were defeated by land forces embarked on board ship. Thus when
+Dragut was defending Tripoli against an expedition sent against him in 1559
+by the combined forces of Spain, Tuscany, Rome, Naples, Sicily, and Genoa,
+of one hundred sail which embarked fourteen thousand troops, he was
+relieved by Piali, the Admiral of Soliman the Magnificent, who came to his
+assistance with eighty-six galleys, each of which had on board one hundred
+Janissaries, and who gained so striking a victory over the Christians that
+the Turkish Admiral returned to Constantinople with no less than four
+thousand prisoners. But in this case, as in so many others, the actual
+hostilities took place on shore, where the troops had the opportunity of
+displaying their sterling qualities.
+
+There is very little doubt that critics will point out that the corsairs
+were by no means universally successful; that, as in the case of the attack
+by Hassem, the ruler of Algiers in 1563, on Oran and Marzaquivir (a small
+port in the immediate vicinity of Oran), in the end the Moslems were badly
+beaten. This undoubtedly was the case, and there is no desire to magnify
+the deeds of the Sea-wolves or to minimise the heroic defence of
+Marzaquivir by the Count of Alcaudete, or that of Oran by his brother, Don
+Martin de C�rdoba, At the last moment of their wonderful defence they were
+relieved by a fleet sent by the King of Spain, and Hassem had to abandon
+his artillery, ammunition, and stores and beat a hasty retreat to the place
+from whence he had come.
+
+There was nothing remarkable in the fact that the corsairs were frequently
+defeated; what is really strange is that they should have achieved so great
+a success--success vouched for by the concrete instance that they
+established those sinister dynasties on the coast of Northern Africa which
+were the outcome of their piratical activities.
+
+In speaking of them, historians of later date than that at which they
+flourished are apt to hold them somewhat cheaply, to dismiss them as mere
+barbarians of no particular importance in the scheme of mundane affairs; as
+men who caused a certain amount of trouble to civilisation by their inroads
+and their plunderings. That which is certain is that they were for
+centuries a standing shame and disgrace to the whole of Christendom.
+
+To those who may perhaps be called the pioneers--that is to say, the men
+treated of in this book--a certain amount of sympathy and understanding may
+be conceded; for they had been driven from the land which had been theirs,
+it was their countrymen and their co-religionists who were being ground to
+powder beneath the fanatical cruelty of the Spanish Inquisition. That which
+they did was doubtless abominable, but it cannot be contended that they had
+not received the strongest provocation both from the material and the
+religious points of view.
+
+Once the "Grand Period" was passed, that period in which such men as the
+Barbarossas, Dragut, and Ali flourished, the chronicle of the Moslem States
+founded by them sinks to the degraded level of sheer robbery and murder; of
+a history of a tyranny established within one hundred miles of the shores
+of Europe, and of great kings and princes bargaining with piratical
+ruffians who held in thrall thousands upon thousands of their subjects. How
+it came about that the Christian States tolerated such an abuse is one of
+those mysteries which can never be explained; and if subsequent centuries
+displayed a greater refinement of manners, a more apt appreciation of all
+that is softer and kindlier in the human relationships of nation towards
+nation and of people towards people, they have not perhaps so much to plume
+themselves upon as had their rude forefathers of the sixteenth century,
+who, seeing the evil and feeling the effects thereof, did their best to
+extirpate those by whom this evil was caused.
+
+The question may be asked, how can it be that the lives and actions of such
+men as these are worth chronicling? It is because, not only that they
+modified profoundly the course of history in the age in which they lived,
+but also because that, hidden deep down, somewhere, in these men stained by
+a thousand crimes, ruthless, lustful, bloodthirsty, cruel as the grave, was
+the germ of true greatness, some dim spark of the divine fire of genius.
+Contending against principalities and powers, they held their own; in the
+welter of anarchy in which they lived they proved that there existed no
+finer fighting men, which alone give them some claim to consideration; but
+that which is most interesting to watch is the absolute domination obtained
+by the leaders over their followers. There is no other record of pirates
+who commanded on so large a scale; there is none which shows men such as
+these bargaining on equal terms with the great ones of the earth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS
+
+There is, in the deeds of men of action, an interest which is never aroused
+by those persons of brains and capacity by whom the world is really ruled.
+The statesman in his cabinet is the god within the machine; it is he who
+directs the acts of nations, it is he who moves the fleets and armies as if
+they were pieces on the chess-board; to him, as a rule, is the man of
+action subordinate, obeying his behests. Rule and governance are his, power
+both in the abstract and the concrete. Seldom in the history of the world
+do we come across the men who are at one and the same time statesmen and
+soldiers, who, taking their destiny in their own hands, work it out to the
+appointed end thereof. But, as we stray in the by-paths of history, we meet
+with some who, in their day, have influenced not only the age in which they
+lived themselves, but also the destinies of generations yet unborn. It
+would seem incredible that mere pirates, such as the Moslem corsairs of the
+Mediterranean, could be included in this category, and yet, as their story
+is unfolded, we shall see how the Sea-wolves rose from the humblest
+beginnings to trouble the peace of Europe, to found for themselves
+dynasties which endured.
+
+Uruj Barbarossa, Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, Dragut Reis, and Occhiali, or All
+Basha, were men who, in the sixteenth century, did much to change the
+conditions of the times in which they lived: it was the time of the
+Renaissance in Europe, a period of splendour in all the arts and sciences.
+These men added nothing to the knowledge of the civilised world as it then
+existed, save and except in one particular, which was, as Kheyr-ed-Din
+explained to Soliman the Magnificent on a certain memorable occasion, that
+he who rules on the sea will rule on the land also. In the present day,
+when all the nations and languages sit at the feet of Captain (now
+Rear-Admiral) Mahan, and acclaim his "Sea Power" series of books, it is
+interesting to find that he was anticipated in the most practical fashion
+possible by a corsair of the sixteenth century.
+
+This period was one in which great men abounded. The Emperor Charles V.,
+Francis I. of France, and Henry VIII. of England, were on the thrones of
+their respective countries; in Hungary was John Hunyadi, at Constantinople
+Soliman the Magnificent held rule, while in Rome the "fatal house of
+Medici" were the successors of Saint Peter. War was a commonplace state of
+the times, but until the Crescent began to sweep the seas it had its
+manifestation in the perpetual quarrels of the nations of Christendom,
+which represented, as a rule, the insatiable ambitions of its rulers. But
+now new men forced themselves to the front, a new power arose which was
+very imperfectly understood, and which practically held the sea at its
+mercy. Gone were the halcyon days of peaceful trade which had been pursued
+for generations by Venetian and Genoese, by Spaniard and Frenchman; gone
+also, apparently never to return, was all sense of security for the
+wretched dwellers on the littoral of the Mediterranean, who lived in daily,
+and particularly in nightly, dread of the falcon swoop of the pirate
+galleys.
+
+It is amusing to read the old chroniclers, sticklers as they were for "the
+dignity of history," continually having to turn aside from the main stream
+of their narrative of emperors, popes, and kings to descend to the level of
+the Sea-wolves, and to be constrained to set down the nefarious doings of
+these rovers of the sea. Bell, book, and candle were invoked against them
+in vain, and mighty monarchs had to meet them in the stricken field not
+merely once or twice--to their utter undoing and discomfiture--but many
+times, while victory inclined first to one side and then to the other.
+
+The Osmanli had ever been warriors since the times of the Prophet, of
+Abu-Bekr, of Othman, and of Ali; but so far their warlike achievements had
+been always on land, their only sea experience being confined to the
+crossing of the Straits of Gibraltar, when in the eighth century, under
+Tarik, they had swarmed into Andalusia, conquered Roderick the Goth, and
+set up that Moslem domination in Southern Spain which lasted until 1492,
+just before the events set forth in this book took place. Piracy in all
+ages is a thing in which a curious shuddering interest has been taken, and
+the deeds of the outlaws of the sea have never lacked chroniclers. There is
+for this a reason apart from the record of robbery and murder, which is the
+commonplace of piratical deeds: it resides in the perennial interest which
+men take in individual achievement, in the spectacle of absolute and
+complete domination by one man over the lives and the fortunes of others.
+This intense form of individualism is nowhere so well exhibited as in the
+story of piratical enterprise, where a band of men, outside of the law and
+divorced from all human kind by the atrocity of their deeds, has had to be
+welded into one homogeneous mass for the purpose of preying upon the world
+at large. Therefore he who would hold rule among such outlaws must himself
+be a man of no common description, for in him must be that quality which
+calls for instantaneous obedience among those with whom he is associated;
+behind him is no constituted authority, discipline is personal, enforced by
+the leader, and by him alone. Beneath him are men of the rudest and
+roughest description, slaves to their lusts and their passions, prone to
+mutiny, suspicious, and--worst of all--stupid.
+
+It is with these constituent elements that the piratical leader had to
+deal, trusting to the strength of his own arm, the subtlety of his own
+unassisted brain. Some among these leaders have risen to eminence in their
+evil lives, most of them have been the captains of single ships preying on
+commerce in an indiscriminate manner; but this was not the case with the
+Sea-wolves of the Mediterranean, Primarily sea-robbers they were of course,
+but as time and opportunity developed their characters they rose to meet
+occasion, to take fortune at the flood, in a manner that, had they been
+pursuing any other career, would most certainly have caused them to rise to
+eminence. Into the fierce and blood-stained turmoil of their lives there
+entered something unknown to any other pirates: this was religious
+fanaticism--a fanaticism so engrained in character, a belief held to with
+such passionate tenacity, that men stained with every conceivable crime
+held that their passage to Paradise was absolutely secure because of the
+faith which they professed. Tradition, sentiment, discipline, were summed
+up in one trite formula; but though we, at this distance of time, may hold
+it somewhat in derision, it was a vital force in the days of Soliman the
+Magnificent; and there was an added zest to robbery and murder in the fact
+that the pirates, as good Mohammedans, were obeying the behests of the
+Prophet every time that they cut a Christian throat, plundered a Christian
+argosy, or carried off shrieking women into a captivity far worse than
+death.
+
+That a pirate should be a warrior goes without saying, that a pirate should
+be a statesman is a thing almost incredible; but those who will read the
+story of the life of Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa will be forced to admit that
+here, at least, was a pirate who achieved the apparently impossible.
+Admiral Jurien de la Gravi�re has remarked that the Moslem corsairs of the
+sixteenth century were great men, even when measured by the standard of
+Henry VIII., of Charles V., of Soliman the Magnificent, of Ibrahim, his
+Grand Vizier, or of Andrea Doria, greatest among contemporary Christian
+mariners. To the seaman, of course, there is much that is fascinating in
+the deeds of his forerunners, and the ships of the corsairs had in them
+something distinctive in that they were propelled by oars, and were in
+consequence, to a certain extent, independent of the weather. Like the
+sailors of all ages, to the Sea-wolves gales and storms of all sorts and
+descriptions were abhorrent; and in consequence they had a well-marked
+piracy season, which, as we shall see, covered the spring and summer, while
+they carefully avoided the inclement months of autumn and winter.
+
+In a later chapter an attempt has been made to place before the reader
+pictures of the galley, the galeasse, and the nef, which were the names
+attached to the ships then in use; the name brigantine, far from having the
+significance attached to it by the sailor of the present day, seems to have
+been a generic term to denote any craft not included in the names already
+given.
+
+Although the sixteenth century had outgrown the principle of the general
+massacre of the enemy by the victors, still chivalry to the fallen foe was
+far to seek, as all persons captured at sea were, no matter what their rank
+and status, immediately stripped and chained to the rowers' bench, where
+they remained until ransom, good fortune, or a kindly death, for which
+these unfortunates were wont to pray, should come to their release. To a
+large extent this savagery may be traced to the religious rancour which
+animated the combatants on both sides, as the fanaticism of the Moslem, of
+which we have already spoken, was fully matched on the side of the
+Christians by the bigotry of the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem,
+otherwise known as the Knights of Malta, who were vowed to the
+extermination of what they, on their side, called "the infidel." It was an
+age of iron, when men neither gave nor expected grace for the misfortunes
+which might befall them in the warrior life which they led. It was
+distinguished by many gallant feats of arms on both sides, but pity formed
+no part of the equipment of the fighting man bent on the death or capture
+of his enemy. Honestly and sincerely each side believed that they were
+doing the service of the Almighty in destroying the other party root and
+branch. The amount of human misery and suffering caused by the rise and
+progress of the Moslem corsairs was absolutely incalculable; the slavery of
+the rower in the galley in the time of which we speak was an agony so
+dreadful that in these days it is a thing which seems altogether
+incredible, a nightmare of horror almost impossible even to imagine.
+
+The life of the "gallerian" was so hard that his sufferings in many cases
+were mercifully ended in death in a very short time, as none save those of
+iron constitution could stand the strain imposed by the desperate toil and
+wretched food. Yet there are cases on record of men who had worked at the
+oar for actual decades, so unconquerable in their strength that even such a
+life as this had not the power to break them down.
+
+To the peaceful mariner who wished merely to trade, to the individual whose
+business called him overseas, this epoch must have been one of terror
+unspeakable. The ordinary perils of the deep were quite enough to keep
+timid folk at home in those days of clumsy, ill-found sailing ships, which
+could by no means work to windward, and did not sail remarkably well even
+with the most favouring breezes; when to this we add that every ship which
+started on a voyage in the Mediterranean had before her the chance of being
+captured by the corsairs, it was no wonder that he whose business led him
+oversea should make his last will and testament and bid a fond farewell to
+all his relatives.
+
+There is a record in the M�moires of the Rev. Fr�re Pierre d'An, Bachelier
+en Th�ologie de la Facult� de Paris, etc., who wrote in a most heartfelt
+manner concerning the danger of the sea and the perils to be expected from
+the Barbary corsairs. He says, date 1637:
+
+  "An ancient writer, considering how little assurance can ordinarily be
+  placed in the sea, and how hazardous it is to expose oneself and one's
+  goods to its mercy, has remarked, with much reason, that it is
+  infinitely preferable to be poor on shore than to be rich at sea. In
+  which saying he mocks indeed at those ambitious, avaricious, and
+  mercenary men who, in order to gain false glory and the things of this
+  world, expose themselves rashly to the manifest perils which are most of
+  the time the inevitable lot of the seaman. This same consideration
+  causes him also to utter these remarkable words: that he repents himself
+  of but one thing, and that is ever to have travelled by sea when it was
+  possible to have done so by land. And, to say truth, he has good reason
+  to speak as he does, because it is impossible for the most hardy
+  navigators not to tremble with fear when it is represented before their
+  eyes that they must combat with the winds, the waves, and the foam every
+  time that they adventure upon the deep.
+
+  "Because it is indisputable that this is the very Theatre of the storms,
+  and the place in the world most capable of all sorts of violence and
+  tragic adventure. This, however, does not prevent those who covet the
+  perishable goods of this world from straying upon the sea, even in
+  unknown and untraversed regions, without ceasing and without rest.
+
+  "If, however, they abandon the ocean for a time, it is but to return to
+  it again to seek once more war with their ships, in order unjustly to
+  make themselves masters of the bodies and of the riches of others.
+
+  "Of such it may be remarked to-day are, in all the maritime coasts, the
+  implacable Corsairs of Barbary. For, however great may be the dangers of
+  which we have just spoken, and no matter now many examples they may see
+  of the fury and inconstancy of Neptune, they cease not their irritating
+  performances, kindling warfare in all the coasts of the Christian
+  nations. It is there that they exercise their infamous piracies, and
+  there also that they glory in the most shameful of all commerce--the
+  trade of the brigand.
+
+  "Which in all towns that are well policed have always met with a swift
+  and just retribution, because the law is ordained against those who
+  maintain such practices.
+
+  "But such does not happen among these pirates.
+
+  "On the contrary, it may truthfully be said that, while in towns in
+  which good persons dwell good actions receive the palms and the crown,
+  it is among the Corsairs but to the wicked to whom are given recompense
+  and praise.
+
+  "In effect the most determined among them--I mean the most unworthy
+  robbers who are best versed in all the infamies of their trade and most
+  accustomed to the practice of violence--are those who are covered with
+  honours, and who pass in the estimation of their fellows for men of
+  heart and courage.
+
+  "Indeed experience has taught all Christian merchants that the infidels
+  of the coast of Barbary are all brigands.
+
+  "Among these those of Algiers carry off the prize for riches, for ships,
+  for strength, and for villainy."
+
+The bachelor in theology is somewhat sweeping in his criticisms, and his
+meaning is, perhaps, somewhat clearer than his grammar. One thing, however,
+is perfectly plain, that, in the opinion of the reverend brother, those who
+go to sea are to be divided into two categories, rogues and fools, with a
+strong preponderance of the worse Element of the two.
+
+Of the corsairs dealt with in this record of their deeds the two
+Barbarossas were the sons of a Mohammedan father and a Christian mother.
+Dragut Reis was a pure Mohammedan, and Ali Basha was a pure-blooded
+Italian. All these men, as will be seen, raised themselves to eminence in
+the profession of piracy; in each and every separate case starting at the
+very bottom rung of the ladder and rising, by sheer stress of valour and
+character, to the very top. Each in turn became Admiralissimo to the Grand
+Turk at Constantinople. Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa commanded the Ottoman fleet
+at the great battle of Prevesa, at which he met with his life-long
+competitor at sea, the famous Genoese Admiral, Andrea Doria. Dragut Reis
+was killed at the siege of Malta in 1565, and Ali Basha was the only Moslem
+commander who increased his reputation at the battle of Lepanto in 1571,
+when Don John of Austria shattered the power of the Moslem at sea for the
+time being.
+
+Although the "renegado" was very much in evidence in the vessels of the
+Moslem corsairs, still of course the bulk of the fighting men, by which the
+galleys were manned, were Mohammedans, the descendants of the warriors who
+had swept through Northern Africa like a living flame in the early days of
+the Mohammedan conquest.
+
+Cut adrift from the homes which had been theirs for over seven
+centuries--as we shall see in the next chapter--there was nothing left for
+the erstwhile dwellers in Andalusia but to gain their living by the strong
+hand. The harvest of the sea was the one which they garnered--a harvest of
+the goods of their mortal enemies strung out in lines of hapless
+merchant-vessels throughout the length and breadth of the tideless sea.
+
+It booted not that the great Powers of Europe sent expedition after
+expedition against them; these they fought to the death with varying
+fortune, ready, when the storm had passed over their heads, to start once
+more on the only career which promised them the chance of acquiring riches.
+Their whole history is a study of warfare, waged as a rule on the petty
+scale, but rising at times, as in the cases already mentioned, into events
+of first-class historical importance.
+
+The deeds of the buccaneers of the next century in the Spanish Main sink
+into comparative insignificance when compared with what was accomplished by
+such a man as Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, who was known, and rightly known, by
+his contemporaries, and for many generations of Moslem seamen yet to come,
+as "the King of the Sea." The capture of Panama by Sir Henry Morgan in
+January 1671 was possibly as remarkable a feat of arms as was ever
+accomplished, but it cannot rank in its importance to civilised mankind on
+the same plane as those memorable battles in the Mediterranean of which
+mention has been made as having been fought by the Moslem corsairs.
+
+Fighting for their own hand, the booty reaped by these men was incredible
+in its richness. Sea-power was theirs, and they took the fullest advantage
+of this fact, fearing none save the great community of the Knights of Saint
+John of Jerusalem, which, vowed to the destruction of the infidel, neither
+gave nor accepted quarter.
+
+We have said that the real interest in the lives of the corsairs arose from
+the fact that it was personal ascendancy, and that alone, which counted in
+the piratical hierarchy. Against Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa plots arose again
+and again, only to be defeated by the address of the man against whom they
+were directed.
+
+It was one of the cruellest of ages, and rough cruelty was the principal
+means adopted to ensure success; sheer terror was the weapon of the leader.
+Thus when one Hassan, a subordinate of Kheyr-ed-Din, failed to take a
+Spanish ship because she made too stout a resistance, his chief caused him
+to be soundly flogged and then thrown into prison. Such methods naturally
+raised up hosts of enemies in the wake of the piratical commanders, ready
+at any time to do them a mortal injury, and it is little short of
+miraculous that they should throughout a long period of years have been
+able not only to maintain, but to increase, their supremacy over the wild
+spirits of which their following was composed. It was, however, the golden
+age of autocracy, when men surrendered their judgment to some great leader,
+content to follow where he led, to endorse his policy at the cost of their
+lives.
+
+It is the autocrat who is made by the circumstances of his life who
+ultimately becomes supreme. The leaders among the corsairs were tried by
+every test of prosperity and of adverse fortune; they emerged from the ruck
+in the first instance because it was in them to display a more desperate
+valour than did their contemporaries, and it was only when they emerged
+triumphant from this, the first test, that they could begin to impose their
+will upon others. It was then that their real trials began, as the
+undisciplined are ever prone to suspicion, much given to murmuring against
+a leader who is not perpetually successful.
+
+As a rule, however, there were but few to criticise, as the office of
+critic was one fraught with far too much danger to be alluring. In
+maintaining their authority the leaders stopped at nothing, and the heads
+of the recalcitrant were apt to part with amazing suddenness from their
+bodies if they repined overmuch. The Moslem leader was, it is true, merely
+_primus inter pares_, and was distinguished by no outward symbol of the
+power which he possessed; but life and death lay in his hands, and life was
+cheap indeed.
+
+We have spoken hitherto of the leaders, but what of the men of which their
+following was composed? Rough, rude, and reckless, these latter lived but
+to fight and to plunder; to them any other life would have seemed
+impossible, and indeed this was practically the fact. In the communities in
+which they lived the adult male had no other means of gaining a livelihood.
+Since their expulsion from their ancient homes no ordered and peaceful
+method of existence had been possible for them. In the surroundings in
+which their forefathers had lived the arts of peace had been carried on in
+a civilisation to which there had been none comparable in the world as it
+then existed; on all this the Moslem had now to turn his back, and to earn
+a precarious living by the strong hand. War, sanguinary and incessant, was
+henceforward to be his lot, and it must be said that he turned to this
+ancient avocation with a zest which left but little to be desired from the
+point of view of those by whom he was led. In the new life of bloodshed and
+adventure he seemed to delight. Like the free-lance in all ages, he seems
+to have squandered his booty as soon as it was acquired, and then to sea
+once more, to face the desperate hazard of an encounter with the knights,
+to raid defenceless villages, to lie _perdu_ behind some convenient cape,
+dashing out from thence to plunder the argosy of the merchantman.
+Intolerable conditions of heat and cold he endured, he suffered from
+wounds, from fever, from hunger and thirst, from hope deferred, from
+voyages when no plunder came his way.
+
+His reward was the joy of the fight, the delight of the ambush skilfully
+laid, to see the decks of the enemy a dreadful shambles, with the Crescent
+of the Prophet above the detested emblem of the Cross. Then the return to
+Algiers laden with spoil: to tow behind him some luckless Christian ship,
+while aboard his own war-worn galley the drums beat and the trumpets
+sounded, and the banners floated free to the stainless Mediterranean sky.
+Then the procession of the captives through the crowded streets laden with
+what a short time before had been their own property--a mournful _cort�ge_
+of men doomed to an everlasting slavery and of women destined for the
+harems of the Bashas.
+
+Thus was his life lived, and when death came it came as a rule from the
+slash of a sabre or the ball from an arquebus or a bombard; and then what
+matter, for had not Hassan Ali or Selim fallen in strife against the
+enemies of his faith, and did not the portals of heaven open wide to
+receive the man who had lost his life testifying to the fact that there was
+but one God, and that Mahomet was the Prophet of God?
+
+True in substance and in fact is that which was said by the Fr�re Pierre
+d'An that "it is indisputable that the sea is the Theatre of the storms and
+the place in the world most capable of all sorts of violence and tragic
+adventure." Those who "coveted the goods of others straying on the sea,"
+called by the reverend brother "the implacable, corsairs of Barbary," were
+to make life intolerable on that element for centuries to come, and if the
+Crescent did not supersede the banner of the Cross in the blue waters of
+the Mediterranean Sea, it remained as a portent and a dread symbol of human
+misery and unutterable suffering.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+THE COMING OF THE CORSAIRS
+
+The rise and progress of the Moslem corsairs of the Mediterranean is a most
+curious and interesting historical fact. The causes which led to results so
+deplorable to commerce, civilisation, and Christianity are set forth in
+this chapter in order that some idea may be formed of the state of affairs
+in that region at the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the
+sixteenth centuries, and also that the reflex action of the great triumph
+of the Christian armies in Spain may be more fully understood.
+
+The maritime Christian States of the Mediterranean at this epoch were at
+the height of their power and prosperity, but were faced by the might of
+the Ottoman Empire, against which they waged perpetual warfare. Bitter and
+unceasing was the strife prosecuted by the Cross against the Crescent, and
+by the Crescent against the Cross; and riding, like eagles on the storm
+came the corsairs in their swift galleys ready to strike down the luckless
+argosy of the merchantman wheresoever she was to be met. But this was not
+all, as the shore as well as the sea yielded up to them its tribute in the
+shape of slaves and booty, and Christian mothers trembling in the
+insecurity of their homes would hush their wailing children with the terror
+of the names of Barbarossa, of Dragut, or of Ali Basha.
+
+Popes and emperors, kings and princes, found themselves compelled to form
+leagues against these Sea-wolves who devoured the substance of their
+subjects, and great expeditions were fitted out to fight with and destroy
+the corsairs. Had Christendom been united no doubt the object would have
+been attained; but, as will be seen at the end of this chapter, an
+"Alliance of Christian Princes against the Turks"--which generic term
+included the corsairs--was not always used in the manner best calculated to
+injure those common enemies.
+
+When in 1492 Granada was yielded up to "Los Reyes Catolicos," Ferdinand of
+Aragon, and Isabella of Castile, by that luckless monarch known as Boabdil
+el Chico (or "the little"), the last remnant of the power of the Moors in
+Spain had gone never to return. On that small hill on the way to the coast
+still known as "el ultimo suspiro del Moro" (the last sigh of the Moor),
+Boabdil, as he looked for the last time on his lost capital of Granada, is
+said to have burst into tears. His fierce mother Ayesha had, however, no
+sympathy for her fallen son: "Thou doest well to weep like a woman for that
+which thou daredst not defend as a man," was her biting--and totally
+unjust--comment, and the cavalcade pursued its miserable journey to the
+coast, from whence it embarked for the kingdom of Fez.
+
+Great was the jubilation in Christendom; for more than seven centuries the
+followers of the Prophet had dwelt in the land from which Tarik had
+expelled Roderick the Goth in the eighth century. There they had dwelt and
+held up a lamp of learning and comparative civilisation which shone
+brightly through the miasmatic mists of cruelty and bloodshed in the Middle
+Ages, and none can question that, under Moorish rule in Spain in those
+centuries, the arts of peace had flourished, and that science, agriculture,
+art, and learning had found generous and discriminating patronage in the
+courts of C�rdoba and Granada.
+
+And now all was over the iron chivalry of the North had broken in pieces
+the Paynim hosts. They were expelled for ever from Christian soil, or else
+were forced to live in a state of degrading servitude, sore oppressed by an
+alien rule, in the land which their forbears had won and kept by the sword.
+
+There was jubilation, as has been said, in Christendom, but the knights and
+nobles who flocked from all parts of Europe to join the standard of the
+Catholic monarchs had no prevision of the consequences, no idea of the
+legacy that they were leaving to their descendants.
+
+It is of this legacy that we have to speak, and there has been none more
+terrible, none fraught with more awful suffering for the human race. The
+broken hosts of the Moslem chivalry became the corsairs of the
+Mediterranean: ruthless pirates freed from all restraint of human pity,
+living only to inflict the maximum of suffering upon their Christian foes,
+who, having sown the wind at the taking of Granada, reaped in the coming
+centuries a whirlwind of blood and agony which continued down to the
+bombardment of Algiers by Lord Exmouth in 1816, and even later than that
+date.
+
+Warriors to a man, the hosts of Boabdil crossed the Straits of Gibraltar
+into Africa; warriors but now broken men, from whom had been reft not only
+their lands and houses but even the chance of remaining in their native
+country. Religious toleration had been the rule of the Moslem States in
+Spain. In the name of religion they had been expropriated; therefore
+toleration was slain, and to exalt the Crescent above the Cross became the
+duty of every fighting Mohammedan. Into all the ports and harbours of the
+North African littoral the Moslems intruded themselves, their one
+preoccupation to revenge themselves upon the Christians, of no matter what
+race or nationality. There was at this date but small opposition from the
+rulers of the Pagan States who held in their weak and inefficient hands
+such strong places of arms as Algiers and Tunis.
+
+Very soon the Moslems acquired the habit of the sea, and very soon the
+Christian States discovered how different was the Mohammedan dwelling at
+peace in Andalusia, or at worst fighting with his co-religionists, to the
+desperate corsairs created by their own act who now ravaged the shores of
+the tideless sea.
+
+In the years succeeding to the conquest of Granada the corsairs became the
+scourge of the Mediterranean. France, Spain, Genoa, Venice, were all at
+odds with them; as the trading vessels, which had hitherto passed to and
+fro unmolested, were now captured, haled into North African ports, their
+cargoes sold, and their hapless crews forced to labour, naked and chained
+to the benches of the pirate galleys, until death came and mercifully put
+an end to their sufferings.
+
+From Reggio to Genoa, from Venice to Taranto, the cry of rage and fear went
+up; it was re-echoed from the coasts of France and of the Balearic Islands,
+while Southern Spain seethed with disaffection, and the Moriscoes, as those
+Moors who remained in the country were known, were ever on the lookout to
+assist their bold brethren, the rovers of the sea. Christendom was
+completely bewildered: hitherto the relations between the nations and the
+Kings of Tunis, Tlemcen, Fez, and others of the North African potentates,
+had been of the most agreeable description. Both parties had denounced
+piracy, and had as far as in them lay done all in their power to discourage
+this form of robbery. But now all was changed, and, as has been said in the
+previous chapter, a situation arose analogous to that of the Spaniards in
+the West Indies a century and a half later when Morgan and the buccaneers
+were at the height of their maleficent prowess. The situation was
+analogous, but whereas Morgan, Scott, L'Ollonais, and others terrorised
+only such forces as Spain possessed in far-distant colonies, the corsairs
+were a terror to all the great nations of the world.
+
+Granada fell, as has been said, in 1492 amid the rejoicings of the
+Christian States; but it had been well for Christendom as a whole if the
+Caliphs of C�rdova and Granada had never been defeated, and they and their
+subjects driven from their homes: to form the nucleus of those piratical
+States which existed from this date until well into the nineteenth century,
+as the scourge and the terror of all those who, during those ages, desired
+to "pass upon the seas on their lawful occasions." The capture of Granada
+was separated from the fall of the Byzantine Empire by a period of
+thirty-nine years, as it was in the year 1453 that Constantinople was
+captured by the Caliph Mahomet II. Byzantium fell, and perhaps nothing in
+the records of that Empire became it so well as that last tremendous
+struggle; and when on May 29th, 1453, the Ottoman legions were victorious,
+the body of the last Emperor of Byzantium was found beneath a mountain of
+the slain only recognisable by his purple mantle sewn with golden bees. The
+Cross which Constantine the Great had planted on the walls 1125 years
+before was replaced by the Crescent, and the Christian Cathedral became
+that Mosque of St. Sophia which still endures.
+
+From the earliest days of the Moslem corsairs of the Mediterranean they
+were in close communication with their co-religionists of the Ottoman
+Empire; and this for a very good reason, which was that the Turk had not
+the habit of the sea, but was essentially a land warrior, and, as the story
+of the Sea-wolves progresses, we shall see how in a sense the Grand Turk
+and the pirates became interdependent in the ceaseless wars which were
+waged in the epoch of which we treat.
+
+The fall of Constantinople resounded throughout Christendom as though it
+had been the crack of doom, and all men held their breath wondering what
+next might portend. So stunned were the maritime States that they took no
+action, letting "I dare not wait upon I would." Their indecision was fatal.
+Had the Venetians, the Genoese, and the Catalans at this juncture formed an
+alliance, they might have chased the Turks from off the face of the waters;
+but to mutual jealousy and indecision was added fear--fear of this new and
+mighty power which had arisen and had swept away one of the landmarks of
+Europe. So it fell out that Genoa entered into an arrangement with the
+Grand Turk, and Venice concluded a treaty of commerce on April 18th, 1454.
+It was the Caliph Mahomet who first fortified the Dardanelles, where he
+mounted thirty heavy guns before which Jacques Loredano, the Venetian
+admiral, recoiled, reporting to the Republic that henceforward none could
+pass the Straits. We have, however, nothing to do with the Grand Turk in
+these pages, save, and except in so far, as he had an effect on the lives
+of the corsairs. This effect will develop itself as we proceed.
+
+There is one body of men, however, concerning whom it may be as well to
+treat of briefly in this place, as the lives which they led and the deeds
+which they performed were inextricably entangled with those of the
+corsairs. These men were the members of that association first known as the
+Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem, later as the Knights of Malta. Between
+them and the corsairs it was war to the death; and not only with these
+robbers, but also with any ship which sailed beneath the insignia of the
+Crescent.
+
+In 1291 the Soldan of Egypt chased the Knights Hospitallers, as they were
+also known, from the soil of the Holy Land; Philip IV. of France welcomed
+them in the island of Cyprus, and gave them the town of Limasol as an
+asylum. This for the time the knights were bound to accept, but they were
+impatient of charity, resentful of tutelage, proud and independent.
+Considering their own order as the greatest and most stable bulwark of the
+Christian faith, they bowed before neither King nor Kaiser; and the only
+boon they asked of great potentates, when allied temporarily with them in
+their eternal warfare, was that on all occasions theirs should be the post
+of the greatest danger.
+
+This, indeed, they did not ask as a favour, but claimed as a right. It is
+easily understood that such desperate warriors, who fought only to conquer
+or die, were allies sought for eagerly by all professing the same faith.
+
+Fulke de Villaret, Grand Master of the order in 1310, seized upon Rhodes,
+which, though nominally belonging to Greece, was at this time a refuge for
+bad characters of all nationalities. This island was in the most
+advantageous position, as it commanded the sea-route from Constantinople to
+Egypt and the ports of Asia Minor, and was also in close proximity to the
+coast of Caramania, from whence the order could draw the necessary timber
+for the building of their galleys and incidentally their motive power--in
+the shape of slaves--for the oars by which they were propelled.
+
+The knights fortified the island until it was practically unassailable in
+that age. In the meanwhile their navy grew so rapidly that, in 1436, they
+were actually in a position to fight the Turks in line of battle. To Rhodes
+came the younger sons of noble families from every nation in Europe, all
+aflame with ardour to fight for "the religion"; and the great nobles
+themselves did not disdain to take service in so chivalrous an order.
+
+Their former enemy, the Soldan of Egypt, made a descent on the island in
+1440, and in 1444 besieged the place in form; but he was beaten off, after
+forty-two days' ceaseless fighting, with great slaughter.
+
+"Soldier and sailor too" were the bold Knights of Saint John; for them no
+toil was too arduous, no danger too great. In heat and cold, in storm and
+tempest, they plied their trade of war, their holy crusade to extirpate the
+infidel from off the face of the waters. They looked for no material
+reward, and riches and honours they contemptuously rejected. Strong in
+their marvellous faith that on their shoulders rested the propagation of
+Christianity in these latter days, they swept the seas with a calm
+assumption of victory which caused it to be half assured before the fight
+began. And when the battle was joined, where could be found such paladins
+as these men who claimed it as an inalienable right to head the hurricane
+rush of the boarders from the decks of their galleys, to be ever the
+leaders when the forlorn hope should mount the breach? Life for the
+knights of this order was looked at literally with a single purpose--the
+advancement of Christianity and the downfall of that pestilent heresy which
+proclaimed that Mahomet was the prophet of God. Against all who bowed the
+knee in the mosques of the false prophet their lives were vowed, and it is
+but the barest justice to them to record that on the altar of this their
+faith these were ungrudgingly poured forth.
+
+Naturally reprisals were the order of the day. Equally fanatical was he who
+held to the Moslem faith; in consequence many were the attempts to stamp
+out, once and for all, the prime enemies of the Ottoman Empire. In 1480 a
+Turkish fleet of one hundred and forty ships issued from the Dardanelles,
+an army awaited it on the coast of Caramania which was rapidly embarked,
+and on May 23rd the fleet anchored a few miles from the town of Rhodes.
+Here, then, was a trial of strength in which the Hospitallers delighted.
+After repeated attacks in detail, on July 28th a grand assault was made
+which the Turks considered would be absolutely decisive: it was decisive,
+but not in the fashion which they anticipated.
+
+The standard of the Janissaries already floated on the first curtain of the
+rampart when Pierre D'Aubusson rallied the knights for one last desperate
+effort. "Shall it be said in days to come that 'the Religion' recoiled
+before a horde of Moslem savages; that the banner of Saint John was soiled
+by their infamous touch? But this is no time for talk. Ye have swords,
+Messires; use them!"
+
+Thus the Grand Master; and then the knights, in their battered armour and
+with their hacked and dinted swords, flung themselves once more upon the
+foe. The Janissaries closed in around them; but these fine troops were not
+what they had been two months before, and the close contact with the
+Hospitallers, which had endured sixty-five days, had been to them a lesson
+fraught with disaster: they had already lost six thousand men, and their
+adversaries were still absolutely undismayed. His helmet gone, his banner
+held aloft over his head, Pierre D'Aubusson was ever in the thickest of the
+fray unconquered, unconquerable; and pressing close behind him came the
+knights, each jealous for the glory of his "Auberge." French, Venetian,
+Catalan, Genoese German, none can tell who fought best that day; but the
+Janissaries were beaten, and three thousand of their corpses cumbered the
+ditch into which they were hurled by their foes; there were besides fifteen
+thousand wounded in the Turkish camp.
+
+The heart was out of that great army which had embarked to the sound of
+trumpets and the blessings of the Mullahs but ten weeks before, and they
+sailed away a beaten force. Mahomet II. swore to avenge his defeat, but his
+days were numbered, and he died at Scutari on May 3rd, 1481, at the age of
+fifty-two, and in the thirteenth year of his reign.
+
+In the year 1499 Daoud Pasha, Admiralissimo to Bajazet, the successor to
+Mahomet II., defeated Antonio Grimani the Venetian admiral in that combat
+known to the Republic as "La deplorabile battaglia del Zonchio." The
+populace of Venice demanded that Grimani should be instantly beheaded, but
+he not only escaped their vengeance but lived to be nominated as Doge
+on June 6th, 1521, at the age of eighty-seven: certainly a curious record
+for an unsuccessful admiral of that date.
+
+In 1500 was formed the "Alliance of Christian Princes" at the initiative of
+the Borgia Pope Alexander VII. Louis XII., King of France, and Ferdinand V.
+of Spain announced their adherence to this effort against the Turk, and
+Pierre D'Aubusson, the veteran Grand Master of the Knights of Saint John,
+was nominated as Captain-General of the Christian armies. For the purposes
+of this war the admiral of the Papal galleys in the Mediterranean, Lodovico
+del Mosca, purchased from Ferdinand, King of Naples, all his artillery, of
+which a description is given by the Padre Alberto Guglielmotti, a Dominican
+friar, author of a work entitled, "La Guerra dei Pirati e la Marina
+Pontifica dal 1500 al 1560 A.D." "There were thirty-six great bombards,
+with eighty carts pertaining to them; some drawn by horses, some drawn by
+buffaloes harnessed singly, or two, four, or even six together; two waggons
+laden with arquebuses for ships' boats; nine with about forty smaller
+bombards (_bombardelles_) placed three, four, or even six on each waggon;
+twelve with ordinary pieces of artillery; as many more for the service of
+twelve big guns; thirty-seven carts of iron balls; three with gunpowder;
+and finally five laden with nitre, darts, and bullets. Splendid artillery
+of most excellent workmanship and great power escorted by two thousand men
+under arms, without mentioning the companies who marched before and after
+each waggon."
+
+The French king had prepared a fleet and army under Count Philip of
+Ravenstein; the Spaniards were under the command of Gonsalvo de C�rdoba,
+the "Great Captain." The history of the "Alliance of Christian Princes" is
+illustrative of the methods of those potentates at that time. After one or
+two unimportant skirmishes with the Turks, in which no great harm was done
+on either side, the French and Spaniards joined together, and seized the
+Kingdom of Naples: the prudent king of this territory, having sold his
+artillery to Lodovico del Mosca, did not await the coming of his Christian
+brethren.
+
+In the territory known to the Romans as Byzacena, which stretched from
+Algiers to the confines of Tripoli, there was reigning at this period one
+Abu-Abd-Allah-Mahomed, a Berber Moslem of the dynasty of Hafsit. Between
+this dignitary and Genoa a treaty of commerce had been arranged and signed.
+But treaties on the shores of the Mediterranean were capable of very
+elastic interpretation; they never reckoned with the corsairs, and these
+latter were in the habit of intruding themselves everywhere, and upsetting
+the most carefully laid plans. Curtogali, a corsair who had collected a
+great following, was now a power with which to reckon, and high in the
+favour of the Grand Turk at Constantinople. This robber presented himself
+at Bizerta--one of the ports of Abd-Allah-Mahomed--with a squadron of
+thirty ships, and demanded hospitality. As Curtogali disposed of thirty
+ships and some six thousand fighting men it would probably have been
+impossible for Abd-Allah to have refused his request in any case; but he
+was far from wishing to do so, as, by a convenient interpretation of the
+Koran, the pirate had to deliver up one-fifth part of all the booty which
+he reft from the Christians to the ruler of the country in whose harbours
+he sheltered. There was no place so convenient for the purposes of the
+pirate as Bizerta: from here he could strike at Sicily, at the Balearic
+Islands, at Rome, Naples, Tuscany, and Liguria, while at the same time he
+held the trade slowly sailing along the North African littoral at his
+mercy. Great were the depredations of Curtogali, and even Pope Leo X.
+trembled on his throne, while Genoa, Venice, and Sicily seethed with
+impotent fury.
+
+In the meanwhile who so happy as Abu-Abd-Allah-Mahomed? We cannot do better
+than to take the description of his position from the pages of the good
+Padre Alberto Guglielmotti. The Franciscan says: "He [that is, Abd-Allah]
+desired peace with all and prosperity for his own interests. Friendly to
+the merchants in their commerce; friendly to the corsairs in their spoils.
+Let all hold by the law: the former contentedly paying customs dues, the
+latter cheerfully handing over a fifth part of their robberies, and
+Abd-Allah--their common friend--would ever continue at peace with them all.
+Outside his ports the merchants and the pirates might fall by the ears if
+they would: that was no reason for him to trouble his head. On the
+contrary, he would joyfully await them on their return either with customs
+dues or tribute of the fifth as the case might be."
+
+However well this state of affairs may have suited Abd-Allah, the Genoese
+held that the situation was far from satisfactory. In consequence they sent
+an army against Curtogali, and on August 4th, 1516, they captured Bizerta,
+set free a number of Christian captives, and plundered the town. But they
+did not capture Curtogali, who, only five weeks after, made a daring
+attempt to carry off the Pope in person from the sea-shore in the
+neighbourhood of Rome. Curtogali ended his days as the Governor of Rhodes,
+from which the Knights of Saint John were finally expelled by Soliman the
+Magnificent on December 22nd, 1522. This was the greatest blow which the
+fraternity ever received. On December 24th the Turks made a triumphal entry
+into the town, and it was said that "Sultan Soliman was not insensible to
+the sorrowful position of his vanquished enemies, and when he saw the
+Christian Commander, Prince Philippe Villiers L'Isle Adam, he remarked: 'It
+weighs upon me somewhat that I should be coming hither to chase this aged
+Christian warrior from his house.'" At the beginning of the following year
+the knights left the island, never to return. On the day of this desolate
+embarcation the herald blew upon his trumpet the "Salute and Farewell" and
+the identical instrument upon which this call was sounded is still
+preserved in the armoury at Malta, to which barren island the knights were
+forced to retreat.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+URUJ BARBAROSSA
+
+In the year 1457 an obscure Roumelian or Albanian renegado named Mahomedi
+was banished from Constantinople by the Grand Turk; he established himself
+in the island of Mitylene and there married a Christian widow named
+Catalina, by whom he had two sons, Uruj and Khizr. The father had been a
+sailor and both sons adopted the same profession. It is from the pages of
+El Maestro Don Fray Prudencio de Sandoval that we glean these bare facts
+concerning the birth and parentage of these men who, in after-years, became
+known to all the dwellers on the shores of the Mediterranean as the
+"Barbarossas," from their red beards. Sandoval, Bishop of Pampluna,
+published in the year 1614 his monumental history of the Emperor Charles
+V., and through his splendid volumes the deeds of the Moslem corsairs run
+like the scarlet thread which is twisted through a Government rope. It is
+evident that the fact of having to deal with such rascals annoys the good
+Bishop not a little, as his severe and caustic comments frequently display.
+There was incident and accident enough in the life of the famous "Carlos
+Quinto" without the historian having to turn aside to chronicle the deeds
+of the pirates; but their exploits were so daring, the consequences thereof
+were so far-reaching, that the ominous crimson thread had to be woven into
+any narrative of the times in despite of the annoyance of the man by whom
+the rope was twisted.
+
+Of Mahomedi we possess no record save the remark concerning him to the
+effect that "el qual fue gran marinero": in what way he displayed his gifts
+as a seaman we are not told. We have remarked before on the curious fact of
+how the "renegado," or Christian turned Mohammedan, became the most
+implacable foe of his former co-religionists. We see in the case of the two
+Barbarossas that they had no drop of Moslem blood in them, as both parents
+came from Christian stock: and yet no greater scourges ever afflicted the
+people from whom both their father and mother originally sprang than did
+Uruj and Khizr Barbarossa.
+
+[Illustration: URUJ AND KHEYR-ED-DIN BARBAROSSA.]
+
+The characters of the two brothers were widely different. The elder was no
+doubt a "first-class fighting man," a fine seaman, a born partisan leader;
+but here his qualities came to an end. Rough, cruel, imperious, brutal, he
+imposed himself upon those who became his followers; but in him were to be
+found none of the statesmanlike qualities which distinguished his far
+greater younger brother. His was the absolutely finite intellect of the
+tactician as opposed to the strategist, who, seeing his objective, was
+capable of dealing with circumstances as they immediately arose; but,
+partly no doubt from defective education, but principally from the lack of
+intellectual appreciation of the problems of the time in which he lived,
+could never rise to the heights which were scaled by Khizr, better known by
+the title conferred upon him later on by the Grand Turk as "Kheyr-ed-Din,"
+or "The Protector of Religion."
+
+The sons of Mahomed, that "gran marinero," naturally took to the sea, and
+as a young man Uruj became possessed of a ship--how we do not know, and it
+were better perhaps not to inquire. In this small craft he repaired to the
+coast of Caramania to make war upon the Christians; or, in other words, to
+begin an independent piratical career. Uruj in these days was young and
+inexperienced, or he would not have chosen this locality for his first
+venture, as this coast was in close proximity to the island of Rhodes, from
+whence the great galleys of the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem set
+forth to exterminate the enemies of their faith.
+
+So it came about that Uruj, sailing out in his little ship from under the
+shadow of a wooded point, came in full sight of _Our Lady of the
+Conception_. There was nothing for it but immediate flight, and Uruj put
+his helm up and scudded before the breeze; but the great galley
+"goose-winged" her two mighty lateen sails, and turned in pursuit. The ship
+which carried Uruj and his fortunes was both fast and handy, and for a time
+she held her own; but it was only for a time, as those on board _Our Lady
+of the Conception_, finding that they were not gaining on the chase, put
+forth their oars and soon changed the aspect of affairs. The galley of the
+knights carried twenty-seven oars a-side, and each of these oars was manned
+by nine Moslem slaves. The sea was smooth and favourable for rowing, and
+soon the ravening pursuit closed in on the doomed corsair. As the interval
+between chaser and chased became less and less, those on board the pirate
+ship could see for themselves the fate which was awaiting them, as on the
+central gang-plank, which separated the rowers' benches, the boatswain and
+his mates were unmercifully flogging the bare backs of the straining
+oarsmen to urge them to greater exertions. He who was captured at sea in
+those days was set to row until he died, and the calculating mercy which
+causes a man to feed and treat his beast well in order that it may do the
+better work was not to be relied upon here, as life was cheap and slaves
+were plentiful. Very soon the beak of the galley overhung the stern of the
+little ship. Escape was impossible, to fight would have meant the massacre
+of all on board; the choice was instant submission or a watery grave. Uruj
+lowered his sail, and he and his little company were ironed and flung into
+the depths of the galley until such time as they should be wanted to take
+their turn at the oars. In this ignominious fashion ended his first attempt
+at independent piracy.
+
+But a storm was brewing, and a heavy sea got up. The sails of the galley
+were lowered, her beak was put head-on to the wind, and she made for the
+shore. In this noisome confinement Uruj could hear above the crash of the
+seas and the whistling of the wind the shrieks of the hapless slaves as the
+whips of their taskmasters bit through skin and flesh: the galley-slave
+rowed stark naked chained to his bench. This was to be his fate, and he was
+well aware of the fact.
+
+At last, after nightfall, the galley anchored under the Isle of Castel
+Rosso, at the entrance of the Gulf of Satalie. It still blew hard, but, in
+the comparative peace of the anchorage, sounds hitherto hidden by the war
+of the elements now made themselves manifest. There were the snores of the
+sleepers, the clank of the leg-chains as the wretched slaves shifted their
+positions in the attempt to gain an easier place on the bench, there was
+also the sound of men carousing with loud laughter in the stern of the
+vessel; but above them all rose the hollow groaning as of one in mortal
+agony. This proceeded from a slave who was quite close to Uruj. There came
+a spell in the laughter and loud voices in the stern, and presently an
+imperious voice spoke: "That noise disturbs me; see that it ceases at
+once." An obsequious answer came from out of the prevailing darkness: "It
+shall cease at once, Excellency." Then came men with lanterns, who
+unshackled the wretch who groaned and--flung him overboard.
+
+The night grew worse, the wind backed, and the galley began to drag her
+anchors. The slaves were roused, and the oars got ready to shift her from
+her dangerous position on what had now become a lee-shore. Uruj had managed
+to slip his shackles, a defective bolt having given him his liberty; for
+him it was now or never, and he was a bold swimmer. He had seen enough and
+heard enough of _Our Lady of the Conception_, and, as the great oars
+plunged once more into the sea, the corsair, preferring the mercy of the
+elements to that of the knights, slipped over the side unobserved and swam
+for the shore. He reached dry land by a miracle, and from Satalie he found
+his way to Egypt, where he took service as a mariner in a ship of the
+Soldan of Egypt which was bound for the coast of Caramania, from which
+province the Egyptians, as well as the knights, drew the timber which they
+required for shipbuilding. But again this neighbourhood proved disastrous
+to Uruj, as the ship in which he sailed was attacked by a Christian galley,
+and he once more had to save himself by swimming on shore. There was no
+lack of incident in the life of a corsair of the sixteenth century.
+
+This time he presented himself to Khorkud, the Governor of Caramania,
+brother to Sultan Selim, the Grand Turk. The Governor, recognising him as
+an intrepid mariner, ordered the Basha of Smyrna to furnish him with a ship
+fitted for that _guerre de course,_ which he desired to pursue against the
+Christians. The value of the corsair as an auxiliary was beginning to be
+recognised among the high Turkish officials. For the complaisance of
+Khorkud there were two reasons: in the first place, he was acting in the
+interests of his brother in sending to sea any really capable man to make
+head against his enemies, and the fact that Uruj was a pirate pure and
+simple did not weigh for a feather in the balance; in the second place, it
+was a decidedly good mercantile speculation as he ordered his inferior, the
+Basha of Egypt, to bear the expense of fitting out the necessary
+ship--which came to some 5,000 ducats--and doubtless received a handsome
+percentage on all captures from his grateful prot�g�.
+
+This latter, as may easily be imagined, had had quite enough of the
+Caramanian coast, which had turned out a veritable nest of hornets; also,
+he had no desire at present to cultivate the further acquaintance of the
+knights, and therefore put the whole width of the Ionian Sea between
+himself and them, and succeeded in taking several rich prizes. He avoided
+Mitylene and returned to Egypt, wintering at Alexandria. It may here be
+remarked that the corsairs, as a rule, regarded the winter as a close
+season, as in those early days the mariner did not, if he could avoid it,
+risk his ship by sailing her at this period of storm and tempest. In
+consequence there was nothing to tempt the pirates to range the seas during
+these months, and if they had had a successful summer and autumn, as they
+generally did, they could well afford to lay up and await the coming of
+spring.
+
+But when storm and rain gave way to the smooth waters and balmy breezes,
+the Sea-wolves were certain of their prey, as the whole length and breadth
+of the tideless sea was sure to be filled with the ships of the detested
+Christians trafficking in every direction. In the ethics of the Moslem all
+ships which sailed under the banner of the Cross, no matter to what nation
+they belonged, were fair game, even supposing that her insignia were the
+Crescent--well, supposing the spot to be sufficiently remote, dead men tell
+no tales, and the pirates were to be trusted to see to it that none
+escaped.
+
+But, however this might have been, it is quite certain that no qualms of
+conscience troubled Uruj concerning those others: Genoese, Neapolitans,
+Catalans, Andalusians, French, or the dwellers of the Balearic Islands,
+were all fish sent by a bountiful Providence to be enclosed in his net, and
+he seized upon them without distinction. When in the full tide of his
+success there was but one thing which preoccupied the mind of the corsair,
+which was to find a ready market for his spoils and a convenient place in
+which to rid himself of an embarrassing number of captives. This, however,
+did not present an insuperable difficulty, as we have already seen in the
+case of Curtogali, and a similar arrangement was carried out by Uruj
+Barbarossa and his brother.
+
+Uruj now established himself at the island of Jerba, on the east coast of
+Tunis, which formed an admirable base from which to "work" the
+Mediterranean from the piratical point of view. Jerba had originally been
+conquered and occupied by the Spaniards in 1431, but the occupation had
+been allowed to lapse, and the island was lying derelict when the
+Barbarossas made it their headquarters. Here Uruj was joined by his younger
+brother Khizr, destined to become so much the more famous of the two; he
+had already made himself some reputation in piratical circles, and now
+brought his cool judgment and wise counsel to the assistance of that fiery
+fighting man his elder brother. The first question to be decided was that
+which we have already mentioned, namely, the disposal of spoil from
+prospective captures, and with this end in view the corsairs approached the
+Sultan of Tunis. This potentate made a gracious response to their
+overtures, and wished them all success in their enterprises. He promised
+them succour and support on the same terms which Curtogali had obtained,
+namely, one-fifth of all the spoil landed in his dominions.
+
+The price to be paid was a stiff one, and was so regarded by the active
+partners in this arrangement; they were, however, young and unknown, and
+had not the least intention of holding to their bargain when more
+favourable circumstances presented themselves. Now they held fair speech
+with the puppet princes of North Africa; the day was to come when they
+should chase them from their insecure thrones. It was at this time, shortly
+after the treaty with the Sultan of Tunis was concluded, that the younger
+Barbarossa received from the Grand Turk the glorious name of Kheyr-ed-Din,
+or "The Protector of Religion." It was a somewhat remarkable title for a
+pirate, but perhaps its bestower was slightly deficient in a sense of
+humour.
+
+Sailing from Tunis in the spring of the year 1512, the brothers, with three
+galleys, fell in with _The Galley of Naples_, an enormous nef with a crew
+of three hundred. They instantly attacked, but were repulsed, night falling
+without either side having gained an advantage. This audacious proceeding
+illustrates the hardihood of the Moslem corsairs at this time. They were
+amply strong enough to range the Mediterranean and to capture, with no risk
+to themselves, the weak and unprotected argosies plying their trade in this
+sea; but this was not the method of the Barbarossas. Villains they may have
+been according to modern standards, pirates they were unquestionably; but
+they were grim, hard-bitten, fighting men, who shrank from no dangers in
+the pursuit of their prey, who reckoned that the humiliation and defeat of
+their Christian antagonists was as sweet a morsel as the booty reft from
+their hands. All night the three Moslem galleys and the great nef lay
+becalmed awaiting the conflict which was to come with the break of day; and
+it is easy to imagine that there was not much quiet sleep on board of
+either the Moslem or the Christian ships, for both on the one side and the
+other the issues loomed large. The corsairs had, so far, made no such
+important capture as this, which, could it be accomplished, would add
+enormously to their prestige, in addition to such spoils as they might
+acquire; but the combatants were fairly evenly matched in the matter of
+numbers, and the fight was one to a finish. The advantage on the side of
+the corsairs lay in the fact of their being three to one, and their being
+thus enabled to attack in three separate places at the same time. Terrible
+must have been that night of waiting for the unfortunates on board _The
+Galley of Naples_; there was no escape, and on board of her among her
+passengers were many women, whose fate was too terrible to contemplate
+should the day go against them. The first assault had been beaten off, it
+is true, but the struggle had been hard and bitter; would they be equally
+successful when the assault was renewed?
+
+Even such a night as this, however, comes at last to an end, and the
+prospect of action must have been welcomed by the men on both sides; of the
+women with so horrible a fate impending one can hardly bear to think. The
+ghostly fingers of the dawn touched the grey sea with a wan yellow light,
+outlining the nef and the slender, wicked-looking galleys with their banks
+of oars; over the surface of the deep a slight mist hovered, as though some
+kindly spirit of the sea would hide, if such a thing were possible, the
+deeds which were to come. The three galleys lay close together, and Uruj
+and his brother held a few last words of counsel.
+
+"It is agreed, then," said the elder; "you, my brother, attack the
+starboard side and I on the port side, while Hassan Ali [indicating the
+captain of the third galley] will await the time when we are fully engaged,
+and will then board over the stern."
+
+"It is agreed," answered Kheyr-ed-Din, and Hassan Ali.
+
+As the strong sun of a perfect May morning in the Mediterranean leapt above
+the horizon, Uruj loosed his hounds upon their prey; the oars of the
+galleys churned the clear blue waters into foam, and the air was filled
+with the yells of the corsairs. "Allah! Allah!" and "Barbarossa!
+Barbarossa!" they cried. It was a war-cry that was destined to re-echo over
+many a conflict, both by land and sea, in the years that were to come.
+
+In a simultaneous, and as we have seen a concerted attack, the beaks of the
+galleys crushed into the broadsides of _The Galley of Naples_, and, ever
+foremost in the fray, Uruj and Kheyr-ed-Din were the first two men to
+board. Then, when men were hand to hand and foot to foot, when Moslem
+scimitar rang on Christian sabre, and the air was filled with the oaths and
+shouts of the combatants, the third remaining pirate craft grappled _The
+Galley of Naples_ by the stern, and a tide of fresh, unwounded men burst
+into the fray. This was the end; the Christians were both outnumbered and
+outfought, for among them were many who were not by profession warriors,
+whereas no man found a footing among the Sea-wolves, or was taken to sea as
+a fighting man, unless he had approved himself to the satisfaction of his
+captain that he was a valiant man of his hands. We have no record or list
+of the dead and wounded in this battle, but among the latter was Uruj, who
+was severely hurt. Not so Kheyr-ed-Din, who escaped scatheless and took
+command now that his brother was incapacitated. The dead were flung
+overboard with scant ceremony, and the wounded patched up as best might be,
+and then _The Galley of Naples_ was taken in tow, and the corsairs returned
+in triumph to Tunis. Faithful to their treaty, so far, they laid one-fifth
+of their spoils at the feet of the Sultan.
+
+A great procession was formed of Christian captives marching two and two.
+Four young Christian girls were mounted on mules, and two ladies of noble
+birth followed on Arab horses sumptuously caparisoned. These unfortunates
+were destined for the harems of their captors. The Sultan was greatly
+pleased at the spectacle, and as the mournful procession defiled before him
+cried out, "See how heaven recompenses the brave!" Jurien de la Gravi�re
+remarks: "Such was the fortune of war in the sixteenth century. A man
+leaving Naples to go to Spain might end his days in a Moorish bagnio and
+see his wife and daughters fall a prey to miscreants of the worse
+description."
+
+It was not till the following spring that Uruj was fit once more to pursue
+his chosen calling, so severe had been his wounds; but once he was whole
+and sound again he put to sea accompanied by Kheyr-ed-Din, and this time he
+had conceived a singularly bold and desperate enterprise. Two years before
+the famous Spanish captain, Pedro de Navarro, had seized upon the coast
+town of Bougie, and had unfortunately left it in the hands of a totally
+insufficient garrison. This departure from the sound rules of warfare had
+already been punished as it deserved, as the garrison was perpetually
+harassed and annoyed by the surrounding Arab tribes. The idea of Uruj was
+to seize upon Bougie by a _coup de main_. The corsair, however, was a far
+finer fighter than he was a strategist, and was possessed of a most
+impatient temper. All went well to begin with, as he managed to intercept
+and to capture a convoy of Spanish ships sent to revictual the place, and
+had he been content to wait he might have counted with certainty on
+reducing the garrison by starvation, as it depended on this very convoy for
+its supplies. In vain the wary and cool-headed Kheyr-ed-Din counselled
+prudence and delay, but these words were not to be found in the vocabulary
+of his elder brother. "What had to be done," he replied, "had better be
+done at once," and at the head of only fifty men landed and assaulted the
+still uncompleted ramparts of Bougie.
+
+But if Uruj were rash and headstrong, so was not the commander of the
+Spanish garrison, who, massing his men for the repulse of the assault,
+waited till the last moment, and then received them with a volley of
+arquebuses, which laid many of them low, and so badly wounded their leader
+that he had to have his arm amputated on the spot: it says much for his
+constitution that he survived the operation.
+
+For the time being the brothers had had enough of shore enterprises, and
+confined themselves strictly to their piratical business at sea, which
+prospered so exceedingly that they became exceedingly rich and their fame
+and power increased day by day. As time went on and the wealth of the
+brothers and partners increased, there entered into the calculating brain
+of Kheyr-ed-Din the idea that the payment of one-fifth share to the Sultan
+of Tunis was but money thrown away. Twenty per cent, was eating into the
+profits of the firm in an unwarrantable manner, he considered, and now that
+the active partners therein had established so good a business connection,
+they were quite strong enough to dispense with a sleeping partner. Times
+had changed for the better, and Kheyr-ed-Din was anxious to take full
+advantage of the fact; if possible he determined to seize upon and hold
+some port, in which, not only would they be exempt from tribute, but also
+in which he and his brother Uruj should be the supreme arbiters of the fate
+of all by whom it might be frequented.
+
+Of Bougie and its stout Spanish garrison the brothers had had quite enough
+for the present: they sought, in consequence, for some harbour which
+presented equal advantages of situation, and their choice fell upon
+Jigelli, then belonging to the Genoese, who occupied a strong castle in
+this place.
+
+Jigelli lies well outside the confines of the kingdom of Tunis, about
+equi-distant from Bougie and Cape Bougaroni, some forty miles from each. It
+would appear that on this occasion it was the younger of the two brothers
+who took charge of the enterprise, and there were no slap--dash,
+unconsidered methods employed. By this time the fame of the Barbarossas had
+gone abroad from Valencia to Constantinople, from Rome to the foot--hills
+of the Atlas Mountains, and, to circumvent the Genoese garrison of Jigelli,
+Kheyr-ed-Din called to his aid the savage Berber tribes of the hinterland
+of this part of Northern Africa.
+
+Turbulent, rash, unstable as water, were these primitive dwellers of the
+desert; but they were fighters and raiders to a man, and ready for any
+desperate encounter if only it held out the promise of loot: they were as
+veritably the pirates of the land as were the Barbarossas pirates of the
+sea.
+
+Small chance, indeed, had the five hundred Genoese soldiers by which
+Jigelli was garrisoned when attacked from the sea by the Barbarossas and by
+land by an innumerable horde of Berbers who were reckoned to be as many as
+20,000. Invested by land and sea, the garrison did all that it was possible
+for men to do. Provisions and water ran short, ammunition was failing, the
+ring of their enemies was encircling them day by day closer and ever
+closer. From the land nothing could be expected but an augmentation of
+their foes, and day by day the commander of the garrison strained his eyes
+seaward to watch if haply the proud Republic, to which he and his men
+belonged, would send succour, or the redoubtable Knights of Saint John
+would come to his aid.
+
+But the days lengthened into weeks, and the soldiers were gradually
+becoming worn out by the perpetual strain imposed upon them. There was one
+chance left, and one alone, which was to cut their way out through the
+besieging lines. Massacre to a man was their fate in any case, and thus it
+was that the commander, whose name has not come down to us, mustered his
+men for the last supreme effort. At dead of night the garrison, having
+destroyed as far as possible all that might be of use to the enemy, sallied
+out to their doom. They fought as men fight who know that the end has come;
+but valour could not avail against the numbers arrayed on the side of the
+enemy, and they were wiped off the face of the earth. The tribes looted the
+castle of everything portable, and then retired from whence they had come.
+For this Kheyr-ed-Din cared nothing; they were welcome to the poor
+possessions of some hundreds of half-starved Italian soldiers--let them
+take the shell, for him remained the kernel in the shape of a strong place
+of arms.
+
+Hardly, however, had the brothers succeeded in this enterprise when that
+tireless fighter Uruj again attempted the capture of Bougie; but his second
+attempt was even more disastrous than his first, and he lost half his
+flotilla. Then he asked for succour from Tunis; but the Sultan, much
+offended at the idea of the brothers setting up in a piratical business in
+which he was no longer a sleeping partner, angrily refused.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+THE DEATH OF URUJ BARBAROSSA
+
+The events recorded in the last chapter bring us down to the end of the
+year 1515, and while every endeavour has been made to present affairs in
+chronological sequence, it must be remembered that the dates of piratical
+expeditions are often impossible to obtain: the wrath of the chroniclers at
+the nefarious deeds of the corsairs greatly exceeding their desire for a
+meticulous accuracy in the matter of the exact time of their occurrence.
+Uruj, as has been seen, had by his headstrong folly once again placed his
+brother and himself in a decidedly awkward situation. By the losses which
+he had incurred in his second ill-advised attempt on Bougie he had so
+weakened the piratical confederation that the countenance of some potentate
+had again become necessary for their continued existence, and the Sultan of
+Tunis had now repudiated all connection with these ingrates.
+
+But, if craft and subtlety were not to be found in Uruj there was one who
+never failed to exhibit these qualities when they became necessary, and
+Kheyr-ed-Din once more came to the front. The Russian peasantry have a
+saying that "God is high and the Czar is far away." In the sixteenth
+century the Grand Turk was in every sense "far away" from the struggling
+corsairs on the littoral of Northern Africa, and was a sovereign of such
+great and mysterious might that any man with a less fine instinct into the
+psychology of the times in which he lived than Kheyr-ed-Din would have
+hesitated long and anxiously before addressing him directly; would probably
+in the end not have done so at all. But desperate diseases require
+desperate remedies, and the politic corsair well knew that even the moral
+support of such an one as the Sultan of Constantinople was worth more than
+even material aid from a Sultan of Tunis.
+
+Consequently, greatly daring, he sent an embassy to the Sublime Porte with
+one of his most trusted captains at its head to lay the homage of the
+corsairs at the feet of Selim I. Very naturally these ambassadors did not
+go empty-handed, but took with them rich presents and numerous slaves.
+Selim was much pleased at the attention, coming as it did from such a
+distance--we have to remember that the coast of North Africa was an immense
+journey from Constantinople in those days--and the insight of Kheyr-ed-Din
+was triumphantly vindicated. Not only did the Sultan send a gracious reply
+in return, but--what was far more to the purpose--he sent a reinforcement
+of fourteen vessels to the corsairs bidding them to go on and prosper in
+their efforts to spread the true faith among the Christian heretics.
+
+There is nothing more curious in the history of the corsairs than the
+perpetual ups and downs of their lives. Thus in the present instance the
+ill-advised attack of Uruj on Bougie had reduced them to terrible straits;
+immediately afterwards the action of the Grand Turk once more set them upon
+their feet and enabled them to pursue an unchecked career of devastation.
+Aided by the reinforcements sent by Selim, their depredations assumed ever
+larger proportions, and, had they continued to receive this assistance, the
+course of history itself might have been changed. Ground to powder beneath
+the iron heel of their ruthless conquerors, the Moriscoes of Southern Spain
+were ever waiting the chance to rise and shake off the yoke by which they
+were so sore oppressed; from far and near reports were coming to hand of
+the continued successes of the corsairs, and all Andalusia seethed with
+passionate hope that the day of deliverance was at hand.
+
+But, alas for the vanity of human wishes! in the opening months of the year
+1516 Selim recalled his ships and the chance was gone, never again to
+arise.
+
+It may have been that "the sorrowful sighing of the captives" never reached
+the ears of the successor of Othman in his palace on the shores of the
+Golden Horn; in any case, the Sultan was preparing for the conquest of
+Egypt, and in consequence recalled the ships which he had lent to assist
+the corsairs. The Moriscoes were thus left without hope, but so far as the
+corsairs were concerned they were enabled to strike another bargain with
+the Sultan of Tunis. This monarch had now got over his fit of the sulks,
+and discovered that customs dues from the peaceful trading mariners,
+although desirable enough, were not by any means so lucrative a form of
+revenue as was the one-fifth share of the booty of the pirates. Uruj and
+Kheyr-ed-Din for their part, although they had captured Jigelli, were
+totally unable to hold it: the capture had indeed been principally due to
+the assistance which they had received from the Berber tribesmen, but these
+nomads had disappeared into the deserts from whence they came, once the
+looting of the town and fortress had been completed.
+
+The corsair had to be armed at all points, in the moral as well as the
+material sense, as he was the enemy of all men, and all were vowed to his
+destruction. Every cruise which he took raised up against him fresh hatred
+and a more bitter animus, and we must remember that it was not only men
+individually, but Principalities and Powers that were arrayed in line of
+battle for his destruction. At the present juncture Spain was specially
+hostile, for not only had her possession of Bougie been twice attacked by
+the Sea-wolves, but a valuable convoy had been captured. An expedition, in
+consequence, was sent by the Spaniards against the Barbarossas, but this
+effort did not result in much damage being done to the offenders. The
+Spaniards destroyed four piratical vessels which had been abandoned by
+their crews at Bizerta, and pushed a strong reconnaissance into the Bay of
+Tunis itself. Here shots were exchanged between the Spanish fleet and the
+forts--under which Kheyr-ed-Din had drawn up his ships--and the Spaniards
+then abandoned the enterprise and returned from whence they had come.
+
+In the year 1510 the Spaniard, Count Pedro Navarre, had seized upon
+Algiers, which town was at this time one of the principal refuges of the
+Moorish fugitives, who had been driven from Granada, from C�rdoba, and from
+Southern Spain generally by Ferdinand and Isabella eighteen years
+previously. To say that the condition of these people was desperate is to
+speak but the bare truth, for what could exceed the misery of the situation
+in which they were left after the successful incursion of their Christian
+foes? What we are apt to lose sight of in the light of present-day
+circumstances is the fact that these Spanish Moors were a most highly
+civilised people, far more so indeed than their Christian contemporaries;
+that they had been driven with fire and sword from the land in which they
+and their forefathers had dwelt for over seven centuries, and that they now
+had been cast out literally to starve on the inhospitable shores of
+Northern Africa. So it came about that the common people exchanged the life
+of the peaceful and prosperous artisan or husbandman for that of the
+hand-to-mouth pirate, and the case of knight and noble among them was no
+better--perhaps rather worse--than the meanest among those who had been
+expropriated.
+
+Those who know the region in which these unhappy folk lived are aware of
+the material monuments which still exist and testify to the glorious past;
+and, seeing what they have seen, it is no great stretch of the imagination
+to picture to themselves the comfort, the elegance, and the luxury with
+which the inhabitants of Granada and C�rdoba lived surrounded. Over there,
+away across some few leagues of shining blue water, were the ruined homes
+of which many of the banished people still possessed the keys, awaiting the
+day when Allah and the Prophet should vouchsafe to them that return which
+they so naturally and ardently desired. To this day the key of the great
+Mosque at Cordoba is preserved at Rabat as a sacred relic of former dignity
+and power--a symbol to the Moslem of his perpetual banishment. If Cordoba
+with its mosque--still one of the wonders of the world, with its eleven
+hundred marble columns--were the principal shrine and holy of holies to
+these people, there were in addition hundreds of other temples of their
+faith now for ever desecrated in their eyes by the misfortune which had
+placed them in Christian hands. In Andalusia were the dishonoured graves of
+their kinsfolk, and, last and worst of all, in this land still dwelt
+thousands upon thousands of their co-religionists held in a degrading
+bondage by their implacable enemies.
+
+The capture of Algiers by Count Pedro Navarro was a crowning misfortune for
+the exiles, and when this commander seized upon the place he extracted from
+the inhabitants an oath of fidelity to the Spanish crown; he further
+erected a strong tower to overawe the town, and to keep its turbulent
+inhabitants in order. But such an oath as this, extracted at the point of
+the sword, was writ in water; it meant, of course, the suppression of
+piracy, and it also meant the starvation of most of those persons who dwelt
+in the vicinity. How the Moslem population existed for the six years after
+the incursion of Navarro is a mystery; but they probably moved their
+galleys, of which they possessed some twenty, further along the coast out
+of the range of the guns from Navarro's Tower, and secure from the
+observation of those who held it for the Spanish king.
+
+In the year in which Selim descended upon Egypt the King of Spain,
+Ferdinand V., died, and grave troubles immediately broke out in Spain. This
+was an opportunity too good to be missed, as no reinforcements could
+possibly be expected for the garrison in Algiers as long as these
+disturbances lasted, and the Algerines took counsel together as to the best
+means of driving out their enemies. It is a commentary on the detestation
+in which they held the Spaniards that they should have allied themselves
+for this purpose with the savages of the hinterland. This, however, was
+what they did. As in the case of Jigelli, these people could always be
+relied upon to go anywhere in search of booty, and one Selim Eutemi entered
+the town at the head of his tribe. But sheer, stark, savage valour could
+make no impression on Navarro's Tower and the ordnance that was mounted on
+its walls. The result was a stalemate, as the Spaniards could by no manner
+of means get out, and neither could their enemies, who swarmed innumerable
+in the town and the surrounding country, get in. In time, of course, they
+might hope to bring the garrison to surrender by starvation; but time
+pressed, and no man knew when the troubles in Spain might be adjusted and
+help come to the beleaguered. In the meanwhile Selim Eutemi and his men,
+who had been taught some rude lessons in the power of firearms, kept out of
+range of the cannon, while the Algerines held yet another council of war,
+the result of which was that they decided to ask help from Uruj and
+Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, and to them they appealed. By this time their fame
+was known to all men, and they could supply that which was lacking--namely
+ships, artillery, a first-class fighting force, and last, and best of all,
+the moral support which would stiffen and put heart into the motley horde
+which at present surged around the gates of the fortress of Navarro.
+
+The Algerines did not appeal in vain, and an instant promise of succour was
+forthcoming. Kheyr--ed--Din was away at sea, but Uruj, that indomitable
+fighter, started at once. From whence we are not told, but he must have
+been somewhere in the neighbourhood, as he and his men marched along the
+shore; while, keeping pace with them, came a fleet of eighteen galleys and
+three barques laden with stores.
+
+But before proceeding to the assistance of the Algerines Uruj had a
+personal matter to which to attend, and he wished to combine pleasure with
+serious business. One of his old companions had seceded from his command
+and had established himself at Shershell, where he lived the life of an
+independent corsair within easy striking distance of the Balearic Islands
+and the coast of Spain, his following composed of a horde of those broken
+men of whom mention has been made. Shershell was an unfortified town, and
+surrendered unconditionally upon the arrival of Uruj and his army.
+Kara-Hassan, for such was the name of this independent corsair, came out to
+greet his old-time chief; he was met with violent reproaches, and the
+altercation ended by Uruj having him beheaded on the spot. It was ill to
+quarrel with the Barbarossas.
+
+Freed from this rival, the Mitylene corsair had now uncontested supremacy
+on the coast, a supremacy none was likely to contest in the future, as he
+brooked no opposition, and had come to consider that independent piracy in
+the Mediterranean was in some sort an infringement of the rights of himself
+and his brother. One of the most salient peculiarities of the corsairs at
+this time was the apparent recklessness with which they assailed others who
+were participants in their nefarious business. Self-interest and policy
+would seem, to the observer in the present day, to have dictated quite a
+different course of action; but we shall see, when we come to deal with the
+life-history of Kheyr-ed-Din, that this infinitely wiser and more
+intellectual man apparently allowed himself to be swayed by gusts of
+passion, in which he savagely maltreated those with whom he was associated,
+and from whom dangerous hostility was certainly to be feared if they
+escaped with their lives. At this distance of time it is impossible to
+gauge the motives by which men such as these were actuated, more
+particularly in the case of Kheyr-ed-Din, whose character was a blend of
+the deepest subtlety and calculated ferocity.
+
+Having settled with Kara-Hassan, Uruj continued his march along the coast.
+Arrived at Algiers, he opened in form a siege of Navarro's Tower; but,
+being unable to make any impression on its defences, he abandoned the siege
+after twenty days' fruitless fighting, during which he lost a number of men
+in his assaults. Baffled and furious, he turned on the Berber chieftain,
+the luckless Selim Eutemi, and caused him to be assassinated, regarding him
+as being responsible for the failure. The Spanish chroniclers relate, with
+some wealth of detail, how Uruj personally fell upon Selim Eutemi, when
+that chieftain was in his bath, and strangled him with his own hands.
+However this may have been, the Spanish records of the deeds of the
+corsairs cannot well be taken _au pied de la lettre_; there is no doubt
+that Selim was murdered, and from that time the Berbers recognised that he
+who had come to help was now remaining to plunder. Uruj now established
+himself in the town, and set to work making raids into the adjoining
+country, carrying off sheep, cattle, and slaves. For the Berbers this was a
+true awakening. He who now oppressed them had come in the guise of a
+champion to assist them in the sack and plunder of Navarro's Tower; they
+had exchanged King Log, who dwelt securely locked up, for a King Stork of
+the most active description. Although we cannot sympathise with such
+people, it is quite possible to understand their very natural annoyance at
+the turn which things had taken, and it does not surprise us (in this age
+of "punic faith") that a conspiracy was set on foot between the dwellers of
+the hinterland and the Spaniards of the fortress.
+
+Uruj was informed of all that was going on through his own spies, and,
+although he kept his finger on the pulse of the conspiracy, he acted as
+though the tribesmen were still his very faithful friends and allies. The
+corsair was more patient than his wont. In this affair he wished for ample
+proof of delinquency, and also for a vengeance adequate to the occasion
+when he should discover all the guilty parties; and so some weeks went by
+while the plot was maturing, apparently, from the point of view of the
+conspirators, to a successful conclusion. But Uruj had bided his time with
+a subtlety and _finesse_ which would have done credit to Kheyr-ed-Din
+himself,
+
+It was the custom of the corsair and his chief adherents to attend the
+principal mosque on Fridays; and therefore, when the conspirators were
+cordially invited to attend on the following Friday, and, after the service
+was over, to attend Uruj to his dwelling and there confer with him, they
+went, nothing doubting, to their deaths. As the discourse of the Mullah
+came to an end a crash resounded throughout the building: six stalwart
+swordsmen had flung the great gates of the mosque together, and barred all
+exit. Excepting the conspirators, twenty-two in number, the remainder of
+the edifice was filled with the galley's crews of the corsair, men who, had
+he given the order, would have cheerfully set alight to the sacred building
+itself and roasted the Mullahs themselves in the flames.
+
+To the corsairs, after they were seated in the mosque, the word had been
+passed that the Berber tribesmen had meditated this treachery against them,
+which, had it succeeded, would have meant the death or enslavement of them
+all. It was therefore a trap of a singularly deadly description into which
+the countrymen of Selim Eutemi walked on this Friday morning.
+
+The doors being closed, the conspirators were one by one dragged before
+Uruj, who, bitterly reproaching them, gave order for their instant death.
+They were haled out through rows of jeering pirates, and beheaded in the
+street immediately in front of the principal entrance of the mosque. When
+the slaughter of the twenty--two was accomplished Uruj strode from the
+mosque over the weltering corpses of the traitors amid the plaudits of his
+own men, ever ready to acclaim deeds of blood and cruelty. After this there
+were no more plots against the corsair in Algiers. News of all these
+desperate doings in Algiers had by this time filtered across into Spain,
+and El Maestro Don Fray Prudencio de Sandoval recounts how, when the
+tidings came to Fray Francisco Ximenes, the Cardinal Archbishop of Toledo,
+that that prelate, much scandalised that the might of Imperial Spain should
+be flouted by a mere pirate, sent Don Diego de Vera with some fifteen
+thousand men to recapture the town, and relieve the beleaguered garrison in
+the tower. This was in the month of September 1516.
+
+Don Diego landed "en el dia de San Hieronymo," and threw up entrenchments
+within gunshot of the town. Great things were expected of this expedition,
+as Sandoval notes that in 1513 Don Diego de Vera, in the war against the
+French, had gained the approval of Count Pedro Navarro ("avia bien aprovado
+con el Conde Pedro Navarro"), and it was not expected that a mere pirate
+rabble would ever make head against the Spanish troops. De Vera opened fire
+on the walls of the town from his entrenchments, but hardly had he done so
+when Uruj, leading his corsairs, which formed the spearhead to an
+innumerable army of Berbers and Arabs, made a sortie.
+
+  "Upon them one day did Barbarossa make an onslaught, and when he saw
+  that the Spanish soldiers were ill commanded, he flung his forces upon
+  them with loud cries. And so great was the fear inspired by Barbarossa
+  that they were routed almost without loss to the Moors; and with much
+  ease did these latter slay three thousand men and capture four hundred
+  on the day of San Hieronymo in this year."
+
+  ("Salio un dia � el Barbarossa y como vio los soldados Espa�oles
+  desmandados di� en ellos con gran gritos. Y fue tan grande el miedo que
+  vieron que Barbarossa los desbarat� casi sin da�o y con mucho facilidad
+  mato tres mil hombres y cautivo quatro cientos dia de San Hieronymo
+  deste a�o.")
+
+This quotation is given in full to set out the amazing fact that in this
+battle over three thousand were killed while only four hundred were
+captured, which shows that it must have been in the nature of an
+indiscriminate massacre; the only captive of any note was the captain, Juan
+del Rio. Diego de Vera had had enough of the corsairs, and sailed away with
+the remainder of his force. Of what became of him or of them there is no
+record, but he must have been a singularly incompetent commander when he
+could not make head against a rabble of pirates and Moors with the army at
+his disposition. Sandoval does not attempt to minimise the defeat, which,
+of course, would have been impossible; he contents himself with the
+following delightfully quaint reflection: "But many, many times Homer nods;
+this disaster must have come upon us for our sins, upon which it is most
+important that we should always think and meditate."
+
+Who so triumphant now as Uruj Barbarossa? It is true that the fortress of
+Pedro Navarro still remained in the hands of its splendid and undaunted
+garrison, and was destined so to remain for some years to come; but they
+were impotent for harm, and the conqueror of Don Diego now turned his arms
+in another direction. Kheyr-ed-Din was at Jigelli when he heard of the
+victory gained by his brother, and sailed at once with six ships to his
+support. The town of Tenes fell into the hands of the brothers, with an
+immense booty, and then Uruj marched on Tlemcen. The Sultan of Tlemcen, the
+last of the royal race of the Beni-Zian, did not await the coming of the
+corsair. All through the northern coasts of Africa the name of Barbarossa
+was a synonym of terror; the sad fate of Selim Eutemi, of Kara-Hassan, of
+the twenty-two conspirators of the mosque, had been noised abroad, and the
+superstitious tribesmen firmly believed that these red-bearded corsairs
+were the accomplices of Shaitan, even if they did not represent him
+themselves in their own persons. Who were these men, they asked one another
+tremblingly, who feared neither God nor devil, and who caused even the
+redoubtable Spaniards to fly before them like the leaves in front of an
+autumn gale?
+
+When men begin to talk and to think like this there is not much fight left
+in them, and so it came about that, after the most feeble of resistances,
+the Sultan of Tlemcen fled to Fez. Thus, almost without striking a blow,
+Uruj found himself master of a province from which the Spaniards were
+accustomed to draw the necessary provisions for the upkeep of the garrison
+of Oran. But Tlemcen is but some seventy miles from Oran, and Oran is so
+close to Spain as to be easily reinforced; in consequence Uruj was soon
+blockaded by the Spaniards, and remained so for seven months. But no
+blockade could keep Uruj Barbarossa for long within stone walls; sortie
+after sortie did the gallant corsair lead against the foe, and it was in
+one of these that he characteristically came by his death. Ever rash and
+impetuous, he allowed himself to be drawn too far away from possible
+shelter or support; and, as there was something dramatic in the whole life
+of this man, so also was there in the manner of his death. They had him
+trapped at last, this grim Sea-wolf, and he stood at bay in a stone corral
+used for the herding of goats.
+
+  As the wolves in winter circle round the leaguer on the heath,
+  So the greedy foe glared upward panting still for blood and death.
+
+By his side was his faithful lieutenant Venalcadi. In a breathless m�l�e
+Christian sword and Moslem sabre clashed and rang. His turban gone, his
+great curved scimitar red to the hilt, the undaunted corsair fought his
+last fight as became the terror of his name. Almost had he succeeded in
+breaking through the ring of his foes when Garzia de Tineo, _alferez_ (or
+lieutenant) to Captain Diego de Andrade, wounded him severely with a pike.
+Uruj stumbled, was struck on the head with another weapon; he reeled and
+fell. The fight was over, and one of the Barbarossas bit the dust. Garzia
+de Tineo leaped upon the fallen man and cut off his head. It is recorded
+that Garzia de Tineo was wounded in the finger by Uruj in the course of the
+combat, and that for the rest of his life he proudly exhibited the scar as
+a sign that it was none other than he who had killed the famous corsair.
+
+Uruj Barbarossa was undoubtedly a remarkable man. At a time when the
+Mediterranean swarmed with warriors none was more feared, none was more
+redoubtable than he. By sheer valour and tenacity he had fought his way to
+the front, and the son of the obscure renegado of Mitylene died a king. It
+is true that his sovereignty was precarious, that it was maintained at the
+edge of the sword; none the less, in that welter of anarchy in which he
+lived he had forced himself to the summit, and, pirate, sea-wolf, and
+robber as he was, we cannot withhold from him a meed of the most hearty
+admiration.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+KHEYR-ED-DIN BARBAROSSA
+
+Uruj had arrogated to himself the title of King of Tlemcen, but with his
+death this shadowy sovereignty came to an end, and the Spaniards seized
+upon the province. This, however, did not avail them much, as the Sultan of
+Fez sent against them an innumerable army, and they in their turn were
+dispossessed. It was in the year 1518 that Uruj fell beneath the pike of
+Garzia de Tineo, and now the first place in the piratical hierarchy was
+taken by Kheyr-ed-Din. In this man the genius of the statesman lay hidden
+beneath the outward semblance of the bold and ruthless pirate; ever
+foremost in the fight, strong to endure, swift to smite, he had by now long
+passed his novitiate, had established an empire over the minds of men which
+was to endure until the end of his unusually prolonged life. With a brain
+of ice and a heart of fire, he looked out, serene and calm, upon the
+turbulent times in which he lived, a monstrous egotist desiring nothing but
+his own advancement, all his faculties bent upon securing more wealth and
+yet more power.
+
+He played a lone hand, for he brooked even less than did his truculent
+brother any approach to an equality with himself among the men who followed
+in his train. Absolute supremacy was his in the life which he lived, but
+none knew better than he upon what an unstable basis his power rested. He
+now called himself the King of Algiers, but still that lean, sun-dried
+garrison held with desperate tenacity to the tower of the redoubtable
+Navarro, and any moment a fresh Spanish relieving force might be upon him
+and chase him forth even as Uruj had been chased from Tlemcen. He saw that
+he must consolidate his power, must for the present, at any rate, have some
+force at his back which would provide that material and moral backing which
+was essential to his schemes. Once before he had successfully approached
+the Grand Turk, the Padishah, the head of the Mohammedan religion, and from
+him he had received that which he had asked; on this former occasion,
+however, he had not been in the same position as he now occupied.
+
+The corsair must have meditated long and anxiously on the best way in which
+to approach the autocrat of Constantinople; in the end he probably hit upon
+the best solution of the problem by again sending an ambassador with
+precise instructions as to the manner in which he was to act. For this
+important service his choice fell upon one of his captains, Hadj-Hossein by
+name, and to him he imparted all that he was to say, and--what was almost
+as important--what he was not to say.
+
+The duty of the ambassador was to magnify the importance of his master, but
+to do so in such a manner that the Padishah was not to imagine that a rival
+to his own greatness had arisen at Algiers. Selim was at this time in
+Egypt, where he had just completed the conquest of the Mamelukes, and
+thither did Hadj-Hossein repair. He laid at the feet of the conqueror the
+respectful homage of the King of Algiers, who, he assured Selim, desired
+nothing better than to become the vassal of the Commander of the Faithful.
+Also, he informed him, that in the name of Selim public prayer was offered
+in the mosques on Fridays, that his image and superscription were struck on
+the coins, that in every manner possible recognition was made of the fact
+that he, and he alone, was the chosen of God upon earth. This manner of
+stating the situation was both delicate and politic. A less wise man than
+Kheyr-ed-Din might have assumed a note of equality from one Moslem
+potentate to another, but the corsair was perfectly conscious of his
+limitations--he knew exactly how the Grand Turk could be useful to him, and
+he was not going to mar his chance by the display of an untimely arrogance.
+
+Hadj-Hossein proved himself to be a tactful and successful ambassador. The
+Sultan accepted the homage offered, and made many inquiries concerning the
+war prosecuted by Hossein's master against the enemies of the true faith in
+the distant region of Algiers. His queries were all answered with deep
+submission and the most subtle of flattery, much of which latter was no
+doubt a perfectly honest expression of opinion. As to the average
+Mohammedan of this period the Padishah was a being set apart by Heaven to
+fulfil the decrees of the Prophet.
+
+The ambassador, when he rejoined his master, must have been a proud man, as
+so well had he fulfilled his mission that he carried back with him to
+Algiers not only a gracious message, but the insignia of the Sanjak,
+Scimitar Horse and Tambour, conferred upon that loyal Moslem Kheyred-Din
+Barbarossa, who, in the words of the Padishah, "abandoning a sterile
+independence, sought in all the bloody hazards of his life nought but the
+glory of God and His Prophet" To us this hyperbole, addressed to a pirate,
+seems merely ridiculous, but in those days of fanaticism the beliefs of
+men, both Christians and Moslems, are something which it is impossible for
+us to realise. On either side the way of salvation was the path of
+conquest, and the man who was heretic to the faith which you professed was
+rightly served if you could cut him and his off from among the
+congregation.
+
+It was well for the corsair to make as many friends as possible, as among
+his enemies he counted all the kings of Christendom; and, looking back on
+his career, it seems but little short of a miracle that he was not crushed
+out of existence, not once but a hundred times. But, as has been said
+already, the root of true statesmanship was in Kheyr-ed-Din. He watched
+with eager eye the quarrels of the great kings on the continent of Europe;
+he saw his life-long rival at sea, the greatest of all Christian mariners,
+Andrea Doria, the Genoese admiral, transfer his allegiance from the French
+King Francis I. to the Emperor Charles V. He noted and took full advantage
+of the perpetual squabbles between the Genoese and Venetian Republics, and
+all the time was in touch with the Sea-wolves, who swarmed on the coasts of
+Africa, and lurked in every creek and harbour of the Ionian Sea. "In all
+the bloody hazards of his life," to quote once again the words of the Grand
+Turk, "he could, in the end, depend more or less on the corsairs, whether
+they ostensibly sailed beneath his banner or whether they did not, as when
+danger threatened what name was so potent as that of Barbarossa, which his
+followers asserted to be worth ten thousand men, when shouted on the day of
+battle!"
+
+That which is most extraordinary in the life of Kheyr-ed-Din is the
+perpetual danger and stress in which it was lived. Time and again the heavy
+menacing clouds gathered around his head; strenuous and unceasing were the
+efforts made by his enemies to destroy his power, to capture the person of
+this militant robber who flung an insolent defiance to the whole of
+Christendom. The storms gathered and broke with various effects, which
+sometimes sent the corsair flying for his life a hunted fugitive, as others
+saw him once more victorious. But no reverses had the power to damp his
+ardour, or to render him less eager to arise, like some ill-omened phoenix,
+from the ashes of defeat: to vex the souls of those who held themselves to
+be the greatest men on earth.
+
+It was shortly after the death of his brother Uruj that the storm arose
+which bade fair to sweep, not only Kheyr-ed-Din but all the corsairs of the
+North African coast, clean out of their strongholds, for the Emperor
+Charles V., at this time young, eager, and enthusiastic, gave orders for
+their destruction. These robbers troubled the peace of Europe; they did
+more than this, they insulted the Majesty of the Emperor, and Charles
+regarded their perpetual incursions in the light of an affront to his
+personal dignity. The divinity which hedged such a monarch as the grandson
+of "Los Reyes Cath�licos," Ferdinand and Isabella, was a very real thing,
+and, if offended, was likely to find concrete expression in the most
+vigorous form. Charles, much annoyed at the necessity for chastising a band
+of robbers, determined that he would make an end of them once and for all.
+To Don Hugo de Moncada, the Viceroy of Sicily, to Don Perisan de Ribera at
+Bougie, to the Marquis de Comares at Oran, orders were sent to prepare
+their forces for an attack on Algiers.
+
+There was no lack of good-will on the part of the Christian princes,
+nobles, and governors. The Spanish veterans in Sicily were rusting for want
+of employment, the levies on the African littoral welcomed anything in the
+way of war as a distraction from the deadly monotony of their lives. The
+soldier in these days who rested too long upon his arms became in time
+practically useless for the purpose for which he existed; but such rulers
+as Charles V. gave their fighting men but small cause of complaint in the
+matter of want of employment. The Pope sent his blessing and a contingent,
+and, to show how serious was the purpose of the Emperor, who took the
+command in person, let us set forth the total of the expedition which was
+to utterly destroy and root out the corsairs and their leader:
+
+FLEET.
+
+  Galleys of the Pope               4
+    "     of Malta                  4
+    "     of Sicily                 4
+    "     of Antony Doria           6
+    "     of Naples                 5
+    "     of Monaco                 2
+    "     of Marquis of Terra Nova  2
+    "     of Vicome de Cigala       2
+    "     of Fernando de Gonzaga    7
+    "     of Spain                 15
+    "     of Andrea Doria          14
+
+  Total Galleys                    65
+  Add Transports                  451
+                                  ---
+  Total Fleet                     516
+
+SAILING-SHIP TRANSPORT.
+
+  The Frigate of Malta               1
+  Division of Spezzia              100
+    "      of Fernando Gonzaga     150
+    "      of Spain                200
+
+  Total Transports                 451
+
+
+We now come to the military side of the expedition, which consisted of:
+
+  The Household of the Emperor     200
+  Noblesse                         150
+  Knights of Malta                 150
+  Servants                         400
+  German Corps                   6,000
+  Italians                       5,000
+  Spanish from Naples and Sicily 6,000
+  Soldiers from Spain              400
+  Adventurers                    3,000
+  Italian Cavalry                1,000
+  Spanish Cavalry from Sicily      400
+  Light Cavalry                    700
+                                ------
+  Total Army                    23,900
+                                ======
+
+We next come to the Armament of the Fleet:
+
+  Soldiers of the Galleys (50 in each)            3,250
+  Galley Slaves (average 70 in each)              4,500
+    "      "    The Frigate of Malta                 80
+  540 sailing ships of all sorts, mostly
+        small (at an average of 10 each)          4,500
+                                                  -----
+  Total _Personnel_ of the Fleet                 12,330
+  Add Army                                       28,900
+                                                 ------
+  Total _Personnel_ of the Expedition.      36,230 men.
+                                                 ======
+
+It was late autumn when the expedition at last set sail, and the imperious
+temper of Charles was such that he refused to be governed by the advice of
+the seasoned mariners, such as Andrea and Antony Doria, and others who
+dreaded the effect of the gales which the armada was likely to encounter on
+the coast of Africa. The Emperor was not to be gainsaid, and the fleet set
+sail. They arrived, says Sandoval, "en el dia de San Hieronymo," Saint
+Bartholomew's day; and there then arose such a storm as the Mediterranean
+seldom sees. Some of the army had landed, some were still afloat, the
+corsairs accounted for the luckless soldiers ashore, the elements destroyed
+many left in the ships: 26 ships and 4,000 men were lost.
+
+Bitterly mortified, Charles, who had personally displayed valour and
+conduct of unusual distinction in this disastrous expedition, returned to
+Europe to turn his attention to his everlasting quarrels with the King of
+France. Meanwhile Don Hugo de Moncada had escaped with a remnant of his
+forces to Iviza, in the Balearics, where he wintered, and where his men
+mutinied because he was unable to pay them.
+
+As there was depression almost amounting to despair in the camps of
+Christendom, so was there concurrently the widest rejoicing in the tents
+and on board of the galleys which flew the Moslem flag. What mattered it
+that it was the elements which had saved Kheyr-ed-Din from annihilation?
+was it not a cause the more for jubilation, as had not the Prophet of God
+himself come to the assistance of those who were upholding his holy
+standard? Were not his favours made manifest in that he had sent, to lead
+his votaries to victory, such an one as Kbeyr-ed-Din Barbarossa?
+
+Pope and Emperor, King, Duke, and Viceroy had tried conclusions with the
+pirates, and their fleet and army had melted away as the mists melt in the
+hot sunshine on the Mediterranean; truly were the descendants of the
+dispossessed Moors of C�doba and Granada taking a terrible revenge on
+those by whom they had been expropriated.
+
+Barbarossa was never one to let the grass grow under his feet; he had the
+Christians on the run, and he intended to take full advantage of this
+pleasing circumstance. Accordingly he despatched a trusted lieutenant, one
+Hassan, with instructions to harass the coast of Valentia, to ravage with
+fire and sword all those unfortunate towns and villages which he could
+reach. This corsair entered the Rio de Ampasta and destroyed all before
+him, the inhabitants fleeing as the news was carried by escaped fugitives
+and by the red glare of the villages flaming to heaven in the night.
+Satiated with blood, laden with spoil, and burdened with many wretched
+captives, Hassan put to sea once more in triumph.
+
+It may here be mentioned how terrible was the damage wrought by the
+piratical fraternity in the Mediterranean, and the manner in which it has
+been brought to light in somewhat remarkable fashion quite recently. Since
+the French occupation of Tunis it was charged against them that they had
+taken away from the natives of the country those fertile lands which lay
+upon the shores of the sea, and had given them to French subjects. The
+facts of the case were that for centuries these lands had been entirely out
+of cultivation, the reason being that, until the complete suppression of
+piracy in the Mediterranean took place, none dared to dwell within raiding
+distance of the sea for fear of being carried off into slavery.
+
+But to return to Hassan. That warrior, having cleared the Spanish coast,
+got separated from three of his consorts during the night. The next day, at
+dawn, he sighted a Spanish sailing-vessel, which he thought to make an easy
+prize. The wind was light, and the galleys--that is to say, the one on
+which Hassan was aboard and his remaining consort--were soon churning up
+the waters in pursuit as fast as their oars could carry them. Hassan
+reckoned on an easy capture, as he made certain she was but a peaceful
+trader with some score or so of throats to cut. He was, however, badly out
+of his reckoning, as on board of her was a veteran company of Spanish
+infantry, stark fighters to a man, who feared no odds, and who were
+skilfully commanded by Captain Robeira, grown grey in the Moorish wars.
+With bloodcurdling yells the galleys swept alongside with the fighting men
+massed on the high poops and forecastles of their vessels. Behind the high
+bulwarks of the "round ship" (as the sailing craft of the day were
+denominated to distinguish them from the long ships, or galleys) crouched
+the Spaniards, their muskets in their hands. Captain Robeira had them
+perfectly in hand, and not a piece was discharged until the beaks of the
+galleys crashed into her sides.
+
+Robeira then gave the order to fire, and at the short range into packed
+masses of men the volley did terrible execution. Completely surprised, the
+corsairs attempted to board, but were repulsed and driven back with more
+slaughter. His men becoming demoralised, Hassan withdrew amidst the
+ferocious taunts of the Spaniards, who had escaped almost unscathed. Sore
+and angry, the corsairs continued their voyage for another three days, at
+the expiration of which they arrived at Algiers. Hassan, who had acquired
+quite a considerable booty, expected a warm reception; this he received,
+but hardly in the way that he expected. He told his tale to Kheyr-ed-Din,
+which that commander received in frowning silence; when he had finished the
+storm burst.
+
+"O miserable coward! dost thou dare to stand in my presence and to confess
+that thou hast been whipped like a dog by those sons of burnt fathers, the
+Spaniards?"
+
+The miserable Hassan attempted to justify himself by reference to the booty
+which he had obtained and the number of captives with which he had
+returned; but this, far from assuaging the wrath of Barbarossa, only made
+it worse.
+
+"Dastard and slave! thou boastest that, thou hast destroyed defenceless
+villages and brought back many captives, but that shall avail thee nothing.
+No profit shalt thou derive from that. Let the captives be brought before
+me."
+
+This was done, and to the horror even of those hardened men of blood who
+followed in the train of Barbarossa, they were all executed. Even this
+wholesale massacre did not assuage the wrath of the corsair. Standing and
+surveying the weltering shambles which tainted the air, he pulled
+ferociously at his red beard, and commanded that they should whip Hassan
+till the blood ran; when this was done thoroughly and to the satisfaction
+of the despot, he gave orders that he should be chained and thrust into the
+prison of the fortress.
+
+Terror stalked abroad in Algiers. No man knew when his turn might come
+after this awful example of what it meant to incur the wrath of Barbarossa.
+The corsair gave orders for the execution of Venalcadi, who, it will be
+remembered, was with Uruj when that warrior came by his death; but
+Venalcadi was popular among the pirates, and they connived at his escape.
+
+For so cool and politic a man as Kheyr-ed-Din this outburst is wholly
+inexplicable. Judged by our standards, the flogging of Hassan was not only
+brutal but silly, as raising up to himself enemies of the most bitter
+description in the midst of his own followers; and yet cruelty was so
+engrained in this man that he never forewent his revenge. It is a standing
+miracle that he escaped assassination in the age in which he lived, and the
+only explanation would appear to be that men were too much afraid of him to
+make the attempt.
+
+The immediate result of the flogging of Hassan and the attempted murder of
+Venalcadi was that the latter collected a following and made war upon
+Kheyr-ed-Din, who, with incredible folly, then released Hassan, and sent
+him with five hundred men to fight against Venalcadi. The result was what
+might have been anticipated: Hassan joined forces with Venalcadi, and
+together they attacked the tyrant and drove him out of his stronghold.
+
+Kheyr-ed-Din had the one supreme merit of never knowing when he was beaten.
+Driven from the shore, there was for him always the sea to which to retire;
+so on this occasion he embarked his family and such of his riches as were
+portable, and took to the sea once more. "Yendo a buscar nuevos asientos y
+nuevos amigos" (seeking a new home and new friends), says Sandoval.
+
+It was well for the corsairs that the Christians had selected the previous
+year for their attack, as, had they fallen upon them when Barbarossa was no
+longer in power at Algiers and the pirates were fighting among themselves,
+the latter would have been wiped out of existence. It was ill fighting with
+Kheyr-ed-Din, whether you professed the religion of Christ or that of
+Mahomet, and this the revolting corsairs were very soon to discover.
+Barbarossa sailed away from Algiers a hunted fugitive, only to return again
+as a conqueror.
+
+Eastward the dispossessed ruler of Algiers took his course, and very soon
+discovered that which he sought--allies to assist him against the revolted
+Venalcadi and the recalcitrant Hassan. Lurking in the neighbourhood of
+Bizerta, he discovered El Judeo (the Jew), Cachidiablo (Hunt the Devil),
+Salaerrez, Tabas, and other corsairs, who collectively composed a
+formidable force. These were all old acquaintances and some old followers
+of Kheyr-ed-Din, and to them did he relate the piteous tale of the
+cowardice of Venalcadi, whom he accused of having deserted his brother Uruj
+in his direst necessity, thereby causing his death; the abominable conduct
+of Hassan, who had turned and bitten the hand that fed him. With tears in
+his eyes did this accomplished actor reluctantly reveal the base
+ingratitude of which he had been the recipient; so much did he contrive to
+work upon the feelings of his auditors that they one and all vowed to stand
+by him, and to replace him as ruler of Algiers, from which he had been
+thrust by men whose shameful treachery was only equalled by their
+ingratitude.
+
+Forty sail in strength, they set out to avenge the wrongs of the gentle and
+long-suffering Kheyr-ed-Din, that master of craft in every sense of the
+word. Reaching Algiers, they disembarked artillery and stores and began an
+attack in form; but Venalcadi, whose forces were equal, in fact slightly
+superior, to those of his antagonists, made a sally, and battle was joined
+in the open. A most sanguinary combat ensued, in which the forces of
+Kheyr-ed-Din were decidedly worsted. For a considerable period his fate
+hung in the balance. Then occurred one of those singular and remarkable
+things only possible in such an age of anarchy and bloodshed. Barbarossa
+had in his train sixty Spanish soldiers captured by him from the force of
+Don Hugo de Moncada. Well did the corsair know their value: there were no
+finer fighting men in all the Christian armies. Hastily summoning them, he
+promised them their freedom if they would now throw in their lot with him
+and assist in the downfall of Venalcadi.
+
+The offer was no sooner made than accepted, and the Spanish veterans, fresh
+and unwearied, threw themselves into the heart of the fray. Shoulder to
+shoulder and blade to blade in their disciplined valour, they broke through
+all opposition; they fought for liberty as well as life, to exchange the
+noisome confinement of the piratical galley for the free air of their homes
+and their country. Soon the soldiers of Venalcadi turned and fled back to
+the city; the day was once again with Kheyr-ed-Din. For four days longer
+did Algiers hold out, and then a traitor betrayed Venalcadi into the hands
+of his enemies. Instantly his head was struck off, placed on a pole, and
+paraded in full sight of the garrison, who were promised their lives on
+condition of surrender.
+
+The city opened its gates once more, and Barbarossa entered in triumph. The
+corsair was as good as his word to his Spanish captives, and restored to
+them their liberty. He went even further, and was liberal in his _largesse_
+to those who had fought so well for him. If he can be credited with such an
+emotion as gratitude, he must have felt it for Moncada's stout infantrymen,
+as, had it not been for them, it would have been his head and not that of
+Venalcadi which would have decorated the pole. The Spaniards departed to
+their own country--that is to say, such of them as desired to do so; but
+one Hamet, a Biscayan, declared that life was so intolerable for a common
+man such as he in his own country that he desired to throw in his lot with
+Barbarossa. Thirty-nine others followed his example, abjuring the Christian
+faith and becoming renegadoes.
+
+Those of the garrison left alive were glad enough to return once more to
+their allegiance to their former master. The episode of the mutiny of
+Venalcadi and Hassan was a lesson not only to them: the fame of it spread
+far and wide throughout the Mediterranean. Who now could be found to combat
+Barbarossa? and all along the coasts of the tideless sea echo shudderingly
+answered--Who?
+
+With the new accession to his strength Kheyred-Din had no difficulty in
+making himself master of Tunis, and he sent Cachidiablo with seventeen
+galleys to harry once more the coast of Spain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+THE TAKING OF THE PE�ON D'ALGER; ANDREA DORIA
+
+Although Kheyr-ed-Din had made himself master of Algiers, there still
+remained the fortress of Pedro Navarro in the hands of the Spaniards. This
+strong place of arms had now been in their practically undisputed
+occupation for twenty years; from out of its loopholed walls and
+castellated battlements the undaunted garrison had looked forth while the
+tide of war both by land and sea had swept by. They had been unmolested so
+far, but now their day was to come.
+
+In command of the Pe�on d'Alger, as it was called by the Spaniards, was a
+valiant and veteran cavalier, by name Martin de Vargas. For twenty years,
+as we have said, the gold-and-crimson banner of Spain had floated from its
+crenulated bastions; since the days of Pedro Navarro it had held its own
+against all comers. It must have been with a sinking heart that Martin de
+Vargas and his brave garrison beheld the town fall once again into the
+hands of Kheyr-ed-Din; they knew, as by this time did all the Mediterranean
+and the dwellers on the coasts thereof, the implacable enmity of the
+corsair to the Christians, and how short a shrift would be theirs should
+they fall into his hands.
+
+On his side Kheyr-ed-Din looked with longing eyes on this remnant of the
+power of Spain in Africa. Could he but dislodge Martin de Vargas, he had
+the whole of Northern Africa practically at his disposal; Algiers would
+then be really his, to fortify for all time against the inroads of his
+foes. He was master by land and sea, the time was propitious; the corsair
+decided that the hour had come. He had seen the repulse of his brother
+Uruj, none knew better than did he the temper of the men by whom the Pe�on
+was held, or the valiance and the unswerving fidelity of that caballero of
+Spain, Martin de Vargas. He tried to induce that officer to surrender to
+him, offering every inducement to the Spanish commander to come to terms.
+He was met with a haughty refusal, couched in the most contemptuous
+language. He tried the most blood-curdling threats, which were no empty
+menaces, as his adversary well knew: these were received in silence.
+
+One more embassy he tried, and to this he received the following answer:
+
+  "I spring from the race of the De Vargas, but my house has never made it
+  a practice to boast of the glory of their long descent: they professed
+  merely to imitate the heroism of their ancestors. Spurred forward by
+  this worthy desire, I await with calmness all your efforts, and will
+  prove to you, with arms in my hands, that I am faithful to my God, my
+  country, and my king."
+
+[Illustration: ANDREA DORIA, PRINCE OF ONEGLEA, ADMIRAL TO CHARLES V.]
+
+Barbarossa summoned to his palace his kinsman and trusted adherent Celebi
+Rabadan, and they mutually decided that there was nothing they could do
+save take up arms against this most insolent and uncompromising warrior. In
+the meanwhile they would try what craft would do; and accordingly two young
+Moors were introduced into the Pe�on, under the pretext that they had seen
+the error of their ways and were anxious to embrace the Christian religion.
+Martin de Vargas, like all Spanish caballeros, was an ardent proselytiser,
+and he ordered the two young men to be taken into his own house and
+instructed by the chaplain of the garrison. The next day was Easter Day,
+and the two young Moors, while the entire garrison were at Mass, signalled
+to their co-religionists a prearranged sign indicating that now was the
+time to attack. Unfortunately for them, a woman in the employment of De
+Vargas saw them, and they were immediately hanged from the battlements in
+full view of Barbarossa. That potentate was filled with fury at what he
+considered an insult to the Mohammedan religion, and again consulted with
+Celebi as to the feasibility of another assault. It was true, he said, that
+his messengers had been hanged, but they had made the prearranged signal.
+Still, the walls were hardly sufficiently breached, he thought, and his own
+men were singularly disheartened by the ill success of their previous
+efforts. Did Celebi Rabadan think another attempt desirable?
+
+That person was in a quandary, because he could not gather what it was that
+Barbarossa wished him to say. He knew that if he recommended an assault,
+and that it proved once again unsuccessful, that the full fury of the
+tyrant would fall upon his head; at the same time he was almost equally
+afraid to broach the idea which had been prevalent in Algiers for some time
+that Martin de Vargas must assuredly be in league with Shaitan, or he could
+never have held out in the way that he had done. In consequence he
+temporised and hesitated, while Barbarossa pulled at his famous red beard
+and regarded him with scowling brows.
+
+The situation was saved for Celebi Rabadan by an accident. There swam off
+to the ship a traitor from the Spanish garrison, and this man informed them
+that his whilom comrades were positively at their last gasp, ammunition all
+but exhausted, and the food-supply barely sufficient to last another two
+days.
+
+"To such an end come those who deny the Prophet of God," exclaimed
+Barbarossa, and gave orders that this news be communicated to all his men,
+who were to prepare for the final assault on the morrow. He further offered
+a reward for the capture of Martin de Vargas alive.
+
+On May 16th, 1530, the corsairs once again advanced to the assault. By this
+time the walls had been battered until a practicable breach had been
+formed, and over this swarmed thirteen hundred of the starkest fighters of
+the Mediterranean, In the breach, bareheaded, his armour hacked and dinted,
+stood the undaunted chieftain of the Spaniards: over his head floated that
+proud banner which had never cast its shadow on a worthier knight of Spain.
+The garrison, worn to a shadow by their hardships and their hunger, most of
+them wounded, and all of them sore spent, were in no case to resist this,
+the most formidable attack to which they had been subjected. It was all
+over in a very short time, and a dreadful massacre ensued.
+
+Martin de Vargas, though sorely wounded, was taken alive and conducted to
+the presence of Barbarossa. Wounded, shaken, bruised, his fortress in the
+hands of his enemy, the dying shrieks of his murdered garrison still
+ringing in his ears, the amazing spirit of the man was still utterly
+unsubdued. "It is to the treason of a ruffian that you owe your triumph,"
+he said to his captor, "and not to your valour: had I received the smallest
+relief I could still have repulsed and kept you at bay. You have my maimed
+and mutilated body in your possession, and I hope that you are satisfied.
+But my body is accustomed to pain, and I therefore defy you and your
+dastardly cruelty."
+
+To do Barbarossa justice he admired the undaunted spirit of his prisoner,
+and he replied:
+
+"Fear nothing, De Vargas, I will do all in my power to ease your hurts if
+you will do that which I ask of you."
+
+De Vargas replied:
+
+"As an earnest of your faith, I demand the punishment of the traitor
+through whose information you were enabled to take the citadel."
+
+Barbarossa ordered the soldier to be brought before them, and, having
+nearly flogged him to death, had him beheaded. He then presented the head
+to De Vargas, saying:
+
+"You observe my complaisance. I now ask you to embrace the Mohammedan
+faith; then I will overwhelm you with benefits and honours, and make you
+the Captain-General of my guards."
+
+De Vargas looked at him in indignation and replied:
+
+"Dost thou believe that I, who but now demanded the just punishment of a
+man who had forsworn himself, could stoop to such an act of baseness as
+this? Keep your ill-gotten riches; confer your dignities on others; insult
+not thus a caballero of Spain."
+
+There was a breathless pause. None had ever used such language to
+Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa and lived to tell the tale. Nor was it to be so in
+this case.
+
+"You and yours have caused me too much trouble," he answered indifferently.
+He made a sign to the executioner who had beheaded the soldier, and the
+next moment the head of De Vargas was swept from his body.
+
+The gallant Spaniard, it is to be hoped, came by his end in the way just
+narrated; but the chroniclers disagree among themselves, and "El Se�or Don
+Diego de Haedo, Arcobispo de Palermo y Capitan General del Reyno de Sicilia
+por El Rey Felipe nuestro se�or," states that Barbarossa kept De Vargas in
+confinement for three months and then had him beaten to death. One can only
+sincerely hope that the first account is the true one; but Haedo was nearer
+to the time of the occurrence, and, as he wrote in the reign of Philip II.,
+is more likely to have known the facts. But however this may have been,
+there was an end for all time of Spanish domination on the north coast of
+Africa, and from this we may date the permanent establishment of those
+piratical States in that part of the world.
+
+The star of Kheyr-ed-Din was once more in the ascendant. Not only had he
+crushed out the incipient mutiny of Venalcadi and taken his life, but he
+had consolidated his power by the taking of the Pe�on d'Alger. He
+celebrated this occasion in the most practical manner possible: a stop was
+put to the indiscriminate massacre of the garrison, and five hundred of the
+Spaniards were captured alive; it was their dreary fate to pull down
+entirely the tower of Pedro Navarro, which they had defended so gallantly
+and to utilise the material in making a causeway from the Pe�on to the
+shore. Barbarossa was determined that on no future occasion should his
+enemies have the chance of dominating his town of Algiers. He was now a
+sovereign in fact and in deed, regarding even so mighty a monarch as
+Charles V. with comparative equanimity. Terrible was the wrath of the
+latter when the news of the fall of the Pe�on, the massacre of the
+garrison, and the death of his trusty servant De Vargas, was brought to
+him. The Sea-wolves seemed to exist but to exasperate him, and this latest
+news came just at one of the most prosperous epochs of his career.
+
+The titles of "Carlos Quinto," as recorded by Sandoval, read like the roll
+of some mighty drum. Nor were these titles mere vain and empty boastings,
+as was so often the case at that time among the minor rulers of the earth.
+On February 22nd, 1580, just before the fall of the Pe�on, he had placed on
+his own head the iron crown of Lombardy; his viceroys ruled in Naples and
+Sicily, his dukes and feudatories in Florence and Ferrara, in Mantua and in
+Milan; there was no more Italy. All these recent acquisitions had been
+rendered possible by the defection of Andrea Doria, the Genoese seaman,
+from Francis I. of France to the side of the Emperor. From henceforward it
+was against this modern C�sar that Barbarossa had to contend; the monarch
+under whose banner swarmed the terrible Schwartz-Reiters of Germany, for
+whose honour marched the incomparable infantry of Spain, for whom the
+fleets of the gallant Genoese sailed in battle-array under the orders of
+the greatest admiral of the day, Andrea Doria. All these disciplined
+legions of Christendom were arrayed against the corsair king; banded
+together for the destruction of that daring pirate whose flag floated in
+insolent triumph above the white walls of Algiers.
+
+As from this time onwards we shall hear much concerning Andrea Doria, it is
+fitting that some account should here be given of this great patriot, great
+soldier, and still greater seaman. Andrea Doria, of the family of the
+Princes of Oneglia, of Genoa, was born at Oneglia on November 30th, 1468,
+and was the son of Andrea Coeva and Marie Caracosa, both of the family of
+Doria. At the death of his mother the young Andrea, then nineteen years of
+age, was sent to Rome, where his kinsman Dominique Doria, of the elder
+branch of the family, was captain of the Papal Guard of Pope Innocent VIII.
+Here he rose rapidly: owing to his extraordinary address in all military
+exercises, he was marked out for preferment, and would probably have
+succeeded his kinsman as grand officer, had it not been for the death of
+Innocent VIII. The successor to Innocent, Alexander VI., was not favourable
+to the claims of the Dorias; so young Andrea, acting on the advice of
+Dominique, repaired to the court of Duke Urbino, then regarded as the best
+school for young nobles desirous of following a military career. After some
+time spent at the court of Urbino, Dominique counselled that Andrea should
+enter some other service, as there was no glory to be obtained under a
+prince who was never at war. Accordingly Andrea passed into the service of
+the King of Aragon, who, having invaded Naples, was giving plenty of
+employment to all would-be warriors.
+
+In the record of his early days we find that in the year 1495 he made a
+journey to Jerusalem to visit the holy places, and that he then returned to
+Italy, where Ferdinand of Aragon was attempting to recover the kingdom of
+Naples. "The Great Captain," Gonsalvo de Cordoba, was warring against
+Doria's kinsman, Juan Roverejo; this commander had rendered a great service
+to the Dorias by rescuing David Doria from imprisonment at Ancona, and
+Andrea decided to throw in his lot with him. He accordingly armed
+twenty-five cavaliers at his own expense, and joined Roverejo, who put him
+in charge of the fortress of Rocca Guillelma. In this place Andrea was
+besieged by Gonsalvo de Cordoba, the first warrior of the age; here he
+displayed such extraordinary ability in defence that, on the occasion of a
+truce, Gonsalvo urged upon Andrea to join the Spaniards. Andrea made answer
+that honour bound him to Roverejo, but, could he be released from his
+arrangement with him, he might then consider the proposition of "The Great
+Captain." Roverejo refused, but, as Charles VIII. immediately afterwards
+evacuated Italy, Andrea was free to follow his own inclinations, and took
+service with Lodovico Sforza, Duke of Milan.
+
+From this time onward until 1503 Andrea was constantly employed in war, and
+made for himself such a reputation that in this year the Republic of Genoa
+requested him to take command of their navy. This offer he refused, as he
+said that he knew nothing about the sea. They pressed him, saying that to a
+man of his genius nothing was impossible, and in the end he gave a somewhat
+reluctant consent. He soon proved his competence in his new sphere of
+activity, as his first act was to capture the Fort of the Lantern, in the
+neighbourhood of Genoa, which was then held by the French for Louis XII.
+The Republic confirmed his appointment as General of the Galleys with many
+compliments, and he put to sea and captured three of the war-galleys of the
+corsairs, also two Turkish ships laden with valuable merchandise. He fitted
+out the galleys for his own service, sold the merchantmen, and made an
+immense sum of money.
+
+His next act was to defeat the corsair, Cadolin, who had eight galleys to
+Doria's six; these he added to his own fleet, which now consisted of
+fourteen vessels, he having begun with three. As Cadolin was one of the
+most famous corsairs of the day, this capture made an immense sensation,
+and all men, Moslems as well as Christians, were asking one another, "Who
+was this Doria?"
+
+They had their answer, as time passed, in the career of this astonishing
+warrior, who in his time played so many parts, who served under so many
+flags, and yet who remained consistently a patriot all the time. As this is
+not a history of Doria, we have no space to trace out his life step by step
+as it was lived; suffice it to say that, disapproving of the government of
+his native Republic under the family of the Adorno, Andrea offered his
+sword and his fleet to the King of France, Francis I. His offer was
+received with joy, and he was made Captain-General of the Galleys of
+France. In his new capacity he sailed for the coast of Provence, which was
+being devastated by the fleet of Charles V. He sank several of the Spanish
+vessels, captured others, and secured sufficient booty to pay his soldiers
+and sailors--a fact most welcome to Francis, who was in desperate straits
+for money.
+
+Eventually, however, a dispute arose between Francis and Doria, which was
+to have disastrous effects for the King. At this time Charles V. was
+suzerain of Genoa, which was held for him by the Adorno. Philippin Doria,
+nephew of the admiral, met at sea with Hugo de Moncada outside the Gulf of
+Salerno; a battle ensued, in which Philippin was victorious and Moncada was
+slain. Amongst others who were captured was the Marquis de Guasto and
+Camille Colonna; these high officers, together with three of the captured
+galleys, were sent by Philippin to his uncle at Genoa.
+
+In the meantime some malcontents reached the Court of France and complained
+to the King that Andrea Doria had not captured Sicily, which they averred
+he could easily have done. These men were backed up by a certain number of
+the courtiers, who were bitterly jealous of the fame of Doria and the
+esteem in which he had been held by Francis. The monarch, easily swayed by
+any determined and persistent attack, decided to levy a fine on the
+inhabitants of Genoa as a punishment for the supineness of their
+countryman, who was his Captain-General of the Galleys; his argument being
+that they must pay him for the plunder Doria had missed by not taking
+Sicily when he should have done so.
+
+This was worse than a crime--it was blunder of the very first magnitude,
+and such a blunder as could only have been made by a very stupid as well as
+a very arrogant man. Doria by this time was a warrior of European
+celebrity, and one to whom even kings used the language of persuasion; to
+attempt to browbeat him was to court disaster.
+
+Francis sent the Vicomte de Tours to Genoa to levy the fine, but the
+Vicomte did not prosper on his mission. Outside of Genoa he was met by the
+outraged admiral on horseback at the head of some fifty Genoese nobles and
+a numerous company of foot-soldiers. De Tours reported that the name and
+authority of the King of France was held in derision by the fierce old
+admiral, who so alarmed the envoy himself that he thought it prudent to
+retire to Florence, from whence he wrote a long letter to his master
+complaining of his reception by Doria.
+
+This attempt to levy a fine on Genoa was not, however, the only deadly blow
+which the King of France was aiming at her. The children of Francis were at
+this time in Madrid, as hostages for the good behaviour of their father,
+and that monarch was in treaty secretly with Charles to restore Italy to
+the _status quo ante bellum_, which would have had the effect of handing
+over Genoa to Antony Adorno. He also began the fortification of Savona, in
+order that from there he might be in a position to strike at the
+Genoese--from a military point of view, if necessary--but in any event to
+cripple the trade of that city. Andrea Doria, as soon as he became aware of
+this latter action on the part of Francis, was thoroughly roused, and wrote
+him the letter quoted below, which illustrates the fact that he was quite
+aware of his own great importance in Europe. It was not a time in which men
+held such language as did Doria on this occasion unless they were very sure
+of themselves and their followers.
+
+  "GREAT PRINCE,
+
+  "It is an ill use of power to reverse order in human affairs. Genoa has
+  always been the capital of Liguria, and posterity will see with
+  astonishment that your Majesty has deprived it of this advantage with no
+  plausible pretext. The Genoese are well aware how inimical to their
+  interests are your projects with regard to Savona. They beg of you that
+  these may be abandoned, and that you will not sacrifice the general good
+  to the views of a few courtiers. I take the liberty to add my prayers to
+  theirs, and to ask of you this grace as the price of the services I have
+  rendered to France. Should your Majesty have been put to
+  expense, I shall join to my request the sum of forty thousand gold
+  crowns.
+
+    "With the humble duty of Andrea Doria,
+      Captain-General of the Galleys of France."
+
+Theodore Trivulce, who held Savona for the King of France, was roundly told
+by Doria that "the people of Genoa would never suffer the taking of Savona
+by the King of France, as it had from time immemorial belonged to them,"
+and added, "for myself I will sacrifice the friendship of the King in the
+interests of my fatherland."
+
+The last straw came, however, when the Marshal de Lautrec demanded from
+Andrea the prisoners taken by Philippin Doria at Salerno. To this Doria
+returned a curt negative, whereupon Francis sent one Barbezieux to
+supersede Doria and to seize upon the person of the veteran admiral. But
+that seaman, now sixty years of age, was not to be taken by any king or
+soldier. He moved his twelve galleys from Genoa to Lerici, on the east
+coast of the Gulf of Spezzia, and when Barbezieux arrived he sarcastically
+told him to take the galleys. Barbezieux had no better fortune than his
+predecessor, the Vicomte de Tours, and retired discomfited and boiling over
+with rage to report matters to the King.
+
+It has been said that among the prisoners of Philippin Doria was the
+Marquis de Guasto. This nobleman had been an interested spectator of the
+quarrel, and now approached Doria suggesting that he should throw in his
+lot with Charles. The admiral, who all through had been acting in the
+interests of his native country, seeing its ruin approaching from the
+ambitions of Francis, consented, and wrote to his nephew Philippin telling
+him of his decision, and his reasons for that which he proposed to do.
+Philippin therefore rejoined his uncle at Lerici with his eight galleys.
+The negotiations were short, sharp, and decisive, and were conducted
+through the medium of De Guasto. Charles offered the admiral sixty thousand
+ducats a year; this was accepted. The only other stipulation made by the
+Emperor was natural enough, which was that all the Spanish galley-slaves in
+the fleet of Andrea should be released and their places taken by men of
+other nationalities. This was of course conceded, and the transaction was
+complete. Henceforward the most formidable force at sea on the Christian
+side was at the disposal of the Spanish King.
+
+This transference took place in the year 1528, and it was in the same year
+that the citizens of Genoa, in recognition of the unexampled services of
+the admiral to the State, elected him perpetual Doge.
+
+This honour Doria declined, declaring that it was more glorious to have
+deserved than to possess the honour, and that he considered he could be of
+more use to his fellow citizens by gaining for them the protection of great
+princes than by remaining as chief judge in his own country.
+
+The Senate of Genoa, astonished by his noble modesty, hailed him as the
+father and liberator of his country, ordered that a statue of him should be
+erected in the public square, that in the same place a palace should be
+built for him at the public expense, and that it should be called Plaza
+Doria; further, that he and his posterity should be for ever exempted from
+taxation, and that a device should be engraved on a plate of copper and
+attached to the walls of the palace, where it could be seen of all men,
+announcing to posterity the services that this great man had rendered to
+his fellow citizens, to be for ever a memorial of their gratitude.
+
+The chronicler of these events draws a parallel between Doria and
+Themistocles, who, when discontented with the Athenians, passed into Persia
+and offered his services to Xerxes, to the great joy of that monarch, who
+cried aloud, "I have Themistocles, I have Themistocles."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+THE APOTHEOSIS OF THE CORSAIR KING
+
+If Charles V. made no such outward manifestation of his joy as did the
+Persian monarch, he possibly was no less pleased than Xerxes; this he
+showed by his acts, and the value that he attached to the services of Doria
+was instanced in the directions which he gave. He ordered the Governors of
+all his possessions in Italy to do nothing without first consulting the
+admiral; to lend him prompt aid, whether he demanded it in his own name or
+in that of the Republic of Genoa. He made him Admiralissimo of his navy,
+with power to act as he liked without even consulting him, as his Emperor.
+It will be seen that Charles had in him sufficient greatness to trust
+whole-heartedly when he trusted at all; the faith which he reposed in the
+Genoese seaman was amply justified by events, and no action of his during
+the whole of his singularly dramatic reign was ever to result so entirely
+to his profit. When in after-life Charles had received from the Pope the
+Imperial Crown, and when, on his return, he put into Aigues-Mortes in
+Doria's galley, he there met with Francis, who, in a burst to confidence,
+advised the C�sar never to part with his admiral.
+
+On that stage, which was the blue waters of the tideless sea, we shall,
+from this time forward, watch the fortunes of those two great sea-captains,
+Andrea Doria and Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa. With them the ebb and flow of
+conquest and defeat alternated. Great as was the one, it cannot be said
+that he was greater than the other; but when the supreme arbitrament was
+within the grasp of both, as it was at the naval battle of Prevesa, neither
+the Christian admiral nor the Moslem corsair would reach out his hand and
+grasp the nettle of his fate. Hesitation at this moment, when, in the
+fulness of time, the rivals stood face to face with arms in their hands,
+was the last thing that would have been expected of such dauntless
+warriors, such born leaders of men! and the battle of Prevesa presents a
+psychological problem of the most baffling and perplexing description. We
+are, however, anticipating events which will fall into their proper
+sequence as we proceed.
+
+Kheyr-ed-Din, now firmly established in Algiers, devoted his energies to
+the undoing of his Christian foes by the systematic plunder of their
+merchant-vessels. At this period he, personally, seems to have remained
+ashore, and sent his young and aspiring captains to sea to increase his
+wealth by plunder, his consequence by the hordes of slaves which they swept
+into the awful bagnios of Algiers; and Sandoval, that quaint and delightful
+historian, is moved to indignation and complains with much acrimony of "las
+malas obras que este corsario hizo a la Christiandad" (the evil deeds done
+to Christianity by this corsair). These were on so considerable a scale at
+this time that he had to devote to them far more space than he considered
+consonant with the dignity of history.
+
+But if all were going on well on the coast of Africa for the Crescent, such
+was far from being the case in the northern waters of the Mediterranean;
+for Andrea Doria, serving His Most Catholic Majesty at sea, had defeated
+the Turks at Patras and again in the Dardanelles, which unpleasant fact
+caused no little annoyance to Soliman the Magnificent. On land the Sultan
+was sweeping all before him; at sea this pestilent Genoese was dragging
+into servitude all the best mariners who sailed beneath the banner of the
+Prophet. There was wrath and there was fear at Constantinople, and the
+captains of the galleys which sailed from the Golden Horn felt that their
+heads and their bodies might at any moment part company--the Grand Turk was
+in an ill humour, which might at any moment call for the appeasement of
+sacrifice; so it was that men trembled.
+
+It was at this time, in 1533, that Soliman bethought himself of
+Kheyr-ed-Din. There was no better seaman, there was no fiercer fighter,
+there was no man whose name was so renowned throughout the length and
+breadth of the Mediterranean, than was that of the corsair king who was
+vassal to the Sublime Porte. Soliman was confronted with a new, and, to
+him, an almost mysterious thing, for the onward conquering step of the
+Moslem hosts was being checked by that sea-power so little understanded of
+the Turk, and the imperious will of the Sultan seemed powerless to prevent
+the disasters conjured from the deep.
+
+[Illustration: SOLIMAN THE MAGNIFICENT.]
+
+Soliman the Magnificent, who was not inaptly described by this title, for
+he was successful as both warrior and statesman, meditated both long and
+anxiously on the new development of affairs before he made up his mind to
+the step of calling to his assistance the corsair king. But he possessed
+that truest attribute of greatness in a ruler, the faculty of discerning
+the right man for any particular post. Brave and reckless fighters he
+possessed in super-abundance, but somehow--somehow--none of these fiery
+warriors had that habit of the sea which enabled them to make head against
+such a past-master in the craft of the seaman as Andrea Doria. The Genoese
+was chasing the Turkish galleys from off the face of the waters.
+Constantinople itself was a sea-surrounded city; it was necessary that a
+check should be administered to the arms of the Christians on this element.
+It is easy to imagine the preoccupations of the Turkish monarch. The despot
+rules by force, but he also holds his power by the address with which it is
+wielded, and he can by no means afford to disregard his personal popularity
+if he is to make the best use of his fighting men in such a turbulent epoch
+as was the first half of the sixteenth century. Soliman had the wit to know
+that he had no mariner who was in any way comparable to Doria; he was also
+aware that Kheyr-ed-Din had risen from nothing to his present position by
+his sheer ability as a seaman. It would appear, therefore, a very natural
+thing that he should invite the co-operation of the King of Algiers, but
+that with which he had to reckon was the furious jealousy that such an
+appointment must inevitably arouse among his own subjects.
+
+It says much for the steadfast moral courage of the man that he eventually
+decided to take the risk; it says even more for the absolute correctness of
+his judgment that he never afterwards repented of the step which he then
+took.
+
+Once the mind of the Grand Turk was made up he hesitated no longer. The
+Capitan de Rodas, one of his personal guard, was sent to Barbarossa to
+request him to come to Constantinople and take command of the Ottoman
+fleet. There were no conditions attached; the honour was supreme.
+Barbarossa loaded the messenger with rich gifts, and overwhelmed him with
+honours. For Kheyr-ed-Din this was in a sense the apotheosis of his career.
+The Grand Turk, the head of the Mohammedan religion, had not only
+recognised his kingship, but had conferred on him an honour unprecedented,
+unlooked for, and one of the highest value to a man of such an insatiable
+ambition. Into the cool and crafty brain of this prince among schemers
+instantly sprang the thought that now at last his kingdom was secure, that
+in future the whole of the Barbary coast would own no other lord than he.
+
+Preparations for the voyage were immediately begun, and, as an earnest of
+the new importance which he derived from the advances of Soliman, the
+corsair actually sent presents to the King of France and proffered him his
+aid against his enemies. To such a pass as this had one of the most
+powerful monarchs in Christendom been reduced by the defection of Andrea
+Doria. Algiers he left in the keeping of his son Hassan, and in charge of
+Hassan his kinsman Celebi Rabadan and a captain of the name of Agi. In the
+middle of August, 1533, Barbarossa left Algiers, his fleet consisting of
+seven galleys and eleven fustas. Sailing northward, he fell in with a fleet
+which he at first feared was that of Doria, but which, fortunately for him,
+was that of a corsair named Delizuff from Los Gelues. Courtesies were
+interchanged between the two leaders, and Barbarossa succeeded in
+persuading Delizuff to accompany him to Sicily, where it was possible they
+might fall in with Doria, and with their combined forces inflict defeat
+upon the Christian admiral. Delizuff was nothing loath to join forces with
+so noted a commander as Kheyr-ed-Din, as he had no desire to tackle Doria
+single-handed, and at the same time wished to extend the sphere of his
+plunderings, which had been cruelly restricted recently by the wholesome
+fear instilled into the Sea-wolves by the new admiral of Charles V.
+
+Accordingly, reinforced by the fifteen fustas and one galley of Delizuff,
+the Algerian fleet once more proceeded on its voyage. Although bound for
+Constantinople at the request of Soliman, at a time when it would have been
+thought that delay was not only dangerous but impolitic, and although the
+corsair was endeavouring to merge the pirate in the king who dealt on terms
+of equality with those whom he now regarded as his brother monarchs, still
+the old instinct of robbery was too strong to be resisted; the lust of gain
+and the call of adventure were still inherent in the man whose famous beard
+was now far more white than red. Advancing age had not tamed the spirit nor
+weakened the frame of this leader among the Moslems.
+
+Sailing through the Straits of Bonifacio, they touched Monte Cristo, a
+small island where they found a slave who had formerly belonged to
+Delizuff. This man was base enough to betray his own native island of Biba
+into the hands of the corsairs, who sacked it thoroughly and carried off
+its inhabitants; they also captured thirteen large ships going to Sicily
+for wheat, and burnt them, making slaves of their crews. In the fight with
+these vessels Delizuff was killed. Shortly after this, some disagreement
+arising between the crews of the ships of Barbarossa and the men in
+Delizuff's fleet, the Algerian commander seized a man out of one of
+Delizuff's galleys and had him summarily shot. The death of Delizuff
+naturally caused some confusion in his command, and the high-handed
+proceeding of Kheyr-ed-Din caused great resentment, not unmixed with fear,
+as the terror inspired by the Barbarossas was a very real sentiment. Under
+their command no man knew when or at how short notice his life might not be
+required of him; but the glamour of success was ever around them, and they
+never, in consequence, lacked for followers. But the taking out and
+shooting of one of their comrades was too much for the pirates from the
+islands of Los Gelues, from whence Delizuff was in the habit of
+"operating." In the words of Sandoval, "they were not used to such tyranny
+and cruel usage." In consequence they concerted among themselves and one
+dark night sailed off, leaving Kheyr-ed-Din to continue his voyage with his
+original following.
+
+That warrior, nothing disconcerted, pursued his way to the island of Zante,
+where he fell in with a Turkish "flota," under the command of the Bashas
+Zay and Himeral. To these officers of the Grand Turk Barbarossa used most
+injurious language, bitterly reproaching them with not having sought out
+and destroyed Andrea Doria, which he declared they ought to and should have
+done. This is yet another instance of the extraordinary character of the
+man. These persons were the highest officers in the fleet of the Ottoman
+Empire; it was more than possible that they would be placed under the
+command of Barbarossa as soon as his new position as Admiralissimo was
+adjusted at Constantinople; and yet, in spite of these facts, the corsair
+had taken the very first opportunity which presented itself grossly to
+insult these men. It is true, as we shall see, that his injurious words
+came home to roost in the future; but arrogant, conquering, contemptuous,
+Barbarossa seems to have shouldered his way through life, fearing none and
+feared by all.
+
+The fact of his known cruelty accounts for much of the dread which he
+inspired, but it was something far more than this which caused the son of
+the Albanian renegado to ride roughshod as he did over all with whom he was
+brought into contact. Men felt, in dealing with Barbarossa, that here was a
+rock against which they might dash themselves in vain. In all his
+enterprises he spared not himself. He asked no man to do that which he was
+not prepared to do, but if any failed him there was no mercy for that man;
+and, although in deference to modern susceptibility no mention is made of
+the tortures he so frequently caused to be inflicted on his victims, they
+were none the less a daily spectacle to those who lived under his rule. He
+possessed, it is true, the rough geniality of the fighting man, a certain
+"Hail fellow, well met!" manner in greeting old comrades, and yet none of
+these men there were who did not tremble in an agony of fear when the bushy
+brows were bent, when the famous red beard bristled in one of his
+uncontrollable furies. The real secret of his success must have been that,
+no matter how uncontrollable did his passions appear to be, the man was
+always really master of himself. Further, he possessed a marvellous insight
+as to where his own interests lay. He used as his tools the bodies and the
+minds of the men who were subject to him, and he carried his designs to an
+assured success by the aid of that penetrating, far-seeing mental power
+with which, above all else, he must have been gifted. He could drive men,
+he could lead them, he could invariably persuade when all else failed him.
+In this we have had an instance when he was chased from Algiers by the
+combined efforts of Venalcadi and Hassan, whom he had flogged; for no
+sooner did he meet with other corsairs than he persuaded them to take up
+his quarrel--which, it must be understood, was none of theirs--and to
+replace him on that precarious throne from which he had been so rudely
+thrust. We have already said that he was a man who never knew when he was
+beaten, and in the years which we have yet to chronicle this characteristic
+appears again and again; for age had no effect apparently, either mentally
+or physically, on this man of iron who had by this time reached the age of
+seventy-seven.
+
+Leaving the high officers of his future master, the Grand Turk, smarting
+under the opprobrium which he had heaped upon their heads, Barbarossa fared
+onward with his fleet to Salonica, capturing a Venetian galley on the
+voyage: from thence he made his way to the Dardanelles, where he anchored
+and remained several days, to make ready his fleet for the spectacular
+entry which he intended to make into Constantinople.
+
+The city on the Golden Horn was all agog for the arrival of Barbarossa; no
+matter what private opinions the inhabitants might have had concerning him,
+of which we shall hear more presently, they were none the less all curious
+to a degree to catch sight of this man, so famous in his evil supremacy on
+that distant shore of Northern Africa.
+
+Kheyr-ed-Din, among his other qualities, possessed in the highest degree
+that of a successful stage-manager; no pageant which he undertook was ever
+likely to fail from the want of the striking and the dramatic. It was now
+his business to impress the citizens of Constantinople with an idea of his
+greatness, and none knew better than he that it is the outward and visible
+sign which counts among the orientals, more perhaps than the inward and
+spiritual grace: he may also possibly have felt that he did not possess the
+latter to any overwhelming extent.
+
+Even before he left Algiers this entry to the chief city of the Ottoman
+Empire had been in the mind of Barbarossa, who had caused to be embarked a
+quantity of flags and pennons for the decoration of his grim war-galleys
+when they should stream into the Golden Horn. There were also bands of
+music, which, it is to be presumed, utilised the delay in the Dardanelles
+to attain to something like "a concord of sweet sounds," as the incidents
+of the voyage from Algiers, so far, had hardly been conducive to much time
+to spare for band-practice. The galleys were scrubbed and gaily painted;
+round the ship of Kheyr-ed-Din ran a broad streak of gold on the outer
+planking to denote the presence of a King of Algiers, and at last all was
+ready. The fleet weighed anchor, and, with banners flying and bands
+playing, entered the harbour. The shores were black with spectators; even
+the Sultan himself deigned to look forth on the coming of the man from whom
+he expected such great things.
+
+Ceremonial was the order of the day. Soliman the Magnificent was too wise a
+man not to know what was being said in his capital that day; it was his
+part to accustom the minds of men to the fact that he, Soliman, had chosen
+Barbarossa to command his fleet, and that there could be no looking back.
+The decree had been signed, the invitation had been sent, the man had
+arrived, there could be no possible retreat from the situation. The anchors
+splashed into the placid waters close to the shore, and the ships were soon
+so surrounded by boats as to be almost unapproachable; then came official
+persons from the Sultan with greetings to the famous seaman; also came
+Bashas and officers ("con carga de guerra," says Sandoval), to offer a
+welcome and to stare in undisguised curiosity at the man chosen by their
+sovereign to make head against the famous Andrea Doria. This preliminary
+courtesy completed, there came the next act in the drama, which consisted
+in the immemorial custom of the East in the offering of gifts from
+Barbarossa to the Sultan, from the vassal to his suzerain. The Janissaries,
+splendid in scarlet and gold, tall above the ordinary stature of man,
+bristling with weapons inlaid in gold and silver, cleared the common vulgar
+from the streets approaching the palace of the Sultan; they formed the
+spearhead of the procession clearing a way for the King of Algiers, who,
+mounted on a splendid bay stallion, the gift of the Sultan on his arrival,
+headed the captives who bore the gifts. Of these the exact number is not
+stated, but the procession was headed by two hundred women and girls, each
+of whom carried in her hand a gift of gold or silver; one hundred camels
+were loaded with silks and golden ornaments, and other "curious riches"
+("con otras mil cosas de que hizo ostentacion"), says Sandoval. There were
+also lions and other animals, brocades and rich garments.
+
+All of this reads no doubt somewhat too like the tales in the "Arabian
+Nights"; but we have to remember that, if you have led a long and eminently
+successful life as a robber, you have necessarily accumulated a store of
+riches. In the case of Barbarossa he had begun in extreme youth, and was
+now an old man; he had been quite in the wholesale way as a thief, and now
+desired to pay a good price for that which he coveted, namely, the post of
+Admiralissimo to the Grand Turk. It may be objected that he had already
+been offered and had already accepted the post; this is quite true, but
+there were certain conventions to be fulfilled on the side of the recipient
+of the bounty of the Sultan quite understood on both sides, although no
+word had passed on the subject. In those days the man who desired the
+favour of an Eastern potentate never dreamed of approaching him
+empty-handed, and the more liberal that he was in the matter of gifts the
+greater was the favour with which he was regarded. Therefore the principle
+acted upon by Kheyr-ed-Din on this occasion was both wise and politic; that
+is to say, he placed certain of his riches in a perfectly sound investment,
+certain to yield him an admirable percentage, not only in added personal
+prestige, but also in the placing under his command of such a force as he
+had never before commanded, with unlimited opportunities of preying on the
+detested Christian on a far larger scale than it had ever been his good
+fortune to do before.
+
+The Sultan Soliman was not called "the Magnificent" without just cause; his
+life was splendid in its social prodigality, as it was in war and in
+statesmanship; yet even he was somewhat astonished at the amazing richness
+of the gifts which were laid at his feet by a man whom he knew to be, in
+spite of the kingly title which he had assumed, merely a rover of the sea.
+Therefore, in spite of himself, he was impressed. To him, it is true, in
+his splendour and magnificence, the intrinsic value of that which was
+brought to him by Barbarossa mattered but little; but the fact that the
+corsair was in a position to do so opened the eyes of the Sultan to the
+manner of man with whom he had to deal. Hitherto he had but known of him by
+hearsay, as the one Moslem seaman who was likely to be capable of making a
+stand against the terrible Doria, who had now become the plague of the
+Sultan's existence. He now knew that the man who disposed of such
+incredible riches must be, no matter what his moral character, a man who
+stood a head and shoulders over any commander in the Ottoman fleet sailing
+out of the Golden Horn.
+
+Both materially and psychologically this man somewhat bewildered the
+despot: and his _alter ego_, the Grand Vizier, happening to be away on a
+mission to Aleppo, Soliman had no one with whom to confer in a strictly
+confidential manner; for, after the manner of autocrats, he had but few
+familiars, in fact it may be said none at all save the statesman mentioned.
+His reception of the corsair lacked, however, nothing in cordiality. He
+inquired after the incidents of the voyage, interested himself graciously
+in all that he was told concerning Africa and the conflicting claims of
+Christian and Moslem in that region, and was generally courteous to his
+distinguished visitor. He placed at his disposal a palace and attendants on
+a scale commensurate with the state of a reigning sovereign, and sent his
+most distinguished generals to confer with Kheyr-ed-Din. The latter, for
+the first time in his life, was thoroughly out of his element. His had been
+the life of the seaman and the soldier to begin with, and of later years
+that of a rude and unquestioned despot on a savage coast, surrounded by
+myrmidons to whom his voice had been as the voice of a god. Never had it
+been his lot before to dwell within the limits of such a comparative
+civilisation as that which obtained in Constantinople at this date; never
+before had it been necessary for him to restrain that naturally fiery and
+impetuous temper of his and to speak all men fairly.
+
+The strain must have been great, the effort enormous, and he knew, as he
+was bound to know, that his coming had unloosed jealousies and
+heart-searchings innumerable, with which he could not deal in the usual
+drastic fashion common to him. The winter was coming on, which was, as we
+have before remarked, very much of a close season both for the pirate and
+the honest merchant seaman. In consequence there was not very much chance
+against the foes of Soliman for the present. When that opportunity offered
+he promised himself that the courtiers and the soldiers of the Grand Turk
+would very soon discover that the fame of Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa was no
+empty matter, and that there existed no seaman in all the Ottoman dominions
+with whom they could compare the "African pirate," as he had reason to
+believe that he was scornfully called behind his back.
+
+A weaker man would have been daunted by his surroundings, by the manifestly
+unfriendly atmosphere in which he lived, and by the dread that perhaps,
+after all, Soliman might go back upon his word. There were no lack of
+counsellors, he knew very well, who would advise the Sultan to his undoing,
+if that monarch gave them the opportunity; and, as time passed, so his
+anxiety grew. Soliman also could not have felt particularly comfortable at
+this juncture, with a sullen spirit possessing his men "con carga de
+guerra," bitterly resenting the step which he had taken, and the
+appointment which he had made. For the present, however, he made no sign,
+treating Kheyr-ed-Din with distinguished courtesy, but making no reference
+to the future. Soliman was revolving the problem in his acute mind,
+doubtless weighing the unpopularity of the step which he had taken against
+the services likely to be rendered to him by his strange guest. And thus
+several weeks passed at Constantinople, probably amongst the most trying of
+all those in the unusually prolonged life of Kheyr-ed-Din.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+THE RAID ON THE COAST OF ITALY; JULIA GONZAGA
+
+The Grand Turk had spoken, the appointment had been made, Barbarossa had
+arrived; but though autocrats can cause their mandate to be obeyed, they
+cannot constrain the inward workings of the minds of men. In spite of the
+awe in which Soliman the Magnificent was held, there were murmurs of
+discontent in the capital of Islam. The Sultan had been advised to make
+Barbarossa his Admiralissimo by his Grand Vizier Ibrahim, who was, as we
+have said, his _alter ego_. This great man had risen from the humblest of
+all positions, that of a slave, to the giddy eminence to which he had now
+attained by the sheer strength of his intellect and personality. The Grand
+Vizier it was who had pointed out to his master that which was lacking in
+the Ottoman navy: brave men and desperate fighters he had in plenty, but
+the seaman who cleared the Golden Horn and made his way through the
+archipelago into the open sea beyond had forces with which to contend
+against which mere valour was but of small avail. Out there, somewhere
+behind the blue line of the horizon, did Andrea Doria lie in wait; and if
+the Moslem seaman should escape the clutches of the admiral of the
+Christian Emperor, were there not those others, the Knights of Malta, who,
+under the leadership of Villiers de L'lsle Adam, swept the tideless sea in
+an unceasing and relentless hostility to every nef, fusta, and galley which
+flew the flag of the Prophet?
+
+It had come to a pass when the Ottoman fighting man was by no means anxious
+to go to sea. He was still as brave as those marvellous fanatics of seven
+centuries before, who, in the name of God and of His Prophet Mahomet, had
+swept all opposition aside from the path of Islam, had conquered and
+proselytised in a manner never paralleled in the world before. At the call
+of the Padishah, for the honour of the Prophet, the sons of Islam were as
+ready to march and to fight as had ever been the warriors of the earlier
+Caliphs. But they had ever been soldiers; the habit of the sea was not
+theirs, and they found that, time after time, such sea-enterprises as they
+did undertake were shattered by the genius of Doria, or broken into
+fragments by the reckless, calculating assaults of the knights. And so it
+came about that there was but little heart in the navy of the Padishah, and
+those who served therein had but slight confidence in those by whom they
+were led. To use a metaphor from the cricket-field, it was time "to stop
+the rot" by sending in a really strong player. He was not to be found
+within the confines of orthodox Islam, and must be imported from outside.
+
+The man had been found; could he be forced on an unwilling and discontented
+populace? Who, it was asked in Constantinople, was this man who had been
+called in to command the ships of the Ottomans at sea? They answered their
+own question, and said that he was a lawless man, a corsair: were there not
+good seamen and valiant men-at-arms like the Bashas Zay and Himeral, who
+should be preferred before him; this man who had come from the ends of the
+earth, and of whom nobody knew anything good? Again, could he be trusted?
+Something of the history of the Barbarossas had penetrated to the capital
+of Turkey, and it was known that scrupulous adherence to their engagements
+had not always characterised the brothers: who should say that he might not
+carry off the galleys of the Grand Turk on some marauding expedition
+designed for his own aggrandisement? There was yet more to be urged against
+him: not only was he infamous in character, but he was no true Mussulman,
+for had not his father been a mere renegado, and--worst of all--had not his
+mother been a Christian woman?
+
+It was thus that the talk ran in that blazing autumn in Constantinople.
+Naturally there were plenty of persons who carried reports to Kheyr-ed-Din,
+and that astute individual soon made up his mind as to the most
+advantageous course for him to pursue. With the full concurrence of the
+Sultan, he left Constantinople and journeyed to Aleppo to see Ibrahim. The
+latter was both cunning and tenacious. Removed from the capital, the tide
+of gossip and discontent only reached him at second-hand; but he was not to
+be deterred by popular clamour even had he been in the midst of it. None
+knew better than he who and what was Barbarossa; in fact, it may be
+confidently asserted that none in Constantinople had anything like the same
+knowledge of this man and all that concerned him. Ibrahim had not named
+Barbarossa to his sovereign without weighing all the pros and cons of the
+matter, and that which was now happening in the capital had been fully
+anticipated by him. It pleased the Grand Vizier very much that Kheyr-ed-Din
+should take this long journey to see him; not from any ridiculous idea that
+this was an act of homage due to the dignity of his position--Ibrahim was
+far too great a man for such pettiness--but because it enabled him to see
+for himself what manner of man was this redoubtable pirate on whom he was
+relying to defeat the enemies of the Sublime Porte at sea. The corsair must
+have made the most favourable impression possible on the Grand Vizier, as
+that statesman wrote to Soliman:
+
+  We have put our hands on a veritable man of the sea. Name him without
+  hesitation Basha, Member of the Divan, Captain-General of the Fleet.
+
+The Grand Turk had no intention of going back upon the appointment already
+made, but he was none the less pleased to receive from his Vizier so strong
+an endorsement of his policy; and now the time had come to stop the mouths
+of the murmurers and scandal-mongers of Constantinople. Accordingly he
+formally recalled Barbarossa from Aleppo, gave him, with his own hand, a
+sword and a royal banner, and invested him with plenary power over all the
+ports of his kingdoms, over all the islands owning his jurisdiction,
+command of all ships, vessels, and galleys, and of all soldiers, sailors,
+and slaves therein. The die was cast, the erstwhile corsair, the son of the
+renegado of Mitylene and his Christian wife was henceforward the supreme
+head of the Ottoman fleet.
+
+The following description of the famous corsair may be found interesting at
+this juncture.
+
+Barbarossa was at this time seventy-seven years of age. Courageous and
+prudent, he was as far-seeing in war as he was subtle in peace. A tireless
+worker, he was, above all things, constant in reverse of fortune, for no
+difficulties dismayed him, no dangers had power to daunt his spirit. His
+ruddy skin, his bushy eyebrows, his famous red beard, now plentifully
+streaked with white, his square, powerful frame, somewhat inclined to
+stoutness, above all, his penetrating and piercing eyes, gave to his aspect
+a certain terror before which men trembled and women shrank appalled.
+
+All this harmonised well with his reputation as a chief so resolute, so
+pitiless, that it was the boast of his followers that his very name shouted
+in battle put to flight the Christian vessels. His smile was fine and
+malicious, his speech facile, revealing beneath the rude exterior of the
+corsair the subtle man of affairs, who, from nothing, had made himself King
+of Algiers, and was now, by the invitation of Soliman the Magnificent,
+Admiralissimo of the Ottoman navy.
+
+Well may Jurien de la Gravi�re say that "in the sixteenth century even the
+pirates were great men."
+
+It has been stated that in speech Barbarossa was facile. He was not only
+so, but he possessed a power of addressing such a man as Soliman in terms
+which, while delicately flattering that mighty monarch, gave him also a
+lead which he might follow in the future disposition of such power as he
+possessed at sea.
+
+On his return from Aleppo Kheyr-ed-Din was received in audience by the
+Sultan. We must be pardoned if we give the long speech which he addressed
+to his new master in its entirety; and we have to remember that the man who
+made it was now an old man who, all his life, had been absolutely free and
+untrammelled, owing allegiance to no one, following out his own caprices,
+and sweeping out of his path any whom he found sufficiently daring as to
+disagree with him. That this ruthless despot should have been able so to
+change the whole style and manner of his address so late in life is only
+one proof the more of the marvellous gifts which he possessed.
+
+It was in the following words that the corsair addressed the Sultan:
+
+  Dread Sovereign, fortune itself has made it a law to second you in all
+  your enterprises because that you are always ready to declare war upon
+  the enemies of Mahomet the Prophet of God, on whom be peace. You have
+  extended the limits of your vast possessions, you have vanquished and
+  slain the King of Hungary, you have humiliated Charles V., this Emperor
+  with whom the Christians dare hold you in comparison. These have been
+  the recompenses received by you for the pure flame with which
+  your zeal for the religion of Mahomet has ever burned.
+
+  "But these successes and these triumphs are not capable of contenting
+  that thirst for glory with which your being is animated, and I am humbly
+  desirous of indicating to you the means of culling fresh laurels.
+  Experience has taught me the way, and I can assert, without fear of
+  being accused of vanity, that in this matter I can be of great
+  assistance to your Majesty.
+
+  "That which fortune has done for me in the past that will it continue to
+  do for me in the future. Age has not enfeebled me, continual exercise
+  has but rendered me stronger; I can therefore promise to you the most
+  ready service both by land and sea. The desire which has always been
+  mine to persecute the Christians caused me to conceive the idea of
+  serving in your sea-army.
+
+  "If Heaven is favourable to my vows, the Spaniards will soon be chased
+  from Africa; the Carthaginians, the Moors, will soon be your very
+  submissive subjects; Sardinia, Corsica, Sicily, will obey your will. As
+  for Italy, it will soon be desolated by famine when I attack it in
+  formidable force, without fearing that the Christian Princes will come
+  to its aid.
+
+  "Mahomet II., your illustrious grandfather, formed the project of
+  conquering this country; he would have succeeded had he not been carried
+  off by death. If I counsel you, dread Sovereign, that you should carry
+  war into Europe and Africa, it is not that I desire your arms should be
+  turned back in Asia from against the Persians, the ancient enemies of
+  the Ottomans. I require but your sea-army, which is no use against the
+  Persians. While you shall be conquering Asia I shall be
+  subduing Africa. The first enterprise which I shall undertake will be
+  against Muley Hassan, the King of Tunis; he has all the vices and
+  possesses not one single virtue. He is a man of sordid avarice, of
+  unexampled cruelty; he has rendered himself odious to the entire human
+  race.
+
+  "He had twenty-two brothers, all of whom he has caused to be murdered.
+  That which is a common failing among tyrants is his: he dare not place
+  himself at the head of his troops. He prefers to endure the outrages
+  which he suffers at the hands of the Moors to taking up arms and
+  inflicting upon them a salutary vengeance. He had the baseness to enter
+  into an alliance with the Spaniards, and to favour their conquests in
+  Africa. It will be all the easier for me to exterminate this wild beast
+  because I have with me his brother, who prayed me to save him from the
+  cruelty of Muley Hassan.
+
+  "When I besiege Tunis I shall present him to the inhabitants, who love
+  him as much as they hate Muley Hassan. They will open their gates to me,
+  and I shall gain the town without the loss of a single man: it will be
+  then you who will be master. On my way thither I will do what harm I can
+  to the Christians; I will endeavour to defeat Andrea Doria, who is my
+  personal enemy and my rival in glory: should I succeed in defeating him
+  your Majesty will possess the empire of the sea. Be then persuaded,
+  great Prince, by me, and believe that he who is master of the sea will
+  very shortly become master on land."
+
+It is somewhat difficult to fathom the reasons which induced Barbarossa to
+treat Soliman to his sanctimonious diatribe concerning the King of Tunis;
+coming, as it did, from a pirate, it was merely ludicrous, and could not
+for one instant have deceived the remarkably shrewd person to whom it was
+addressed. The corsair stated the facts correctly, but the reasons which
+led to an Eastern autocrat disposing of his family in this manner were so
+obvious at the time that, if Soliman felt any emotion at all concerning the
+event, it was probably one of admiration! Regarded from the practical,
+apart from the sentimental side, what the proposition amounted to was that
+Barbarossa should attack a king with whom the Grand Turk had no sort of
+quarrel, and that, once his territory had been reft from him, that it
+should be handed over to the ruler of Constantinople for the greater glory
+of the Sublime Porte. What mental reservations there were on the part of
+the corsair we are not told, but had Soliman known him better he would have
+been aware that never had Barbarossa pulled any chestnuts from the fire of
+life which were not intended for his own eating; and that it was extremely
+unlikely, at his time of life, that he was now going to alter the habits of
+his long and strenuous career.
+
+There was one thing, however, that Kheyr-ed-Din was not; he was no bragger
+or boaster, and, whatever may have been his mental reservations in his
+interview with the Sultan, that which he stated he would do, that he did.
+And now the time had come when the grim old Sea-wolf had done with intrigue
+and the unaccustomed atmosphere of a Court and went back to his native
+element, the sea.
+
+Soliman, it must be said to his credit, was no man to deal in
+half-measures, and when once he had given his trust he gave it
+whole-heartedly, generously. In consequence he gave Barbarossa eighty
+galleys, eight hundred Janissaries, eight thousand Turkish soldiers, and
+eight hundred thousand ducats for expenses (some three hundred thousand
+pounds sterling of our money). All the necessary preparations were carried
+out under the orders of Barbarossa, who was given a roving commission to do
+what seemed best to him for the advancement of the glory of his master and
+the discomfiture of his Christian foes. The commission which he now
+received was practically that which had been given by Charles V. to Doria,
+the most flattering with which any man can be entrusted, as in his hands
+were left issues of peace and war usually only vested in the sovereign.
+
+All through the early summer of 1534 the dockyards and the arsenals of
+Constantinople hummed with the note of preparation; Ibrahim had returned
+from Aleppo and threw himself, heart and soul, into these activities, which
+meant the sailing of the Ottoman fleet under the command of "that veritable
+man of the sea," Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa. Stilled were the murmurs of the
+year before; the corsair, invested with plenary powers by the Sultan
+himself, was now in a position to make his authority felt; added to this,
+the more sensible of the malcontents had been won round by the Grand Vizier
+to the view that as, so far, the Ottoman navy had been conspicuously
+unsuccessful at sea, it was just as well to make use of the most capable
+Moslem seaman upon whom they could lay their hands. As to his moral
+character, that they could afford to discount, and as to the question of
+his faithfulness or the reverse, it was pointed out with irresistible logic
+by Ibrahim, that never before had the Sea-wolf had such glorious
+opportunities of plunder as now, when he could count ten ships for every
+one that had followed in his wake before.
+
+It was in July 1534 that the Ottoman fleet left Constantinople, and
+Kheyr-ed-Din began operations by a descent upon Reggio, which he sacked. On
+August 1st he arrived at the Pharos of Messina, where he burnt some
+Christian ships and captured their crews; then he worked north from Reggio
+to Naples, ravaging the coast and depopulating the whole littoral, burning
+villages, destroying ships, enslaving people. In this expedition he is said
+to have captured eleven thousand Christian slaves. There is perhaps nothing
+more amazing in the whole history of this epoch than the number of the
+slaves captured by the corsairs, and the damnable cruelties exercised upon
+them; these were, of course returned by the Christians with interest
+whenever possible. As an instance of the treatment to which the slaves were
+subjected it is only necessary to mention the course taken by Barbarossa
+when he left Algiers in the previous year. There were at that time seven
+thousand Christian captives in his power; immediately before starting he
+had the entire number paraded before him, and, under the pretext of having
+discovered a plot, which in no circumstances could possibly have existed,
+owing to the supervision of the slaves, he caused twenty of them to be
+beheaded on the spot in order to strike terror into the remainder during
+his absence.
+
+Back to the Golden Horn streamed ship after ship laden with plunder and
+with slaves. "The veritable man of the sea" was proving the correctness of
+the choice of the Sultan, the acumen of the Grand Vizier who had
+recommended his appointment. Barbarossa was determined to leave nothing
+undone to prove to Soliman that his choice had indeed been a worthy one
+when he had selected him as admiral of his fleet: also he had in his mind
+those others who spoke slightingly of him as "the African pirate"; they
+should know as well as their master of what this pirate was capable.
+Northward the devastating host of Barbarossa took its way; the fair shores
+of Italy smoked to heaven as the torches of the corsairs fired the
+villages. Blood and agony, torture and despair, followed ever on the heels
+of the Sea-wolves of the Mediterranean. And now a fresh pack had been
+loosed, as it was, of course, in enormously increased strength that
+Barbarossa returned to the scene of so many of his former triumphs.
+
+Plunder and slaves were all very well in their way, and acceptable enough
+on the shores of the Golden Horn; but Kheyr-ed-Din had a pet project in
+view on this particular cruise, which was to capture Julia Gonzaga and to
+present her to Soliman for his harem. The lady destined by him for this
+pleasant fate was reported to be the loveliest woman in Europe, a fitting
+gift for such an one as the Grand Turk. The fame of her surpassing
+loveliness had reached even the corsairs. She was the widow of Vespasian
+Colonna, Duchess of Trajetto, and Countess of Fundi; she had now been a
+widow since 1528, and lived at Fundi, some ninety miles north-east of
+Naples. Barbarossa laid his plans with his accustomed acuteness, and it was
+only through an accident that they miscarried.
+
+There was one undeniable advantage in the system which swept off into
+slavery the whole of the inhabitants of a country-side, and that was, if at
+any time you required a guide at any particular point on the coast, he was
+sure to be forthcoming from one of the vessels in the fleet. Now Barbarossa
+did not exactly know where Julia Gonzaga was to be found, so he set his
+captains to work to discover the necessary slave. This was soon
+accomplished, and there was really no occasion for a slave on this
+occasion, as a renegado of Naples knew the castle in which Julia Gonzaga
+was residing at the time, and readily agreed to act as guide to the
+expedition sent to accomplish her capture. Kheyr-ed-Din had made a sudden
+dash along the coast with some of the swiftest of his galleys for the
+purposes of this capture. In consequence the people in Naples and the
+neighbourhood were not even aware that the piratical squadron was on the
+coast before they anchored, as near as it was practicable to do, to the
+residence of the Duchess of Trajetto. The fleet actually arrived after
+dark, having kept out to sea and out of sight during the day.
+
+As soon as the anchors were down a party of two thousand picked men were
+landed and marched silently and with all expedition to the castle of Fundi.
+The escape of the Duchess was really providential. She had already gone to
+bed, and the fierce marauders were actually within the grounds of the
+castle before her distracted people became aware of their presence. But
+fortunately some among them kept their heads, and it also so happened that
+her bed-chamber was the opposite side of the castle to that by which the
+pirates approached. A horse was brought round under the window of the room,
+and, in her night-dress with nothing but a shawl wrapped around her, was
+Julia Gonzaga lowered out of her window on to the back of her horse. As she
+galloped for dear life down the avenue of her home she heard the shrieks of
+her miserable household murdered in cold blood by the furious pirates who
+had thus been balked of their prey.
+
+Dire was the vengeance taken by the corsairs. They sacked Fundi and burned
+the town; they killed every man on whom they could lay their hands, and
+carried off the women and girls to the fleet.
+
+Kheyr-ed-Din was furious with anger and disappointment. "What is the value
+of all this trash?" he demanded, with a thundering oath, of the commander
+of the unsuccessful raiders, surveying as he spoke the miserable, shivering
+women and girls. "I sent you out to bring back a pearl without price, and
+you return with these cattle."
+
+Thus balked of his prey, Barbarossa swung his fleet round to the southward
+and westward and sailed for Sardinia, where, from the Straits of Bonifacio
+to Cape Spartivento, he left no house standing that would burn, or man
+alive who was not swept in as a captive. The descent of the corsairs in
+force, such as Kheyr-ed-Din now had at his disposal, was one of the most
+awful calamities for a country that it is possible to imagine. When
+Sardinia had ceased to yield up either booty or slaves the fleet sailed for
+Tunis, where it arrived before Bizerta on August 15th. The arrival of the
+corsairs was totally unexpected, and caused the greatest consternation. The
+story which Barbarossa had told to Sultan Soliman concerning the reigning
+King Muley Hassan was correct in every detail, and there is no doubt that
+he was a bloody and cruel tyrant of the worst description.
+
+Therefore when the wily Barbarossa sent on shore and informed the sheiks
+and ulemas of the place that he had come in the name of the head of the
+Mohammedan religion to free them from this monster by whom they were
+oppressed, and that he intended to place on the throne the brother of Muley
+Hassan, Raschid, who had miraculously escaped from the fate which had
+overtaken all the other members of his house, the townspeople were inclined
+to listen to his advances and to admire the picture which he drew of the
+peace and prosperity which would accrue to them should Raschid, and not
+Muley Hassan, be on the throne of their country. That which he inferred in
+all his dealings with these people was that he had Raschid with him ready
+to step into the shoes of his unpopular brother as soon as the latter
+should be deposed by a justly indignant populace. The fact of the matter
+was that Kheyr-ed-Din had taken the fugitive prince with him to
+Constantinople, thinking to make use of him, and that, when he was sailing,
+Soliman had absolutely forbidden him to remove Raschid from his capital.
+
+Completely deceived, the townspeople allowed the landing of eight hundred
+Janissaries. The tyrant, who was, as Barbarossa had told the Sultan, a
+craven coward, waited for no further demonstration of force, but
+incontinently fled into the interior with such valuables as he could carry.
+As soon as this was reported to Barbarossa he landed in force and entered
+the town, and then the townspeople noticed that the soldiers were all
+shouting for Soliman and for Barbarossa. They then demanded that Raschid
+should be produced according to promise, but naturally he was not
+forthcoming. Those who had acclaimed the soldiers of Soliman as liberators
+now began to arm against them, and they very shortly discovered, from some
+Tunisians who had come in the fleet from Constantinople, that Raschid had
+been left behind in that city.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+BARCELONA, MAY 1535; THE GATHERING OF THE CHRISTIAN HOSTS
+
+Some idea of the terror inspired by the actions of the Sea-wolves at this
+date is contained in the following extract from "The Golden Age of the
+Renaissance," by Lanciani:
+
+  "The Bastione del Belvedere, which towers in frowning greatness at the
+  north-east end of the Vatican Garden and commands the approach to the
+  Borgo from the upper-end valley of the Tiber, was begun by Antonio de
+  Sangullo the younger, and finished by Michel Angelo after the death of
+  Antonio, which took place on September 30th, 1546. This great piece of
+  military engineering must not be considered by itself, but as a part of
+  a great scheme of defence conceived by Paul III, to protect the city
+  against a hostile invasion from the sea. The Pope could not forget that,
+  in August 1534, the fleet of infidels commanded by Barbarossa had cast
+  anchor at the mouth of the Tiber to renew its supply of water, and that
+  if its leader had thought fit they could have stormed, sacked, and
+  plundered the city, and carried off the Pope himself into slavery
+  without any possibility of defence on the Christian side. This point has
+  not been taken into due consideration by modern writers; the
+  fortifications of Rome, designed or begun or finished at the time of
+  Paul III., have nothing to do with the sack of 1527, with the Conn�table
+  de Bourbon, or with the Emperor Charles V. All the bastions, that of the
+  Belvedere excepted, point towards the sea-coast, which was perpetually
+  harried and terrified by Turkish or Barbary pirates. These would appear
+  with lightning-like rapidity in more than one place at a time, and carry
+  off as many unfortunate men, women, and children as they could
+  collect.... To prevent the recurrence of such disasters the sea-coast
+  was lined with watch-towers, the guns of which could warn the peasants
+  of the approach of suspicious vessels."
+
+That Paul III. had good warrant for the precautions which he designed to
+take is not only instanced by the fact of Barbarossa anchoring in the mouth
+of the Tiber on the occasion of the raid with which we are at present
+concerned, but from what had occurred to his predecessor on the Papal
+throne in 1516. Pope Leo, son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, was accustomed to
+leave Rome in the autumn for hunting, and fishing in the sea, of which
+latter pastime he was particularly fond. One of his favourite resorts was
+the castle of Magliana, five miles from Rome, on the banks of the Tiber. On
+September 18th, 1516, he left Rome and proceeded to Civita Lavinia, on the
+Laurentian coast. Here he was waited for by the corsair Curtogali, who,
+with fifteen ships off the coast and an ambush on shore, was ready to carry
+him off. Curtogali is supposed to have derived his information as to the
+movements of the Pope from some traitor about the Papal Court who desired
+the downfall of "the fatal House of Medici."
+
+Some one, however, warned the Pope, who fled, accompanied by his retinue,
+at a headlong gallop to Rome, never drawing bridle until he reached the
+safe seclusion of the Vatican.
+
+We must now return, however, to that eagle who fluttered so sorely the
+dovecotes, both Christian and Moslem, and whose loudly proclaimed faith in
+the Prophet never permitted his religion to stand inconveniently in the way
+of his material advancement in the world. The soldiers and sailors of the
+corsair entered Bizerta shouting for Soliman and Barbarossa. There was no
+mention of Raschid, that Prince of the Hafsit dynasty, whom Kheyr-ed-Din
+had declared to the townspeople he had come to restore to the throne of his
+ancestors. Too late the town sprang to arms, under a chief named Abdahar,
+and in the first instance accomplished a considerable success. Barbarossa's
+men were unprepared, and a number of them were slain. Driven into a bastion
+of the walls, a party of the corsairs were desperately defending
+themselves, when one Baetio, a Spanish renegado, discovered that a cannon
+behind them pointing seawards was loaded. He succeeded, with the assistance
+of others, in slewing it round and discharged it at close quarters into the
+packed masses of the enemy. This caused a frightful demoralisation to set
+in; the corsairs rallied and soon swept all before them. The massacre
+turned from the one side to the other, and it is said that no less than
+three thousand of the unfortunate townspeople were slain. Barbarossa only
+called off his men when they were wearied out by the slaughter.
+
+Kheyr-ed-Din now graciously accepted the submission of the townsfolk; that
+is to say, such of them as were left, and took charge of the entire kingdom
+as governor for the Sultan of Turkey. He sent out ambassadors to the
+neighbouring Arab and Berber chieftains of the hinterland, repaired
+fortifications, appointed magistrates--all ostensibly in the name of that
+phantom prince whom the Tunisians were destined never to see, and who never
+returned to his native country.
+
+King of Algiers, _de facto_ King of Tunis, Admiralissimo to Soliman the
+Magnificent, his name a portent in Christendom, his fame reaching from
+Spartel to Tunis, and from the shores of France to the foothills of the
+Atlas, Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa was at the height of his power. Never before
+had a corsair risen to such eminence, never again was there destined to be
+so magnificent a sea-robber. Thus it was that the year 1535 opened gloomily
+for all those Powers whose coasts were washed by the tideless sea. Italy,
+torn and bleeding, her strong men slain, her fairest matrons and maids
+carried off into the most odious captivity, was lamenting the terrible fate
+to which she had been exposed by the raids of the pirate admiral. In
+Catalonia, in Genoa, in Venice, along what is now known as the Riviera, men
+trembled and women wept; for who could say that it might not be upon them
+that the next thunderbolt might fall? In Venice taxation was raised to the
+breaking strain to provide galleys wherewith to combat the foe, while the
+Genoese fortified their coasts and poured out money like water upon arms,
+armaments, and ammunition. Says Sandoval:
+
+  "Desde el Estrecho de Me�ina hasta el de Gibraltar ninguno de la parte
+  de Europa pudiera tomer comida ni sue�o seguro de lo que viviera en las
+  riberas del mar." (From the Straits of Messina to those of Gibraltar
+  none living in Europe on the shores of the sea were able to eat in peace
+  or to sleep with any sense of security.)
+
+The Emperor Charles V. was roused to action, stung by the intolerable
+humiliation of the position into which he had been placed by a mere
+corsair.
+
+King of Sicily, Naples, and Spain, as well as Emperor of Germany, in any
+direction he might turn he would find a trail of blood and fire over the
+fair face of his dominions in the Mediterranean. Although it might gall his
+pride to admit that his enemy was formidable, Charles was too wise a man,
+too experienced a warrior to underrate his foe. He repaired the
+fortifications of Naples and Sicily at great cost: he wrote letters to the
+Pope, to Andrea Doria, to the Viceroys of Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia, to
+the Marquis de Vasto, and Antonio de Leyva to collect all the arms and
+munitions necessary for the attack on Barbarossa. He sent orders to Don
+Luis Hurtado de Mendoza, Marquis de Mondejar, Captain-General of the
+Kingdom of Granada, to collect money and to have men ready in the ports of
+Andalusia. He gave orders for eight thousand German soldiers to hold
+themselves in readiness; these were to be joined by the veterans of Coron
+and Naples, which body counted four thousand more; in Italy he also raised
+another eight thousand men. All this was done under the seal of secrecy,
+which the Emperor most peremptorily ordered was to be observed.
+
+But news travelled in the first half of the sixteenth century, although
+newspapers, war correspondents, and telegraphs were not; when all the
+feudatories of the greatest king in Christendom were busy it was impossible
+for the matter to remain hidden. Even had it been within the range of
+possibility to conceal what was going on there was one circumstance which
+would have rendered all effort to this end nugatory. Charles had invited
+Francis of France to join in this holy war against the scourge of
+Christendom: not only did Francis refuse to join, but he had the incredible
+baseness to betray the scheme to Barbarossa. It would be pleasanter to
+think that some mistake had been made in this matter, but unfortunately it
+is beyond dispute, as the facts have been placed on record by Sandoval,
+whose history, it must be remembered, was published in 1614. In this matter
+he is quite precise, as he states that a "Clerigo Francese," one Monsieur
+de Floreta, was sent with despatches from Francis to Barbarossa at Tunis,
+and that this treacherous envoy from Christendom gave the corsair king all
+the available information that he had been able to collect before starting.
+
+This was typical of that "Golden Age of the Renaissance" in which it took
+place; when real devotion to all arts, sciences, and amenities of a higher
+civilisation went hand in hand with crime of the vilest and treachery of
+the basest description. Well might Barbarossa, and such as he, laugh to
+scorn the pretension that his Christian enemies were one whit better than
+were they, when they could point to the fact that, to serve a private
+revenge, a great Christian king could betray his co-religionists to their
+Moslem foes. Shamelessly did the Sea-wolves seek their prey wherever it was
+to be found; their methods were villanous and seemingly without excuse,
+but, after all, there was some colour, some shadow of right in what they
+did, for their argument was that they were merely getting back from
+Christendom that which had been reft from them in the near past in the
+kingdoms of C�rdova and Granada. But who shall find excuse for the
+Christian kings, governors, and princes at this epoch? They sought their
+prey no less ravenously than did the pirates, and with just about the same
+amount of justification: witness the sacking of Rome by Charles V. in 1527,
+and the unexampled act of treachery just recorded of Francis of France.
+
+Kheyr-ed-Din had lived all his turbulent life among wars and rumours of
+wars: the head of the tiller, the hilt of the scimitar, the butt of the
+arquebus, had been in his hand since early youth; bloodshed and strife were
+the atmosphere in which he lived and breathed. Desperate adventures by land
+and sea had been his ever since he could remember; there was no hazard that
+he had not run, no peril which he had not dared. But now even he, the
+veteran of far more than one hundred fights, was grave and preoccupied when
+he considered the greatness, the imminence of his peril. The "Clerigo
+Francese" had put him in possession of the fact that Carlos Quinto was
+exerting all his strength for the combat which was to come; and Barbarossa
+was far too old a fighter, far too wise a warrior, to underrate by one
+soldier or by one galley the forces that the Emperor could put into line
+against him; from far and near his foes were gathering for his destruction,
+and he did not deceive himself in the least as to what the fate of his
+followers and himself would be should the Christian hosts be victorious.
+
+But, nevertheless, such an emergency as this found the man at his best:
+ready to take fortune at the flood when she smiled upon him, he was perhaps
+at his very greatest in adversity; and when all around him trembled and
+paid one of their infrequent visits to the Mosque to implore the aid of the
+Prophet, the veteran corsair was coolly reviewing the situation, seeking a
+way to weather the tempest before which lesser men shrank appalled,
+declaring that the end had come. The storm was coming in a squall of such
+violence as even he had never before experienced, but, thanks to his friend
+the King of France, he had been forewarned. He sent at once to his master,
+Soliman the Magnificent, at Constantinople, to impart to him the direful
+intelligence; then the bagnios were thrown open, and, under pitiless lash
+and scourge, the Christian captives toiled from dawn till dark to repair
+the fortifications of Tunis. Silent and unapproachable, conferring with
+none, the grim old Sea-wolf sat in his palace overlooking the bay and
+considered the question of whether he should give battle by land or sea
+when the time came. If it were possible, he came to the conclusion that it
+should be the latter; he had been evicted from his kingdom on land once
+before, but he knew that in the open ocean few cared to face Barbarossa,
+and he might fall on Doria first and the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem
+second if matters turned out favourably for him. In any case, he must
+summon all the aid that was possible.
+
+East and west flew the galleys of Kheyr-ed-Din, scudding before the wind if
+that were favourable, or churning the surface of the sea with straining,
+strenuous oars should the wind be foul or a calm prevail.
+
+It was an appeal for aid to the Moslem corsairs from Algiers, from Tlemcen,
+from Oran, from Los Gelues (or Jerbah), and from all the countless islands
+of the Archipelago, where they lurked to seize their prey--Tunis, which
+flew the Crescent flag of the Prophet, was in danger--let them rally
+against the grandson of the man who expelled the Moors from Spain.
+
+Grim and sinister, the corsairs came flocking to the standard of
+Barbarossa. Well they knew that, should he fall, it was but a matter of
+time for them all to be chased from off the face of the waters. Of cohesion
+there was but little among them, and, in spite of the bond of a common
+religion and a common hatred of the Christian, they were swayed far more by
+a lust for plunder than by such considerations as these. In times of
+imminent danger, however, men naturally crave for a leader, and in
+piratical circles all was now subordinated to the instinct of
+self-preservation.
+
+Meanwhile, in Christendom their great enemy was maturing his plans. To the
+Marquis de Ca�ete, Viceroy and Captain-General of the Kingdom of Navarre,
+Charles wrote, confiding to his care the charge of the Empress, with
+instructions that her orders were to be implicitly obeyed during his
+absence. Having done this he journeyed to Barcelona, at which city he
+arrived on April 8th, 1535. Here he was immediately joined by the armada of
+Portugal--twenty caravelas raised, armed, and paid for by the King, Don
+Juan of Portugal. This fleet was commanded by the Infante Don Luis, brother
+to the Empress, and carried on board the vessels of which it was composed a
+whole host of nobles and gentlemen of quality, who had come to fight under
+the approving eyes of the C�sar of the modern world.
+
+On May 1st came Andrea Doria with twenty-two galleys, and those already in
+the harbour crowded the sides of their vessels to watch the arrival of the
+famous Genoese seaman.
+
+Four abreast in stately procession the great galleys swept into the
+harbour. With that love of "spectacle" so inherent in the southern nature,
+everything was done to ensure the military pomp and circumstance of the
+coming of the first sea-commander of the Emperor. At first with furious
+haste, and then slowing down to make the approach more stately, the fleet
+of Andrea moved on. From mast and yard and jackstaff of the galleys of the
+admiral floated twenty-four great banners of silk and gold embroidered with
+the arms of the Emperor, with those of Spain, of Genoa, and of the Dorias,
+Princes of Oneglia. The principal standard bore upon it a crucifix,
+broidered at the sides with pictures of Saint John and the Virgin Mary;
+another represented the Virgin with her Son in her arms. With the sound of
+trumpets, clarions, chirimias, and atambours the fleet moved to within a
+short distance of the Portuguese and saluted them; then, as the thunder of
+the guns ceased and the light wind blew away the smoke, they circled round
+and stopped abreast of the royal vessel on which Charles had embarked. Once
+again the guns barked a royal salute, while knights and nobles, seamen and
+soldiers hailed their Emperor with frenzied shouts of "Imperio! Imperio!"
+
+Then Andrea Doria stepped into his boat and was rowed across the shining
+water to visit the Emperor, who received him, we are told, "with great
+honour and many tokens of love."
+
+On May 12th arrived Don Alvaro de Bazan, General of the Galleys of Spain.
+This magnificent caballero made an entrance in much the same state and
+circumstance as did Doria, and during the remainder of the stay of the
+armada in Barcelona there was much banqueting and feasting and drinking of
+healths to the Emperor and confusion to the Moslem foe. It was once again
+as it had been in those days in which Ferdinand and Isabella had descended
+upon the doomed city of Granada, and had built, in full sight of its
+defenders, the town which they called Santa Fe (or the Holy Faith) as an
+earnest that they would never leave until that symbol of their faith had
+triumphed. To witness this victory the best blood of Europe had flocked,
+and now, forty-three years later, when the audacious Moslem had raised his
+head once more, the descendant of the warriors who had followed "Los Reyes
+Cat�licos" rallied to that standard which Carlos Quinto, their grandson,
+had set up on the shores of Catalonia. Sandoval devotes pages of his work
+to the names, styles, and titles of the noble caballeros who joined the
+army for the destruction of Barbarossa.
+
+On May 16th Charles embarked in the _Galera Capitana_ of Andrea Doria,
+accompanied by many grandees and caballeros of the Court, as well as
+illustrious foreigners like Prince Luis of Portugal, and held a review of
+the armada. There was much expenditure of powder in salutes to the Emperor,
+and all vied with one another in shouting themselves hoarse in honour of
+the great monarch who deigned to lead in person the hosts of Christendom
+against the infidel, who had defied his might and dared to offer him
+battle. On May 28th the Emperor travelled some leagues inland, starting
+before dawn, to visit the Monastery of Nuestra Se�ora de Monferrato, in
+which was kept a singularly holy image of the Virgin. Here he confessed and
+received the sacrament, and then returned to Barcelona.
+
+[Illustration: THE EMPEROR CHARLES V.]
+
+On May 30th he embarked in the Royal Galley, the _Galera Bastarda_, which
+had been prepared for him by Andrea Doria, his Captain-General of the
+Galleys. This vessel seems to have somewhat resembled the barge of
+Cleopatra in the magnificence of its appointments, as its interior was
+gilded, and it was fitted up with all the luxury that could be devised at
+this period. Silken carpets and golden drinking-vessels, stores of the most
+delicate food and of the rarest wines, were embarked to mitigate, as far as
+possible, the inevitable hardships of a sea-passage, and there were not
+lacking instruments of music wherewith to beguile the C�esar with concord
+of sweet sounds. Perhaps that which strikes the modern seaman most in this
+recital of all the useless matters with which the vessels of the great were
+burdened at this period is the extraordinary number of flags and banners
+with which they went to sea.
+
+The catalogue of those in the _Galera Bastarda_ makes one rather wonder how
+there was room for anything else of more practical usefulness when it came
+to fighting. There were in this galley twenty-four yellow damask banners,
+inscribed with the imperial arms; a pennon at the main of crimson taffeta
+of immense length and breadth, with a golden crucifix embroidered thereon.
+Two similar ones bore shields with the arms of the Emperor, and there was a
+huge flag of white damask sewn with representations of keys, communion
+chalices, and the cross of Saint Andrew, in crimson, with a Latin
+inscription. There were yet two others of scarlet damask "of the same
+grandeur," embroidered round the edge with "Plus Ultra," the device of
+Spain. Among a further varied assortment was one which bore the
+inscription: "Send, O God, thine angel to guard him in all his goings."
+
+The fleet under the command of Andrea Doria numbered sixty-two galleys and
+one hundred and fifty nefs. There were also a miscellaneous assortment of
+small craft, known in those days as "brigantines," employed in the carriage
+of stores and ammunition. We have seen, on a former occasion, what terrible
+losses attended one of these armadas when really bad weather was
+encountered, and therefore it is not surprising that, on his second
+venture, Charles should have selected the finest season of the year for his
+descent upon the coast of Africa. They were brave men, these Mediterranean
+seamen, and the risks which they ran in their strangely formed, unseaworthy
+craft were of course much enhanced when they were loaded to the gunwale
+with stores, provisions, horses, banners, and last, but by no means least,
+a mob of seasick soldiery.
+
+Into this armada were crowded twenty-five thousand infantry and six hundred
+lancers with their horses.
+
+Cagliari, in Sardinia, was the last rendezvous of the expedition, and here
+it arrived in the early part of June, where a week was spent in making the
+final preparations; and at last, on June 10th, a start was made for the
+coast of Africa.
+
+Meanwhile in Tunis Kheyr-ed-Din was working double tides. He was kept well
+informed by his spies of all that was going on, and his preparations for
+defence were as adequate as they could be made; the corsairs, as we have
+said, had come flocking in at his call. He had withdrawn as many of his
+fighting men from Algiers as he deemed prudent. Knowing that the attack was
+directed against him personally, he had not much fear that it would be
+diverted at the last moment. It would have been true strategy on the part
+of Charles to have done this, but the Emperor considered that his honour
+required that the attack should be an absolutely direct one, and so Algiers
+was left on one side, to the ultimate upsetting of his plans. We say this
+because, although in this case he was to take Tunis and to restore to the
+throne of that country the puppet King Muley Hassan, and although he was to
+rescue some twenty thousand Christian captives, he did not capture
+Barbarossa, who was to live for many years to continue and to carry on his
+unceasing war against the Christians.
+
+There was no artifice left untried by the despot of Tunis. To the African
+princes, Moors as well as Arabs and Berbers, did Kheyr-ed-Din send
+embassies. For these he chose cunning men well versed in the means of
+exciting the furious passions of these primitive and ferocious peoples, and
+it was their mission to represent Muley Hassan as an infamous apostate who
+was prompted by ambition and revenge, not only to become the vassal of a
+Christian king, but to conspire with him to extirpate the Mohammedan faith.
+The subtle policy inflamed these ignorant and bigoted Mohammedans to the
+point of madness, and from far and near they threw in their lot with the
+man who represented himself to be the rallying-point for all those in
+Africa who desired not only to preserve their holy religion but also their
+personal liberty. From Tripoli and Jerba, from Bougie and Bona, from the
+shores of Shott-el-Jerid, through all the dim hinterland that stretches
+from thence north-westwards to Algiers, the tribesmen came flocking in. The
+wild riders of the desert had been rounded up, and it is said that no less
+than twenty thousand horsemen, in addition to an innumerable crowd of
+infantry, responded to the call of the master schemer who was but using
+these guileless savages to further his own personal ends. The land-pirates
+of the desert, those stormy petrels whose lives only differed from those of
+the followers of Kheyr-ed-Din in that they carried on their depredations on
+the land instead of on the sea, camped in their thousands in the environs
+of Tunis and boasted of the deeds which they were about to perform.
+Kheyr-ed-Din stimulated their enthusiasm with presents of the most costly
+description. Ever wise and politic, he knew when it was necessary to pay
+royally, and on this occasion surpassed himself in prodigality. For all
+this he himself cherished no illusions; he had the measure of the fighting
+men of his foes at his fingers' ends, and the most that he expected from
+these wild irregulars was that they might, perchance, stay an onset and
+worry the imperial army with dashing cavalry raids. But that they should
+hold their own with the incomparable infantry of Spain, or make head
+against the stolid valour of the German men-at-arms, was not contemplated
+by Barbarossa. In his Janissaries, in his hard-bitten fighting men from the
+galleys, he could expect much; but there were but some few thousands of
+these, while the disciplined host against which he was called upon to
+combat was at the least twenty-five thousand--the flower of the imperial
+forces. The situation was unique, one on which the world had never looked
+before--all the might of Christendom going up against one who, no matter by
+what titles he might choose to describe himself, was no more than a vulgar
+robber. He was, however, a robber on such a scale as had never before been
+equalled--a force which remained unsubdued during the whole of his
+extraordinary and unusually protracted career.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+THE FALL OF TUNIS AND THE FLIGHT OF BARBAROSSA
+
+Autocracy in the sixteenth century was a very real and concrete fact. The
+orders of great kings were, as a rule, implicitly obeyed, and, when they
+were not, there was likely to be trouble of the worst description for those
+by whom they had been contravened. It is this that causes us to regard as
+most extraordinary one of the happenings in the armada which sailed from
+Barcelona for the coast of Africa. A most peremptory order was issued that
+no women, no boys, no one, in fact, save fighting men of approved worth,
+should find a place in the ships. Says Sandoval, "No se consintiesen en la
+armada mugeres ni muchachos ni otra gente inutil, mas de aquellos solos que
+eran para pelear." (There were not allowed in the armada women, boys, or
+useless persons, but only those who were capable of fighting.) It appears,
+however, that the women paid no sort of attention to this ordinance, and
+the historian gravely relates that "it was no use turning them out of the
+ships as, as soon as you sent them down one side they returned and climbed
+up the other," It seems almost incredible, but is none the less a fact,
+that four thousand women accompanied the expedition and landed at Tunis.
+The autocracy of the Emperor apparently stopped short where women were
+concerned, or else he was indifferent whether they came or not.
+
+On June 16th the armada arrived before Tunis, and the army disembarked to
+attack the fortress known as La Goletta. Into this strong place of arms
+Barbarossa had sent some six thousand of his best men, mostly Turkish
+soldiers, under the command of Sinan-Reis, a renegado Jew, and one of the
+fiercest and most faithful of his followers. To the camp of the Emperor
+came the fugitive King, Muley Hassan, in whose cause the armada had
+nominally been assembled--how nominal this was we shall see later by the
+light of the treaty concluded between him and the Emperor. Charles had
+complete command of the sea for the time being, and, in consequence, the
+ex-Sultan was amazed at the profusion and luxury which reigned in the camp
+of the Christians; and he concluded that these indeed must be the lords of
+the earth, as luxury and profusion was hardly the note of such courts as
+then existed in the northern portion of the African continent.
+
+Although the army was landed, and with it artillery for the bombardment of
+the Goletta, there remained, of course, "the army of the sea," under the
+orders of the redoubtable Doria; and while the Marquis del Guasto, who was
+in supreme command on shore, prepared to batter down the defences of the
+fortress on the land side, the attack was carried on simultaneously from
+the sea by the galleys. The actual presence of the Emperor stimulated the
+various nationalities under his eyes to vie with one another in deeds of
+daring, and they contended among themselves for the posts of the most
+honour and danger. The attacks of the African horsemen were brushed on one
+side by the disciplined valour of the Andalusian cavalry, while the great
+guns thundered from land and sea against the walls of the doomed Goletta.
+Sinan and his Ottoman soldiers performed prodigies in the way of repairing
+breaches in the walls as soon as they were made; but Kheyr-ed-Din from the
+city watched the progress of the bombardment gloomily, as he saw and knew
+that the fall of the Goletta was but a matter of days. All this time he was
+far from idle; sortie after sortie did the dauntless old warrior lead in
+person against those engaged in the task of bombardment. Time and again he
+heartened the Arab and Berber levies to attack, but the sallies were
+repulsed, and the lightly armed Africans were driven like chaff before the
+wind when they swooped down on the lines of investment.
+
+But the time came at last when Sinan and his gallant Turks could hold the
+place no longer; the walls were breached in six or seven places, and
+Spaniards, Germans, and Italians made a simultaneous attack. Sinan fighting
+to the last, evacuated the fortress, and retired actually through the water
+across a shallow part of the bay to the city, with the remnant of his once
+magnificent force; and now Barbarossa knew that the end was come, and that
+Tunis must pass from his hands to those of the Christian Emperor. It was
+not only the fall of the Goletta that troubled him, but the equally
+important fact that by this the fleet of the enemy was enabled to lay hands
+upon his own fleet, consisting of eighty-seven galleys and galliots,
+together with his arsenal, and no less than three hundred cannon, mostly
+brass guns of excellent construction, mounted on the walls and planted on
+the ramparts. The surprising amount of this artillery gives a measure of
+the strength of the fortress and the efforts it must have cost the
+besiegers with such a man as Sinan in command.
+
+That the end was near was known to all, and not the least of their
+embarrassments was the presence within the city walls of some twenty
+thousand Christian captives. The city was large, the defences were spread
+out over a great area, it was abundantly evident that it could not be held,
+and, in consequence, Barbarossa summoned his principal officers and
+communicated to them his decision.
+
+  "We will not remain here to be slain like rats in a trap by the accursed
+  of God by whom we are attacked. No, rather will we perish, sword in
+  hand, as our fathers have done before us; but first there is a danger
+  against which we have to guard. Within these walls are twenty thousand
+  prisoners who will rise against us at the first opportunity; let us,
+  then, first put them to death, and then we will leave this place and
+  show our enemies how the true Moslems can die."
+
+Even those hardened men of blood shrank before the horror which was
+proposed to them by their chief, and Sinan-Reis took up his parable and
+spoke the minds of all when he said that follow him to the death they would
+cheerfully do, but stain themselves with so awful a massacre was to place
+themselves outside the pale of humanity for ever. It was seldom that they
+crossed his mood, and Barbarossa listened in frowning silence, accepting as
+a partial excuse that time pressed, and to put to death twenty thousand
+persons would occupy longer time than they could spare. On the morrow a
+battle was fought which, as Kheyr-ed-Din anticipated, ended in the complete
+rout of the Moslems. Everywhere the Corsair King was in the forefront of
+the battle, and it is said that he disposed of fifty thousand men on this
+occasion; but this is probably an exaggeration, and in any case the bulk of
+his forces consisted of those African levies which, in a pitched battle
+against European troops, were practically useless owing to their want of
+discipline and cohesion. Very soon the hosts of the Emperor had prevailed,
+and the Arabs and Berbers had fled back into the wilderness from whence
+they had come and whither it was useless to pursue. Barbarossa, at the head
+of such of his corsairs and Turks as were left--a number estimated at some
+three to four thousand--burst through all opposition and also escaped,
+travelling so rapidly that pursuit was abandoned almost at once. And then
+the event happened which the Moslem leader had foreseen: some of the
+Christian captives managed to get free from their shackles within the city
+and released others; they overpowered those left to guard them, and threw
+open the gates to the soldiery of the Emperor.
+
+Then occurred one of those awful horrors of which this time was so
+prolific: before Charles or his generals could prevent them the soldiery
+had swept into the town and commenced to slay, to plunder, and to ravish,
+without distinction of age, sex, or nationality. Ostensibly these Christian
+warriors had come to rescue the inhabitants of Tunis from the oppression of
+Barbarossa, but while that chieftain was in full flight across the
+mountains to Bona, those by whom he had been defeated entered the town,
+which they had come to save, and perpetrated a massacre so awful that it is
+said that no less than thirty thousand people perished. It is a terrible
+blot on the escutcheon of the Emperor; as, although he and his generals
+deprecated the massacre--and indeed to do them justice tried to prevent
+it--this is no excuse for allowing their men to get out of hand, when they
+must have been aware of the inevitable result: as the Moslem corsairs at
+their worst were equalled in their iniquities by the European soldiery,
+once the strong hand of discipline had relaxed its grip.
+
+It may have been that the Emperor was displeased with this excess of zeal
+on the part of his army; but, if it were so, the chroniclers are silent
+concerning the matter, being far too busy singing the praises of the C�sar
+to think of such a trifle as the massacre of most of the persons whom he
+had come to deliver. The wretched inhabitants of Tunis must have found it
+somewhat difficult to distinguish between the corsair, who killed three
+thousand of their fellow townsmen, and the Christian Emperor, who had
+massacred ten times that number. Charles, however, reaped great glory from
+an expedition which had but one good result, which was, that he succeeded
+in rescuing twenty thousand captives; these men, very naturally, on their
+return to their homes in every corner of Europe, magnified the wonderful
+deeds of that prince who had been instrumental in securing their release,
+and the massacre of the Tunisians was conveniently ignored. Charles had
+defeated Barbarossa and expelled him from Tunis; he had now displayed his
+magnanimity and altruism by the terms which he imposed on the miserable
+Muley Hassan. As far as that individual was concerned, he certainly
+deserved nothing better; but, as a _finale_ to an expedition blessed by the
+Pope, and looked upon almost in the light of a modern crusade, it certainly
+displays a remarkably keen eye for the main chance.
+
+The preamble of the treaty runs as follows:
+
+  That the King of Tunis, recognising that he had been expelled from his
+  kingdom by Barbarossa, and that the Emperor in person, with a powerful
+  armada, had come and expelled this tyrant, taking from him the fortress
+  and town of Tunis and restoring them to the King Muley Hassan: that this
+  monarch is most grateful for so magnificent a service, and in
+  recognition thereof contracts to liberate all Christian captives who may
+  be in his realm, to give them a free passage to their homes, and from
+  this time forward binds himself to extend to all Christians kind and
+  generous treatment.
+
+There can be no exception taken to this, which was the least which the
+Emperor had the right to expect; but this was only, as we have said, the
+preamble.
+
+Muley Hassan was further made to contract to hold his kingdom in fee to the
+Spanish Crown, to covenant that no corsair should use his ports for any
+purpose whatsoever, that the Emperor should not only retain the Goletta but
+that all other fortified seaports should be put into his hands, that the
+King of Tunis should in future pay twelve thousand crowns per annum 'for
+the subsistence of the Spanish garrison of the Goletta, that he should
+enter into no alliance with the enemies of the Emperor, and should annually
+present, as an acknowledgment of his vassalage, six Moorish horses and six
+hawks.
+
+Muley Hassan had exchanged the comparatively dignified position of a prince
+in exile, who has been expropriated by the strong hand, for that of the
+puppet of one of the greatest enemies of his religion. Neither he nor his
+people were one whit the better for the change, and, as far as vassalage
+was concerned, they would in all probability, in the state of religious
+feeling at the time, have sooner been subordinate to the Moslem corsair
+than to the Christian King.
+
+[Illustration: MULEY HASSAN, KING OF TUNIS.]
+
+Barbarossa, as we have seen, frankly acknowledged that he sought his own
+advantage, and, when he possessed himself of Tunis, made no pretence of any
+altruistic motive. The Emperor, on the other hand, having come in the guise
+of a Christian reformer, simply stole the kingdom from Barbarossa and kept
+it for himself. Incidentally he released the captives, which enabled him to
+pose once more as the great champion of the oppressed. But, however this
+may have been, there is no doubt that he had performed a notable feat of
+arms, and even the most mighty monarch then in Europe felt uplifted by the
+fact that he had defeated the greatest of the corsairs: accordingly, on
+July 25th Charles wrote to England, France, Portugal, Milan, Florence,
+Venice, Genoa, Siena, Mantua, and Naples: "De manera que en pocas dias se
+supo in toda Europa su buena fortuna." (So it was in a few days the whole
+of Europe was acquainted with his good fortune.)
+
+Martin Nunez, "Caballero de Toledo," was sent on a special embassy to the
+Pope to acquaint the Pontiff at first hand of all that happened, and the
+success which had attended the arms of the Emperor, and also to thank his
+Holiness for the assistance which he had rendered by sending the Papal
+galleys. Jorge de Melo, a Portuguese caballero, was sent to his own country
+with despatches, and other nobles and high officials were despatched to the
+Emperor's Viceroys in the various parts of his dominions. In the long
+circular letter which Charles addressed to all these potentates--and which
+is reproduced in its entirety by Sandoval--he says "that the Christian
+captives found in Tunis amounted to something like eighteen to twenty
+thousand, that Barbarossa had escaped with some five thousand Turks,
+corsairs, and renegadoes, of which three thousand were on horseback and two
+thousand afoot; that, as they suffered from great scarcity of provisions,
+and the almost total lack of water, many were falling by the way, and many
+others were being murdered by their quondam allies for such goods as they
+possessed, or for the value of their arms and clothing."
+
+We must now return to Kheyr-ed-Din. What the sufferings of that chieftain
+and the remnant of his gallant army must have been in their flight to Bona
+they alone knew. It was the height of summer, and burning tracks of desert
+and rugged mountain passes had to be surmounted; naturally they could have
+carried but very little food, and water they had to find on the way. In
+addition to this, as we have seen in the despatch of Charles, the tribesmen
+turned against them, cutting off stragglers and murdering and plundering as
+opportunity offered. Barbarossa himself was an old man, so old that it
+seems nothing short of a miracle that he should have survived the hardships
+of this awful march. Not only did he do this, but apparently arrived at
+Bona in condition to continue his journey by sea at once, had he cared to
+do so. He had lost his newly acquired kingdom, he had lost nearly his
+entire fleet, his arsenal and stores were in the hands of his enemies; if
+ever a man was completely crushed it was he on this memorable occasion. As
+we have said before, however, it was in times of the greatest stress when
+the indomitable character of this man rose to meet the occasion, and, while
+his foes were congratulating one another that at last there was an end of
+the scourge of the Mediterranean and the bugbear of Christendom, the hunted
+fugitive was merely preparing himself for fresh acts of aggression.
+
+The real fact of the matter was that he was above all and before all a
+seaman. The defeat of Kheyr-ed-Din meant merely the transference of his
+malign activities from one sphere to another--from the sea to the land, or
+from the land to the sea. King he called himself, and king _de facto_ he
+was both in Algiers and Tunis, reigning with unexampled cruelty, a
+prototype of those other corsair kings by whom he was succeeded. But the
+real source of his power lay, not in stone walls and fortifications, nor in
+ill-trained levies of African tribes, but in his own genius for command at
+sea, and the manner in which he was able to inspire with his own dauntless
+and desperate spirit those hardy mariners who followed in his train, the
+descendants of the "Moriscoes" who hailed from the ancient Moorish kingdoms
+of Cordoba and Granada.
+
+Thus it was in the present instance. He had been unable to withstand the
+might of C�sar and his legions, but Tunis was not the whole of Northern
+Africa, nor had quite all his eggs been kept in that one basket. He had
+kept fifteen galleys in reserve at Bona, and, in consequence, on his
+arrival there, was able to embark at once. This he did, and hardly had he
+done so when there appeared upon the scene fifteen galleys commanded by
+Adan Centurion and John Doria. Kheyr-ed-Din had had enough of fighting just
+for the present; his men and he were wearied out by the hardships of their
+flight, and accordingly he drew up his galleys under the fort at Bona and
+awaited an attack, should the enemy care to deliver one. But Adan
+Centurion's heart failed him; to cut out the old Sea-wolf from under one of
+his own batteries was more than he had the stomach for, and he accordingly
+sailed away. "Fue sin duda la perdida grande" (this no doubt was a great
+pity), is the comment of Sandoval, who goes on to say that, had the Genoese
+been the men that they had been aforetime, this would never have been, and
+that they would have gone in and burnt or disabled the galleys of the
+corsair, slain their leader, or driven him ashore. Hot on the tracks of
+Adan Centurion and his nephew John came the veteran Andrea Doria with forty
+galleys, but he was too late, and the bird had flown; had it been he who
+had arrived in the first instance, then it is more than probable that
+matters would have turned out differently, and Kheyr-ed-Din had then and
+there terminated his career. It is true that Andrea possessed himself of
+Bona, and the Corsair King was shorn of yet another of his land-stations,
+but for the time he had cut himself adrift from the land, and had gone back
+to that element in which he was particularly at home.
+
+Doria left Bona in the charge of Alvar Gomez and a company of Spanish
+troops and then sailed away, if possible to find and capture Barbarossa,
+thus to set the seal of completeness on the victory which had been won by
+his master the Emperor. Another stronghold of the corsairs was now in most
+competent hands, as Alvar Gomez Zagal was one of the most renowned
+caballeros of Spain, son of that Pero Lopez de Horusco on whom the Moors
+themselves had bestowed the title of "Al Zagal," or "The Valiant," on
+account of his extraordinary bravery.
+
+On August 17th Charles re-embarked his army and evacuated the country,
+leaving, however, one thousand Spanish veterans, under the command of
+Bernard de Mendoza, in charge of the Goletta, as a permanent memorial of
+the expedition, and as a guarantee that the wretched Muley Hassan should
+fully comply with the treaty obligations which had been imposed upon him.
+It is true that Barbarossa had not been captured, but his city had been
+taken, his fleet had been destroyed, and he himself was now a fugitive,
+unable any further to trouble the peace of Christendom or the dignity of
+the Emperor by whom he had been so soundly chastised. In consequence the
+C�sar departed well pleased with himself and with those who had been acting
+under his orders, to whom he distributed orders and titles, as a memento of
+the occasion upon which they had finally broken up the power of those by
+whom his peace had so long been troubled.
+
+One of the difficulties in dealing with the career of Kheyr-ed-Din
+Barbarossa is that, in times when he was unsuccessful, or when, as on the
+present occasion, he had received a severe setback, it is next to
+impossible to find out what he was doing or where exactly he was preparing
+for his next coup. In this case, in particular, the old-time historians
+were thanking God that the Emperor had rid the world of a particularly
+pestilent knave, and ceased to trouble themselves much about him until he
+forced himself once more upon their notice. Had Charles at this time
+recognised the greatness of the man whom he had just so signally defeated
+he might have changed the course of history. Had he, instead of sailing
+back to Europe, content with that which he had accomplished in Tunis,
+pushed his attack home on Algiers, he might have made himself master of the
+whole of Northern Africa, as, in the disorganised state in which the
+corsairs now found themselves, they could certainly have offered no
+effective resistance. But to the Emperor these rovers of the sea presented
+themselves merely in the light of robbers. Robbers, it is true, on a
+somewhat large scale, but still not persons of sufficient importance to
+detain him from the infinitely more pressing affairs which awaited him on
+the opposite shores of the Mediterranean Sea.
+
+In addition to the fifteen galleys which Kheyr-ed-Din picked up at Bona he
+had in reserve at Algiers some fifty others. Escaping the attention of Adan
+Centurion and John Doria, and the infinitely more formidable squadron of
+Andrea, he headed once more for Algiers, and for a time seems to have
+remained quiet, no doubt recuperating from the fatigues, disappointments,
+and physical hardships which he had so recently undergone. He was
+apparently undisturbed during the winter by his Christian enemies, and was
+in consequence able to think out his future plans of campaign and to
+collect and put heart into his scattered followers, who, in ones and twos,
+were gradually, such of them as were left, finding their way back to the
+headquarters of piracy and its indomitable chieftain.
+
+That cool calculator of the chances of life knew that this must be so; the
+power of the corsairs generally had received the worst blow it had ever
+encountered since the dispossessed Moriscoes had taken to the sea for a
+living; those of them who remained alive were without ships--that is to
+say, without their only means of making a livelihood--and that they should
+gravitate towards Algiers and its master was as nearly a certainty as
+anything human could be. And, as was anticipated by the chief, so it came
+to pass. Into the city straggled broken, starving, sullen men who had lost
+their all, for whom the future held nothing but misery and despair unless
+they could get to sea once more.
+
+It was on occasions such as this that the intellectual eminence of
+Barbarossa was so marked. Rough and cruel as he was, he possessed
+nevertheless a magnetic power over the minds of men, on which, when it so
+pleased him, he could play with the most extraordinary effect. And now,
+when the rank and file of the corsairs were ragged, hungry, and smarting
+under defeat, he dealt with them tenderly and graciously; and the sum of
+his teaching was to the effect that they had but to follow him once more
+and all the evils from which they were suffering would be presently
+remedied. So it came about that men who, before the defeat, had commanded
+ships of their own, were glad enough to become units on board the galleys
+of Kheyr-ed-Din, animated by the pleasing hope that soon again, under the
+leadership of this man, they might regain all, nay more, than they had
+lost. It must be remembered that Barbarossa argued from sound premises when
+he held out such hopes as these to the desperate remnant of the corsairs in
+Algiers in that sad winter of 1535. He was the greatest of them all, and
+they, as well as he, knew this to be a fact: if they had lost their all in
+the past battles, they had been fighting in a common cause to preserve
+their own lives and their liberty to plunder the Christian at sea. And now
+there was work and there was bread to eat for those who once again would
+throw in their lot with their old leader; and, although it may be said that
+these men had no alternative, still they threw themselves with heartiness
+into that which the master mind decreed should be their work, and this was
+none other than the preparation of the galleys for another campaign against
+the Christian.
+
+"What matter, comrades?" said the veteran on one occasion when he was
+superintending the fitting out of the galleys. "These dogs have gone back
+from whence they came, and they have left that creature, Muley Hassan, to
+do their will in Tunis. It is true that there is Mendoza and his thousand
+Spaniards in the Goletta, but did not Martin de Vargas hold the Pe�on here?
+And where is De Vargas, and in whose hands is the Pe�on now? We know from
+whence the garrisons of Spain draw their supplies, and believe me that
+there will be hungry men in the Goletta in this coming year. Once we get to
+sea again, there will be more than enough for every good man who believes
+in the Prophet, and who has the sense to follow Barbarossa. For every ducat
+that you have lost see, in the coming year, if you do not gain ten; the
+Christians are off their guard now, and they think that they have done with
+me because they have captured Tunis." He laughed his great, jovial laugh.
+"By the beard of the Prophet--upon whom be peace!--they have yet to find
+out the man with whom they have to deal."
+
+It took a master mind to instil heart of grace into men who so recently had
+had so bad a beating as these; but in the end they began to cheer up, and
+to recollect how Barbarossa had sooner or later always risen from defeat as
+strong or stronger than before; also they recalled the fact that he was the
+chosen of the Padishah, and that that potentate, the representative of the
+Prophet on earth, would assuredly come to his assistance now that Tunis,
+which had been taken in his name, had been reft from Barbarossa by the
+Christians. Gradually hope took the place of despair, and when the corsairs
+took to the sea in the early part of the following year it was with renewed
+confidence in both themselves and their leader.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+ROXALANA AND THE MURDER OF IBRAHIM
+
+At the coming of spring Barbarossa was at sea again with thirty-two ships
+ready for any eventuality, his crews aflame with ardour for revenge against
+those by whom they had been so roughly handled. He chose for the scene of
+operations a place on the coast of Majorca some fifteen miles from Palma;
+from here he commanded the route of the Spaniards from their country to the
+African coast, and it was against this nation that he felt a great
+bitterness owing to recent events. Eagerly did the corsair and his men
+watch for the Spanish ships, the heavier vessels lying at anchor, but the
+light, swift galleys ranging and questing afar so that none might be
+missed. Very soon the vigilance of the Moslems was rewarded by the capture
+of a number of vessels, sent by Bernard de Mendoza laden with Turkish and
+Moorish slaves, destined to be utilised as rowers in the Spanish galleys.
+These men were hailed as a welcome reinforcement, and joyfully joined the
+forces of Kheyr-ed-Din when he moved on Minorca, captured the castle by a
+surprise assault, raided the surrounding country, and captured five
+thousand seven hundred Christians, amongst whom were eight hundred men who
+had been wounded in the attack on Tunis--all these unfortunates were sent
+to refill the bagnio of Algiers.
+
+This private war of revenge was, however, destined soon to come to an end,
+as Soliman the Magnificent in this year became involved in disputes with
+the Venetian Republic, and recalled "that veritable man of the sea," as
+Barbarossa had been described by Ibrahim, to Constantinople.
+
+In this city by the sea there had taken place a tragedy which, although it
+only involved the death of a single man, was nevertheless far-reaching in
+its consequences; for the man was none other than that great statesman
+Ibrahim, Grand Vizier, and the only trusted counsellor of the Padishah. He
+who had been originally a slave had risen step by step in the favour of his
+master until he arrived at the giddy eminence which he occupied at the time
+of his death. It is a somewhat curious commentary on the essentially
+democratic status of an autocracy that a man could thus rise to a position
+second only to that of the autocrat himself; and, in all probability,
+wielding quite as much power.
+
+Ibrahim had for years been treated by Soliman more as a brother than as a
+dependent, which, in spite of his Grand Viziership, he was in fact. They
+lived in the very closest communion, taking their meals together, and even
+sleeping in the same room, Soliman, a man of high intelligence himself, and
+a ruler who kept in touch with all the happenings which arose in his
+immense dominions, desiring always to have at hand the man whom he loved;
+from whom, with his amazing grip of political problems and endless
+fertility of resource, he was certain of sympathy and sound advice. But in
+an oriental despotism there are other forces at work besides those of _la
+haute politique_, and Ibrahim had one deadly enemy who was sworn to compass
+his destruction. The Sultana Roxalana was the light of the harem of the
+Grand Turk. This supremely beautiful woman, originally a Russian slave, was
+the object of the most passionate devotion on the part of Soliman; but she
+was as ambitious as she was lovely, and brooked no rival in the affections
+of Soliman, be that person man, woman, or child. In her hands the master of
+millions, the despot whose nod was death, became a submissive slave; the
+undisciplined passions of this headstrong woman swept aside from her path
+all those whom she suspected of sharing her influence, in no matter how
+remote a fashion. At her dictation had Soliman caused to be murdered his
+son Mustafa, a youth of the brightest promise, because, in his intelligence
+and his winning ways he threatened to eclipse Selim, the son of Roxalana
+herself.
+
+This woman possessed a strong natural intelligence, albeit she was totally
+uneducated; she saw and knew that Ibrahim was all-powerful with her lover,
+and this roused her jealousy to fever-heat. She was not possessed of a cool
+judgment, which would have told her that Ibrahim was a statesman dealing
+with the external affairs of the Sublime Porte, and that with her and with
+her affairs he neither desired, nor had he the power, to interfere. What,
+however, the Sultana did know was that in these same affairs of State her
+opinion was dust in the balance when weighed against that of the Grand
+Vizier.
+
+Soliman had that true attribute of supreme greatness, the unerring aptitude
+for the choice of the right man. He had picked out Ibrahim from among his
+immense entourage, and never once had he regretted his choice. As time went
+on and the intellect and power of the man became more and more revealed to
+his master, that sovereign left in his hands even such matters as despots
+are apt to guard most jealously. We have seen how, in spite of the
+murmurings of the whole of his capital, and the almost insubordinate
+attitude of his navy, he had persevered in the appointment of Kheyr-ed-Din
+Barbarossa, because the judgment of Ibrahim was in favour of its being
+carried out. This, to Roxalana, was gall and wormwood; well she knew that,
+as long as the Grand Vizier lived, her sovereignty was at best but a
+divided one. There was a point at which her blandishments stopped short;
+this was when she found that her opinion did not coincide with that of the
+minister. She was, as we have seen in the instance of her son, not a woman
+to stick at trifles, and she decided that Ibrahim must die.
+
+There could be no hole-and-corner business about this; he must die, and
+when his murder had been accomplished she would boldly avow to her lover
+what she had done and take the consequences, believing in her power over
+him to come scatheless out of the adventure. In those days, when human life
+was so cheap, she might have asked for the death of almost any one, and her
+whim would have been gratified by a lover who had not hesitated to put to
+death his own son at her dictation. But with Ibrahim it was another matter;
+he was the familiar of the Sultan, his _alter ego_ in fact, It says much
+for the nerve of the Sultana that she dared so greatly on this memorable
+and lamentable occasion.
+
+On March 5th, 1536, Ibrahim, went to the royal seraglio, and, following his
+ancient custom, was admitted to the table of his master, sleeping after the
+meal at his side. At least so it was supposed, but none knew save those
+engaged in the murder what passed on that fatal night; the next day his
+dead body lay in the house of the Sultan.
+
+Across the floor of jasper, in that palace which was a fitting residence
+for one rightly known as "The Magnificent," the blood of Ibrahim flowed to
+the feet of Roxalana. The disordered clothing, the terrible expression of
+the face of the dead man, the gaping wounds which he had received, bore
+witness that there had taken place a grim struggle before that iron frame
+and splendid intellect had been levelled with the dust. This much leaked
+out afterwards, as such things will leak out, and then the Sultana took
+Soliman into her chamber and gazed up into his eyes. The man was stunned by
+the immensity of the calamity which had befallen him and his kingdom, but
+his manhood availed him not against the wiles of this Circe. Ibrahim had
+been foully done to death in his own palace, and this woman clinging so
+lovingly around his neck now was the murderess. The heart's blood of his
+best friend was coagulating on the threshold of his own apartment when he
+forgave her by whom his murder had been accomplished. This was the
+vengeance of Roxalana, and who shall say that it was not complete?
+
+The Ottoman Empire was the poorer by the loss of its greatest man, the
+jealousy of the Sultana was assuaged, the despot who had permitted this
+unavenged murder was still on the throne, thrall to the woman who had first
+murdered his son and then his friend and minister. But the deed carried
+with it the evil consequences which were only too likely to occur when so
+capable a head of the State was removed at so critical a time. Renewed
+strife was in the air, and endless squabbles between Venice and the Porte
+were taking place. With these we have no concern, but, in addition to other
+complaints, there were loud and continuous ones concerning the corsairs.
+Venice, "The Bride of the Sea," had neither rest nor peace; the pirates
+swarmed in Corfu, in Zante, in Candia, in Cephalonia, and the plunder and
+murder of the subjects of the Republic was the theme of perpetual
+representations to the Sultan. The balance of advantage in this guerilla
+warfare was with the corsairs until Girolame Canale, a Venetian captain,
+seized one of the Moslem leaders known as "The Young Moor of Alexandria,"
+The victory of Canale was somewhat an important one as he captured the
+galley of "The Young Moor" and four others; two more were sunk, and three
+hundred Janissaries and one thousand slaves fell into the hands of the
+Venetian commander. There being an absence of nice feeling on the part of
+the Venetians, the Janissaries were at once beheaded to a man.
+
+The whole story is an illustration of the extraordinary relations existing
+among the Mediterranean States at this time. Soliman the Magnificent,
+Sultan of Turkey, had lent three hundred of his Janissaries, his own picked
+troops, to assist the corsairs in their depredations on Venetian commerce.
+Having done this, and the Janissaries having been caught and summarily and
+rightly put to death as pirates, the Sultan, as soon as he heard of what
+had occurred, sent an ambassador, one Yonis Bey, to Venice to demand
+satisfaction for the insult passed upon him by the beheading of his own
+soldiers turned pirates. The conclusion of the affair was that the
+Venetians released "The Young Moor of Alexandria" as soon as he was cured
+of the eight wounds which he had received in the conflict, and sent him
+back to Africa with such of his galleys as were left. There was one rather
+comical incident in connection with this affair, which was that when Yonis
+Bey was on his way from Constantinople to Venice he was chased by a
+Venetian fleet, under the command of the Count Grandenico, and driven
+ashore. The Count was profuse in his apologies when he discovered that he
+had been chasing a live ambassador; but the occurrence so exasperated
+Soliman that he increased his demands in consequence.
+
+Barbarossa, who had spent his time harrying the Spaniards at sea ever since
+the fall of Tunis, was shortly to appear on the scene again. He received
+orders from the Sultan, and came as fast as a favouring wind would bring
+him. Kheyr-ed-Din had been doing well in the matter of slaves and plunder,
+but he knew that, with the backing of the Grand Turk, he would once again
+be in command of a fleet in which he might repeat his triumph of past
+years, and prove himself once more the indispensable "man of the sea."
+
+Soon after his arrival his ambitions were gratified, and he found himself
+with a fleet of one hundred ships. Since the death of Ibrahim, and the
+incident which terminated with the despatch of Yonis Bey to Venice, the
+relations between the Grand Turk and the Venetian Republic had become
+steadily worse, and at last the Sultan declared war. On May 17th, 1537,
+Soliman, accompanied by his two sons, Selim and Mohammed, left
+Constantinople. With the campaign conducted by the Sultan we are not
+concerned here; it was directed against the Ionian Islands, which had been
+in the possession of Venice since 1401. On August 18th Soliman laid siege
+to Corfu, and was disastrously beaten, re-embarking his men on September
+7th, after losing thousands in a fruitless attack on the fortress. He
+returned to Constantinople utterly discomfited. It was the seventh campaign
+which the Sultan had conducted in person, but the first in which the
+ever-faithful Ibrahim had not been by his side.
+
+This defeat at the hands of the Venetians was not, however, the only
+humiliation which he was destined to experience in this disastrous year;
+for once again Doria, that scourge of the Moslem, was loose upon the seas,
+and was making his presence felt in the immediate neighbourhood of Corfu,
+where the Turks had been defeated. On July 17th Andrea had left the port of
+Messina with twenty-five galleys, had captured ten richly laden Turkish
+ships, gutted and burned them. Kheyr-ed-Din was at sea at the time, but the
+great rivals were not destined to meet on this occasion. Instead of
+Barbarossa, Andrea fell in with Ali-Chabelli, the lieutenant of Sandjak Bey
+of Gallipoli. On July 22nd the Genoese admiral and the Turkish commander
+from the Dardanelles met to the southward of Corfu, off the small island of
+Paxo, and a smart action ensued. It ended in the defeat of Ali-Chabelli,
+whose galleys were captured and towed by Doria into Paxo. That veteran
+fighter was himself in the thickest of the fray, and, conspicuous in his
+crimson doublet, had been an object of attention to the marksmen of
+Chabelli during the entire action. In spite of the receipt of a severe
+wound in the knee, the admiral refused to go below until victory was
+assured. He was surrounded at this time by a devoted band of nobles sworn
+to defend the person of their admiral or to die in his defence. His
+portrait has been sketched for us at this time by the Dominican Friar,
+Padre Alberto Gugliel-motto, author of "La guerra dei Pirati e la marina
+Pontifica dal 1500 al 1560." The description runs thus: "Andrea Doria was
+of lofty stature, his face oval in shape, forehead broad and commanding,
+his neck was powerful, his hair short, his beard long and fan-shaped, his
+lips were thin, his eyes bright and piercing."
+
+Once again had he defeated an officer of the Grand Turk; and it may be
+remarked that Ibrahim was probably quite right in the estimation, or rather
+in the lack of estimation, in which he held the sea-officers of his master,
+as they seem to have been deficient in every quality save that of personal
+valour, and in their encounters with Doria and the knights were almost
+invariably worsted. For the sake of Islam, for the prestige of the Moslem
+arms at sea, it was time that Barbarossa should take matters in hand once
+more.
+
+The autumn of this year 1537 proved that the old Sea-wolf had lost none of
+his cunning, that his followers were as terrible as ever. What did it seem
+to matter that Venetian and Catalan, Genoese and Frenchman, Andalusian and
+the dwellers in the Archipelago, were all banded together in league against
+this common foe? Did not the redoubtable Andrea range the seas in vain, and
+were not all the efforts of the Knights of Saint John futile, when the son
+of the renegado from Mitylene and his Christian wife put forth from the
+Golden Horn? What was the magic of this man, it was asked despairingly,
+that none seemed able to prevail against him? Had it not been currently
+reported that Carlos Quinto, the great Emperor, had driven him forth from
+Tunis a hunted fugitive, broken and penniless, with never a galley left,
+without one ducat in his pocket? Was he so different, then, from all the
+rest of mankind that his followers would stick to him in evil report as
+well as in the height of his prosperity? Men swore and women crossed
+themselves at the mention of his name.
+
+"Terrible as an army with banners," indeed, was Kheyr-ed-Din in this
+eventful summer: things had gone badly with the crescent flag, the Padishah
+was unapproachable in his palace, brooding perchance on that "might have
+been" had he not sold his honour and the life of his only friend to gratify
+the malice of a she-devil; those in attendance on the Sultan trembled, for
+the humour of the despot was black indeed.
+
+But "the veritable man of the sea" was in some sort to console him for that
+which he had lost; as never in his own history--and there was none else
+with which it could be compared--had the Corsair King made so fruitful a
+raid. He ravaged the coasts of the Adriatic and the islands of the
+Archipelago, sweeping in slaves by the thousand, and by the end of the year
+he had collected eighteen thousand in the arsenal at Stamboul. Great was
+the jubilation in Constantinople when the Admiralissimo himself returned
+from his last expedition against the infidel; stilled were the voices which
+hinted disaffection--who among them all could bring back four hundred
+thousand pieces of gold? What mariner could offer to the Grand Turk such
+varied and magnificent presents?
+
+Upon his arrival Barbarossa asked permission to kiss the threshold of the
+palace of the Sultan, which boon being graciously accorded to him, he made
+his triumphal entry. Two hundred captives clad in scarlet robes carried
+cups of gold and flasks of silver behind them came thirty others, each
+staggering under an enormous purse of sequins; yet another two hundred
+brought collars of precious stones or bales of the choicest goods; and a
+further two hundred were laden with sacks of small coin. Certainly if
+Soliman the Magnificent had lost a Grand Vizier he had succeeded in finding
+an admiral!
+
+All through the earlier months of 1538 the dockyards of Constantinople
+hummed with a furious activity, for Soliman had decreed that the maritime
+campaign of this year was to begin with no less than one hundred and fifty
+ships. His admiral, however, did not agree with this decision; to the
+Viziers he raged and stormed. "Listen," he said, "O men of the land who
+understand naught of the happenings of the sea. By this time Saleh-Reis
+must have quitted Alexandria convoying to the Bosphorus twenty sail filled
+with the richest merchandise; should he fall in with the accursed Genoese,
+Doria, where then will be Saleh-Reis and his galleys and his convoy? I will
+tell you: the ships in Genoa, the galleys burned, Saleh-Reis and all his
+mariners chained to the rowers' bench."
+
+The Viziers trembled, as men did when Barbarossa stormed and turned upon
+them those terrible eyes which knew neither fear nor pity. "We be but men,"
+they answered, "and our lord the Sultan has so ordained it."
+
+"I have forty galleys," replied the corsair; "you have forty more. With
+these I will take the sea; but, mark you," he continued, softening
+somewhat, "you do right to fear the displeasure of the Sultan, and I also
+have no wish to encounter it; but vessels raised and equipped in a hurry
+will be of small use to me. In the name of Allah the compassionate and his
+holy Prophet give me my eighty galleys and let me go."
+
+In Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa sound strategical instinct went hand in hand
+with the desperate valour of the corsair. To dally in the Golden Horn while
+so rich a prey was at sea to be picked up by his Christian foes was
+altogether opposed to his instincts: never to throw away a chance in the
+game of life had ever been his guiding principle.
+
+Soliman, great man as he undoubtedly was, had not the adamantine hardness
+of character which enabled his admiral to risk all on the hazards of the
+moment; or possibly the Grand Turk was deficient in that clearness of
+strategical instinct which never in any circumstances forgoes a present
+advantage for something which may turn out well in a problematical future.
+Soliman, sore, sullen, and unapproachable, dwelt in his palace brooding
+over the misfortunes which had been his lot since the death of Ibrahim.
+Barbarossa, who so recently had lost practically all that he possessed, and
+who had reached an age at which most men have no hopes for the future, was
+as clear in intellect, as undaunted in spirit, as if he had been half a
+century younger: to be even once more with those by whom he had been
+defeated and dispossessed was the only thing now in his mind. The capture
+of Saleh-Reis and his convoy would be a triumph of which he could not bear
+to think. Further, it would add to the demoralisation of the sea forces of
+the Sultan, which were sadly in need of some striking success after the
+defeats which had so recently been their portion. The Sultan had decided
+that one hundred and fifty ships were necessary; his admiral thought
+otherwise. There was too much at stake for him to dally at Constantinople;
+his fiery energy swept all before it, and in the end he had his way. On
+June 7th, 1538, he finally triumphed over the hesitations of the Viziers
+and put to sea with eighty sail.
+
+The Sultan, from his kiosk, the windows of which opened on the Bosphorus,
+counted the ships.
+
+"Only eighty sail; is that all?" he asked.
+
+The trembling Viziers prostrated themselves before him.
+
+"O our Lord, the Padishah," they cried, "Saleh-Reis comes from Alexandria
+with a rich convoy; somewhere lurking is Andrea Doria, the accursed; it was
+necessary, O Magnificent, to send succour."
+
+There was a pause, in which the hearts of men beat as do those who know not
+but that the next moment may be their last on earth.
+
+The Sultan stared from his window at the retreating ships in a silence like
+the silence of the grave. At last he turned:
+
+"So be it," he answered briefly; "but see to it that reinforcements do not
+lag upon the road."
+
+If there had been activity in the dockyards before it was as nothing to the
+strenuous work that was to be done henceforward.
+
+Before starting on this expedition Kheyr-ed-Din had made an innovation in
+the manning of some of the most powerful of his galleys, which was of the
+utmost importance, and which was to add enormously to the success of his
+future maritime enterprises. The custom had always been that the Ottoman
+galleys had been rowed by Christians, captured and enslaved; of course the
+converse was true in the galleys of their foes. There were, for the size of
+the vessels, an enormous number of men carried in the galleys of the
+sixteenth century, and an average craft of this description would have on
+board some four hundred men; of these, however, the proportion would be two
+hundred and fifty slaves to one hundred and fifty fighting men. That which
+Kheyr-ed-Din now insisted upon was that a certain proportion of his most
+powerful units should be rowed by Moslem fighting men, so that on the day
+of battle the oarsmen could join in the fray instead of remaining chained
+to their benches, as was the custom with the slaves. It is, however, an
+extraordinary testimony to the influence which the corsair had attained in
+Constantinople that he had been able to effect this change in the
+composition of some of his crews; it must have been done with the active
+co-operation of the Sultan, as no authority less potent than that of the
+sovereign himself could have induced free men to undertake the terrible
+toil of rower in a galley. This was reserved for the unfortunate slave on
+either side owing to the intolerable hardship of the life, and results, in
+the pace at which a galley proceeded through the water, were usually
+obtained by an unsparing use of the lash on the naked bodies of the rowers.
+
+This human material was used up in the most prodigal manner possible, as
+those in command had not the inducement of treating the rowers well, from
+that economic standpoint which causes a man to so use his beast of burden
+as to get the best work from him. In the galley, when a slave could row no
+more he was flung overboard and another was put in his place.
+
+The admiral, however, even when backed by the Padishah, could not man a
+large fleet of galleys with Moslem rowers, and, as there was a shortage in
+the matter of propelling power, his first business was to collect slaves,
+and for this purpose he visited the islands of the Archipelago. The lot of
+the unhappy inhabitants of these was indeed a hard one. They were nearer to
+the seat of the Moslem power than any other Christians; they were in those
+days totally unable to resist an attack in force, and in consequence were
+swept off in their thousands.
+
+Seven islands cover the entrance to the Gulf of Volo. The nearest to the
+coast is Skiathos, which is also the most important; it was defended by a
+castle built upon a rock. This castle was attacked by Barbarossa, who
+bombarded it for six days, carried it by assault, and massacred the
+garrison. He spared the lives of the inhabitants of the island, and by this
+means secured three thousand four hundred rowers for his galleys. He had to
+provide motor-power for the reinforcements which he expected. In July he
+was reinforced from Constantinople by ninety galleys, while from Egypt came
+Saleh-Reis, who had succeeded in avoiding the terrible Doria, with twenty
+more; the fleet was thus complete.
+
+Barbarossa ravaged Skios, Andros, and other islands, putting them under
+contribution, and in this manner raised some eight thousand ducats; from a
+pen of guinea-fowl to a king's ransom, nothing escaped the maw of this most
+rapacious of corsairs. Candia and some other islands yielded up some small
+spoil, but the sufferings of such insignificant folk as the wretched
+islanders were soon lost to the sight of the Christian world in the
+magnitude of the events which were now impending.
+
+Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, Corsair, Admiral, and King, the scourge of the
+Mediterranean, and Andrea Doria, Prince of Oneglia, Admiral of the modern
+C�sar, Charles V., Emperor and King, were at last to meet face to face.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+THE PREVESA CAMPAIGN; THE GATHERING OF THE FLEETS
+
+Some thirty-five miles to the south-eastward of Cape Bianco (the
+southernmost point of the island of Corfu) lies Prevesa, at the entrance of
+the Gulf of Arta, or, as it was known in classic times, the Ambracian Gulf.
+In these seas, in the year 31 B.C., was fought one of the most memorable
+battles of antiquity, for it was here that Octavius, afterward Augustus
+C�sar, defeated the forces of Antony and Cleopatra. There have been many
+controversies of late years as to whom the original idea of breaking the
+line in naval combats is due: anyhow, it can claim a respectable antiquity,
+as it was practised at the battle of Actium by Octavius, who by a skilful
+manoeuvre caused Antony to lengthen his line, which he then cut through and
+attacked the ships of Cleopatra, which were in support: this was too much
+for the lady, who fled with her sixty ships, followed by Antony, to his
+eternal disgrace. The remainder of his fleet fought bravely for a time, but
+was eventually defeated, the land army also surrendering to Octavius. The
+date of the actual battle of Actium was September 2nd, 31 B.C.: it was in
+September 1538 that the battle of Prevesa between Andrea Doria and
+Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa took place, and the conditions of the battle were
+almost exactly similar.
+
+To this very place came, 1569 years later, the Christian and the Moslem,
+the Crescent and the Cross, each under its most renowned leader, each side
+burning with an inextinguishable hate. It was one of the peculiarities of
+this warfare that into it entered so much actual personal feeling, each
+side hating the other for the love of God in the most poisonous fashion.
+Save and except the battle of Lepanto in 1571 (with which we shall deal
+later in the story of Ali Basha, or Occhiali as he was called by his
+Christian opponents) the contest at Prevesa was far the most important ever
+fought by those strange oar-propelled vessels known as galleys. It was
+memorable in many ways, but particularly so for the ages of the men in
+chief command. Andrea Doria was at this time seventy years of age; in fact,
+Guglielmotti gives the date of his birth as 1466, thus making him two years
+older. That amazing veteran Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, who died in his bed at
+Constantinople on July 4th, 1546, at the age of ninety, must have been
+eighty-two. Vicenzo Capello was sixty-eight, as the epitaph on his tomb at
+Venice in the church of Santa Maria Formosa says that he was seventy-two in
+the year of his death, 1542.
+
+Once again Christendom was nerving itself for a supreme effort against the
+corsairs, and, during the time that Barbarossa was raiding and ravaging
+among the islands of the Archipelago, the Christian fleet was gradually
+assembling. At first it numbered some 150 galleys, 81 Venetian, 36
+Pontifical, and 30 Spanish; Charles V. sent, at the last moment, 50 ships
+on which were embarked 10,000 troops. The force totalled altogether 59,000
+to 60,000 men, 195 ships, and 2,594 cannons. This was no doubt a most
+formidable armada, but the policy of those by whom it was composed was not
+all directed to the same end. While Charles desired, above all things, to
+exterminate the corsairs for good and all, which was, in the circumstances,
+the only sound view of the matter, the Venetians were for fighting
+defensive actions to maintain their supremacy in the Ionian Islands, and
+were disposed to let the future take care of itself. There was not, in
+consequence, that absolute unanimity among the various commanders of the
+expedition as was necessary for its complete success.
+
+The concentration of the Christian fleet took place at Corfu. The Venetians
+arrived first, with Vincenzo Capello in command; Marco Grimani brought
+thither the Papal contingent; they anchored and waited, but Andrea Doria
+did not appear. Days lengthened into weeks, and Grimani and Capelli chafed
+and fumed; provisions were running low and the dignity of Venice and of the
+Pope were flouted by this strange remissness on the part of the Admiral of
+the Emperor. At last, furious with impatience, Grimani made a raid into the
+Gulf of Arta, which was defended at the entrance by the fortress of
+Prevesa. The only result of this ill-timed attack was that two Papal
+captains and a number of soldiers were killed. Grimani then returned to
+Corfu, to find Capello irritated to the last extent by the non-appearance
+of Doria.
+
+At last, on September 5th, the Imperial fleet hove in sight. It was
+composed of forty-nine galleys, but these were supplemented by a great
+number of sailing ships; the sailing craft, however, did not arrive till
+September 22nd. These vessels were gradually making way among the Spaniards
+since the discovery of the new world.
+
+At this time the Venetians possessed fourteen nefs. Doria had augmented
+these by twenty-two of his own, and the total number of thirty-six was
+commanded by Franco Doria, a nephew of the admiral. The Venetian nefs were
+commanded by Alessandro Condalmiero, captain of the _Galleon of Venice_.
+This was the most formidable fighting vessel in the Mediterranean; she was
+reckoned an excellent sailor, she was by far the most heavily armed sailing
+ship then afloat; in fact, in the opinion of contemporary seamen, she was
+"an invincible fortress."
+
+Doria, Grimani, and Capello had now nearly 200 ships carrying nearly 60,000
+men. Such a force, in all ages, has been considered great. William the
+Conqueror conquered Britain with a less number; it is almost half the total
+of the personnel of the British fleet in the present day which has to
+defend a country with 40,000,000 inhabitants, and all this force had been
+raised, armed, and equipped to combat with a Moslem corsair.
+
+Barbarossa had succeeded in assembling 122 ships. He was accompanied by all
+the most famous corsairs of the day, among whom was Dragut, who fell at the
+siege of Malta, and of whom we shall have more to say in due time. Far and
+wide ranged the swift galleys of the Ottoman fleet, for the plan of the
+commander of the Moslems was to locate and destroy his enemies in detail if
+possible. At last news came to him that Grimani's ships had been sighted in
+the Gulf of Arta. Not one moment did he lose; he would fall upon the Papal
+contingent with his whole force and destroy it utterly. Such, at least, was
+his plan when he sailed for Prevesa; but, notwithstanding his haste, he was
+too late. Happily for himself, Grimani had returned to Corfu before the
+arrival of his enemy.
+
+At this juncture Barbarossa hesitated; had he not done so, and had he
+followed Grimani to Corfu, he might have destroyed both him and Vincenzo
+Capello in detail before the arrival of Doria. The Prevesa campaign is a
+curious study of hesitation on both sides, and the idea naturally occurs
+were not the corsair and the Christian commanders-in-chief too old for the
+work on which they were engaged? Men of over seventy are not impetuous, but
+grave and deliberate as a rule; but there is no rule without its
+exceptions, and Doria and Barbarossa were not as other leaders. Up to the
+present their dash and initiative had been unimpaired. There was no
+question that Barbarossa not only made a mistake in hesitating, but that by
+it he lost the game. Instead of striking at once he did what he had never
+done before in the whole of his career, which was to send to Constantinople
+for instructions. Some of his galleys had captured a fishing-boat off
+Corfu, the crew of which had seen Doria's fleet. The Moslem leader sent the
+fishermen themselves to report to Soliman exactly what they had seen, and
+to ask for and bring back instructions from that potentate. What Barbarossa
+had discovered was that the odds were very much against him; so much, in
+fact, that he would have to act on the defensive. In consequence, he
+steered for Prevesa and entered the Gulf of Arta, which is approached by a
+long narrow strait, dominated by the castle of Prevesa. Once inside he
+anchored his galleys in such a position that they could fire direct out to
+sea, thus overwhelming with their fire any vessel attempting to enter.
+
+Barbarossa now occupied the same position as did Octavius in his combat
+with Antony. The r�le of the latter general was now taken by Doria. Antony,
+like Doria, had heavy ships which could not advance to the attack owing to
+their too great draught. Octavius, with his light-draught ships, could both
+attack and retreat into safety if overmatched.
+
+On September 22nd Doria, having collected all his ships, gave orders to
+fill up with wood, water, and fresh provisions. On the 25th, to the sound
+of the trumpet, the Commander-in-Chief, with his fleet of two hundred sail,
+weighed anchor and sped before the wind rapidly southwards. Grimani
+commanded the advance-guard, Doria was in the centre, Vincenzo Capello,
+with his Venetians, brought up the rear. Formed in two columns, the nefs
+followed the galleys; the _Galleon of Venice_, commanded by Condalmiero, a
+squadron in herself, preceded them.
+
+[Illustration: GALEASSE UNDER SAIL.]
+
+From the anchorage at Corfu to the entrance of the Gulf of Arta is about
+fifty-eight miles, and, traversing this distance during the hours of
+daylight, the fleet anchored, as night fell, under Cape Prevesa. The
+Galleon which acted as what we should now call the guide of the fleet,
+anchored in sixteen feet of water, which was barely sufficient to keep her
+afloat.
+
+The Gulf of Arta, in which, as we have said, the fleet of the Moslems were
+now anchored, presents very curious physical peculiarities: it is
+twenty-two miles in length from east to west, and fifteen miles in breadth
+from north to south. This sheet of water is formed into an immense bay by
+the configuration of the land, and its depth, in places, is from one
+hundred and thirty to two hundred feet. Inside it all the navies in the
+world might ride at anchor, were it not for the fact that the entrance is
+closed by a bar upon which the depth varies from six and a half to thirteen
+feet. With his light-draught ships Barbarossa occupied the interior
+position, while the heavy ships of Doria must in any event remain outside.
+A strong sea-breeze was blowing on shore; all night the nefs and the
+galleys were nearly rolling their gunwales under. In these packed and
+crowded vessels the misery and discomfort of their crews may be imagined.
+On the morning of the 26th, however, the west wind dropped, and a light
+wind sprang up from the northward.
+
+The position at this time was one of surpassing interest. Here at long last
+the two most renowned sea-captains of the time were face to face. Each was
+aware that his antagonist was worthy of his steel, also that great issues,
+political and national, hung upon this conflict; which was no mere affair
+of outposts, but a struggle to the death as to whether the Crescent or the
+Cross was in time to come to be supreme in the tideless sea. And yet--such
+is the irony of fate--this battle proved indecisive, and it was not until
+thirty years later, at the battle of Lepanto, that this momentous question
+was set at rest for a time.
+
+Would Doria, greatly daring, go in and risk all in attacking a fortified
+position; or would Barbarossa make a sally and fight it out to the death on
+the element on which he was so supremely at home?
+
+But Doria had no mind to attack a fleet anchored under the guns of a
+fortress; Barbarossa would not risk all in an encounter with a foe
+possessed of great numerical superiority without orders from
+Constantinople. On Doria's side nothing but a disembarkation and a
+land-attack would offer a fair security for success, Kheyr-ed-Din, who
+held, as we have said, the interior position, was well aware of this fact,
+and in this supreme moment of his career was not disposed to give away any
+advantage. The situation occupied by Kheyr-ed-Din at the battle of Prevesa
+was, in a sense, different from any which he had held before, as he was in
+this case hampered by his sense of responsibility as Admiralissimo to the
+Grand Turk. What happened on the distant shores of Africa mattered but
+little to that monarch, and he had been content to allow his admiral an
+entirely free hand; here in Europe, on the shores of Greece, so close
+relatively to his own capital city, it was a very different matter, and
+Soliman was kept in touch with the happenings of his fleet as far as was
+possible in those days. But if the great corsair did not add to his
+reputation in this eventful campaign he still displayed an aptitude in
+realising the situation which, it is safe to say, was shown by none of
+those under his command.
+
+Prevesa illustrates for us more than any other action the difficulties with
+which the path of the partisan leader in these days must always have been
+filled; and how it was that personal ascendancy was the only force to which
+such a leader had to trust Sheer dominance of the minds, the wills, and the
+bodies of others had placed Kheyr-ed-Din where he was; all his life he had
+commanded undisciplined pirates, and yet now, when he was the properly
+accredited officer of a mighty monarch, when he might have expected far
+more discipline and subordination than had ever been his lot in the past,
+he was met with a contumaciousness which he was unable to quell, and was
+forced into taking steps which, in his own unequalled knowledge of war, he
+knew to be doomed to disaster.
+
+Around him the Reis, or captains of the Moslem galleys, clamorously
+demanded that he should take precautions against a land-attack. It was true
+that the raid which had been made by Grimani had been easily repulsed, but
+in present circumstances there was no question of a mere raid, as, should
+the Christian admiral so decide, he could land twenty thousand men. Sinan
+Reis, an old Osmanli warrior, furious with jealousy that the chief command
+should be in the hands of a corsair, sustained his opinion in a manner
+which augured ill for the hearty co-operation of all the Turkish forces.
+Sinan was just one of those blindly valiant fighters from whom the politic
+Ibrahim had desired to deliver his master when he had urged the appointment
+of Kheyr-ed-Din: brave as a lion, keen as the edge of his own good
+scimitar, fanatical, as became a Hodja who had visited the Holy Places,
+Sinan was a type of the Turkish sea-officer: devoid of strategical instinct
+and tactical training, his one idea was a headlong attack, then victory or
+the houris of Paradise. It will be seen that Barbarossa had not only Doria
+and the Christian fleet and army against which to contend on this occasion.
+
+The peril conjured up by Sinan Reis on this occasion was not altogether an
+imaginary one: the idea of a disembarkation had, in point of fact, been
+seriously discussed that very morning by Andrea Doria and his council of
+war, at which Hernando de Gonzaga, Generalissimo of the troops embarked,
+had advised a landing. His argument, embodied in a long and technical
+harangue, may be reduced to the following:
+
+  If we cannot go straight at the enemy and force our way through the
+  entrance under his cannon why should we not reduce the fortress of
+  Prevesa by a siege? Once masters of this height, we could close the
+  strait by sinking in it vessels laden with stones, and we then have the
+  Ottoman fleet at our mercy.
+
+But Doria the sailor was not to be led by Gonzaga the soldier. He said:
+
+  The advice seems sound, but in reality it would prove most dangerous if
+  followed. Barbarossa must have landed some of his men, the cavalry which
+  defeated Grimani's raid will no doubt come again from the interior, if
+  necessary. If we deprive our ships of their soldiers we expose ourselves
+  to a sea-fight under most disadvantageous conditions. But most,
+  important of all is the fact that time presses; the season is far
+  advanced; at any time the fleet may be driven off these shores by a
+  storm, in which case what would become of the troops left on shore?
+  Again, if it comes on to blow a tempest from the westward we may lose
+  not only our troops, but our ships, in fact the whole expedition.
+
+At the battle of Actium, Octavius occupied the shore upon which Hernando
+Gonzaga wished to land and assault; but notwithstanding this fact Octavius
+did not attempt the passage of the gulf but waited for his enemy outside.
+Doria was therefore all the more justified in not sacrificing ships and men
+in attempting to force an entrance now that this same shore was in the
+hands of the enemy. He was asked, he said, to thrust his head into the
+mouth of the wolf, and this he was determined not to do.
+
+In the meanwhile Barbarossa was using much the same language to his
+captains as was Doria.
+
+"My brothers," said he, "you wish to transport cannon and raise redoubts on
+this uncovered shore because you think that the Christians will disembark
+and seize it: if you attempt this I tell you that the guns of the enemy
+will annoy you terribly., Not only this, supposing that Doria, profiting by
+the moment that our vessels are empty of troops, should attack in force, we
+cannot with five thousand men repulse twenty thousand. The fort of Prevesa
+will defend itself quite sufficiently well with its own garrison; our
+business is to think of the fleet and not to weaken in any way our means of
+attack and defence, If the infidels force, or attempt to force, an entry
+into the port, they will be most likely merely losing time and ammunition
+in cannonading us. You know that it is principally in this that these
+accursed dogs do trust, whereas we, O men of Islam, will place our
+confidence in God, in Mahomet his Prophet, in the strength of our right
+arms, in the keenness of our scimitars; we will carry them by boarding,
+therefore we must keep our crews on board,"
+
+But Barbarossa had not that absolute domination of the forces under his
+command which should be the prescriptive right of any leader. Sinan-Reis,
+the implacable be-turbaned old Osmanli, held him in bitter scorn. "Your
+advice may be good," he retorted, "but we think our plan the better."
+
+The admiral suggested a reconnaissance of the site, which was merely a ruse
+to gain time. This was carried out under his own supervision, and confirmed
+him in the idea that disembarkation was folly; but Sinan-Reis and the
+Janissaries held obstinately to their opinion, while the "Joldaks," or
+Turkish soldiers in the galleys, grumbled among themselves that
+Kheyr-ed-Din must indeed be full of vanity to reject the counsels of one
+like Sinan-Reis.
+
+Both commanders-in-chief, Christian and Moslem, seem on this occasion to
+have taken an absolutely correct view of the problem as it was presented;
+but whereas Andrea Doria was a real commander-in-chief, Barbarossa was
+forced to consider and to defer to the opinions of men whom he knew to be
+in the wrong.
+
+It was against his better judgment that Kheyr-ed-Din at last yielded; the
+men were backing up their officers, a spirit of disaffection was abroad in
+the armada: such a thing as this a wise chief must gauge at its true value,
+and stop before it goes too far. The Osmanli were murmuring against "the
+corsair"; it was time to let them see whether they or their war-worn leader
+possessed the greater wisdom.
+
+According to Moslem chroniclers the valour of Kheyr-ed-Din was only
+equalled by his piety; consequently he murmured a prayer into that famous
+beard of his, which was now so much nearer to white than red, and gave
+orders that the cannon shall be immediately disembarked. "Let the will of
+God and of His Prophet be accomplished; that which is written is that which
+will take place," exclaimed this pious man as he watched the preparations
+being carried out under the supervision of Mourad-Reis.
+
+That which "took place" was precisely and exactly what the Commander-in-
+Chief had predicted from the first: no sooner had Mourad-Reis landed upon
+the exposed beach, and attempted to open a trench, than he was met by a
+furious and concentrated fire from the galleys and nefs of the Christian
+fleet. To entrench themselves was impossible in the circumstances, as they
+had been told by the Admiral before they started on this harebrained
+adventure. There could be only one result, which was that, after a cruel
+and perfectly useless slaughter, the soldiers of Mourad-Reis had to retreat
+before the hail of shot poured upon them, and to return ignominiously to
+their vessels.
+
+It is not on record what Kheyr-ed-Din said to Sinan, Mourad, and those
+other tacticians who had recommended the landing; which perhaps is a pity.
+
+Doria then made a tentative movement against the strait by a detachment of
+galleys; Barbarossa told off an equal number to oppose them, and they
+mutually cannonaded and skirmished during the day. There was much noise and
+excitement, but practically no advantage was gained by either side, as
+Doria's men could not risk passing the guns of the fort, nor could those of
+Barbarossa the chance of being cannonaded by the heavy vessels lying in
+wait-for them outside. And so the day closed down with no success on either
+side, but with a decisive demonstration to the Moslems that, if they
+desired victory, to their admiral had better be left the organisation by
+which it was to be obtained.
+
+Whether Doria really desired a pitched battle can never be known; that
+which is certain is that, during the whole time the fleets were in touch,
+all his dispositions make it appear there was nothing of which he was so
+much afraid. And yet it was the opportunity of his life; he had superiority
+in numbers, he had valiant and experienced leaders, and sixty thousand men
+thirsting for battle, under his command. Also he had his opportunity,
+which, had he seized upon, must have ended in victory, did those who were
+under his orders only fight as he had every reason to believe that they
+would. As it was, he threw away the gift of fortune, and left to the
+Osmanli the practical dominance of the Mediterranean Sea until that great
+day in 1571 when Don John of Austria, the natural son of Charles V., proved
+to the world at Lepanto that the Turk was not invincible upon the waters.
+
+It is true that Doria was awkwardly situated; Kheyr-ed-Din held the
+interior position, and that leader was a great believer in the adage that
+"if Brag is a good dog, Holdfast is a better." He was well aware of his
+numerical inferiority, and in consequence refused to listen to the frenzied
+appeals of the excited Moslems to be led against the Christian dogs. It may
+seem a contradiction in terms to speak of the moral courage of a pirate;
+but if ever that quality were displayed to its fullest extent it was
+exhibited by Barbarossa in the Prevesa campaign. In his intellectual
+outlook on all that was passing, both inside and outside of the Gulf of
+Arta, in this September of 1538, we see Kheyr-ed-Din at his best. Ever a
+fighter, he knew when to give battle and when to refrain, when to sweep
+headlong upon the foe, but also when to hold back and to baffle by waiting
+till the psychological moment should arrive. Around him Sinan-Reis,
+Mourad-Reis, and half a hundred others of their kidney were clamouring;
+they hurled insults at his head, they heaped opprobrium on "the corsair,"
+they practically incited their troops to mutiny in their mad appeals to be
+led against the foe.
+
+But "the corsair" kept his head, and kept his temper, and saved the Ottoman
+fleet for his master from his great rival, Doria. That noble Genoese seaman
+was for once in his life "letting I dare not wait upon I would"; he would
+not order the attack for which his men were waiting, and no provocation,
+apparently, could tempt Barbarossa to play Antony to the Octavius of Doria;
+the Christian admiral was tempting Providence at that advanced season of
+the year in keeping the sea on an hostile coast on which at any time he
+might be driven by a tempest. His old and experienced antagonist was well
+aware that the winds and the waves might save him the trouble of destroying
+the fleet of the enemy; an equinoctial gale would do that far more
+effectually than could he. If Doria had an uneasy consciousness that he
+might at any time see the shore littered with oarless galleys and dismasted
+nefs, while the sea was filled with drowning men, the same vision had been
+vouchsafed to his imperturbable adversary. Had it been left to the entire
+initiative of Barbarossa, his Fabian tactics would assuredly have prevailed
+in the end; but as it was he was surrounded by a clamouring host of men,
+soldiers by trade, who, understanding nothing of the happenings of the sea,
+merely derided as cowardice any postponement of what they regarded as the
+inevitable battle. The admiral of the Sultan held out as long as it was
+possible, but at last, owing to a new factor in the case, was forced,
+against his better judgment, to offer the battle which it was in his power
+to have withheld.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+THE BATTLE OF PREVESA
+
+  How Alessandro Condalmiero fought the _Galleon of Venice_--"The
+  King of the Sea is dead."
+
+There is something almost pathetic in the spectacle of a really great
+leader badgered and importuned by lesser men to adopt a course which he,
+with a superior insight, knows to be unsound. In the matter of the landing
+Barbarossa had demonstrated that it was he whose knowledge of war was
+superior to those who were so ready to thrust upon him their opinions;
+this, however, did not content them, and they now desired to close with the
+foe waiting for them outside. If ever a commander was justified in waiting
+on events it was Barbarossa at this juncture; the business of a
+commander-in-chief is to ensure victory, and if he sees, as did the Moslem
+admiral on this occasion, that more is to be gained by delay than by
+fighting, then he is justified in refusing battle: particularly is this the
+case when the enemy is in greatly superior force blockading on an open and
+dangerous coast at an inclement season of the year. Every day that Doria
+was kept at sea added to his difficulties, as fresh water and provisions
+would be running short, and the energies of the human engines by which his
+galleys were propelled would be weakened; naked men chained to a bench were
+suffering from the blazing heat of the days, the cold and drenching dews of
+the nights. All these things had the veteran seaman weighed in his mind,
+they all inclined him to wait still longer in that secure anchorage where
+he could not be touched by his foe.
+
+There was one counsellor, however, whom even Kheyr-ed-Din could not resist,
+and who had hitherto kept silence; this was the eunuch Monuc, legal
+counsellor to Soliman, who had accompanied the armada. He now brought the
+weight of his influence to bear upon the side of Sinan-Reis and his
+colleagues.
+
+"Are you going," he asked the admiral, "to allow the infidels to escape
+without a battle? Soliman can find plenty of wood to build new fleets,
+plenty of captains to command them; he will pardon you if this fleet is
+destroyed: that which he will never pardon is that you should allow Doria
+to escape without fighting. You have brave men in plenty; why not lead them
+to the attack?"
+
+The patience of the veteran gave way at last; none who knew Barbarossa had
+ever seen him shrink from fighting--to this his whole career bore witness.
+He had delayed the issue from the soundest of strategical reasons, which
+those under his command were too stupid and too prejudiced to understand:
+what cared they for reason in their blind valour?--they wished only to do
+or die heedless of the fact that their lives might be spent in vain. Truly
+it was no thanks to the subordinates of Kheyr-ed-Din that this campaign did
+not end in disaster to the arms of the Ottoman Porte. Such backing as the
+admiral had came from among his own men, the corsairs whose lives had been
+spent at sea, but their opinions were but dust in the balance once the
+all-powerful Monuc ranged himself on the side of the malcontents.
+
+"Let us then fight," said the admiral to Saleh-Reis, "or this fine talker
+who is neither man nor woman will accuse us before the Grand Turk and we
+shall all probably be hanged."
+
+The Christian fleet during the night of September 26-7th had made some
+thirty miles to the southward; just before daybreak the wind freshened and
+drew right ahead; Doria approached the island of Santa Maura and anchored
+under the small islet of Sessola.
+
+Barbarossa had now decided to leave his anchorage, but the veteran seaman
+did not disguise from himself the risks which he ran: a greater sea captain
+than he once said "only numbers can annihilate," and it was at annihilation
+that both the Moslem and the Christian aimed: in this case, however, he
+knew that he could but hope for a hard-won victory, and only that if Allah
+and his Prophet were unusually favourable to his cause. He assembled his
+captains, many of whom had served with him during long periods of his
+career, and directed them to form line: he said, "I have but one order to
+give, follow my movements attentively and regulate your own accordingly."
+
+With fustas, brigantines, galleots, and galleys, the Ottoman fleet amounted
+in all to one hundred and forty sail. With shouts of joy the soldiers
+hailed the command to weigh the anchors, and in a very short time all were
+slowly moving seaward.
+
+The die was cast: Doria from his anchorage at Sessola saw the sea white
+with the sails of the enemy, the blue water churning to foam beneath the
+strokes of his oars; the Ottoman fleet was issuing from the Gulf of Arta
+manoeuvring with precision and deploying into a single line abreast; which
+line being slightly concave, either from accident or design, resembled the
+form of a crescent. In advance came six great fustas commanded by Dragut;
+the left wing hugged the shore as closely as possible; the Ottoman
+commander-in-chief intended to commence operations on the first principles
+of strategy by flinging his whole force on a portion of that of the enemy.
+
+Andrea Doria remained undecided: he was on a lee shore, and that shore was
+the coast of the enemy; although his foes were advancing to the attack it
+seemed as if he had no mind to fight: whether he had or had not he
+displayed a most remarkable sluggishness, hesitating for three hours before
+getting up his anchors; these he only weighed at last under pressure from
+the bellicose Patriarch of Aquilea, Vincenzo Capello, and the Papal
+captain, Antonio Grimani. Doria had counted on the support of the _Galleon
+of Venice_ and the nefs; but the galleon was becalmed four miles from the
+land and ten miles from Sessola, where Doria was at the beginning of the
+action.
+
+Condalmiero sent a light skiff from the _Galleon of Venice_ to the
+commander-in-chief demanding orders and help from the galleys.
+
+"Begin the fight," answered the admiral, "you will be succoured."
+
+The position of Condalmiero was that of a modern battleship which is
+disabled and surrounded by foes in full possession of their motive power;
+the great galleon floated inert upon the waters while the galleys could
+fight or fly as they wished. The captain of the galleon, however, had no
+alternative save to surrender or fight; but there was no hesitation on his
+part, for a more gallant officer never trod the decks of a warship of the
+proud Republic to which he belonged.
+
+The Moslem galleys were now close upon him, although as yet out of
+gun-shot; around him they wheeled and circled like a flight of great
+sea-birds, their ferocious crews shouting their war-cries calling upon
+Allah and the Prophet to give them the victory for which they craved; many
+a brave Venetian who heard for the first time the name of Barbarossa
+shouted in battle must have braced himself for the coming conflict, knowing
+all that was imported by that terrible name. The sun shone in a cloudless
+sky, the galleon lay becalmed in the middle of furious and ravening foes,
+the succour promised by Doria was ten miles away; they saw no movement
+which indicated help, and the odds against them were heavy indeed. But all
+the nervousness was not on one side, for the _Galleon of Venice_ was
+something new in the naval warfare of the time; she carried engines of
+destruction in the shape of great guns which the corsairs could by no means
+equal. Of this they were well aware, and the attack was delayed while the
+oarsmen in the galleys rested on their oars out of range to allow them
+breathing time before the supreme moment arrived. But the hounds were only
+held in leash; there came a signal which was answered by a concentrated
+yell of fury and of hate; then from right ahead, right astern, on the port
+side and the starboard, the galleys were launched to the attack. But all on
+board the great Venetian vessel was as still as that death which awaited so
+many of the combatants in this supreme struggle.
+
+Condalmiero had caused the crew of the galleon to lie down upon her decks,
+and stood himself, a gallant solitary figure in his shining armour, a mark
+for the hail of shot so soon to be discharged. It came, and with it the
+mast of the galleon bearing the Lion Standard of St. Mark crashed over the
+side into the water; renewed yells of triumph came from the Moslems, but
+still that ominous silence reigned on board the galleon. Untouched,
+unharmed, the Osmanlis came on firing as rapidly as possible until they
+were absolutely within arquebuss range. Closer they came and closer; then
+the sides of the galleon burst into sheeted flame, and the guns levelled at
+point-blank range tore through the attacking host. Condalmiero was throwing
+away no chances; he had directed his gunners to allow their balls to
+ricochet before striking rather than to throw them away by allowing them to
+fly over the heads of the enemy.
+
+The first broadside did terrible execution; a ball one hundred and twenty
+pounds in weight, fired by the chief bombardier, Francisco d'Arba in
+person, burst in the prow of a galley so effectually that all her people
+flew aft to the poop to prevent the water rushing in; but the vessel was
+practically split in twain, and sank in a few moments. All around were dead
+and dying men, disabled galleys, floating wreckage; the _Galleon of Venice_
+had taken a terrible toll of the Osmanli; the order to retreat out of range
+was given, and never was order obeyed with greater alacrity.
+
+With accuracy and precision the galleon played upon such vessels as
+remained within range, doing great execution. But she was now to be
+subjected to an even severer test than the first headlong attack. She had
+demonstrated to the Moslem leaders that here was no vessel to be carried by
+mere reckless valour; a disciplined and ordered offensive was the only plan
+which promised success; the Osmanli must use their brain as well as their
+courage if that tattered flag, rescued from the water, and nailed to the
+stump of the mast of the galleon, was ever to be torn down. There was
+something daunting in the very aspect of the solid bulk of the huge
+Venetian, something weird in the manner in which her crew never showed,
+save only the steadfast figure of her captain immovable as a statue of
+bronze, where he stood on her shot-torn poop.
+
+This Homeric conflict was a triumph of discipline and gunnery on the part
+of the Venetians; alert, accurate, and cool, the gunners of the galleon
+threw away none of their ammunition: inspired by the heroic spirit of their
+captain, great was the honour which they did on this stricken field to the
+noble traditions of their forbears and the service to which they belonged.
+
+The first attack had been most brilliantly repulsed, but this was only
+preliminary to a conflict which was to last all through the day; the Moslem
+galleys withdrew out of gunshot and re-formed; then a squadron of twenty
+advanced, delivered their fire, and retired; their place was then taken by
+a second squadron, which went through the same performance, and then came
+on a third. In this manner the attack, which began one hour after noon, and
+which was continued until sunset, was conducted. The galleon had thirteen
+men killed, and forty wounded; no doubt the slaughter would have been much
+greater had it not been for the enormous thickness of her sides and for the
+fact that the guns carried by the galleys were necessarily light.
+Notwithstanding, the galleon suffered terribly, she was a mass of wreckage;
+twice fire had broken out on board of her, she was cumbered by fallen
+masts, battered almost out of recognition, but still Condalmiero and her
+gallant crew fought on imperturbably with no thought of surrender. Covered
+with blood, wounded in the face and the right leg by flying splinters, her
+captain preserved his magnificent coolness, and his decimated crew
+responded nobly to his call. At eventide the fire from the galleon was
+almost as deadly as it had been at the first onslaught, and many galleys of
+the Turks were only saved from sinking by the activity and bravery of their
+carpenters, who, slung over their sides in "boatswains' chairs," drove home
+huge plugs of wood with their mallets into the shot-holes made by the
+Venetian guns.
+
+At the hour when the sun dipped below the horizon all the Turkish fleet
+seemed assembled to assault the colossus which so long had resisted their
+attack; there was a pause in the combat, and the firing died down.
+Condalmiero and his men braced themselves for the assault which they felt
+to be inevitable: for now the darkness was swiftly coming, in which they
+could no longer see to shoot, and under cover of which their numerous foes
+could assail them by boarding in comparative safety. Now the moment had
+come for the last act in this terrible drama of the sea. They had held
+their own at long odds throughout the whole of a hot September day, and as
+the level beams of the setting sun shone on their shattered ship they were
+prepared to die, fighting to the last man for the honour of Venice and the
+glory of St. Mark.
+
+Stiff and worn, wearied almost to the breaking strain, there was no man on
+board who even dreamt of surrender; all the guns were charged to the muzzle
+with bullets and broken stone, the artillerists match in hand stood grimly
+awaiting the order to fire, straining their eyes and their ears in the
+gathering darkness; in a few minutes at most they knew that the fate of the
+_Galleon of Venice_ must be decided.
+
+On board his galley, decorated for this occasion with scarlet banners,
+Barbarossa himself directed the assaulting line. Never before when the
+battle was joined had the gallant corsair been known to draw back; and yet
+on this occasion he not only hesitated but actually hauled off. The
+Venetians saw to their amazement that the expected attack was not to be
+pushed home; for Barbarossa and his captains fell upon some lesser vessels:
+the _Galleon of Venice_ was victorious.
+
+Meanwhile Doria was displaying his mastery of tactics when it was hard
+fighting that was wanted; he pretended that he wished to draw the Ottoman
+fleet into the high seas in order that he might destroy their galleys by
+means of the broadsides of his nefs; consequently he executed useless
+parade movements when he should by all the rules of warfare have closed
+with his enemy who was in distinctly inferior force; as he had a fair wind
+there is only one conclusion to be drawn, and that is that he did not want
+to fight.
+
+His manoeuvres certainly mystified the Turks, who viewed his tactics with
+mistrust, thinking them the outset of some deeply laid scheme; it never
+entered into their calculations for one moment that the great Andrea Doria,
+the terror of the Mediterranean sea, and the victor in scores of desperate
+engagements, was anxious to avoid a fight.
+
+Grimani and Capello, docile to the orders of their admiral, followed him
+full of uneasiness and distrust; they were fighting men of the most fiery
+description; to them the issue seemed of the simplest: there was the enemy
+in inferior force to themselves, they had the weather gauge, why delay the
+attack?
+
+"For much less than this," says Admiral Jurien de la Gravi�re, "the English
+shot Admiral Byng in 1756." The conduct of Doria on this occasion has
+certainly never been explained; the two other leaders went on board and
+remonstrated with their commander-in-chief; they were neither of them men
+who could be treated as negligible quantities on the field of battle; both
+belonged to that brilliant Venetian nobility so renowned in commerce and in
+war. Marco Grimani was in command of the Papal galleys, in itself a mark of
+the highest esteem and confidence from a potentate second to none in his
+influence in the civilised world. To Vincenzo Capello, Henry the Seventh of
+England confided his royal person and the command of his fleet when he
+crossed the Channel to encounter Richard the Second at Bosworth field. Five
+times had he filled the office of Providiteur in Venice, twice had he been
+commander-in-chief of her fleet, he was in perpetuity Procureur of St.
+Mark, to him Venice owed her naval discipline. He wore on this day the
+mantle of crimson silk with which the Republic invested her generals.
+Bitter was the rage in his heart, and bitterly must he have spoken to
+Doria, who, in spite of all remonstrances, continued his futile
+manoeuvrings.
+
+There was glory won on this day, but it was gained neither by Andrea Doria
+nor Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa. The _Galleon of Venice_ with Alessandro
+Condalmiero and his gallant crew had shown to all a splendid example of
+disciplined valour unexcelled in sixteenth-century annals.
+
+Barbarossa had captured a Venetian galley, a Papal galley, and five Spanish
+nefs, but he had recoiled from the assault on Condalmiero when the prize
+was actually within his grasp. For the rest it was a day of manoeuvring and
+tactics; tactics when sixty thousand men had been embarked on board two
+hundred ships for a specific and definite object on the side of the
+Christians and under the command of their most celebrated admiral; and yet
+the balance of advantage was actually gained by the inferior force. No
+subsequent glories can ever wipe this stain from the scutcheon of Doria, or
+can excuse the fact that at the most supreme moment of his career he failed
+to fight the battle that he was in honour, in conscience, and in duty bound
+to deliver. Next day the wind came fair for Corfu, and Doria, his ships
+untouched, unscathed, unharmed, put his helm up and sailed away followed by
+his fleet.
+
+Sandoval records the fact that Barbarossa, roaring with laughter the while,
+was accustomed to say that Doria had even put out his lanterns in order
+that no one might see whither he had fled. This was an allusion to the
+fact--or supposition--that Doria extinguished on that night the great poop
+lantern carried by him as admiral.
+
+When Soliman the Magnificent heard of the result of this battle he caused
+the town of Yamboli, where he was at the time, to be illuminated, and in
+the excess of his joy he added one hundred thousand aspres to the revenues
+of the conqueror; there were processions to the Grand Mosque, and all Islam
+rejoiced and sang the praises of the invincible admiral who had humbled to
+the dust the pride of the Christian and caused the dreaded Doria to fly
+from before the fleet of the Sultan.
+
+This, the most historical, if not the greatest feat in the life of
+Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, was for him a triumph indeed; with a vastly
+inferior force he had driven from the field of battle his "rival in glory,"
+as he himself had denominated Andrea Doria, and he had accomplished this
+feat notwithstanding the almost mutinous condition of his own forces. In
+spite of this it is with Condalmiero and with him alone that the glory of
+this day must rest; alone, absolutely unsupported as we have seen, he
+fought one of those fights which bring the heart into the mouth when we
+read of them; the stern pride of the Venetian noble, who despised as
+canaille the pirate hosts by whom he was assailed, had its counterpart in
+the sturdy valour of Chief Bombardier Francisco d'Arba and the other
+nameless heroes of which that good company was composed; to them we render
+that homage which so justly is their due.
+
+The whole campaign of Prevesa, as we have said, is a curious study in
+hesitation, in dilatoriness, in absolute lack of initiative and virility on
+the part of the two chief actors in the drama: that Doria should fly from
+the field of battle in an untouched ship is only one degree less incredible
+than that Barbarossa should have relinquished his attack on the _Galleon of
+Venice_. It would almost seem as if on this occasion each of the great
+rivals was hypnotised by the presence of the other; all their lives they
+had been seeking honour and riches on the sea, they knew, of course, that
+all men in both the world of Islam and that of Christendom looked upon them
+in the light of the special champions of the opposing sects, that the eyes
+of the entire world were fastened on this meeting of theirs in the classic
+waters of the Ambracian Gulf. In consequence neither man was at his best;
+indeed, we might go further than this, and say that on this occasion both
+lamentably failed. There is no fault to be found with the strategic
+preliminaries to the final conflict, each admiral acting with prudence and
+wisdom in the situation in which he found himself placed. That the
+perfectly correct idea of not giving battle to a superior force when he
+held so strong an interior position was given up by Barbarossa, was, as we
+have seen, not his fault; and when he issued from his anchorage, in
+deference to a sentiment among those under his command which he could no
+longer resist, his dispositions seem to have been made with his usual
+skill. Where he failed, however, was where, from all his previous history,
+we should least have expected failure, in his abandonment of the attack on
+the _Galleon of Venice_; this, of course, was inexcusable, and can only be
+set down to failure of nerve at the supreme moment. The ship had been
+battered by artillery all day long, a huge percentage of her company were
+dead and wounded, and the remainder worn out with fatigue. On the Moslem
+side we have seen that there were squadrons of galleys able to relieve one
+another with no interference from Doria, who was persisting in his futile
+manoeuvring miles away. Had the galleon been boarded, as she might and
+should have been, at nightfall, nothing could have saved Condalmiero and
+his crew: so strenuous, however, had been their resistance, that the
+Turkish seamen feared the issue; in consequence the battle between them and
+the Venetians was a drawn one, with all the honours on the Christian side.
+
+It is here that we shall take leave of Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, as although
+he was yet to live another eight years before he died in his bed at
+Constantinople in July, 1548, there are no further happenings of any great
+importance in his career.
+
+"Valorous, yet prudent, furious in attack, far-seeing in preparation, he
+ranks as the first sea-captain of his time;"[1] as the story of his life
+has unfolded itself in these pages we have seen what manner of man it was
+who terrified Europe, who made for himself a reputation which stands out
+clear and distinct among all the great men of which this century was so
+prolific. One of the surest methods of estimating a strenuous man of action
+is to seek for the names of those by whom he was surrounded: the men
+selected by him to assist in the carrying out of the work of his life; thus
+in reading of Napoleon Bonaparte we interest ourselves in his marshals, in
+reading of Nelson we note the captains by whom he was supported. In the
+case of Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, a great man of action if one ever lived,
+we find no trace of devoted adherents on that high plane of command we have
+indicated in the cases cited above. That he had devoted followers enough is
+absolutely certain, but of high officers we very seldom find a trace, and
+these he treated with contumely and offence on many occasions; witness the
+treatment meted out to Hassan and to Venalcadi. There is practically no
+trace of his domestic life to be found, we cannot discover that he
+possessed any intimate friend. There is none other in all history to whom
+he can be satisfactorily compared; there are few who in their generation
+have wielded such enormous powers, who have climbed so high from the sheer
+unassisted force of their own intellect and their own character.
+
+[Footnote 1: Stanley Lane Poole.]
+
+Physical strength such as is vouchsafed to one man in a million, a
+constitution nothing could impair, endurance incomparable, were his bodily
+attributes: an intellect cold, clear, and penetrating was his, joined to an
+imperturbability of temperament which enabled him to accept with a cheerful
+philosophy blows by which weaker men were absolutely prostrated; his
+outlook on life was not dimmed by any affections, and pity was a sensation
+which to him was entirely alien. In this record of his deeds the reader has
+been spared all mention of the atrocious tortures he was in the habit of
+inflicting on his victims for any or no provocation, and many of them are
+as incomprehensible as they are sickening. That in which he was supreme was
+his craft as a seaman in an age when real seamen were rare; on land he was
+frequently defeated, at sea there seems to be no record of such an
+occurrence. To sum up, he appears to us in the light of history as a body,
+a brain, and an intellect, without any trace of a heart. His path through
+life was one unending trail of blood and fire, moistened by the tears of
+his countless victims, followed by the curses of those whom he despoiled.
+Yet, in spite of this, it is impossible not to admire the man who, by his
+own superhuman energy, ever swept all obstacles from his path, and caused
+the whole of the civilised world to quail at the name of Barbarossa.
+
+He died peacefully in his bed at Constantinople in July, 1546, to the grief
+of the world of Islam and the inexpressible joy of Christendom. "The king
+of the sea is dead," expressed in three Arabic words, gives the numerical
+value 953, the year of the Hegira in which he died.
+
+For many years after his death no Turkish ship ever left the Golden Horn
+without her crew repeating a prayer and firing a salute over the tomb of
+Beshiktsah, where lie the bones of the first and greatest of Turkish
+admirals, the corsair who was at one and the same time admiral, pirate, and
+king.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+THE NAVY OF OARS. THE GALLEY, THE GALEASSE, AND THE NEF
+
+In the sixteenth century the vessel of war in the Mediterranean was
+essentially that oar-propelled craft known to us as the galley. As time
+went on she was gradually superseded by the sailing man-of-war which was
+able to carry that heavy ordnance which the light scantling of the galley
+did not permit of her mounting; but for the use of the corsairs who lived
+by means of raids and surprise attacks, whose business it was to lie perdu
+on the trade routes, the mobility of the galley was of prime importance,
+and they could not afford to trust to the wind alone as a motive power. The
+galley was analogous to the steam vessel in that it was independent of the
+wind to a large extent: human bone and muscle supplied the part of engines,
+and those who fought upon the sea caused themselves to be moved over the
+face of the waters by the exertions of their enemies. It is true that upon
+one occasion, as we have seen, Kheyred-Din Barbarossa did possess a fleet
+of galleys the rowers of which were all Moslems, which crew upon battle
+being joined dropped their oars, seized their weapons and assisted in the
+conquest of the foe. But this was an isolated instance, as it was almost
+impossible at any time and in any circumstances to procure free men ready
+to undertake a life of such intolerable suffering as that of a rower on
+board a galley; in consequence these men were almost invariably slaves, or
+else in later times condemned felons whose judges had sent them to work out
+their sentences upon the rowers' bench. The great characteristic of the
+galley was her mobility, and in a comparative degree her speed, as for a
+short burst, when her crew of rowers were fresh, their trained muscles were
+capable of tremendous exertion; for any length of time, however, it is
+obvious that her speed must have declined as the rowers became exhausted.
+She was long, narrow, of extremely low freeboard, and slight depth of hold;
+a galley of 125 feet between perpendiculars would perhaps be 180 feet over
+all taking in the poop and the prow. A galley of this length would only
+have a beam of 19 feet and a depth of hold of 7 feet 6 inches. The sailing
+ship of contemporary times would for the same length have had a beam of
+about 40 feet and an extremely high freeboard; she was in consequence
+necessarily slow and incapable of sailing on a wind.
+
+So distinct at this time was the line drawn between the sailing vessel and
+the galley that the actual terminology used was entirely different; that is
+to say, the names of such things as masts, sails, rudder, tiller, stern,
+stempost, cutwater, etc., were not the same words; the sailor who used
+sails could not understand his brother mariner who used oars, and _vice
+versa_.
+
+[Illustration: GALLEY UNDER OARS.]
+
+What was necessary of course in the galley was many oars and many hands to
+use them; the vessel was most skilfully constructed for this purpose so as
+to get the fullest power from her human engines; the result was that men
+were crowded on board of her to such an extent that there was scarcely room
+to breathe, such a craft as the one of which the dimensions have been given
+having on board some four hundred men.
+
+Barras de la Penne, a French officer who in 1713 first went on board a
+galley, thus describes what he saw:
+
+  "Those who see a galley for the first time are astonished to see so many
+  persons; there are an infinite number of villages in Europe which do not
+  contain an equal number of inhabitants; however, this is not the
+  principal cause of one's surprise, but that so many men can be assembled
+  in so small a space. It is truth that many of them have not room to
+  sleep at full length, for they put seven men on one bench; that is to
+  say, on a space about ten feet long and four broad; at the bows one sees
+  some thirty sailors who have for their lodging the floor space of the
+  rambades (this is the platform at the prow of the galley) which consists
+  of a rectangular space ten feet long by eight in width. The captain and
+  officers who live on the poop are scarcely better lodged, and one is
+  tempted to compare their grandeur with that of Diogenes in his tub.
+
+  "When the unpitying Libyan Sea surprises these galleys upon the Roman
+  coasts, when the Norther lashes to foam the Gulf of Lyons, when the
+  humid east wind of Syria is driving them off shore, everything combines
+  to make life on board a modern galley a hell of misery and discomfort.
+  The creaking of the blocks and cordage, the loud cries of the
+  sailors, the horrible maledictions of the galley slaves, the groaning of
+  the timbers, mingled with the clank of chains and the bellowings of the
+  tempest, produce sentiments of affright in the most intrepid breasts.
+  The rain, the hail, the lightning, habitual accompaniments of these
+  terrific storms, the waves which dash over the vessel, all add to the
+  horror of the situation, and although devotion is not as a rule very
+  strongly marked on board a galley, you will hear these folk praying to
+  God, and others making vows to the Saints; these would do much better
+  not to forget God and his Saints when the danger is past.
+
+  "Calm itself has also its inconveniences, as the evil smells which arise
+  from the galley are then so strong that one cannot get away from them in
+  spite of the tobacco with which one is obliged to plug one's nostrils
+  from morning till night."
+
+The gallant officer here goes into further details concerning the vermin on
+board which it will be as well to spare the reader.
+
+Jean Marteille de Bergeraq, who died at Culenbourg in 1777, was condemned
+to serve on board the galleys in 1707 "in his quality of Protestant"; he
+must indeed have been a man of iron constitution as he lived to the age of
+ninety-five. This is his description of the life of a _for�at_:
+
+  "They are chained six to a bench; the benches are four feet wide covered
+  with sacking stuffed with wool over which are thrown sheepskins which
+  reach to the floor. The officer who is master of the galley slaves
+  remains aft with the captain to receive his orders; there are two under
+  officers, one amidships and one at the prow; all of these are armed with
+  whips, with which they flog the absolutely naked bodies of the
+  slaves. When the captain gives the order to row, the officer gives the
+  signal with a silver whistle which hangs on a cord round his neck; the
+  signal is repeated by the under officers and very soon all the fifty
+  oars strike the water as one. Imagine six men chained to a bench as
+  naked as they were born, one foot on the stretcher the other raised and
+  placed on the bench in front of them, holding in their hands an oar of
+  enormous weight, stretching their bodies towards the after part of the
+  galley with arms extended to push the loom of the oar clear of the backs
+  of those in front of them who are in the same attitude. They plunge the
+  blades of the oars into the water and throw themselves back, falling on
+  to the seat which bends beneath their weight. Sometimes the galley
+  slaves row thus ten, twelve, even twenty hours at a stretch, without the
+  slightest relapse or rest, and on these occasions the officer will go
+  round putting into the mouths of the wretched rowers pieces of bread
+  soaked in wine to prevent them from fainting. Then the captain will call
+  upon the officers to redouble their blows, and if one of the slaves
+  falls fainting upon his oar, which is a common occurrence, he is flogged
+  until he appears to be dead and is then flung overboard without
+  ceremony."
+
+The Italian captain, Pantero Pantera, of the _Santa Lucia_ galley, in his
+work on "L'Armata Navale" published in 1614, gives it as his opinion that
+although soldiers and sailors could be obtained for service in the galleys
+if good pay were given, still no money could tempt any free man to
+adventure himself as a rower for any length of time owing to the
+intolerable sufferings which the "gallerian" was called upon to endure. As,
+however, in the opinion of the captain it was most necessary that the
+galleys should be manned, he thought that all judges should in future send
+criminals aboard; those who had committed murder as "lifers," those who had
+committed lesser crimes _pro rata_. Those who by the nobility of their
+birth or their physical incompetence were unable to handle the oar should
+be called upon to pay for substitutes to act for them; these were called
+"Buone-Voglie."
+
+There was not much difference after all between the methods used by the
+seventeenth-century Italian to those actually in force in England at a much
+later date when the Press Gang swept the honest and the dishonest into its
+net in its midnight raids.
+
+"The galley slaves," observes Pantera, "cherish repose and sincerely wish
+to avoid fatigue; in order to incite them to do their duty it is necessary
+to use the whip as well as the whistle; by using it with severity the
+officers will find that they are better obeyed, and it will in consequence
+be good for the service, for fear of the whip is the principal cause of
+good behaviour among the gallerians." Further on he observes that it is
+well not to flog them too severely and without reason, "for this irritates
+the gallerians, as I have frequently observed: this may cause them to
+despair and to wish for death as the only sure way out of their troubles."
+The excellent Pantera a little later on even says that he cannot agree that
+the attempt to cure a sick gallerian "is all nonsense, as is maintained by
+some persons," as sick men are a source of danger on board. He apparently
+was not prepared to throw them overboard alive, but urges that the best way
+to avoid such pestilences among them as killed forty thousand Venetians at
+the port of Zara in 1570 is to embark sound and good victuals.
+
+It is interesting to have a contemporary view of the correct treatment of
+the galley slave from those who had to do with him. In the case of the
+corsairs and their adversaries the gallerians were as a rule prisoners of
+war, but as time went on and wars became less frequent than they were
+throughout the sixteenth century, another source of supply was tapped by
+sending to the galleys the criminals of any country which desired to fill
+up the rowers' benches. In consequence there was always one thing which was
+feared above all others on board a galley, and that was a rising of the
+slaves.
+
+If they were not your enemies officially, they were a set of desperate
+criminals ripe for any mischief should they get loose, and chained,
+starved, beaten, frozen with the cold, baked by the summer heats, tortured,
+murdered, they had nothing earthly for which to hope except escape. If in
+the heat of battle there should occur a rising of the slaves, then their
+masters knew that victory would declare itself surely on the side of the
+enemy. Therefore that they should be securely chained was the first and
+most important thing to which the boatswain of a galley and his mates had
+to see. If by a bold stroke they once freed themselves from their shackles
+it was a fight to the death for those who erstwhile had been in command, as
+the gallerians, outnumbering them and caring nought for their lives in
+comparison to their liberties, were far the most formidable foes that they
+could be called upon to encounter. When men are so treated that their daily
+life is one long martyrdom they become the most dangerous force in
+existence, and on the occasions which sometimes happened that the slaves
+got the upper hand, there were none left of the fighting men of the galley
+to tell the tale of their discomfiture.
+
+In time of battle the gallerians were of course equally exposed to death
+and wounds from the projectiles of the enemy as were the orthodox fighting
+men; but to them came no rejoicing at the sound of victory; rather they
+prayed for the defeat of their masters, as it frequently happened that
+those against whom they were arrayed were their own countrymen and friends
+by whom they hoped for release. Thus at Lepanto, the Christian slaves,
+seeing the right wing of the Turkish fleet thrown into disorder by the
+galleys of the Allies, broke out into furious mutiny, succeeded in
+shattering their fetters and chains, attacked their masters the Turks in
+the rear with incredible energy with any weapons upon which they could lay
+their hands, and thus contributed in no small measure to the ultimate
+triumph of the Christian arms.
+
+The Captain Pantero Pantera and Barras de la Peine have written
+exhaustively on the galley, her crew, her armament, her manner of
+provisioning, her masts, sails, rigging, etc., and Admiral Jurien de la
+Gravi�re has given a most painstaking exposition concerning the
+technicalities of these craft. But to enter into too much detail would be
+to weary the reader unnecessarily, who, it is apprehended, merely desires
+that a general idea should be given of the way in which these vessels were
+handled and fought.
+
+It would appear that during the whole time that oar-propelled vessels were
+used as warships their form did not differ to any material extent, as
+certain limitations of size were obviously imposed on them by the mere fact
+that they had to be moved by so finite and feeble a force as human muscles,
+hearts, and lungs. No cruelty, however ghastly, could extract from the
+gallerians more than a certain amount of work, and the Captain Pantero
+Pantera, as we have seen, even advocates that a certain minimum of
+consideration should be shown to them in order that better work might be
+obtained. It was probable, however, that in the case of the Christian
+slaves captured by the corsairs even this minimum was to seek, as the
+numbers swept off by them were so enormous that they could be used up and
+replaced without inconveniencing these rovers of the sea, to whom
+compassion for suffering was absolutely unknown.
+
+The Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, or the Knights of Malta as they were
+also called, used the galley in their unceasing warfare with the Moslem.
+The General of the Galleys was a Grand Cross of the Order; the captains
+were knights, and the second officer, or first lieutenant, was known as the
+Patron. The crew of a galley of the knights had twenty-six rowing benches
+and carried two hundred and eighty rowers and two hundred and eighty
+combatants; the armament consisted of one bow cannon which discharged a
+forty-eight pound ball, four other small guns, eight pounders, and fourteen
+others which discharged stones.
+
+"The Religion," as the Knights were in the habit of describing themselves,
+had certain definite stations assigned to each knight, seaman, or officer
+during action. It is to be imagined, however, that these were merely for
+the preliminary stages of the fight, as it was seldom that time allowed for
+more than one discharge, or at the most two, of the artillery, before the
+opposing galleys met in a hand-to-hand conflict which must have immediately
+become an indiscriminate m�l�e.
+
+The manner in which the galley should engage is thus contained in an answer
+to a question of Don John of Austria, the victor of Lepanto. He wrote to
+Garcia de Toledo, fourth Marquis of Villafranca, and General of the Galleys
+of Sicily, to ask his opinion as to what distance it was most efficacious
+to open fire in a naval action. Toledo replied that "one cannot fire more
+than twice before the galleys close. I should therefore recommend that the
+arquebussiers should hold their fire until they are so close to the enemy
+that his blood will leap into the face of him who discharges his piece.
+have always heard it said, and this by captains who are well skilled in the
+art of war, that the last discharge of the cannon should be coincident with
+the noise made by the breaking of the spurs carried in the prows of the
+galleys; in fact that the two noises should be as one; some propose to fire
+before the enemy does: this is by no means my advice."
+
+Artillery, it will be seen from this, played a comparatively unimportant
+part in the combats between galley and galley; that in these craft men
+still relied on the strength of their right arm and the edge of their
+swords; there was still a certain contempt for villainous saltpetre, which
+was looked upon as a somewhat cowardly substance, preventing the warrior
+from settling his disputes in the good old fashion of his forbears. In any
+case, when you practically had to push the muzzle of your gun against your
+enemy's body in order to hit him, it was not a weapon upon which much
+reliance was to be placed.
+
+There were, in addition to the galley, the nef and the galeasse; the former
+of these was a sailing vessel pure and simple like those remarkable
+caravels in which Columbus discovered America.
+
+What these caravels were exactly like it was the good fortune of the writer
+to see in the year 1893. This was the date of the great exhibition of
+Chicago, and the American Government were most anxious to have, and to
+exhibit if possible, an exact replica of these historic craft. They
+accordingly communicated with the Spanish Government and inquired if by any
+chance they possessed the plans and specifications of the caravels of
+Columbus? Search was made in the archives of Cadiz Dockyard and these
+priceless documents were discovered. From them the ships were built in
+every respect the same as the wonderful originals and then towed across the
+Atlantic by the United States cruiser _Lancaster_. On their way they were
+brought to Gibraltar, where the writer's ship was then stationed, and were
+anchored inside the New Mole. The _Santa Maria_, the flagship of Columbus,
+was a three-masted vessel with a very high "forecastle" and "sterncastle"
+and very deep in the waist; she had three masts, the foremast carrying one
+square sail, the mainmast having both mainsail and main-topsail, the mizzen
+was rigged with a lateen sail, on the mainsail was painted the Maltese and
+on the foresail the Papal cross, and on deck she carried a brick-built
+cooking galley. A most beautiful model of this vessel is to be seen in the
+Science and Art Department of the South Kensington Museum.
+
+The nef in its later manifestations became a much more seaworthy vessel
+than this, with four masts, the two foremost ones square-rigged and
+carrying courses and topsails, the two after ones carrying lateen sails;
+the latter from their small size and their proximity to one another could
+not have had much effect on the sailing qualities of the ship. The nefs in
+the fleet of Don John of Austria in 1571 were rigged in this fashion and
+comprised vessels of eight hundred, nine hundred, and even one thousand
+tons, while a contemporary English vessel, the _Great Harry_ or _Henri
+Grace � Dieu_, was as much as fifteen hundred tons, and carried no less
+than one hundred and eighty-four pieces of ordnance. It was from the nef
+and the galeasse that the sailing man-of-war arrived by the process of
+evolution. The galley in the first instance was the vessel of men who
+fought hand to hand, the men in whom personal strength and desperate valour
+were blended, who desired nothing so much as to come to close grips with
+their enemy. Such rude engines of war as the pierriers, or short cannons
+which discharged some forty or fifty pounds of broken stone upon the enemy,
+were first mounted in the galley; these were followed by improved artillery
+as time went on. But although the galleys eventually carried quite big
+guns, as instanced by the forty-eight pounder in the galleys of the Knights
+of St. John, still it soon became apparent that the limit was reached by
+guns of this weight; the galley was essentially a light vessel and was not
+built to withstand those rude shocks caused by firing heavy charges of
+powder.
+
+The galeasse was the connecting link between the navy of oars and the navy
+of sails. The navy of oars was in its generation apt for warlike purposes;
+but it was in its essence a force analogous to the light cavalry of the
+land; useful for a raid, a sudden dash, but without that great strength and
+solidity which came in later years to the building of the sailing line of
+battleship.
+
+The galeasse was really a magnified galley, one which used both sails and
+oars, on board of which the rowers were under cover; she was built with a
+forecastle and a sterncastle which were elevated some six feet above the
+benches of the rowers, and her very long and immensely heavy oars were of
+course proportionate to the size of the vessel. The description of a
+galeasse of nearly one thousand tons burden is set forth as follows by
+Jurien de la Gravi�re:
+
+  "Her draught of water was about 18 feet 6 inches, she was propelled by
+  52 oars, 48 feet in length, each oar being worked by 9 men. Her crew
+  consisted of 452 rowers, 350 soldiers, 60 marines, 12 steersmen, 40
+  ordinary seamen, 86 cannoneers, 12 petty officers, 4 boatswains' mates,
+  3 pilots, 2 sub-pilots, 4 counsellors, 2 surgeons, 4 writers, 2
+  sergeants, 2 carpenters, 2 caulkers, 2 coopers, 2 bakers, 10 servants, a
+  captain, a lieutenant, a purser. In all some thousand men, or about the
+  same number as the crew of a three-decker of a later date."
+
+The fleet of the "Holy League" at the battle of Lepanto had in it six
+galeasses from the arsenal of Venice; and whereas an average galley carried
+110 soldiers and 222 galley slaves, the crews of these galeasses comprised
+270 soldiers, 130 sailors, and 300 galley slaves.
+
+The speed of the galley was calculated by the French engineer Forfait to be
+in the most favourable circumstances, that is to say in a flat calm, but
+four and a half knots for the first hour, and two and a quarter to one and
+a half miles per hour for subsequent hours; the exhaustion of the rowers
+consequent on their arduous toil would not admit of a greater speed than
+this. The studies of Forfait were made when the invasion of England by
+rowing boats was a topic of burning interest. It is evident from this that
+long voyages, trusting to the oar alone, could not be undertaken; but as we
+have seen, the galley was also provided with motive power in the shape of
+two masts carrying the lateen sail, which may be still seen in so many
+Mediterranean craft.
+
+That the galley was no vessel in which to embark in bad weather is
+instanced for us by the disasters which befell a Spanish fleet of these
+craft in 1567 under the Grand Commander of Castile, Don Luiz de Requesens.
+A revolt of the Moors in Granada had caused Philip the Second to wish to
+withdraw a certain number of Spanish troops from Italy. Requesens was sent
+to Genoa with twenty-four galleys to embark a detachment of an army corps
+then stationed in Piedmont. Each galley embarked one hundred and fifty
+soldiers; they then got under way and reached the island of Hy�res, where
+they anchored, the weather being too bad to proceed. At the end of their
+eighth day in port a number of vessels were seen flying to the eastward
+before the wind; it was a squadron of Genoese.
+
+Requesens, who was no seaman, was furious. Here were the Genoese at sea,
+and he wasting his time in harbour; if they could keep the sea why could
+not he, he demanded? He instantly ordered the anchors to be weighed. The
+commander of the Tuscan galleys, of which there were ten in the fleet,
+immediately went on board the galley in which Requesens was embarked and
+represented that the wind was foul and that should they leave their
+anchorage they could make no headway once they got clear of the land. But
+Requesens was obstinate: "if others can go on their way it is shameful that
+I should not proceed on mine," he protested. Alfonso d'Aragona argued with
+him in vain, representing that his master, the Duke of Tuscany, would hold
+the Grand Commander responsible for damage to his galleys. It was all in
+vain, as the Grand Commander was too arrogant and stupid to listen to
+advice from anybody. The fleet put to sea and struggled out a mile from the
+land; when they got thus far Requesens discovered his mistake and regretted
+that he had not taken the advice of the mariners; but it was now too late,
+they had drifted to leeward of their anchorage and could not get back
+again.
+
+One galley, a new vessel, ran into another which was an old one, and sank
+her on the spot, carrying all her luckless crew to the bottom. The
+remaining vessels scattered far and wide; Alfonso d'Aragona found refuge in
+the Bay of Alghieri, two more of his galleys reached an anchorage in the
+Isle of St. Pierre, another sheltered in the Gulf of Oristano; three
+galleys were shipwrecked on the coast in this neighbourhood and lost many
+of their men; yet another, called the _Florence_, was twice nearly wrecked
+on the coast of Barbary, and eventually reached the Bay of Cagliari. A
+Genoese captain found himself as far afield as the Island of Pantellaria,
+two galleys were never heard of again, and the Grand Commander himself
+anchored eventually in the Bay of Palamos on the Spanish coast. Of the
+twenty-four galleys which left their anchorage twelve were lost and the
+twelve which remained were practically valueless until large sums had been
+spent in repairs.
+
+It is small wonder in the light of these events that the seamen who ranged
+the Mediterranean in vessels propelled by oars regarded the winter as a
+close season and laid up their galleys in harbour. They were seaworthy
+enough for ordinary weather, but could not withstand such a tempest as the
+one in which Requesens put to sea. The whole story is only a further proof
+of the folly of putting supreme command of a sea-going venture in the hands
+of a man totally ignorant of the hazards he was called upon to encounter.
+In the sixteenth and even in the seventeenth centuries this was done
+perpetually, and if no disaster occurred it was because no bad weather was
+encountered.
+
+[Illustration: Brigantin donnant chasse a une Felouque, et prest a la
+ border. BRIGANTINE CHASING FELUCCA.]
+
+As time went on the sailing ship became larger and larger and was able to
+mount more and more powerful ordnance; this had the effect of discounting
+the value of the galley as a fighting ship; in consequence she became
+practically obsolete, for the line of battle, after the combat at Lepanto.
+In spite of this she was to linger on for many long years to come as the
+weapon of the corsairs who had established themselves on the coast of
+Africa. The "long ship" was still to be the cause of many an awful sea
+tragedy, whether the actors therein were the pirates who hailed from the
+Barbary coast or their most capable imitators the notorious rovers of
+Sallee.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+DRAGUT-REIS
+
+  How he became Lieutenant to Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa--His capture by
+  Jannetin Doria--His four years as a galley slave--His ransom by his old
+  chief.
+
+In character, in capability, in strategic insight, in tactical ability, not
+one of the predecessors or the successors of Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa can be
+compared to him; he was the greatest and most outstanding figure of all
+those corsairs of whose deeds we hear so much during the sixteenth century,
+the man above all others who was feared and hated by his contemporaries in
+Christendom. He lived, as we have said, for another eight years after the
+battle of Prevesa, but his great age prevented him from pursuing a very
+active career. There were, however, other and younger men, trained in the
+terrible school of hardship in which his life had been passed, who proved
+themselves to be his very worthy successors, even if they did not display
+the same genius in war and statecraft. The conditions of this period are
+somewhat remarkable when we come to consider them; Europe, which had been
+sunk in a rude and uncultured barbarism during the middle ages, was
+emerging under the influence of the Renaissance into a somewhat higher and
+nobler conception of life. It is true that the awakening was slow, that
+morally the plane on which the peoples stood was far from being an elevated
+one, that altruism was far from being the note of the lives lived by the
+rulers of the so-called civilised nations. For all this they had emerged
+from that cimmerian darkness in which they had lived so long, and the dawn
+of better things, of more stable government, of some elementary recognition
+of the rights of those governed, was beginning to show above the murky
+horizon.
+
+But if the sun of European progress was slowly and painfully struggling
+through the clouds, the light which had shone brightly for over seven
+centuries of Moslem advance was certainly and surely dying. Beneath the
+mail-clad heel of the Christian warrior the torch of learning which had
+burned so brightly in Cordova and Granada had been extinguished and ground
+into the dust, and the descendants of the alumni of those universities were
+seeking their bread in the Mediterranean Sea in the guise of bloodthirsty
+and desperate pirates.
+
+There were no longer among the Moors of Andalusia learned philosophers,
+expert mathematicians, wise astronomers, and practical agriculturists;
+there was among them but one art, one science, one means of gaining a
+livelihood--the practice of war--and their very existence depended on the
+spoils which could be reft from the hereditary enemy. The corsair who grew
+to man's estate, brought up in Algiers, Tunis, Tenes, Jerba, or any other
+of the lurking places in which the sea-wolves congregated, had as a rule no
+chance but to follow the sea, to exist as his father had existed before
+him; he must fight or starve, and in a fighting age no youngster was likely
+to be backward in taking to the life of wild excitement led by his elders.
+Unless following in the train of one of the leaders, such as Barbarossa,
+the Moslems were apt to take to the sea in a private capacity; a certain
+number of them joining together to man a small craft which was known as a
+brigantine. As has been said in a previous chapter, this word must not be
+understood in the light of the terminology of the modern seaman: the
+brigantines of the Moslem corsairs were really large rowing boats, carrying
+fourteen to twenty-six oars, and made as seaworthy as the small size of
+such craft would allow. Should the venture of the crew of a brigantine
+prove successful, then the reis, or captain, might blossom out into the
+command of a galley, in which his oars would be manned by his slaves; but,
+in the first instance, he would man his brigantine with a crew of Moslem
+desperadoes working on the share system and dividing anything that they
+could pick up; in this manner most of those corsairs who became famous
+commenced their careers, and rose as we have seen from the thwart of a
+brigantine to the unstable eminence of a throne in Algiers, Tunis, or
+Tlemcen.
+
+This life which they led made of them what they were, namely desperate
+swordsmen, efficient men at arms, incomparably skilful in the management of
+the craft in which they put to sea; but it did nothing else for them in the
+way of education; in consequence he who would rise to the top, who aspired
+to be a leader amongst them and not to remain a mere swash-buckling
+swordsman all his life, was bound to acquire that dominance necessary for
+control of the wild spirits of the age. Nor was this ascendancy by any
+means easy to obtain, as the rank and file led lives of incredible
+bitterness, almost inconceivable to modern ideas. What they suffered they
+alone knew, but it was compounded of hunger, thirst, heat, cold, sickness
+unrelieved by care or tending, wounds which festered for lack of
+medicaments, death which ever stared them in the face, and last, and worst
+of all, the risk of capture by some Christian foe, by whom they would be
+chained to the rowers' bench and taste of a bitterness absolutely
+unimaginable. As a set-off to this the man who aspired to lead must offer
+to his followers at least a record of success in small things; also he had
+to be something of an enthusiast, something of an orator, some one subtly
+persuasive. Against all the disagreeables of the strenuous life of the
+corsair he had to hold before the dazzled eyes of Selim, Ali, or Mahomet
+the promise of fat captures of the merchant vessels of the foe; when they
+had but to slit a few throats and to return with their brigantines laden to
+the gunwale with desirable plunder. Again he had to hearten them for
+possible encounters with Spaniards, with the terrible Doria, or worst of
+all with the dreaded Knights of St. John themselves; to point out that to
+die in conflict with the infidel was a sure passport to heaven and its
+houris, and to invoke great names, such as that of Barbarossa to show to
+what dizzy heights the fighting Moslem could climb. In such an age and
+among such men as these it was no mean feat to become a leader by whom men
+swore and to whom they yielded a ready obedience.
+
+Fashioned by the hammer of misfortune on the anvil of racial expropriation,
+such leaders arose among the Moslems, men of iron, before whom all who
+worshipped at the altars of Islam bowed the knee. These men, whose fame
+extended throughout all the length and breadth of the Mediterranean, taught
+to European rulers something of the value of that great force which is
+known to us under the modern name of "Sea Power."
+
+Next in importance to Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa himself and in many ways his
+very worthy successor, was Dragut Reis. We have it on the authority of
+Messire Pierre de Bourdeille, the Seigneur de Brant�me, that Dragut was
+born at a small village in Asia Minor called Charabulac, opposite to the
+island of Rhodes, and that his parents were Mahommedans. Being born within
+sight and sound of the sea, the youthful Dragut naturally graduated in the
+school of the brigantine and completed his education on board of a galley.
+His training was that which makes the best of fighting seamen, as from
+contemporary records he appears to have passed all his life actively
+engaged on board ship. At a very early age he entered the service of a
+master gunner who served on board the galleys of the Grand Turk. Under his
+auspices the youngster became an expert pilot in his own home waters, and
+likewise a most excellent gunner. Dragut was evidently a youth of ability
+and determination, as almost before he reached man's estate he had
+succeeded in buying a share in a cruising brigantine where his venture
+prospered so exceedingly that he was soon able to become sole proprietor of
+a galeasse. Here again fortune favoured the enterprising young man; his
+name began to be known as a formidable corsair in the Levant, where he was
+remarkable for his knowledge of that portion of the Mediterranean.
+
+To better his condition he offered his services to Barbarossa at Algiers,
+who accepted this new subordinate with joy, delighted to have so valiant
+and capable a man under his orders.
+
+"During some years," says J. Morgan in his _Compleat History of Algiers_,
+1728, "he was by that basha intrusted in the direction of sundry momentous
+expeditions; in which he acquitted himself much to the satisfaction of his
+principal: as having never once been unsuccessful." When we remember the
+treatment meted out by Barbarossa to some of his unsuccessful lieutenants,
+Dragut must be esteemed a very fortunate man. His master, we are told,
+advanced him to all the military offices of the State--it would be
+interesting to know what these were in a purely piratical confederation
+ruled by a pirate! In the end Dragut was appointed to be kayia, or
+lieutenant, and given entire command of twelve galleys.
+
+  "From thenceforward this redoubtable corsair passed not one summer
+  without ravaging the coasts of Naples and Sicily; nor durst any
+  Christian vessel attempt to pass between Spain and Italy; for if they
+  offered it he infallibly snapped them up, and when he missed his prey at
+  sea, he made himself amends by making descents along the coasts
+  plundering villages and towns and dragging away multitudes of
+  inhabitants into captivity."
+
+That "no vessel durst pass from Spain to Italy" is no doubt a picturesque
+form of exaggeration on the part of the historian; at the same time, when
+Dragut was at the height of his activities there is no doubt that any one
+passing through those seas ran a great risk of capture; so much so in fact
+that at this period, from 1538, the date of the battle of Prevesa, until
+Lepanto in 1571, all maritime commerce in the Mediterranean was greatly
+circumscribed. At the beginning of this epoch, which saw the rise of the
+Moslem corsairs, these robbers perforce confined themselves more to the
+North African coast than was the case later on. The pioneers of the
+piratical movement, after the fatal date 1492, which saw the wholesale
+expulsion of the Moors from Spain, were comparatively speaking inexpert
+practitioners in the art and mystery of piracy; they had not the habit of
+the sea, and in consequence confined their depredations to the
+neighbourhood of their own selected ports in Africa, which dominated that
+sea lane running east and west through the Mediterranean, which then, as
+now, was one of the greatest highways of commerce of the world. Gradually,
+as we have seen, under the able guidance of the two Barbarossas, but
+particularly that of the second and greater of the two, piracy became a
+commonplace in the north, as well as in the south, of the tideless sea; the
+corsairs, as time went on, even devoting more time and attention to the
+coast of Italy and the islands of the archipelago than they did to the
+recognised trade routes. These latter had become by 1540 similar to an
+estate which has been shot over too frequently; birds had become both wild
+and scarce, it was hardly worth while to go over the ground, except now and
+again on the chance of picking up a straggler. Towns and islands, on the
+other hand, even if they did not yield much in the way of actual plunder,
+were always good cover to beat for slaves, which had a certain value in the
+markets of Algiers and Tunis. Another circumstance which had led to the now
+frequent raids on the littoral of the European countries was the
+countenance and support accorded to the corsairs by the Grand Turk: so
+admirably did they fit into the scheme of his ambitions, that by the time
+Dragut arrived at a commanding position they were, so to speak, officially
+recognised as a fighting asset of the Sublime Porte; and, as we have seen,
+the Sultan did not hesitate to lend his picked troops, the Janissaries, to
+the corsairs when engaged in their ordinary piratical business. To the
+Grand Turk the corsairs were Moslems who were prepared to fight on his
+side, and who, taking it all in all, really cost him hardly anything; in
+fact, at this date, owing to the magnificent gifts made to the Sultan by
+Kheyr-ed-Din, the Padishah must have made something out of his association
+with the sea-wolves.
+
+By the year 1540 Dragut had distinctly "arrived"; that is to say, he had
+succeeded in making himself so dreaded that Charles V. ordered Andrea Doria
+to seek him out and destroy him at any cost. The Christian admiral was "to
+endeavour by all possible means to purge the sea of so insufferable a
+nuisance."
+
+Andrea got ready a fleet, which he entrusted, together with the care and
+management of this affair, to his nephew Jannetin Doria. This was the
+nephew who, in the disastrous attack by Charles on Hassan Aga at Algiers in
+the following year, was so nearly lost in the storm which destroyed the
+fleet of the emperor; and of whom Andrea Doria is reported to have said,
+"It was decreed that Jannetin should be reduced to such an extremity
+purposely to convince the world that it was not impossible for Andrea Doria
+to shed a tear." Certainly from what we know of the celebrated Genoese
+admiral it is hard to imagine him in a tearful mood. Jannetin Doria put to
+sea, and, after a long hunt, found the object of his quest at Andior on the
+coast of Corsica; Dragut was at anchor in the road of Goialatta, under a
+castle situated between Cabri and Liazzo. The corsair knew nothing of his
+enemies being at sea, and was in consequence keeping no particular
+look-out. Although we are not told the composition of the fleet of Jannetin
+Doria, it must have been a large one, as Dragut had under his orders
+thirteen galleys, and was unable to withstand the attack to which he was
+subject. He was also assailed from the shore, as well as the sea, as the
+castle under which he was at anchor opened fire upon him as soon as it was
+discovered by its garrison that the new arrivals were Christians. The fire
+was too hot for the corsair to withstand, and, to add to his
+embarrassments, the beach soon became lined by hundreds of the fierce
+Corsi, awaiting the inevitable end when they should be able to fall upon
+the defeated Moslems and wipe them from off the face of the earth; it was a
+warfare in which there was no mercy, and if the pirates were to fall into
+the hands of the islanders they knew well that they would be exterminated.
+
+In all his venturesome life things had never gone so badly with Dragut as
+upon this occasion. On the one side, should he and his men land they would
+be massacred; on the other hand, his road to the open sea was barred by an
+immensely superior force. Recognising the logic of circumstances, and
+seeing no way of escape, the white flag was hung out by the Moslem leader.
+The only terms, however, which he could obtain were immediate surrender or
+instant death. It must have been a moment of anguish to the man who
+hitherto had always ridden on the crest of the wave of success and
+achievement to be thus trapped like a rat; and to have the added bitterness
+of the thought that had he exercised seamanlike care and precaution in
+keeping a good look-out he might have escaped. As it was, he was allowed no
+time for reflection, but had to decide on the instant: he did the only
+thing possible in the circumstances, which was to haul down his flag and to
+become the thrall of his lifelong foes.
+
+The principal captives were made to pass before young Doria. When Dragut
+beheld him he cried out in a fury: "What! Am I a slave to that effeminate
+Caramite?" for Doria was but a beardless youth. These opprobrious epithets
+being interpreted to the young nobleman, "highly incensed he flew at
+Dragut, tore out his beard and moustaches, and buffeted him most
+outrageously: nay his passion was so great it is said that had he not been
+prevented, he certainly would have sheathed his sword in the bowels of that
+assuming prisoner."
+
+For four long years Dragut rowed in Doria's galley. No distinctions were
+made in those days, and knight or noble, companion or grand master, basha
+or boy, was, if caught, condemned to the rowers' bench to slave at the oar
+beneath the boatswain's lash, perchance alongside some degraded criminal,
+filthy and swarming with vermin. While Dragut was employed as a galley
+slave there came on board the craft in which he rowed Monsieur Parisot,
+Grand Master of the Knights of Malta. This high officer, recognising his
+old enemy, called out to him in Spanish:
+
+"Hola, Se�or Dragut, usanza de guerra" ("The usage of war, Se�or Dragut").
+
+To which the undaunted corsair merely replied with a laugh:
+
+"Y mudanza de fortuna" ("And a change of luck").
+
+The Grand Master, who had known the chain and lash himself, smiled and
+passed on--there was no pity in those days.
+
+But Dragut was not destined to end his life as a galley slave, for, when
+indeed hope must have died within him, after more than four years of this
+veritable hell upon earth, there sailed one day into the harbour of Genoa
+the great Kheyr-ed-Din himself. The Admiralissimo of the Grand Turk, full
+of years, honours, and booty, was on his last cruise, and one of the last
+acts of his active life was the rescue of Dragut, the man who had served
+him so well, and for whom he had so high a regard as a resourceful mariner,
+from the degrading servitude into which he had fallen. The Spanish
+historian, Marmol, recounts that the sum of three thousand ducats was paid
+by Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa for the redemption of Dragut. As this history
+was published in 1573, we must conclude that the author who wrote of these
+events so soon after they had happened is correct; at the same time,
+Barbarossa was in command of one hundred galleys of the Grand Turk, and it
+was never his custom to pay for anything which he could take by force.
+However this may have been, and the point is not one of very great
+importance, the Genoese Senate was terrified lest their territory should be
+ravaged; they wrote accordingly to their Grand Admiral, requesting that
+Dragut might be released and sent on board of the galley of the admiral
+basha. This was immediately done, and the man who for four years had tugged
+at the Christian oar was once again in a position to make war on those who
+had been for that period his masters.
+
+Not only had he tugged at the Christian oar, but also he had tasted of the
+Christian whip--and of very little else, as the food of the rower was as
+scanty as it was disgusting; in consequence, if he had been an implacable
+foe to Christendom before this event, he was not likely to have become less
+so while toiling in the Genoese galley.
+
+The practical retirement of Barbarossa from that sphere of activity in
+which his life had been passed now left Dragut-Reis the most feared and the
+most formidable of all the Moslem corsairs in the Mediterranean. From the
+time of his release by Barbarossa until the day of his death at the siege
+of Malta in 1565, he followed the example shown him by that prince among
+pirates with so much assiduity as to render him only second to Kheyr-ed-Din
+in the detestation in which he was held. Says Morgan: "The ill-treatment he
+had met with during his four years' captivity was no small addition to the
+Innate Rapaciousness of his Disposition."
+
+In the year 1546, Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa died, and to replace him the
+Sultan Soliman ordered all the mariners in his dominions to acknowledge
+Dragut-Reis as their admiral, and to obey him in the same manner as they
+had obeyed his predecessor. From this date he was the foremost corsair in
+the Mediterranean, and the feats which were performed by him showed that
+the Padishah had not erred in his selection.
+
+The ambition of Dragut increased with his power, and he determined,
+following the example of the Barbarossas, to seize and hold some strong
+place of arms possessed of a commodious port in which he might be the
+supreme ruler. Accordingly, in the depth of winter in the year 1548, at a
+time which was, as we have pointed out, a close season for piratical
+enterprises, and during which attack from the sea was not expected, he
+collected all the corsairs whom he could gather, and fell upon the
+Spaniards on the coast of Tunis, at Susa, at Sfax, and at Monastir. These
+places had been taken from the corsairs in the previous summer by Andrea
+Doria; they formed a sort of regular battle-ground when the combatants were
+in want of something to do, and were held alternately by the King of Tunis,
+the Spaniards, and the corsairs.
+
+Dragut was well aware that as soon as the spring arrived he would be
+attacked; he also knew that the attack would come in sufficient force to
+drive him out, as none of these towns was really strong or easily defended;
+in consequence he concentrated his attention on the town of "Africa,"
+otherwise known as Mehedia, and in the Roman histories as Adrumentum.
+
+This great city lay some leagues to the east of Tunis on a tongue of land
+projecting into the sea; its fortifications were regular, its walls of
+great thickness, height, and solidity, and were strengthened by many towers
+and bulwarks; the guns were large, numerous, and in good condition. At the
+back of the town, on an eminence, stood a large fortress, the citadel of
+the place; the harbour was large and secure, with an inner basin forming a
+port for galleys; the entrance to this was closed by a strong chain. The
+sea washed the walls of the city; indeed, it was entirely surrounded,
+except where by a narrow neck of land it joined the shore.
+
+The inhabitants, natives of the place, had shaken off the yoke of the King
+of Tunis, and had formed themselves into a kind of independent republic.
+They admitted neither Turk nor Christian within their walls, trusting
+neither party, and fearing from them the fate which befell Susa, Sfax, and
+Monastir.
+
+"Africa" was the goal of the desires of Dragut-Reis: once in possession of
+this, by far the strongest city on the littoral of Northern Africa, he
+thought that he might abide secure against the attacks of Charles and of
+Andrea Doria. He had seen the enormous expedition of 1541 against Algiers
+come to naught on account of the wholesale wrecking of the fleet in which
+it had sailed by a tempest of unexampled violence. But he was too
+level-headed a man to think that a miracle like this would be likely to
+come to pass a second time for his own special behoof, and preferred to act
+the part of the strong man armed who keepeth his goods in peace. He had,
+however, first to gain over the inhabitants of "Africa" to his views, and
+they proved anything but anxious to listen to his blandishments. The more
+he tried to ingratiate himself the less inclined did these people seem to
+listen.
+
+"My ambition," said the silver-tongued corsair, "is to become a citizen of
+your great and beautiful city. If you will admit me to its privileges it
+shall be my business to render you the richest people in the whole
+Mediterranean, and your city the most dreaded place in the world."
+
+The "Africans," however, were obdurate; they knew a pirate when they saw
+him quite as well as any one else, and they were quite aware that, should
+they open their gates to Dragut, sooner or later they would have to stand a
+siege from the Christian forces, which was a thing they by no means
+desired.
+
+But Dragut was not yet at the end of his resources; he was rich, and he
+spent money freely in order to gain over to his side those men of
+importance by whom such a question as this was bound to be decided. By rich
+presents and other blandishments he succeeded in securing the friendship of
+one Ibrahim Amburac, who was not only a leader among the inhabitants, but
+also governor of one of the towers by which the city was surrounded.
+Through him he approached the Council by which the town was ruled, only to
+receive a very decided negative: the Council observed the outward forms of
+politeness to this formidable person who was speaking them so fair: in
+reality, they hated and feared the corsairs only one degree less than they
+did Andrea Doria and his Christians. To admit the one was to bring upon
+themselves the vengeance of the other; therefore if they could keep them
+both out they intended so to do. The ill-omened courtesy of the corsair
+filled their hearts with apprehension, and they viewed his immediate
+departure, after the refusal of the council had been conveyed to him, with
+undisguised relief. Had they but known their man a little better, their
+uneasiness would have been far greater than their joy at his temporary
+absence. Those things desired by Dragut which he could not obtain by fair
+means he usually seized by the strong hand; and when he left so hurriedly,
+and at the same time so unostentatiously, he had already entered into a
+plot with Ibrahim Amburac. This leader, furious at the rebuff which he had
+received at the hands of his fellow councillors on the subject of the
+admittance of Dragut to the citizenship of "Africa," was now ready to
+deliver that city into the hands of the corsairs by treachery.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+DRAGUT-REIS
+
+  How the corsairs captured the town of "Africa"; of its recapture by
+  Andrea Doria and its eventual total destruction by Charles V.
+
+Dragut had made it a practice never to appear in the harbour of "Africa" in
+any great force, as he had no desire to frighten the birds whom he desired
+to snare; on the occasion of which we are now speaking he had but two
+galleys, and their departure from the outer harbour passed almost
+unnoticed, as the ruck of the population were accustomed to visits from the
+corsairs, who came to fill up with provisions and fresh water. Swiftly as
+hawks his vessels swept along the coast collecting the garrisons of Susa,
+Sfax, and Monastir to aid him in his latest design; they were all picked
+men and singularly apt for the stern business which their leader destined
+them to undertake. In this manner he soon collected five hundred of the
+stoutest and most reckless fighters who sailed out of the ports of Northern
+Africa, and, when it became noised abroad among them what the service was
+for which they were required, there was universal joy and eagerness. True
+the adventure was a formidable one: to capture "Africa" was no light task,
+even for such men as these under so renowned a leader; there was further
+the difficulty that the persons against whom they went up to fight were no
+Christians but Moslems like themselves. But against this was the
+declaration of Dragut, who represented to his following that there was
+really no choice in the matter; that to these stiffnecked and singularly
+ungrateful people he had offered the protection of the corsairs, that they
+had refused in the most contumelious manner, and in consequence there was
+nothing for it but the strong hand. They--that is to say the corsairs--knew
+right well that some strong place of arms in which to shelter themselves
+and their vessels was an absolute necessity for their continued existence,
+as at any moment Doria or the Knights of Malta might be on their track in
+superior force, and then what was their fate likely to be if they had no
+harbour under their lee in which to shelter? Further it was hinted that
+"Africa" would provide very nice pickings in the way of loot, and when this
+came to be generally understood the promptings of the Mahommedan conscience
+yielded easily to the sophistries with which it was lulled.
+
+The council of the town of "Africa" troubled themselves but little more
+concerning Dragut, his ships, and his corsairs; he had departed, and as the
+days wore on and no further tidings of him came to hand, these simple folk
+thanked God that they were rid of a knave and went about their usual
+avocations as unconcernedly as if no sea-wolves lurked under the shadowed
+headlands of that continent in which their homes were situated. They were a
+people essentially of the land; although they dwelt on the confines of the
+ocean the ways and habits of those who earned a precarious living on the
+waters were a sealed book to them, and with the "Africans" it was a case of
+"out of sight out of mind" so far as the corsairs were concerned. But that
+black-hearted traitor Ibrahim Amburac and the few others who had been
+gained over by the gold of Dragut watched and waited for the attack which
+they knew to be impending.
+
+The inhabitants of the doomed city never saw their assailants until they
+were actually upon them, so well had the surprise attack been planned by
+the leader of the corsairs. He had collected five hundred men, and this was
+but a small number with which to assail so strong a place; but Dragut knew
+exactly what he was doing and the effect likely to be produced by the
+introduction of this number of highly trained men-at-arms among a
+population which, although brave and warlike, lacked the elements of
+organisation for the defence of their city.
+
+So it was that, all preparations being completed, he stood along the coast
+anchoring out of sight of his objective, but close enough to reach it by
+midnight after darkness had fallen. He had every confidence in himself, an
+absolute trust in the hardbitten fighters whom he was about to lead;
+success or failure now rested in the hands of traitors within the city.
+
+"Faith unfaithful kept them falsely true," for when Dragut and his
+followers arrived at a certain rendezvous outside the walls which had been
+agreed upon previously, there they found Ibrahim Amburac and his men ready
+to assist them in scaling this obstacle. It will be remembered that Ibrahim
+Amburac was personally in charge of one of the towers with which the walls
+were guarded, and thus his task of aiding those who came from without was a
+singularly easy one. But even at midnight the passage of five hundred men
+could not remain long undiscovered as they clambered in over the walls.
+Soon an alarm was raised and the "Africans" rushed to arms and hurried to
+the quarter from which danger threatened. The townsmen were well armed and
+brave, also they were numerous; but it was the old story of the break-up of
+undisciplined valour by highly organised attack.
+
+In the choking heat of the African night townsmen and corsairs wrestled in
+deadly conflict hand to hand and foot to foot; but these untrained landsmen
+stood but a poor chance against the picked fighting men of the Moslem
+galleys who had been inured to bloodshed from their earliest youth and
+trained by such a master in the art of war as Dragut. That warrior, his
+great curved scimitar red to the hilt, the blood dripping from a gash in
+his cheek, his clothing torn and in disarray, followed by a gigantic negro
+bearing a flaming torch, was ever in the thickest of the fray. Behind him
+his lieutenants Othman and Selim strove to emulate his prowess, while all
+around surged his devoted band of fanatics.
+
+"Allah! Allah!" and "Dragut! Dragut!" pealed the war-cry of the corsairs;
+foot by foot and yard by yard that spearhead of dauntless dare-devils
+pressed onwards into the packed masses of the "Africans," who, fighting
+stubbornly, nevertheless were borne back by the fury of the terrible
+onslaught. Torch-bearers among the pirates leaped into houses and set them
+ablaze, the flames volleyed and crackled, the dense smoke rolled upwards to
+the stainless sky, the night was a hell of blood and fire.
+
+There was a sharp order repeated and passed on, the corsairs drew back, and
+the "Africans" shouted that the triumph was theirs; but they little knew
+Dragut, the sea-hawk who poised to strike anew. A blazing beam dropped
+across the street, the townsfolk shouted in insult and derision; but the
+joy which they had experienced at seeing their adversaries recoil was but a
+short and fleeting emotion. Giving himself and those who had hitherto been
+engaged time to breathe and recover themselves, Dragut waited while the
+noise of the strife died down, and nought was heard but the roar of the
+flames and the crash of the burning buildings.
+
+The leader turned to his followers, among whom dwelt an ominous silence.
+"Dost remember Prevesa," he cried, "when Andrea Doria and the best of the
+Christian warriors fled before you like sheep before a dog: are these
+miserable townsmen to stay your onward march?"
+
+There remained for an appreciable period after he had spoken a tense
+silence; the red light from the burning houses shone on the lean faces
+alight with the fierce fire of fanaticism, with an inextinguishable lust of
+slaughter. There came an answering frenetic roar, "Lead! Lead! Dragut!
+Dragut! Dragut!" It was enough: the corsair had tried the temper of the
+steel, he had now but to use the edge. There was an ordered movement on the
+part of the pirates: a fresh hundred men, who had hitherto taken no part in
+the combat, now pressed to the front and formed the advance, those who had
+been before engaged now forming the supports; that which had been the shaft
+of the spear now forming its head. With Dragut leading, these fresh
+unwounded men swept forward over the burning beam; irresistible as some
+mighty river in spate, these disciplined ruffians, headed by this master
+spirit, burst through the ill-organised resistance opposed to them, and
+slew and slew and slew.
+
+Behind them, alert and wary, came the supports, asking no quarter and
+giving none, cutting up the wounded, trampling under foot friend and foe
+alike who fell in the weltering shambles which marked the onward path of
+their leader and the advanced party. Very soon the broken hosts of the
+"Africans" cried piteously for mercy; the fight was over, and Dragut-Reis,
+wounded, breathless, but victorious, stood master of the strongest place of
+arms in all the continent of Africa. It is true that treachery had given
+him his opportunity, but once that was obtained the rest he had done for
+himself: the stealthy advance by sea, the midnight march to the exact spot
+on the walls where he was awaited by Ibrahim Amburac, the marshalling of
+his five hundred for the conflict, and the actual conduct of the fight
+itself, were all to the credit of this apt pupil of the great Kheyr-ed-Din
+Barbarossa, As warriors his followers were worthy of their leader: defeated
+the corsairs frequently were, but, in the combats in which they engaged,
+they were frequently, as we have seen in the course of this story, largely
+dependent upon auxiliaries in whom no trust could be placed; and at
+Prevesa, at the siege of Malta, and later on at the battle of Lepanto, the
+spot on which they fought, were it on the land or on the sea, was ever the
+one which formed the nucleus of resistance. It was not only that fighting
+was their particular trade; that, of course, might be said also of any man
+who trailed a pike or carried an arquebus and marched in the ranks of
+Spain, France, Genoa, or Venice. In the case of the sea-wolves it was the
+perpetual practice in the art of war, as it was then understood, that
+caused them to be the men that they were. Much of their fighting could
+hardly be dignified by such a name, as in their everlasting raids on
+villages and undefended places they seldom lost many of their number: when,
+however, it came to the real thing, as it did on the occasion we have just
+recounted, the long years of training told, and opposition had to be strong
+indeed if it were not to be beaten down by such a leader as Dragut, by such
+men as his picked five hundred.
+
+What passed between Dragut and the council of "Africa," who in so
+unqualified a manner had refused that warrior as a citizen, is not on
+record; all that we know is that the Moslem leader dispensed with their
+services, and did not invite his new fellow-townsmen to share with him the
+burden of government. There was hurry in the administration of the corsair
+states, as the form of rule which they adopted was apt to irk the rulers in
+Christendom. In this particular instance Dragut, having expelled the
+Spaniards from the coast towns, knew that a reckoning with the Emperor and
+his militant admiral, Andrea Doria, was but a matter of time, and, in all
+probability, of a very short time.
+
+Promptly, hurriedly, but efficiently, the corsair organised his new
+possession: such laws as he decreed did not err on the side of tenderness
+towards a people so ungrateful as to have refused his protection in the
+first instance, and who had only accepted the gift at the point of the
+sword. His nephew Aisa, a man young in years but a past-graduate in the
+school of his terrible uncle, was left in charge, while Dragut himself
+sailed once more with his fleet, for, as it is put by the Spanish historian
+Marmol, "truly the sea was his element."
+
+Once again had a Moslem corsair bid defiance to that ruler whom Sandoval
+and Marmol in their histories greet by the name of the "Modern C�sar." It
+was told to Charles that Susa, Sfax, and Monastir had fallen, that "Africa"
+was in the hands of the corsairs; "was he never to be free from these
+pestilent knaves," he demanded of his trembling courtiers? Hot-foot came
+the couriers from Charles to Andrea Doria, with orders to take Dragut dead
+or alive, but alive for choice; and up and down the tideless sea in the
+summer of 1549 did the great Genoese seaman range in search of the bold
+corsair. Doria was getting a very old man now, but his eye was undimmed,
+his strength yet tireless, his vigilance and zeal in the service of his
+master unabated.
+
+Dead or alive, great was the reward offered for the capture of Dragut, but
+the veteran admiral required no stimulus of this sort to urge him to put
+forth his utmost endeavours, to strain every nerve and sinew in the chase.
+All his life he had been fighting the corsairs, mostly with conspicuous
+success; but what Andrea could never forget--and what his enemies never
+allowed him to forget even had he been so inclined--was the fact that, at
+the supreme crisis of his valiant life, when he met with Kheyr-ed-Din
+Barbarossa at the battle of Prevesa, he had come off so badly that his
+under officers of the Papal and Venetian fleets had made representations,
+on their return to their respective headquarters, which had detracted from
+his fame, and lowered him in the estimation of Europe. Further than this,
+he knew that Barbarossa had laughed at and made game of him among his wild
+followers: this to the aristocrat, the Prince of Oneglia, the admiral who
+treated on almost equal terms with such men as the Pope, Charles of Spain,
+and Francis of France, was an insult hard to be borne; the next corsair
+with whom he should meet should not escape so easily as had Kheyr-ed-Din,
+that the admiral had sworn.
+
+Personal pique and vanity, racial detestation, and religious fanaticism
+were in his case all allied together to spur him on in the chase of this
+the last of the Emperor's foes; but, search as he might, during that summer
+Doria could never get on to the track of Dragut. The corsairs, as we have
+just remarked, were fine fighters on occasion when it was necessary for the
+purposes of loot, or of escape from those who, like Doria, interfered with
+their particular method of gaining a livelihood; but, on the other hand,
+they were no fools, they did not covet hard knocks and the possibility of
+defeat from such a one as the admiral of the Emperor, when by the exercise
+of a little ingenuity they could keep out of his way. Dragut was not going
+to fight a general action at sea merely to please Doria; in this summer his
+luck stood to him, and he never came across this man, who, with a sombre
+hatred in his heart, was seeking him high and low. If the corsair were bold
+as a lion when occasion offered, he was no less as slippery as an eel when
+he desired to escape; to face twenty-two royal galleys with Doria in
+command was no part of his programme. An occasion might arise when he would
+be forced to action; should this happen Dragut had not forgotten his four
+years in the galley of Jannetin Doria, the nephew of the admiral, and next
+time he intended to fight to win. Just at present the Christian admiral was
+in too great strength for him to do aught but keep out of his way, and much
+to Andrea's annoyance this was what he succeeded in doing.
+
+Doria got information that Dragut was at Monastir, information that was
+perfectly correct; but by this time the corsair knew that not only had he
+raised all Christendom, but that the admiral was on his track. In
+consequence, he slipped out of Monastir, "for," as it is pithily put by
+Marmol, "our corsair cared not to be shut up in so defenceless a port; he
+had good heels and loved sea-room."
+
+Dragut did not fear for his new possession, "Africa," as he knew that Doria
+had not sufficient force to attack so formidable a place; therefore,
+leaving it to its destiny and the valour and conduct of his nephew Aisa, on
+whom he knew that he could rely, "he went," according to the chronicler,
+"on his old trade making Horrid Devastations on the coast of Spain and its
+islands."
+
+While Dragut was pursuing his "Horrid Devastations," Doria was not idle,
+but was ranging the northern coast of Africa in his fruitless search; in
+the course of this he landed at Cape Bona, on which was the castle of
+Calibia, held by the corsairs; these men, who were a portion of Dragut's
+following, made a most valiant defence; they were, however, few in number,
+and when their captain was killed by the ball from an arquebus they
+surrendered. Encouraged by this success, the Christian fleet then stood
+along the coast to inspect "Africa." Sailing quite close to the shore they
+came within range of the guns of the garrison, who, under the direction of
+Aisa, were very much on the alert. As the admiral's galley at the head of
+the line passed the walls of the town, she was received with a hot fire,
+and one large cannonball struck the stern of Doria's ship, doing
+considerable structural damage, and killing five of his men. This
+occurrence took place in broad daylight in full view of all the garrison,
+who signalled their delight at the discomfiture of their foes by the noise
+of cymbals and atambours, and by wild and ferocious yells. Doria, who was
+in no position to land and make reprisals, fell into the greatest paroxysm
+of fury, and we are told that "he swore the destruction of that detested
+city."
+
+The season being now advanced, Doria returned home, where he found orders
+awaiting him from Charles that preparation was to be made for the capture
+of "Africa". While the admiral was in harbour, Dragut, finding the seas
+open to him once more, returned from his "Horrid Devastations," and
+employed his time profitably in throwing provisions and men into the city,
+which he knew would be beleagured in the following year.
+
+During the ensuing winter Doria, in conjunction with the viceroys of Naples
+and Sicily, prepared the expedition which was to accomplish not only the
+capture of "Africa," but what was, in his opinion, equally important, the
+destruction of Dragut-Reis, Early in the spring of 1550, all was in
+readiness, and the armada of Charles sailed from Palermo to Trapani, where
+it met with the forces of Don Juan de Vega, Viceroy of Sicily, those of Don
+Garcia de Toledo, the son of the Viceroy of Naples, and likewise the
+Maltese squadron. The galleys, accompanied by a fleet of transports, set
+sail early in June, and on the 20th of that month landed an army a little
+to the east of Mehedia or "Africa".
+
+It must be remembered that the inhabitants of Mehedia were by no means
+enamoured of Dragut-Reis and his piratical followers: King Stork had
+succeeded to King Log, the part of the former monarch being taken by that
+singularly capable and ferocious person, Aisa, whose rule was far from
+being to the liking of the richer and more respectable portion of the
+townsfolk.
+
+When, therefore, Andrea Doria and his captains laid siege to the city, they
+murmured against its defence, desiring ardently to enter into some sort of
+treaty with the besiegers; they had had enough of war, they said, and
+wished to end their days in peace if possible.
+
+Aisa Reis, however, would hear no word of surrender, telling those who
+murmured against the defence that "if he heard a word more of these plots
+he would infallibly sacrifice every mother's son amongst them, and then lay
+the town in ashes." Having already had a taste of the quality of this
+redoubtable corsair, and feeling perfectly certain that should the occasion
+arise he would be as good as his word, there was no more disaffection among
+the inhabitants, who had to put up with their native place being made a
+cockpit for Doria and Dragut to fight out their quarrel. It is permissible
+to sympathise very sincerely with these unfortunates, who, having been
+betrayed in the first instance, were compelled to stand a siege in the
+second.
+
+Aisa had a picked force of his uncle's men, some seventeen hundred foot and
+six hundred horse, all seasoned and formidable veterans, inured to warfare
+by land and sea. On these of course he could rely to the death. The common
+folk of the town were inclined to make common cause with the corsairs in
+resistance to their hereditary enemy the Christians; but the magistrates
+and members of the council, the grave and reverend signiors, held so
+conspicuously aloof that Aisa was constrained into forcing them to aid in
+the defence when he had time to attend to the matter. As Dragut was not
+actually present at the siege it falls outside the scope of this chronicle;
+he was without the walls when the besiegers arrived, but all that he could
+do, that he did. With a body of his own men reinforced by a rabble rout of
+Berber tribesmen, he harassed the Christian army; they were, however, in
+far too great numbers for him to make any impression, and after several
+desperate skirmishes he recognised that the day was lost, and re-embarking
+in his galleys sailed away. The town after a desperate and prolonged
+resistance was at last taken by storm; and Doria captured Aisa, a Turkish
+alcaid, and ten thousand prisoners of the baser sort. Of these, however,
+there was scarce one who owed allegiance to Dragut; the warriors of this
+chief neither gave nor accepted quarter, as they feared the wrath of the
+terrible corsair even more than death itself.
+
+Don Juan de Vega put his son Don Alvaro in command of the city and set out
+in search of Dragut with twenty galleys, but the sea leaves no traces by
+which a fugitive can be tracked, and his search proved as fruitless as had
+been that of Doria in the previous year. The rage and the disappointment of
+the admiral were beyond all bounds; what to him was the value of the
+capture of Aisa, of the Turkish alcaid, of the ten thousand of the baser
+sort; nay, what to him was the value of "Africa" itself when once again
+like a mocking spirit Dragut had glided beyond the sea horizon to
+devastate, to plunder, and to slay once more, the scourge and the menace of
+Christendom.
+
+It will be interesting to record briefly the fate of this city which we
+have seen taken and retaken. Don Alvaro de Vega remained as governor till
+the end of July, 1551, when his place was taken by Don Sancho de Leyva; at
+which time there took place one of those curious military mutinies so
+characteristic of the sixteenth century. The soldiers, unpaid for months,
+possibly for years, mutinied, expelled the governor and other officers,
+even the sergeants, from the city, and placed themselves under the
+direction of a stout soldier called Antonio de Aponte, to whom they gave
+the title of "Electo Mayor."
+
+Don Sancho repaired to Brussels to report matters to the Emperor, and
+during his absence a circumstance which is also singularly characteristic
+of this faithless epoch took place, for the Prior of Capua, then general of
+the French galleys, entered into negotiations with the mutineers for the
+surrender of the city to the French King.
+
+Bluff Antonio de Aponte would have none of this treachery; he held the city
+for the Emperor Charles and only wanted his pay. Eventually a mutiny within
+a mutiny was fomented from without, and with the mutineers divided the
+Emperor regained possession of the city; some of the mutineers were hanged,
+and Aponte, who had been captured by the Turks, died at Constantinople.
+
+The Emperor offered "Africa" to the Knights of Malta with a yearly
+allowance of twenty-four thousand ducats; the Knights refused, much to the
+chagrin of Charles, who gave orders for its complete destruction. This was
+accomplished by blowing up with gunpowder the walls, towers, and
+fortifications which Al-Mehedi, after whom the city had been named, "had
+erected with such art and strength, and had his mind so fixed upon that
+work that he used to say, 'If I thought building these fortifications with
+iron and brass would render them more durable, I would certainly do it.'"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+DRAGUT-REIS
+
+  How Dragut was blockaded in the Island of Jerbah--How he left Andrea
+  Dona "with the dog to hold"--His return to Constantinople, and how he
+  sailed from thence with a great expedition against the Knights of Malta.
+
+Charles V. had "smoked out the fox," but his admiral in so doing had not
+succeeded in capturing that remarkably wily animal; for Dragut was not only
+still at liberty, but was burning for revenge on those by whom he had been
+dispossessed. He had lost "his city," as he called "Africa"; he had lost
+two thousand five hundred men--among them some of the fiercest and most
+experienced of his corsairs; he had lost ten thousand slaves, representing
+a large sum of money, and much wealth besides. The corsair, however, was
+not one of those who merely sit down and repine; for him strenuous and
+continued action was the law of his being, and he at once repaired to
+Constantinople. Here he was well known as an adroit and skilful seaman and
+a most determined enemy of the Christians, and, in consequence, was not
+only certain of a welcome, but of substantial help as well, if he could but
+win over the Grand Turk to take the same view of his grievances as he did
+himself. In reality, the corsairs, as we have seen, played the game of the
+Padishah, as a rule, at no expense to that potentate; when they were in
+trouble he was therefore by no means indisposed to render them assistance.
+
+Dragut, like all the sea-wolves, was fond of money, fonder still of what
+money could buy; he now hankered after revenge as the sweetest morsel that
+his hoarded ducats could procure for him. That the Sultan was well disposed
+to him he had every reason to think; none the less did he spend royally
+among the venal favourites of the Court in order that nothing might be left
+undone to inflame the ardour of Soliman against those whom he considered to
+be his hereditary foes.
+
+With such skill and address did the corsair manage his suit that he
+prevailed upon the Sultan to address a letter to Charles demanding the
+immediate return of the towns of Susa, Sfax, Monastir, and "Africa." This,
+of course, meant war; as Charles immediately replied that these places were
+dependencies of the King of Tunis, and that that ruler was under his
+special protection; further that they were his by right of conquest;
+finally that the matter was no concern whatever of the Sultan of
+Constantinople. The stern and imperious Christian Emperor was in no mood to
+brook interference, the more so that he discerned plainly that though the
+demand was that of Soliman, the mover in the affair was none other than
+Dragut. He therefore by way of a rider to his answer to the Sultan informed
+that monarch that these places which he had taken on the coast of Africa
+had been reft by him "from one Dragut, a corsair odious to both God and
+man"; that without in any way departing from the treaty which he had made
+with Soliman "he intended to pursue this pirate whithersoever he might go."
+
+Whether or no this denunciation of Dragut had any influence on the Sultan
+it is impossible to say; he was in the habit of employing the corsairs, and
+apparently cared nothing about their piratical reputation, so long as their
+depredations were confined to Christian vessels. Shortly after the receipt
+of the answer of Charles, however, the Sultan conferred upon Dragut the
+title of Sandjak or governor of the island of Santa Maura, thus
+constituting him a Turkish official.
+
+Once again was Andrea Doria ordered to put to sea to fight against neither
+small nor great save Dragut alone; he was to take him dead or alive, but
+alive for choice, in order that he might be made to answer at the bar of
+Christian justice for all the atrocities committed by him both by land and
+sea. The corsair had returned in the meanwhile to Jerbah, an island on the
+east coast of Tunis much affected by the sea-wolves, and which in
+contemporary histories is known as Jerbah, as Los Gelues (by the Spanish
+writers), as Gelves, and various other names which greatly confuse its
+identity.
+
+Doria put to sea with twenty-two royal galleys before Dragut was aware of
+the fact. The Genoese admiral heard that his prey was at Jerbah; he
+repaired thither without losing a moment, found that he had been correctly
+informed, and anchored at the mouth of the harbour, at a place known as La
+Bocca de Cantara. Dragut was completely hemmed in, Doria was in such
+strength that he could not, reckless as he was, attempt to force the
+passage. But as the hour came the spirit of the corsair rose to answer the
+challenge: it was one thing to get Dragut-Reis into a trap, it was quite
+another to keep him there. Accordingly, he assembled all his troops,
+dragged cannon to the mouth of the harbour, and opened so brisk a foe on
+the Christian ships as to compel them to haul out of range. These tactics
+left Doria unaffected; there was but one way out of the harbour, and he
+felt quite convinced that when Dragut had had enough of starvation he would
+either surrender or else fight a hopeless action. The admiral surveyed his
+anchored fleet with a contented mind; his enemy had been delivered into his
+hand, he had nothing to do now but wait for that final triumph of appearing
+before his master the Emperor with the famous corsair as his prisoner. He
+saw a great fort rising before his very eyes at the mouth of the harbour,
+and merely smiled serenely; he sent off to Sicily and Naples for
+reinforcements in order that when the psychological moment should arise he
+might crush the corsair stronghold so thoroughly that it should never rise
+again. In the despatches which he sent he said "the fox is trapped"--"which
+news rejoiced all parts of Christendom, and most powerful succours came
+daily flocking to the seaports from every quarter; so eager were the
+sufferers to revenge themselves on this so much dreaded corsair."
+
+The history of what now happened is given by Don Luys de Marmol Caravajal
+in his "Descripcion general de Affrica," which was printed in Granada, "en
+casa de Rene Rabat impresor de libros a�o de 1573," or only some twenty
+years or so after these occurrences; it is set forth in his chapter
+entitled "Como Andrea Doria fue en buscar de these occurrences; it is set
+forth in his chapter Dragut Arraez." We have also the authority of that
+eminent historian, M. L'Abb� de Vertot.
+
+Captain Juan Vasquez Coronado journeyed to Naples carrying with him letters
+from Andrea Doria to Don Pedro de Toledo, requesting that the Viceroy would
+send him all the galleys in Naples, carrying as many soldiers as possible,
+pointing out that he had Dragut in a trap, from which he could not possibly
+escape, but that this time he wished to make security doubly secure.
+Letters to the same purport were also sent to Don Juan de Vega, the Viceroy
+of Sicily, and to Marco Centurion at the admiral's own city of Genoa. Doria
+was leaving nothing to chance this time. Meanwhile, great earthworks had
+been thrown up at the Bocca de Cantara at the entrance of the harbour by
+Dragut, and any ship which approached within range was most furiously
+bombarded. This served to amuse Andrea Doria, who, confident that the jaws
+of the trap had closed, kept a sharp look-out for vessels issuing from the
+harbour, but otherwise concerned himself not at all about the
+entrenchments. Was not Naples humming with the note of preparation? Would
+not the Genoese come in their thousands to the summons of their renowned
+chieftain? Could not the Viceroy of Sicily be trusted to work his best to
+gain the favour of his Imperial master?
+
+"Time and I are two" was the favourite expression of King Philip II. of
+Spain; the same idea might have crossed the mind of Doria on this memorable
+occasion. He had only to wait; the longer he waited the more secure he
+would be of success, the more certain would he be of the complete undoing
+of his enemy. But even yet the admiral did not know the man to whom he was
+opposed; in all the years in which he had done battle against Dragut, he
+had never gauged the limitless resource and calculated audacity of this
+lineal successor of Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa. While the admiral had been
+sending his despatches, and idly watching that which he considered to be
+the futile construction of earthworks on the shore at the Bocca de Cantara,
+his enemy was preparing for him that surprise which was shortly afterwards
+to make of him the laughing-stock of the whole of Europe. Dragut was in a
+trap, and he was quite aware of the fact; by way of the Bocca de Cantara
+escape was impossible, and neither a tame surrender nor complete
+annihilation was by any means to the taste of the pirate leader. Had Doria
+gone in and attacked at once, the fate of the corsair had been sealed; the
+policy of delay adopted by the Christian admiral was his salvation.
+
+A man less able, less determined, than Dragut, might well have despaired;
+but he brought to bear on the problem with which he was confronted all the
+subtlety of his nature, all the resourcefulness of the born seaman that he
+was. His mind had been made up from the very beginning: the earthworks at
+the Bocca de Cantara, the movements of troops, the furious cannonading, had
+all been nothing but a blind to hide the real design which he had in view.
+In addition to his fighting men he had at his command some two thousand
+islanders, stout Mohammedans to a man, ready and willing to assist him in
+his design of cheating the Christians of their prey. Day and night, with
+ceaseless silent toil, had garrison and islanders been at work on the
+scheme which the leader had devised. From the head of the harbour Dragut
+had caused a road to be made right across the island to the sea on the
+opposite side: on this road he caused planks to be laid, bolted to sleepers
+and then thickly greased. The vessels of the day were of course
+comparatively speaking light, and capable of being manhandled, supposing
+that you had sufficient hands. At dead of night Dragut assembled his
+forces, and before morning every galley, galeasse, and brigantine had been
+dragged across the island and launched in the sea on the opposite side.
+There was then nothing left to do but to embark stores, guns, and
+ammunition and to sail quietly away, and this was what happened. Once again
+Dragut faded away beyond the skyline, "leaving Andrea Doria with the dog to
+hold," in the quaint language of the chronicler of these events, Don Luys
+de Marmol Caravajal.
+
+Not only did the indefatigable corsair get clear away without any suspicion
+on the part of the admiral, but his first act on gaining the open sea was
+to capture the _Patrona_ galley sent from Sicily by Don Juan de Vega to say
+that reinforcements were on the road. In this ill-fated craft was Buguer,
+the son of Muley Hassan, King of Tunis, who was sent as prize to Soliman at
+Constantinople, where the Sultan caused him to be shut up in the "Torre del
+Mar Negro." Here he remained till he died, as a punishment for that he, a
+Mussulman, had aided the Christians.
+
+Never again was Dragut to be in such sore straits as he was on this
+occasion at the island of Jerbah, when, by sheer wit and cunning, he
+escaped from the trap in which he had been held by Doria. What the emotions
+of the admiral must have been when he found that once again he had been
+fooled, it is not difficult to imagine, as by no possible means could the
+story be hushed up; and, in spite of the annoyance of Christendom generally
+at the escape of Dragut, no one could help admiring his extraordinary
+cleverness, or roaring with laughter at the discomfiture of Doria and the
+viceroys of Naples and Sicily.
+
+Dragut now returned to Constantinople to receive congratulations upon his
+escape, and to take part in a fresh design of stirring up the Sultan
+against the Christians. All who professed this faith were naturally
+obnoxious to the corsair; but his private and personal hatred was entirely
+directed against the Knights of Malta, with whom he had been at war all his
+life. The present preoccupation of the Sultan was to regain the towns on
+the coast of Africa which had been taken by the Spaniards; but it was
+represented to him by Dragut that "until he had smoked out this nest of
+vipers he could do no good anywhere." The Bashaws and the Divan, heavily
+bribed by the corsair, held the same language, until Soliman heard of
+nothing from morning till night but the ill deeds of the Knights of Malta.
+They were represented to him as corsairs who ruined his commerce and
+defeated his armadas, who let slip no opportunity of harrying the Moslem
+wheresoever he was to be found. In this there was more than a grain of
+truth, as we shall see when we come to the next chapter, which will be
+devoted to a sketch of this militant order. Suffice it to say here that the
+Knights fought for what they termed "the Religion" (it was in this manner
+they designated their confederacy), and to harry and enslave the Mussulman,
+to destroy him as a noxious animal wherever he was to be found, was the
+reason for which they existed. It is true that they plundered not for
+individual gain, but many was the rich prize towed into Malta past St. Elmo
+and the ominously named "Punta delle Forche" (the "Point of the Gallows,"
+where all captured pirates were hanged), the proceeds of which went to the
+enrichment of the Order; to buy themselves the wherewithal to fight with
+the Mahommedan again.
+
+The abuse of the Knights fell upon sympathetic ears; in his early days
+Soliman the Magnificent had expelled the Knights from Rhodes; since then
+Charles V. had given them the islands of Malta and Gozo, and the town of
+Tripoli in Barbary as their abiding place; from Malta they had never ceased
+their warfare against the corsairs, and incidentally against the Sultan and
+his subjects. Therefore, in this year 1551, Soliman ordained that an
+expedition should be prepared with the object of crushing once and for all
+these troublers of the peace of Islam. The preparations were on so large a
+scale that very soon it became noised abroad in Europe that something
+really serious was in the wind: in Constantinople, however, men kept their
+own counsel; it was ill talking of the affairs of the Padishah, and,
+further than that, beyond Dragut and the proposed leaders of the
+expedition, the Sultan took no one into his confidence. Charles V., well
+served as he was by his spies, was as much in the dark as to the
+destination of this new armada as were humbler folk; in it he recognised
+the hand of Dragut again, and Doria had standing orders to catch that
+mischievous person if he could. At present, however, there was no chance of
+so desirable a thing happening, as Dragut was superintending the fitting
+out of the new expedition at Constantinople.
+
+Anxious and suspicious of the designs of the Turks, Charles ordered a
+concentration of his fleet at Messina.
+
+The Grand Master of the Knights of Malta at this time was a Spaniard, one
+Juan d'Omedes; he was, says de Vertot, "un Grand Ma�tre Espagnol," meaning
+by this that he was completely under the domination of the Emperor and
+ready at any time to place the galleys of "the Religion" under the orders
+of that monarch. The Knights, like every one else, had watched with anxiety
+the preparation of this great expedition in Constantinople, and when the
+Grand Master proposed to send the galleys of the Order to join forces with
+Doria at Messina, there was great dissatisfaction at the Council Board.
+That which it behoved them to do, the members informed the Grand Master,
+was not to help a great potentate like Charles, but to make provision for
+their own security by attending to their fortifications, which were in
+anything but a satisfactory condition. D'Omedes maintained that this
+expedition was destined to serve with the King of France against the
+Emperor, and that Malta was not the objective. He accordingly sent away the
+galleys of "the Religion" under the Chevalier "Iron-Foot," the General of
+the Galleys, to join the fleet which had its rendezvous at Messina. Hardly
+had he done so when news came from the Levant that the fleet of the Grand
+Turk was at sea heading for Sicily. The fleet was composed of one hundred
+and twelve royal galleys, two great galeasses, and a host of brigantines
+and transport vessels. Sinan-Reis was in command with twelve thousand
+Janissaries, numerous pioneers and engineers, and all the necessary
+appliances for a siege.
+
+The embarkation of so large a number of Janissaries was the measure of the
+serious purpose of the expedition, as the Sultan did not readily part with
+the men of this _corps d'�lite_ unless he was in person taking the command.
+It may be as well to explain here exactly what the Janissaries were, and it
+cannot be better done than by an extract from the famous historian
+Prescott:
+
+  "The most remarkable of the Turkish institutions, the one which may be
+  said to have formed the keystone of the system, was that relating to the
+  Christian population of the Empire. Once in five years a general
+  conscription was made by means of which all the children of Christian
+  parents who had reached the age of seven and gave promise of excellence
+  in mind or body were taken from their homes and brought to the capital.
+  They were then removed to different quarters and placed in seminaries
+  where they might receive such instruction as would fit them for the
+  duties of life. Those giving greatest promise of strength and endurance
+  were sent to places prepared for them in Asia Minor. Here they were
+  subjected to a severe training, to abstinence, to privations of every
+  kind, and to the strict discipline which should fit them for the
+  profession of a soldier. From this body was formed the famous corps of
+  the Janissaries.... Their whole life may be said to have been passed in
+  war or in preparation for it. Forbidden to marry, they had no families
+  to engage their affections, which, as with the monks and friars of
+  Christian countries, were concentrated in their own order, whose
+  prosperity was inseparably connected with that of the State. Proud of
+  the privileges which distinguished them from the rest of the army, they
+  seemed desirous to prove their title to them by their thorough
+  discipline and by their promptness to execute the most dangerous and
+  difficult services. Clad in their flowing robes, so little suited to
+  war, armed with the arquebus and the scimitar--in their hands more than
+  a match for the pike or sword of the European--with the heron's plume
+  waving above their head, their dense array might ever be seen bearing
+  down in the thickest of the fight; and more than once when the fate of
+  the Empire trembled in the balance it was this invincible corps which
+  turned the scale, and by their intrepid conduct decided the fortune of
+  the day. Gathering fresh reputation with age, so long as their
+  discipline remained unimpaired they were a match for the best soldiers
+  in Europe. But in time this admirable organisation experienced a change.
+  One Sultan allowed them to marry; another to bring their sons into the
+  corps; a third opened the ranks to Turks as well as Christians; until,
+  forfeiting their peculiar character, the Janissaries became confounded
+  with the militia of the Empire. These changes occurred in the time of
+  Philip the Second."
+
+But to resume: just before the sailing of the galleys of "the Religion"
+from Malta there had arrived in that island from France the famous
+Chevalier, the Commandeur de Villegagnon. This great noble told the Grand
+Master to his face that he was neglecting his duty, that the expedition of
+the Grand Turk was bound for Malta and Tripoli: further, that he was
+charged by Anne de Montmorency, Constable and First Minister of France, to
+advise the Grand Master that this armament was directed against "the
+Religion." The interview between the Grand Master and de Villegagnon took
+place at a chapter of the Grand Crosses of the Order; when the Commandeur
+had finished speaking, he was coldly thanked by D'Omedes, who then bowed
+him out. Turning to the Knights Grand Cross he said with a sneer, "Either
+this Frenchman is the dupe of the Constable or he wishes to make us his."
+He then proceeded to give at length the reasons why Soliman would not
+direct so huge an expedition against "the Religion." Many of the Knights
+dissented vehemently from his conclusions, but D'Omedes refused to listen
+to their arguments. Even advices which arrived on July 13th, representing
+that the armada was moving southwards devastating the Italian ports, did
+not move him from his obstinate pre-occupation; till on July 16th the
+arrival of the Ottoman fleet put an end to all speculation.
+
+The armada which had sailed from Constantinople was under the command of
+Sinan Basha: but he had explicit orders that he was to take no important
+step without first consulting Dragut, who was nominally his lieutenant. It
+was well for the Knights that on this occasion the corsair was not in
+supreme command; had this been the case the islands must have been taken,
+as no preparations had been made to repulse an attack in force, and Juan
+D'Omedes was a Grand Master who excited little enthusiasm either among the
+Knights or the inhabitants. The choice of Sinan was not one which did great
+credit to the penetration of the Sultan. Let us explain. We are all of us
+conscious at one time or another of a desire to express some fact in the
+fewest possible words; to place the transaction or the circumstance which
+we wish to describe in the searchlight of truth in so undeniable a fashion
+that the illumination consequent upon this mental effort of our own shall
+throw up our meaning in immediate relief on the intelligences of those whom
+we address. This attribute is possessed by but few even among great
+writers--indeed, some historic sayings which have come down to us have not
+emanated from the writing fraternity at all, but from soldiers, sailors,
+statesmen, and other busy men of affairs. The quality which distinguishes a
+man of action above all others is fearlessness of responsibility; the
+possession of sufficient greatness of soul and of moral fibre to seize upon
+an opportunity and to make the most thereof when an occasion arises which
+has not been foreseen by those in authority over him. But far more often in
+the history of the world has it happened that brave and capable leaders
+have failed for the lack of the indefinable quality that separated their
+sterling merits from that absolute and real supremacy which marks the
+first-class man.
+
+How then is it possible to differentiate, to describe where and in what
+manner this luck occurs?
+
+Fortunately, this has been done for us in seven words by Seignelay, the
+Minister of Marine to Louis Quatorze in 1692. Speaking of Admiral de
+Tourville, who defeated the English and Dutch at the Battle of Beachy Head,
+July 10th, 1690, Seignelay says of him that he was "poltron de t�te mais
+pas de coeur." The judgment was just: de Tourville, as recklessly gallant
+as any French noble of them all, failed to live up to his responsibilities
+two years later at the Battle of La Hogue. Mahan says: "The caution in his
+pursuit of the Allies after Beachy Head, though so different in appearance,
+came from the same trait which impelled him two years later to lead his
+fleet to almost certain destruction at La Hogue because he had the King's
+order in his pocket. He was brave enough to do anything, but not strong
+enough to bear the heaviest burdens."
+
+We see the application of this truth in the period which we are
+considering; particularly is it borne in upon us in the case of the leaders
+of the Ottoman Turks. Serving as they did a despot of unlimited powers,
+failure in the success of his arms was apt to lead to the immediate and
+violent death of the man in command. If, therefore, precise instructions
+were issued, they were, as a rule, carried out to the letter; as in case of
+defeat an effort could be made to shift responsibility on to the shoulders
+of the Padishah. Failure owing to initiative was certain of prompt
+retribution; success complete and absolute would be the only justification
+for a departure from orders.
+
+Far otherwise was it with the Sea-wolves, who were a law to themselves and
+to themselves alone. Should they care "to place it on the hazard of a die
+to win or lose it all," there was none to say them nay, there was no
+punishment save that of defeat. This it was that so often conduced to their
+success. Despots as were such men as Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa and Dragut,
+they were none the less dependent on the goodwill of their followers. If,
+therefore, they decided on a desperate enterprise, they appealed to the
+fighting instincts, the cupidity, and the fanaticism of these men. Should
+they succeed in gaining their good will for the attempt which they
+meditated, then all was well with them, and behind them was no grim
+sinister figure whose word was death and whose breath was destruction.
+
+Freed from all the trammels which bound the ordinary warrior of the day in
+which they lived, they were able, as we have seen, to go far; for the man
+in whom supreme ability is united to absolute unscrupulousness is the most
+dangerous foe of the human race. The despotism of the leaders among the
+sea-wolves was not theirs by right divine, as men considered it to be in
+the case of the Padishah; none the less in its practical application it was
+but little inferior to that wielded by the Sultan. For reasons of policy,
+the Sea-wolves allied themselves to the Grand Turk; for reasons of policy
+that monarch employed them and entrusted them with the conduct of important
+affairs. The bargain was really a good one on both sides; as to the
+sea-wolves was extended the �gis of one of the mightiest empires of the
+earth; while to the Sultan came "veritable men of the sea," hardened in
+conflict, as fearless of responsibility as of aught else; capable in a
+sense that hardly any man could be capable who had grown up in the
+atmosphere of the court at Constantinople. To Kheyr-ed-Din the Sultan had
+extended his fullest confidence; he had been rewarded by seeing the
+renowned Doria forsake the field of battle at Prevesa, and by the perpetual
+slights and insults put upon his Christian foes by that great corsair. To
+Dragut he had now turned, and, as we have said, when Sinan Basha sailed
+from the Golden Horn he had orders to attempt nothing important without the
+advice of the corsair. It is impossible to say why the command-in-chief had
+not been entrusted to him, as the Sultan had the precedent of Kheyr-ed-Din
+upon which to go. It can only be conjectured that Soliman, having
+discovered how unpopular that appointment had been amongst his high
+officers, did not care to risk the experiment the second time; and in
+consequence employed Sinan. To this officer the aphorism of Seignelay
+applies in its fullest force. He was as brave a man as ever drew a sword in
+the service of his master; he was, however, a hesitating and incompetent
+leader, with one eye ever fixed on that distant palace on the shores of the
+Golden Horn in which dwelt the arbiter of his destiny and of all those who
+sailed beneath the banner of the Crescent.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+THE KNIGHTS OF ST. JOHN
+
+  The Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem, afterwards known as the Knights
+  of Rhodes, and eventually as the Knights of Malta--A brief sketch of the
+  Order, including the relation of how Gozon de Dieu-Donn�, subsequently
+  Grand Master, slew the great Serpent of Rhodes; also some account of
+  Jean Parisot de la Valette, forty-eighth Grand Master, who commanded at
+  the Siege of Malta, in which the arms of Soliman the Magnificent were
+  defeated after a siege lasting one hundred and thirteen days.
+
+Amongst all those principalities and powers against which Dragut contended
+during the whole of his strenuous existence, there was no one among them
+which he held in so much detestation as the famous Knights of Saint John,
+known in the sixteenth century as the Knights of Malta. This militant
+religious organisation had its origin in Jerusalem in peculiar and
+interesting circumstances. After the death of Mahomet, his followers,
+burning with zeal, put forward the tenets of their religion by means of
+fire and sword; during the years which followed the Hegira, 622 A.D., the
+arms of the Moslems were everywhere successful, and amongst other places
+conquered by them was Palestine. So great was the renown acquired by the
+Emperor Charlemagne that his fame passed even into Asia, and Eginard states
+that the Caliph Haroun Raschid permitted the French nation to maintain a
+house in Jerusalem for the reception of pilgrims visiting the holy places,
+and that, further, the Prince permitted the Patriarch of Jerusalem to send
+to the Christian Emperor, on his behalf, the keys of the Holy Sepulchre and
+those of the Church of Calvary, together with a standard which was the sign
+of the power and authority delegated by the Moslem ruler to his mighty
+contemporary. In the middle of the eleventh century Italian merchants
+coming from Amalfi, who had experienced the hard lot of the Christian
+pilgrims in reaching the Holy City, secured from the Caliph Moustafa-Billah
+a concession of land, on which they built a chapel known as St. Mary of the
+Latins, to distinguish it from the Greek church already established at
+Jerusalem, and also constructed a hospice in which to receive the pilgrims,
+whether in sickness or in health, known as the Hospice of St. John.
+
+In 1093 the untiring efforts of Peter the Hermit, with the support of Pope
+Urbain II., brought about the first Crusade, and in 1099 we first hear of
+Gerard, the founder of the Order of St. John. Gerard was a French monk who,
+seeing the good work done by the Hospice of St. John, had attached himself
+to it, and had at this time been working in the cause of charity, and
+devoting himself to the pilgrims for many years.
+
+Godfrey de Bouillon, having defeated the Saracens outside the walls of
+Jerusalem, entered that city and visited the Hospice of St. John; he there
+found many of the Crusaders who had been wounded during the siege, and who
+had been carried thither after the taking of the place: all of these men
+were loud in their praises of the loving kindness with which they had been
+received and tended.
+
+Great was the honour and reverence in which these simple monks were held
+ever after by the Crusaders; for was it not common talk that these holy men
+had themselves subsisted on the coarsest and most repulsive fare in order
+that the food in the hospice should be both pure and abundant? Fired by
+this fine example of Christian charity, several noble gentlemen who had
+been tended in the hospice gave up the idea of returning to their own
+countries, and consecrated themselves to the Hospice of St. John, and to
+the service of the pilgrims, the poor, and the sick. Among these was
+Raimond Dupuy.
+
+The great Prince Godfrey de Bouillon fully approved of the steps taken by
+these gentlemen, and for his own part contributed to the upkeep of the
+hospice the seigneurie of Montbirre, with all its dependencies, which
+formed a part of his domain in Brabant. His example was widely copied by
+the Christian princes and great nobles among the Crusaders, who enriched
+the hospice with many lands and seigneuries, both in Palestine and in
+Europe. All these lands and properties were placed unreservedly in the
+hands of the saintly Gerard to do with as he would for the advancement of
+his work. In 1118 Gerard died in extreme old age; "he died in the arms of
+the brothers, almost without sickness, falling, as it may be said, like a
+fruit ripe for eternity."
+
+The choice of the Hospitallers as his successor was Raimond Dupuy, a
+nobleman of illustrious descent from the Province of Dauphiny, and it is he
+who first held rule under the title of Grand Master. In all charity and
+loving kindness the life of Gerard had been passed, the brethren of St.
+John occupying themselves merely in tending the sick, in helping the poor
+and the pilgrims; but Raimond Dupuy was a soldier of the Cross, and he laid
+before the Order a scheme by which, from among the members thereof, a
+military corps should be formed, vowed to a perpetual crusade against the
+Infidel. This, in full conclave, was carried by acclamation, and the most
+remarkable body of religious warriors that the world has ever seen then
+came existence.
+
+This pact against the Infidel was in the first instance directed against
+the barbarians who swarmed around the Holy City, and the Hospitallers, who
+nearly all had been knights and soldiers of Godfrey de Bouillon, joyfully
+took up their arms again to employ them in the defence of this locality
+which they cherished, and in defence of the pilgrims who were robbed,
+murdered, and maltreated in all the surrounding country. In becoming
+warriors once more, they vowed to turn their arms against the Infidel, and
+against him alone; to neither make nor meddle with arms in their hands in
+any dispute between men of their own faith. The composition of the Order as
+it was arranged by Raimond Dupuy caused it to consist of three classes. In
+the first were placed men of high birth and rank who, having been bred to
+arms, were capable of taking command. In the second came priests and
+chaplains, who, besides the ordinary duties attached to their religious
+profession, were obliged, each in his turn, to accompany the fighting men
+in their wars. Those who were neither of noble houses nor belonging to the
+ecclesiastical profession were known as "serving brothers": they were
+employed indifferently in following the knights into battle or in tending
+the sick in the hospital, and were distinguished by a coat-of-arms of a
+different colour from that worn by the knights.
+
+As the Order prospered amazingly, and as to it repaired numbers of the
+young noblesse from all parts of Europe to enrol themselves under its
+banner, it was accordingly divided into seven "Languages"; those of
+Provence, Auvergne, France, Italy, Arragon, Germany, and England. To the
+Language of Arragon was in later years allotted those of Castile and of
+Portugal. The dress consisted of a black robe, with a mantle of the same
+colour, the whole being called _manteau � bec_, having upon the left side
+thereof a white cross in cloth, with light points. The eight-pointed cross,
+or the Maltese Cross, as it came to be known in subsequent centuries, will
+be seen upon the armour, engraven on the breastplate, of all the pictures
+of the Grand Masters.
+
+In the year 1259 the Pope, Alexander IV., finding that men of noble birth
+objected to be habited as were the "serving brothers," ordained that the
+knights on a campaign should wear a "sopraveste" of scarlet embroidered
+with the cross in white; further, that should any knight abandon the ranks,
+and fly from the battle, he should be deprived of his order and his habit.
+The form of government was purely aristocratic, all authority being vested
+in the Council, of which the Grand Master was the chief, the case of an
+equal division of opinion being provided for by giving to the Grand Master
+the casting vote. There were in the Order certain aged knights who were
+called "Preceptors," who, under authority delegated to them by the Council,
+administered the estates and funds accruing, and also paid for the hire of
+such soldiers or "seculars" whom the Knights took into their service.
+
+Incidentally, it may be mentioned that the establishment of the Knights of
+St. John led to the foundation of the famous Order of the Knights Templars.
+In 1118 Hugues de Payens, Geoffrey de St. Aldemar, and seven other French
+noblemen, whose hearts were touched by the sufferings which the pilgrims
+underwent in their journey to Jerusalem, formed themselves into a society
+with the object of the protection of these inoffensive persons on their
+transit from the coast inland. Hugues de Payens, received in audience by
+Pope Honor� II., was sent by the Pontiff to the Peers of the Council, then
+assembled at Troyes in Champagne; the Council approving of so charitable an
+enterprise, the Order was formed, and Bernard, known as "Saint" Bernard,
+drew up the code of regulations by which it was to be governed. The
+movement spread, and many princes and nobles returned to the Holy Land in
+the train of de Payens and his companions.
+
+So famous did the Order of St. John become, that in 1133 Alfonzo, King of
+Navarre and Arragon, who called himself Emperor of Spain, carried his zeal
+so far as to bequeath to the knights his kingdoms of Navarre and Arragon:
+this, however, was naturally and hotly contested in these places, and
+Raimond Dupuy, who attended a Council to regulate the matter, was content
+to compromise on certain lands and benefits being allocated to those whom
+he represented.
+
+On August 15th, 1310, the knights, under the Grand Master, Fulke de
+Villaret, conquered the Island of Rhodes and established themselves there,
+and from this time onward, while they held the island, were known as the
+Knights of Rhodes. No sooner were the knights firmly established in Rhodes
+and the fortifications placed in a proper state of repair, than a tower was
+built on the highest point of the island, of great height, from which a
+view could be obtained of the sea and the surrounding islands, and from
+which information could be signalled as to the movements of any vessels
+which were observed. It was then decided to fortify the small island of Cos
+or Lango in the vicinity, as it contained an excellent harbour; a fortress,
+planned by the Grand Master himself, was erected on the island, a knight
+was left in command, and we are told that under the successors of de
+Villaret--himself twenty-fourth Grand Master--the island, which was very
+fertile, flourished exceedingly, producing much fruit and some most
+excellent wine.
+
+There was reigning in Bithynia, at the time when the knights seized upon
+Rhodes, that Ottoman whose name has come down to us when we speak of the
+Ottoman Empire; it is a somewhat strange coincidence that the Christian
+warriors, sworn foes of the Mussulman, should have so established
+themselves just when the tide of the Mohammedan conquest was about to rise
+and sweep away Byzantium; that they should arrive upon the scene just as
+the curtain was about to rise on the tragedy which, in its onward march,
+was to make of the church of St. Sophia a mosque for the worship of the
+Ottoman Turks.
+
+Ottoman--the descendant of one Soliman, the chief of a nomadic tribe of
+Tartars who had been chased from the Empire of Persia in the year 1214--was
+not only a soldier and a conqueror, but also a great and beneficent ruler
+in those regions in which he held sway. Approached by those of his
+co-religionists who had been driven out of Rhodes by the Knights, Ottoman
+embarked an army and attacked the place, assuring himself of an easy
+conquest. In spite, however, of the fortifications having been hastily
+constructed, his troops were defeated with great loss, and he was obliged
+to raise the siege. In this manner did the indomitable champions of
+Christendom begin that long and bloodthirsty war between the Cross and the
+Crescent in the Mediterranean which was to endure for nearly another five
+centuries.
+
+[Illustration: GOZON DE DIEU-DONN� SLAYING THE GREAT SERPENT OF RHODES.]
+
+In the long, chequered, and glorious history of the Knights there are many
+strange and semi-miraculous deeds recounted of them in the wars and
+adventures in which they took so prominent a part; the following, which is
+gravely set out by the historians of the time, may be left to the judgment
+of the reader. In 1324 Fulke de Villaret was succeeded in the Grand
+Mastership by Helion de Villeneuve, a knight of exemplary piety and a
+strict disciplinarian. Under his rule the Order regained those habits of
+severe simplicity from which they had been allowed to lapse by his
+predecessor. In 1329 Rhodes was greatly agitated by the fact that a
+crocodile or serpent--as it is indifferently described--had taken up its
+abode in the marshes at the foot of Mount St. Etienne, some two miles from
+the town. This ferocious creature devoured sheep and cattle; also several
+of the inhabitants had lost their lives by approaching the neighbourhood in
+which it dwelt. Several attacks were made upon it, but, as there were no
+firearms, all the missiles projected against it rebounded harmlessly from
+the scales with which it was covered. So dangerous had it become, that the
+Grand Master thought it his duty to forbid any of the knights to attempt
+its destruction; an order which was obeyed with a right good will. There
+was, however, a knight of the Language of Provence called Gozon de
+Dieu-Donn�, who secretly determined that he would slay the serpent, and he
+accordingly made it his occupation to observe as closely as possible the
+habits of the monster. Having satisfied himself on certain points, he then
+returned to his chateau of Gozon in the province of Languedoc. The point
+which Gozon had wished to determine was in what portion of its body was the
+serpent vulnerable; and he had convinced himself that the belly of the
+creature was unprotected by scales. He accordingly modelled in wood as
+exact a representation of the serpent as he could accomplish, colouring it
+the same as the original; the belly of the model was constructed of
+leather. He then trained some large and ferocious hounds, at a certain
+signal, to dash in under the model and fix their teeth in its leathern
+underpart. For months did the ingenious knight persevere with the training
+of his dogs, himself on horseback in full armour cheering them to the
+assault. At last he considered them to be perfect in their parts, and,
+taking two servants and the hounds with him, returned to Rhodes. Avoiding
+everybody, he caused his arms to be carried to a small church in the
+neighbourhood of Mount St. Etienne by his servants. The knight went into
+the church, where he passed some time in prayer, recommending his soul to
+God in the enterprise which he was about to undertake.
+
+He then donned his armour and mounted his horse, ordering his servants, if
+he were killed, to return to France but if he succeeded in killing the
+serpent to come at once to him, or to aid him if he were wounded. He then
+rode off in the direction of the marsh accompanied by his hounds. No sooner
+did the serpent hear the ring of bit and stirrup-iron, the trampling of the
+charger and the baying of the hounds, than it issued forth with wide-open
+slavering jaws and terrible burning eyes to slay and to devour. Gozon,
+recommending his soul to his Maker, put spurs to his horse and charged. But
+his lance shivered on the hide of the serpent as though it had struck a
+stone wall. His horse, mad with terror at the sight and the foul odour of
+the serpent, plunged so furiously as to unseat him. He fell to the ground,
+uttering as he did so his call to the hounds; had it not been for these
+faithful auxiliaries he would instantly have been slain, but they rushed in
+and, fastening their teeth in the belly of the serpent, caused it to writhe
+and twist in its anguish. Instantly Gozon was upon his feet again, and,
+watching his opportunity, plunged his sword into the exposed vitals of his
+enemy. Mortally wounded, the serpent flung itself high in the air with a
+convulsive effort, and falling backwards pinned the knight to the ground
+beneath its enormous bulk. The servants, who had been the horrified
+spectators of this terrific conflict, now rushed to the assistance of their
+master, and succeeded in freeing him from his unpleasant predicament.
+Gozon, they thought, was dead, but upon dashing some water in his face he
+opened his eyes, to behold the pleasing spectacle of his monstrous enemy
+lying by his side a corpse.
+
+Naturally elated, he returned to Rhodes, where he became on the instant the
+popular hero; for who could say or do enough for the man who had slain the
+serpent. He was conducted in triumph to the palace of the Grand Master by
+his fellow knights, but here a remarkably unpleasant surprise was in store
+for him. Very austerely did Helion de Villeneuve regard the triumphant
+warrior, and stern and uncompromising was the voice in which he asked him
+how he had dared to contravene the express order of his Grand Master by
+going forth to combat with the serpent? Calling a Council immediately the
+implacable de Villeneuve, in spite of all entreaties, deprived Gozon de
+Dieu-Donn� of the habit of a knight. "What," said this just and severe
+disciplinarian, "is the death of this monster, what indeed do the deaths of
+the islanders matter, compared with the maintenance of the discipline of
+this Order of which I am the unworthy chief?"
+
+But Helion de Villeneuve was of too wise and kindly a nature to make his
+decree absolute, and having thus vindicated his authority he shortly
+afterwards released Gozon and made him happy by his praises and more
+material benefits.
+
+The Abb� de Vertot tells us that the learned Bochart argues that the
+Phoenicians gave to this island the name of Gefirath-Rod (from whence the
+name "Rhodes"), or the Isle of the Serpents, and that when the Romans were
+at war with the Carthaginians Attilius Regulus slew a monster in the island
+of Rhodes the skin of which measured one hundred feet. Thevenot, in his
+Travels published in 1637, states that he saw the head of Gozon's serpent
+still attached to one of the gates of the town of Rhodes, and that it was
+as large as the head of a horse.
+
+Upon the death of Helion de Villeneuve in 1346, a Chapter of the Order was
+held as usual to elect his successor. When it came to the turn of the
+Commander Gozon de Dieu-Donn� to speak, he said:
+
+  "In entering this conclave I made a solemn vow not to propose any knight
+  whom I did not consider to be most worthy of this exalted office, and
+  animated by the best intentions for the glory and well-being of the
+  Order. After considering carefully the state of the Christian world, of
+  the wars which we are perpetually obliged to wage against the infidel,
+  the firmness and vigour necessary for the maintenance of discipline, I
+  declare that I find no person so capable of governing our 'Religion' as
+  myself."
+
+He then proceeded to speak in a purely impersonal tone of the magnificent
+services which he had rendered, not forgetting the famous episode of the
+serpent, and drew their attention to the fact that the late Grand Master
+had constituted him, Gozon, his principal lieutenant. He ended: "You have
+already tried my government, you know well that which you may hope to
+expect. I believe that in all justice I shall receive your suffrages."
+
+Naturally the assemblage was stupefied at hearing a man thus recommend
+himself; on reflection, however, they decided that he had spoken no less
+than the truth, and Gozon de Dieu-Donn�, "the hero of the serpent," became
+twenty-sixth Grand Master of the Order. He died in 1353, when he was
+succeeded by Pierre de Cornillan, and upon his tomb were graven these
+words:
+
+  "Cy Gist le Vainqueur du Dragon."
+
+In the years 1480 and 1485 under the Grand Master Pierre D'Aubusson, Rhodes
+withstood two great sieges from the Turks. The first of these is described
+at length by the knight Merri Dupuis "temoin oculaire" who sets down: "Je,
+Mary Dupuis gros et rude de sens et de entendement je veuille parler et
+desscrire au plus bref que je pourray et au plus pres de la verite selon
+que je pen voir a lueil." The description of that of 1485 is written by
+another eye-witness, the Commandeur de Bourbon, to whom "ma semble bon et
+condecent a raison declairer premierement les causes qui out incite mon
+poure et petit entendement a faire cest petit oeuvre."
+
+But we have no space to follow these gallant Knights, and it must suffice
+to say that on both occasions, after incredible exertions and terrible
+slaughter on both sides, the attacks of the Turks were eventually repulsed.
+
+It was reserved for Soliman the Magnificent to finally vanquish the Knights
+and to expel them from Rhodes; from July 1522 until January 1523 the
+Knights under the heroic Villiers de L'Isle Adam maintained an all unequal
+struggle against the vast hosts of the Crescent, which were perpetually
+reinforced. At last, on January 1st, 1523, the Knights, by virtue of a
+treaty with Soliman, which was honourably observed on both sides, evacuated
+the island in which they had been established for nearly two hundred and
+twenty years.
+
+By favour of Charles V. the Knights on October 26th, 1530, took charge of
+the islands of Malta and Gozo, and established themselves therein; still
+under the Grand Mastership of L'Isle Adam, whose sword and helmet are still
+religiously kept in a small church in Vittoriosa, just at the back of the
+Admiral Superintendent's house in the present dockyard.
+
+The knights fortified the islands and there abode, until in 1565 the
+Ottoman returned once more to the attack.
+
+It may be said that heroism is a relative term, that it has many uses and
+applications all equally truthful. On the side of mere physical courage
+almost every man who took part in that memorable siege of Malta in the year
+1565 may have been said to have earned the title of hero. No man's foot
+went back; no man's courage quailed; no man's face blanched when called
+upon to face perils so appalling that they meant an almost inevitable and
+speedy death; this was true or Christian and Moslem alike. The death-roll
+on either side was so tremendous as to prove this contention up to the
+hilt. From May 18th to September 8th, 1565--that is to say, in one hundred
+and thirteen days--thirty thousand Moslems and eight thousand Christians
+perished--an average of some three hundred and thirty-six persons per day.
+In that blazing torrid heat the sufferings of those who survived from day
+to day must have been accentuated beyond bearing by the myriads of unburied
+corpses by which they lived surrounded; and that the contending forces were
+not swept away by pestilence is an extraordinary marvel.
+
+[Illustration: CARRACK IN WHICH THE KNIGHTS ARRIVED AT MALTA, 1530.]
+
+In many, nay, in most campaigns, personal feeling enters but little into
+the contest. Nationality strikes against nationality, army against army, or
+navy against navy; but no burning hatred of his adversary animates the
+breast of the combatant on either side; it may even be said that frequently
+some pity for the vanquished is felt, when all is over, by the side which
+has conquered. At Malta the element of actual personal individual hatred
+was the mainspring by which the combatants on both sides were moved; each
+regarded the other as an infidel, the slaying of whom was the sacrifice
+most acceptable to the God they worshipped. "Infidel" was the term which
+each hurled at the other; to destroy the infidel, root and branch, was the
+act imposed upon those whose faith was the one only passport to a blessed
+eternity, and those who fell in the strife, whether Christian or Moslem,
+felt assured that for them the gates of heaven stood wide open. Great as
+were those others who perished, faithful to the death as were those noble
+knights who died to a man in the culminating agony of St. Elmo, adroit,
+resourceful, master of himself and others as was the famous Dragut, there
+is one name and one alone that shines like a beacon light upon a hill-top
+when we think of the siege of Malta. Jean Parisot de la Valette, whose name
+is enshrined for ever in that noble city which crowns Mount Sceberass at
+the present day, was the forty-eighth Grand Master of the Noble Order of
+the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem the charter for which, contained in
+the original Bull of Pope Paschal II., dated 1113 (in which the Holy Father
+took the Order under his special protection), may be seen to this day in
+the armoury of the palace at Valetta. At the time when the supreme honour
+was conferred upon him, in the year 1557, he had passed through every grade
+of the Order: as soldier, captain, general, Counsellor, Grand Cross: in all
+of them displaying a valour, a piety, a self-abnegation beyond all praise,
+A man of somewhat austere manner, he exacted from others that which he gave
+himself--a whole-hearted devotion to the Order to which he had consecrated
+his life. Fearing no man in the Council Chamber, even as he feared no foe
+in the field, he ever spoke his mind in defence of that which he deemed to
+be right. Proud, with the dignity becoming a man of his ancient lineage, he
+merged all personal haughtiness in the zeal he felt in upholding the rights
+and privileges of that splendid confederation of knights of the best blood
+in Europe over which he had been called upon to preside at the mature age
+of sixty-three. There is no instance in history of any man more absolutely
+single-minded than La Valette; that in which he believed he cherished with
+an ardour almost incredible in these days, and that the sword of the Lord
+had been confided into his hand for the utter extermination and extirpation
+of the Moslem heresy was the leading feature in his creed. That he had been
+advanced to a dignity but little less than royal in achieving the Grand
+Mastership was but as dust in the balance to him compared with the
+opportunities which it gave him to harry his life-long foes; and he who had
+known so well how to obey throughout all his youth and manhood was now to
+prove, in the most emphatic manner, that he had learned how to command. In
+all those terrible hundred and thirteen days during which the siege lasted
+there was none to be compared to him. As occasion occurred this man's soul
+rose higher and ever higher; beseeching, imploring, commanding, by sheer
+force of example did he point out the way to the weaker spirits by whom he
+was surrounded.
+
+To speak of weaker spirits in connection with the siege of Malta seems
+almost an insult; these gallant knights and soldiers were only so in
+comparison with their leader. Twice during the siege of St, Elmo did the
+garrison send to La Valette and represent that the place was no longer
+tenable; but Garcia de Toledo, Viceroy of Sicily for Philip of Spain, was
+writing specious letters instead of sending reinforcements, and every
+moment gained was of importance. Coldly did La Valette remind the Knights
+of their vows to the Order, and when renewed assurances came that it was
+only a matter of a few hours before they should be overwhelmed he replied
+that others could be found to take their places, that he, as Grand Master,
+would come in person to show them how to die. A passion of remorse overcame
+these noble gentlemen, who, thus nerved by the indomitable spirit of their
+chief, died to the last man in the tumbled ruins of that charnel-house
+which had once been a fortress.
+
+La Valette was ready to die; there was no man in all that garrison so
+ready. With pike and sword this veteran of seventy-one years of age was
+ever at the post of the greatest danger, repelling the assaults of
+Janissaries and corsairs, fighting with the spirit of the youngest among
+the Knights in the breaches rent in the walls of Il Borgo. In vain did his
+comrades try to prevent him from this perpetual exposure; in vain did they
+point out that the value of his life outnumbered that of an army. He was
+very gentle with these remonstrances, but quite firm. There were plenty as
+good as he to take his place should he fall, he insisted; till that time
+came it was his duty to inspire all by his example, to show to the simplest
+soldier that he was cared for by his Grand Master.
+
+As things went from bad to worse, when Il Borgo became in little better
+case than had St. Elmo before it, La Valette never hesitated, never looked
+back, never ceased to hope that the sluggard Garcia de Toledo might send
+relief; and, if he did not, then would they all perish with arms in their
+hands, as had their brethren across that narrow strip of water who had held
+St. Elmo to the last man. What man or woman can read without something of a
+lump coming in their throat of those noble words of the Grand Master in the
+last few days of the siege when all had utterly abandoned hope?
+
+Grimed, emaciated, covered with sweat and blood and dust, did La Valette
+move from post to post exhorting and encouraging his soldiers. So few had
+the gallant company of the Knights become that command was necessarily
+delegated to the under-officers; yet who among them did not find fresh
+courage and renewed strength when that great noble, the head of the Order,
+stood by their sides and spoke thus to them as man to man?--
+
+  "My brothers, we are all servants of Jesus Christ; and I feel assured
+  that if I and all these in command should fall you will still fight on
+  for the honour of the Order and the love of our Holy Church."
+
+We have to think of what it all meant, we have dimly to try and realise the
+burden which was laid upon this man, before we come to a right conception,
+not only of what he endured but the terrible sacrifices he was called upon
+to make. Here was no man of iron lusting for blood and greedy of conquest
+for the sake of the vain applause of men; but one full of human love and
+affection for those among whom he had lived all the days of his life. Upon
+him was laid the charge of upholding the honour of the Order, the majesty
+of the God whom he served. To this end he doomed to certain death those
+brethren of his in St. Elmo, his own familiar friends, reminding them that
+it was their duty so to die, while his heart was breaking with the agony of
+this terrible decision, which no weaker man could have given. When his
+beloved nephew was slain, together with another gallant youth, he smiled
+sadly and said that they had only travelled the road which they all had to
+tread in a few days; that he grieved as much for the one as for the other.
+In speaking of this man, it may truly be said that there is no character in
+history more elevated; there is none which shows us the picture of a more
+perfect, gentle, and valiant knight.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+DRAGUT-REIS
+
+  How Sinan Basha and Dragut raided the islands of Malta and Cozo and
+  captured the town of Tripoli. How the Knights of Malta captured "the
+  puissant galleon" belonging to the Kustir-Aga and the Odalisques of the
+  harem of the Grand Turk. The despair of the ladies and the advice of the
+  Imaum to Soliman the Magnificent. A great armada is fitted out in
+  Constantinople. The preparations for defence on the part of La Valette
+  and the Knights. The expedition sails from Constantinople and lands in
+  Malta.
+
+Great must have been the consternation of the Knights when the armada,
+commanded by Sinan Basha, appeared off their coasts, and bitter must have
+been the reflections of Juan d'Omedes, the Grand Master, who had all along
+contended that so formidable an expedition could not possibly be directed
+against Malta. The inhabitants of that island were, however, not left long
+in doubt, as Sinan, immediately on his arrival, entered the Grand Harbour,
+or "the Great Port," as it was called in those days. Sinan, in his royal
+galley, led the way in, contemptuously assured of an easy victory over so
+insignificant a place of arms. He had his first rude awakening before he
+had traversed some quarter of a mile of the placid waters of the Great
+Port. The harbour, as is well known, though long, is very narrow, and, on
+the starboard hand of the Turkish galleys as they entered, the Commandeur
+de Guimeran, a Spanish Knight, had ambushed three hundred arquebusiers. As
+the galley of Sinan came abreast of the ambush, the Commandeur gave the
+order to fire. The volley at so close a range had a terrible effect,
+especially among the "chiourme," or the slaves who rowed the galley, some
+hundred of whom were placed _hors de combat_. Sinan, in a furious rage,
+ordered an immediate disembarkment; but when his men landed and scaled the
+heights of Mount Sceberras (the elevated land on which the city of Valetta
+now stands) there was no one to be found, the Commandeur and the men who
+had formed the ambush having disappeared. Gazing from the heights at Il
+Borgo, the fortress on the opposite side of the harbour where the Knights
+then dwelt, Sinan demanded of Dragut, "If that," pointing to the fortress,
+"was the place which he had told the Sultan could easily be taken?"
+
+Dragut, whom no peril ever daunted, coolly replied:
+
+"Certainly, no eagle ever built his nest on a rock more easy of access."
+
+A corsair, who had been slave to the Knights, now approached Sinan, and
+told him that he had assisted at the building of the fortress; which, he
+averred, was so strong that if the admiral delayed until he had taken it
+that the winter would be upon them, although it was then only the month of
+July. Sinan, as we have said, was a hesitating commander. He had the
+ever-present fear of the Grand Turk before his eyes, and was not inclined
+for so difficult and dangerous an enterprise as this was represented to be.
+Leaving the fortress in his rear, he marched off to the high land in the
+centre of the island, on which was situated the Citt� Notabile, the capital
+of Malta, some seven miles distant from the sea. On their march through the
+island the Turks committed their usual atrocities, murdering the wretched
+inhabitants, firing their dwellings, destroying their crops, and carrying
+off their women. Had the siege of Notabile been pressed, the city must have
+fallen; but Sinan declared to Dragut that the principal object of the
+expedition was the reduction of Tripoli, and, in consequence, he had not
+the time to devote to its reduction. Dragut, furious at this temporising
+policy, urged an immediate assault, and, while the contention was waxing
+sharp between the two leaders, a letter was brought to Sinan which had been
+captured in a Sicilian galley. It was from the "Receiver" of the Order, who
+dwelt at Messina, to the Grand Master, informing him that he had expressly
+sent this ship to inform him that Andrea Doria had just returned from Spain
+and was hastening with a large fleet to attack the Turks. The letter was a
+ruse on the part of the "Receiver," and contained not a particle of truth.
+It was, however, quite enough for Sinan, who immediately called a council
+of war and imparted this alarming news to its members. The council, after
+the invariable fashion of such bodies, decided to take the safest and
+easiest course: the name of the terrible Andrea was one of evil omen to the
+Ottomans, and, as one man, they voted for prosecuting their voyage to
+Tripoli before the Genoese seaman should put in an appearance. In vain was
+the fury of Dragut, who had counted on a full revenge on his ancient
+enemies the Knights. The armada sailed to the adjacent island of Gozo,
+which was thoroughly sacked with every refinement of cruelty. Every house
+on the island was burned, and six thousand of its inhabitants carried off
+to slavery. One incident is deserving of record. In Gozo dwelt a certain
+Sicilian with his wife and two daughters: sooner than that they should fall
+into the hands of the Turks this man stabbed his wife and daughters and
+then threw himself, sword in hand, into the ranks of his enemies, where he
+slew two of them, wounded several others, and was then hacked to pieces.
+The fleet then proceeded to Tripoli, which was taken almost without
+opposition, as it was defended by a mere handful of the Knights and some
+utterly unreliable Calabrian infantry, who had never before seen a shot
+fired: these men very soon mutinied and refused to fight any longer. Dragut
+became the autocrat of Tripoli, as his great predecessor Kheyr-ed-Din
+Barbarossa had been of Algiers: from hence, in the years that were to come
+before his death, he carried on his sleepless and unending warfare with his
+Christian foes, on whom he was destined to inflict another terrible defeat
+when they attacked this stronghold which he had made his own.
+
+Claude de la Sangle dying on August 18th, 1557, Jean Parisot de la Valette
+was chosen Grand Master of the Knights of Malta in his stead on August 21st
+of the same year. He was, as we have said before, in succession, soldier,
+captain, councillor, general, and Grand Cross; he was as wise in council as
+he was terrible in battle; he was as much esteemed by his brethren as he
+was feared by the infidel. Under his governorship "the Religion" regained
+the ancient authority which it had once possessed, especially in some of
+the German Provinces and in the Republic of Venice. So great was the
+influence of La Valette that he succeeded in making the "Languages" (or
+confederations of Knights) of Germany and Venice pay their "responsions,"
+which had been allowed to get into arrear. These "responsions" were a tax
+levied on the "Languages " exclusively for the purpose of combatting the
+infidel, and La Valette brought all the firmness of his high character to
+bear, in order to induce these Knights to do what, he reminded them, was
+their simple and obvious duty. Fired by the highest conception of the
+office he had been called upon to execute, La Valette allowed none of those
+under his command to be slack in their performance of their duties. In him
+dwelt the real old crusading spirit. He saw life with the single eye, for
+that which was paramount was the utter destruction of the infidel. There
+are many men who have a high conception of duty; there are but few who can
+inspire those with whom they are brought in contact. Of these latter was
+Jean Parisot de la Valette; in him the pure flame of religious enthusiasm
+burnt with so clear a light as to act as an illuminant for the paths of
+others. In him dwelt that rare quality of lifting others almost to that
+plane on which he dwelt himself, of making men nobler and better almost in
+spite of themselves. So it was that, when La Valette stooped to remind
+others of his brother Knights that they owed money to the Order, that money
+was paid at once.
+
+Having thus restored order to the finances, the Grand Master turned his
+attention to the state of affairs (as he had received them from his
+predecessor) connected with the territorial possessions of the Knights. For
+long years now the fortress of Tripoli had been in the hands of the
+renowned Dragut, who was the scourge and the terror of the Christians. The
+corsair dwelt in his stronghold in insolent defiance of the Knights, whose
+property it once had been. Years before he had wrested it from them by the
+strong hand: what, then, more necessary in the eyes of such an one as La
+Valette than to expel this audacious pirate? The Grand Master invited the
+co-operation of Juan la Cerda (a Spanish Grandee, Duke of Medina-Celi, and
+Viceroy of Sicily for the King of Spain) in this enterprise. The Viceroy
+joyfully acceded to the request, and informed his master. Philip II.
+approved the project, and sent orders to the Duke of Sesse, Governor of
+Milan, to the Duke of Alcala, Governor of Naples, and to John Andrea Doria,
+General of the Galleys, to join forces and to repair to Sicily, placing
+themselves under the orders of the Duke of Medina-Celi, who was expressly
+charged to take no action save by the advice of the Grand Master. The
+expedition assembled, the Duke took it to Malta, where it wintered, and in
+the spring it sailed and attacked Tripoli.
+
+They found this fortress, however, in a very different state from that
+which they expected. Dragut, says De Vertot, "avoit faire terasser les
+murailles de cette place." Bastions had been constructed, and every
+advantage taken for defence which was permitted by the terrain, or that the
+art of fortification admitted at this epoch. The castle, which was not
+advantageously placed, was, notwithstanding, put in a state of defence by
+an enormous expenditure of money. Great towers, in which were mounted many
+big guns, defended the entrance to the port, which had become the
+headquarters of the vessels owned by Dragut, and also of those corsairs who
+sailed their craft under the crescent flag of the Sultan of Constantinople.
+It was against such a fortress as this that the Duke of Medina-Celi went
+up: we have no space to deal here with the details of this attack, which
+ended in the hopeless and irremediable defeat of the Christian forces. The
+Duke was an incompetent commander; he was opposed to one of the greatest
+leaders of the age--an expert in almost every branch of the science of war,
+in command of a large body of the fiercest fighters of the day, who ever
+feared the wrath of Dragut more than the swords of the enemy.
+
+La Valette, though he mourned over the repulse of the Christian forces from
+Tripoli, did not on that account allow his pursuit of the infidel to grow
+faint; the galleys of "the Religion" were always at sea, and both the
+corsairs and the Ottoman Turks were perpetually losing valuable ships and
+costly merchandise. Under the General of the Galleys, the Commandeur Gozon
+de Melac, and that celebrated chevalier, the Commandeur de Romegas, the sea
+forces of the Knights were everywhere in evidence. Into the hands of the
+Christians fell the Penon de Velez, situated on the northern coast of
+Africa opposite to Malaga--a fortress much frequented by the corsairs; the
+Goletta at Tunis was also taken, and the pirates became so much alarmed
+that they demanded succour from Constantinople. They represented to Soliman
+that, at this rate, the whole of Northern Africa would soon be in the hands
+of the Christians to the total exclusion of the true believer.
+
+Soliman listened to their complaints and promised that soon he would send
+forth an armament which should put an end to the misfortunes from which
+they were suffering. Once again preparations were begun in the arsenals of
+Constantinople, and while these were in progress an event took place which
+had an important bearing on the situation. Just after the taking of the
+Penon de Velez seven galleys of "the Religion," under the command of the
+chevaliers de Giou and De Romegas, which were cruising in the neighbourhood
+of Zante and Cephalonia, fell in with "a puissant galleon" filled with the
+richest merchandise of the East, armed with "twenty great cannons of
+bronze," and a number of smaller guns, under the command of the Reis
+Bairan-Ogli, having on board "excellent officers of artillery," as well as
+two hundred Janissaries for her defence. This great ship was the property
+of Kustir-Aga, the chief Eunuch of the Seraglio of the Sultan, and many of
+the ladies of the harem were interested in a pecuniary sense in the safe
+arrival of this vessel at Constantinople. The galleys of "the Religion"
+attacked, and, after a most obstinate resistance, in which one hundred and
+twenty of the Christians and an even larger number of the Turks were
+killed, the galleon was captured. If there had been an outcry in
+Constantinople before this occurrence it was all as nothing to that which
+now arose. Kustir-Aga and the Odalisques of the Harem prostrated themselves
+at the feet of Soliman the Magnificent, and with streaming eyes,
+dishevelled hair, and frantic gestures, demanded the instant despatch of an
+expedition to utterly exterminate these barbarian corsairs, the Knights of
+Malta, who had thus injured them and lacerated their tenderest
+susceptibilities. The Grand Turk, autocrat as he was, had no peace day or
+night; he was surrounded by wailing women and sullen officials, all of whom
+had lost heavily by the capture of the puissant galleon. The Imaum, or
+preacher in the principal mosque, called upon the Sultan in his discourse
+to fall upon the audacious infidel and smite him hip and thigh. He reminded
+the Padishah that, in the dungeons of the Knights, true believers were
+languishing; that on the rowers' benches of the galleys of "the Religion"
+Moslems were being flogged like dogs. In a furious peroration he concluded:
+"It is only thy invincible sword which can shatter the chains of these
+unfortunates, whose cries are rising to heaven and afflicting the ears of
+the Prophet of God: the son is demanding his father, the wife her husband
+and her children. All, therefore, wait upon thee, upon thy justice, and thy
+power, for vengeance upon their cruel and implacable enemies."
+
+Contrary to all precedent, which enjoins the most perfect silence in the
+mosque, these bold utterances were received with something more than
+murmurs of applause: never in all his long and glorious reign had the great
+and magnificent despot heard so plainly the voice of his people. Apart,
+however, from eunuchs, women, and Mullahs, Soliman had long been importuned
+by Dragut to take the course which was now being urged upon him with so
+much insistence. There was at this time no warrior in all his _entourage_
+for whose opinion the Sultan had the same respect as he had for that of the
+ruler of Tripoli. Dragut had more than a tincture of learning: he was first
+of all an incomparable leader of men and an entirely competent seaman. He
+was also a scientific artillerist, and was learned in the technique of the
+fortification of his time. Added to this he was--albeit by no means so
+cruel as most of his contemporaries--one of those men before whom all
+trembled: as we have seen in the case of the corsairs who defended
+"Africa," "they feared the wrath of Dragut more than death itself."
+
+It was this renowned leader who warned Soliman against the Knights; he
+pointed out that they were far more dangerous now than they had been in
+1523, the year of their expulsion from Rhodes. When established there they
+were, so to speak, surrounded by the Turkish Empire; in Malta, on the
+contrary, they were easily succoured from Sicily, which belonged to Spain,
+another implacable enemy of the Moslem; that Malta lay right on the route
+which all the ships of the Sultan must take on passage from the East to
+Constantinople; and in consequence the Order was a standing and perpetual
+menace to the trade of the Empire. All this was so undeniably true that so
+shrewd a man and so competent a ruler as Soliman could not fail to be
+impressed by the soundness of the reasoning.
+
+Besides all this, he knew quite well that now he could not hold back, had
+it been even against his inclination--which was by no means the case; for
+there had arisen one of those storms of popular opinion--all the more
+formidable because of their infrequency--before which even the most
+hardened of despots must bend. Accordingly the Sultan called a conference
+of his fighting men, which was held on horseback in the open-air. The
+inclination of the Sultan being known, most of the generals, like good
+courtiers, voted for immediate war with the Knights. At this conference was
+present that Ali Basha, or Occhiali, or Uluchali, as he was indifferently
+called, of whom we shall have more to say later on. Upon this occasion he
+was present as the representative of Dragut, and urged, on behalf of his
+master, that the time was not yet ripe for an attack on Malta. First, he
+contended, it was necessary to recapture the Goletta and the Pe�on de
+Velez, and to defeat the Moors of Tunis, who were feudatories of the
+Spanish king and avowed enemies of the Ottoman Empire. Ali was supported by
+one Mahomet, an old warrior who had grown white in the service of the
+Sultan, who strongly opposed the contemplated campaign on the ground that
+the Knights would in all probability have the full strength of Europe at
+their backs.
+
+Numbers, however, added to the personal inclination of the Sultan, carried
+the day. The die was cast, the memorable expedition was decided upon, and
+all the Sultan's vast Empire soon rang with the note of preparation. The
+Capitan Basha, Piali, was in command of the fleet, and the direction of the
+land forces was confided to Mustafa, an old officer sixty-five years of
+age, a severe disciplinarian, and of a sanguinary and cruel disposition to
+any of his enemies who had the misfortune to fall into his hands.
+
+Once again did Europe lose itself in speculation: against whom, all men
+were asking, was this new expedition to be directed? Spain feared for her
+African possessions, as the Goletta was the key to the kingdom of Tunis,
+while the Pe�on de Velez was one of the bulwarks of Algeria. In consequence
+Don Garcia de Toledo passed over from Sicily to confer with the Grand
+Master of the Knights. Garcia de Toledo was by no means a favourable
+specimen of the illustrious race from which he sprang, and was a complete
+antithesis to La Valette; he was to prove himself in the terrible days that
+were to come to be sluggish, incompetent, a ruler who could not rule, a
+person for ever letting "I dare not wait upon I would." Just as long as
+Spain considered this new expedition was directed against herself
+considerable activity was shown; when the attack developed and it was seen
+that the objective of the Turks was Malta, the procrastinating Spanish king
+and his incompetent viceroy allowed matters so to drift that, had any other
+man than La Valette been in command at Malta, the fall of that island had
+been inevitable.
+
+We have seen how Juan d'Omedes had dealt with a previous crisis in the
+affairs of the Order; very different was it in the opening months of the
+year 1565. La Valette was well served by his spies in Constantinople, and
+the Grand Master was under no illusions from the very first as to what the
+destination of the army of the Sultan would be. He recognised that against
+the small islands of Malta and Gozo all the strength of the mightiest
+Empire in the world was about to be directed, and with serene confidence
+set about the task of preparation. His first care was to send out "a
+general citation" to those Knights living in their own homes in different
+countries in Europe, commanding them to repair at once to Malta and take
+part in the defence of that Order to which they had vowed to consecrate
+their lives. The agents of the Order in Italy succeeded in raising two
+thousand infantry, and the Viceroy of Sicily sent over two companies of
+Spanish infantry which he had promised. All the galleys of "the Religion"
+were called in from distant service and were set to work importing
+ammunition, stores, provisions, and all requisites for the withstanding of
+a siege. As the galleys passed backwards and forwards to Sicily, in each
+returning vessel came noble gentlemen of every country in Europe, in answer
+to the summons of their Grand Master. They were received with the tenderest
+affection by him and by those others already assembled; never in all its
+long and glorious history had the Order assembled in circumstances more
+grave; never in its history, either in the past or in the future, did it
+quit itself with so supreme a heroism as in those days of 1565 which were
+yet to come. In Malta the orderly bustle of preparation went on
+ceaselessly; the Italian and Spanish troops and the inhabitants of the
+island, for the most part hardy mariners well accustomed to the ceaseless
+_guerre de course_ of the Knights, were formed into companies, officered by
+the members of the Order, and assigned to different posts.
+
+Meanwhile the Grand Master caused copies of the letters which he had
+received from Constantinople to be sent to all the great princes of Europe;
+showing them the straits to which the Order was shortly to be reduced and
+imploring of them to send timely succour. But it was not upon outside aid
+that La Valette counted overmuch; he was preparing to confront the Turks
+with such forces as he had at his own disposal; content, if necessary, to
+leave the issue in the hands of the God in whom he trusted. As the
+chevaliers came flocking to the standard of St. John he received them, we
+are told, "as a kind father receives his beloved children, having provided
+in advance for their food and lodging." He personally entered into the most
+minute details of his charge; he reviewed his infantry, he instructed his
+artillery, he planned sites for hospitals, he sketched out new
+fortifications, and then went among the humblest of his followers and
+wielded the pick and shovel in the burning sun. Everywhere his cheering
+presence was felt, his equable and serene temperament diffused confidence
+and hope.
+
+All things being thus in train he assembled his brethren and addressed them
+in the following terms:
+
+  "A formidable army, composed of audacious barbarians, is descending on
+  this island; these persons, my brothers, are the enemies of Jesus
+  Christ. To-day it is a question of the defence of our faith as to
+  whether the book of the Evangelist is to be superseded by that of the
+  Koran? God on this occasion demands of us our lives, already vowed to
+  His service. Happy will those be who first consummate this sacrifice.
+  But that we may indeed be worthy to render it come, my dear brothers, to
+  the foot of the altar, where we may renew our vows. Let each one rely on
+  the blood of the Saviour of men and in the faithful practice of the
+  sacraments; in them we shall find so generous a contempt for death that
+  we shall indeed be rendered invincible."
+
+The Knights then, headed by the Grand Master, took themselves in procession
+to the church. Here they confessed and received the sacrament. "They went
+out from thence as men who had received a new birth." The Knights, we are
+then told, tenderly embraced one another in all solemnity; vowing to shed
+the last drop of their blood in defence of their religion and its holy
+altars. It was in this lofty frame of mind that the Knights of Malta
+awaited the coming of their hereditary foe. Into the hearts and minds of
+these gallant gentlemen of the best blood in the world the Grand Master had
+instilled some leaven of the greatness by which he himself was inspired.
+When belief is so wholehearted as it was in the case of La Valette; when it
+is allied to a genius for war, and a supreme gift for the inspiration of
+others, then that man and the force which he commands are as near to
+invincibility as it is permitted to fallible human beings to attain. There
+were two things in which the Knights were supremely fortunate on this
+occasion: the first was that they had La Valette as Grand Master, the
+second that Dragut was not in supreme command of the Turks, and that the
+siege had opened before he arrived upon the scene. In this expedition, as
+in previous ones, the Turkish commanders had orders to attempt nothing
+really important without the advice of Dragut. They found themselves
+without him when they arrived and made an initial mistake. With La Valette
+in command there was no room for blundering; the ultimate result of their
+blunder was the defeat which they sustained.
+
+Grand Master, Knight, and noble, soldier, peasant, and mariner, strove
+valiantly with the task of putting the island into a state of defence, and
+when at last the long-expected armada of their foes rose above that distant
+blue horizon in the north all had been done that skill and experience could
+dictate.
+
+It was upon May 18th in the year 1565 that the Turkish fleet arrived at
+Malta. It was composed of one hundred and fifty-nine galleys and vessels
+propelled by oars: on board of these was an army for disembarkation of
+thirty thousand men, composed of Janissaries and Spahis, the very pick and
+flower of the Turkish army. Soliman the Magnificent was leaving as little
+to chance as was possible on this occasion; he well knew the temper of the
+Knights, and that this expedition had before it a task which would try both
+the army and its leaders to the very utmost of their strength. Behind the
+main body of the fleet came a host of vessels, charged with provisions, the
+horses of the Spahis, the siege-train of the artillery, all the innumerable
+appliances and engines of war which were in use at that day. The initial
+mistake on the part of the Turks was in embarking cavalry for a siege; they
+knew, or they should have known, of the extreme smallness of the island
+which they were about to attack, and that they were by no means likely to
+be met with armies in the field owing to the enormous preponderance of
+numbers which they had assured to themselves.
+
+Piali, as we have said, was in command of the fleet, and Mustafa of the
+army; the corsairs did not arrive on the scene till some days afterwards.
+
+The Turks landed some men who encountered the Chevalier La Riviere and some
+Maltese troops, with whom they had some lively skirmishes. Unfortunately,
+in one of these the Chevalier was captured, put to the torture, and
+eventually beheaded for having wilfully misled the Turks. A council of war
+was held by Piali, Mustafa, and their principal officers, to deliberate on
+the best manner of prosecuting the enterprise on which they were engaged.
+The admiral, wishing to conform strictly with the instructions of Soliman,
+voted to delay all initiative until the arrival of the famous corsair.
+Mustafa, however, held a different opinion: the unfortunate Chevalier La
+Riviere had, before his death, informed the Turkish general that large and
+powerful succours were expected daily from Sicily. Secretly disquieted by
+this news, which he had at the time affected to disbelieve, Mustafa now
+urged immediate action. His opinion was that, in the first instance, they
+had better attack the castle of St. Elmo. It was a small and insignificant
+fort which at best would only delay them some five or six days; when this
+had fallen they could proceed to the more serious business of taking Il
+Borgo, the principal fortress on the island in which the Grand Master and
+most of the Knights were established. By the time St. Elmo had been taken
+they might reasonably expect that Dragut and his corsairs would have
+arrived, and, with these seasonable reinforcements, proceed to the really
+formidable portion of their task. In their decisions both admiral and
+general were wrong; to delay attack, once the troops were landed, was a
+counsel of pusillanimity hardly to be expected of Piali, but showing at the
+same time how he dreaded above all else departing one iota from the
+instructions which he had received. To attack the castle of St. Elmo first
+was a military mistake, because it could be--and was during the whole of
+the siege--reinforced from its larger sister Il Borgo.
+
+The discourse of Mustafa prevailed in the council of war, and the siege of
+St. Elmo was decided upon and immediately begun.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+THE SIEGE OF MALTA
+
+  The siege of Malta by the Turks; The capture of the fortress of St.
+  Elmo; The death of Dragut-Reis
+
+[Illustration: JEAN PARISOT DE LA VALETTE, GRAND MASTER OF THE KNIGHTS OF
+MALTA, AT THE SIEGE OF THAT ISLAND BY THE TURKS IN 1565.]
+
+There was an entire disregard of human life among the leaders of the
+Ottoman Turks at this time which is almost incredible; to attain their end
+in war they sacrificed thousands upon thousands of men with an absolutely
+callous indifference. In no chapter of the bloodstained history of their
+Empire was this trait more in evidence than it was at the siege of Malta.
+There was, however, a reason for this, which developed itself more and more
+as the ceaseless assaults on the positions of the Knights went on. From a
+military point of view, all the operations which took place were those of
+the siege of a fortress; as when at length St. Elmo fell the Turks turned
+their attention to the fortress of Il Borgo. The time-honoured method of
+the attack on a fortress, of approaching it by sap and mine, was here
+almost an impossibility, as the island of Malta is composed of solid rock
+through which it was practically impossible to drive trenches. It is true
+that the rock is of an exceptionally soft nature, easily cut through with
+proper tools; but you cannot cut through rock, no matter how soft it may
+be, when your operations are opposed at every step by a brave and vigilant
+enemy. Mustafa and the council of war had, as we have said, decided to
+begin operations by the siege of the fortress of St. Elmo. This place had
+been built from the designs of the Prior of Capua, an officer of the Order,
+and was situated at the extreme end of the promontory of Mount Sceberass,
+which juts out between the Great Port and the harbour of Marsa Muzetto. The
+fort was in a commanding position and dominated the entrance to the two
+principal harbours in the island. It was admirably adapted for repulsing an
+attack from the sea; but, owing to the proximity of other points of land
+upon which artillery could be mounted, was easily capable of attack by such
+an enemy as that by which it was now assailed.
+
+The principal preoccupation of the militant Prior of Capua had been to make
+it formidable on the side facing the sea; perhaps the designer had never
+contemplated the possibility that the day might dawn when it would be
+attacked from the landward side! However this may have been, Mustafa
+decided that it could and should be carried on this, its weakest face, and
+made his preparations accordingly.
+
+As far as it was possible to open trenches this was done, at the most
+prodigal expenditure of the lives of the pioneers. Where the rock proved
+absolutely impossible of manipulation redoubts were constructed of massive
+beams on which thick planks were bolted, the whole covered with wet earth
+which had to be collected with incredible toil from the country at the
+back. Disembarking their siege-guns, and utilising the cattle of the
+islanders for transporting them, the great cannon of the Turks were dragged
+up the slopes of the Mount and got into position; and by the 24th of May
+fire was opened on St. Elmo with ten guns which threw balls weighing eighty
+pounds. Besides these there were two culverins which threw balls of sixty
+pounds, and a huge basilisk, the projectile from which weighed no less than
+one hundred and sixty pounds. A terrible fire was opened against the walls
+of the fort, and so destructive did it immediately become that the Bailli
+of Negropont, the Knight in command, very soon became aware that his trust
+must be in the stout hearts and strong arms of his garrison; as the walls
+by which they were surrounded were hourly crumbling into nothingness.
+
+Regarding the matter from this point of view, he sent at once to the Grand
+Master by the Chevalier La Cerda demanding succour; this officer, "rendered
+eloquent by fear," exaggerated the peril to which the fort was exposed and
+stated that it could not possibly hold out for more than another eight
+days.
+
+"What losses have you had?" demanded the Grand Master.
+
+"Sire," replied La Cerda, "the fort may be compared to a sick man in his
+extremity, in the last stage of weakness, unable to sustain himself except
+by perpetual cordials and remedies."
+
+"Then I myself will be your physician," said the Grand Master with
+contempt, "and I will bring others with me. If that cannot cure you of fear
+it will, at all events, prevent the infidels from seizing upon the fort."
+
+There was no real hope in the mind of La Valette that St. Elmo could be
+saved from the enemy. The place was too weak, and none knew this fact
+better than the man to whom all the defences of the island were as familiar
+as the hilt of his own good sword; but, though he secretly deplored the
+necessity, he felt that if Malta were to be preserved it could only be done
+by delaying until succour should come from outside; every day, nay, every
+hour, was of importance, and he was prepared to sacrifice St. Elmo and the
+lives of its entire garrison to attain his end. He did not, however--to
+continue the simile of La Cerda--prescribe for others a medicine which he
+himself was not prepared to take, and when he said that he would go to the
+fort of St. Elmo it was no mere figure of speech. The council of the
+Knights, however, would not hear of the Grand Master thus sacrificing
+himself; well did these noble gentlemen know that there was none among them
+like unto him, that his name and his influence were worth an army in
+themselves. The outcry was so loud that La Valette had to yield; which he
+did the more readily when he saw the splendid emulation among his brethren
+to cross over to the beleaguered and crumbling fortress which promised
+nothing but the grave to those who should pass within the circle of fire by
+which it was now surrounded. To the Chevaliers Gonzales de Medran and de la
+Motte was conceded the proud privilege for which all the Knights were
+clamouring; and, accompanied by the tears and the prayers of their
+brethren, they passed to that place where, if death were certain, honour at
+least was immortal. Truly the heart warms somewhat to the days of chivalry
+when one reads of what was done at the siege of Malta. The motto of
+_Noblesse oblige_ was no dead letter in the sixteenth century. By this time
+the whole of Europe was awake to the peril of the Order, and, galloping for
+dear life across Europe, came the Knights, anxious and willing to share in
+the danger. For most of these gentlemen Sicily was the goal at which they
+aimed; arrived there they flung themselves into any boat or shallop which
+they could hire, and, heedless of the risk of capture by the Turkish fleet,
+totally ignorant of what was passing in Malta save that the infidel was at
+her gates, they passed across the channel which separates the two islands
+and joined their fellows at Il Borgo.
+
+Greatly heartened by the reinforcements brought to them by de Medran and de
+la Motte, the garrison of St. Elmo made a sortie, surprised the Turks in
+their entrenchments, and, under cover of the guns of the fort, succeeded in
+destroying nearly all the works which the enemy had so painfully built up.
+The Turks, however, when they had recovered from the surprise, were in such
+large numbers as to be able to rally and drive the Christians from the
+vantage points which they had gained; and to oblige them once again to
+retire into the fort. From this time onward there was never a day in which
+the garrison and the besiegers were not hand to hand in the trenches.
+
+Just after the first reinforcements had been thrown into St. Elmo there
+arrived on the scene Ali, the Lieutenant of Dragut. This corsair came from
+Alexandria with six galleys, on board of which were nine hundred men,
+reinforcements for the Turkish army. A few days after this the famous
+Dragut himself appeared, with thirteen galleys and two galleots, on board
+of which were sixteen hundred men.
+
+What must not have been the despairing feelings with which the defenders
+viewed the arrival of this augmentation to the swarming ranks of their
+foes! From afar they noted the vessels and knew, while Philip of Spain and
+Garzia de Toledo still procrastinated, that now was added to the number of
+their enemies the most famous captain who served the autocrat of the
+Eastern world. Very naturally the arrival of Dragut was hailed with
+acclamation by the Turks: every gun in that vast armada spoke in salute,
+every trumpet blared, every drum rolled to welcome the man honoured of the
+Padishah, notorious throughout the whole world of Europe for his implacable
+enmity to the Knights. The first preoccupation of the corsair was to inform
+himself as to the conduct of the operations. These, when disclosed to him,
+by no means met with his approval. This real leader immediately made it
+clear to Piali and Mustafa that which they should have done. In the first
+place they should have made themselves masters of the castle of Gozo, and
+then captured the Citt� Notabile. By doing this the supplies to the town
+and fortress of Il Borgo would have been cut off: besides--and more
+important than aught else--they would in this manner have closed the road
+to those succours expected by the Christians. Piali, who had desired from
+the first to undertake nothing without the advice of Dragut, now said that
+the siege of St. Elmo was not so far advanced after all, and, if the Basha
+of Tripoli should so direct, it could be raised at once. To this, however,
+Dragut would by no means consent.
+
+"That would have been well enough," he said, "if the affair had not gone so
+far; but, after the opening of the trenches and several days of attack, it
+is not possible to raise the siege without sullying the honour of the
+Sultan and discouraging the valour of the soldiers."
+
+It cannot be denied that, in acting as he did, the corsair displayed a
+self-restraint and a loyalty to the Sultan hardly to be expected in the
+circumstances. The jealousy which so often obtains among rival commanders
+was singularly in evidence in the forces of the Padishah: Dragut had good
+cause to be dissatisfied with the dispositions which had been made, and
+yet, for the reasons which we have quoted, he allowed them to proceed.
+Before the Basha had left Tripoli he had been engaged in communications
+with Muley Hamid, the then King of Tunis, who was feudatory of Spain.
+Anxious as was the corsair to aid in attacking his implacable enemies, the
+Knights, he could not afford to leave his own flank unguarded in Africa. He
+succeeded, however, in arriving at an understanding with the King of Tunis,
+and, further than this, he had assured himself, by means of his spies, that
+the succours which were to be sent from Sicily by the Spanish King could
+not possibly arrive for another two months. It was the negotiations which
+he was obliged to undertake with Muley Hamid which had caused his late
+arrival. As far as it is possible to judge, it was this circumstance, which
+(added to their own incomparable valour) turned the scale in favour of the
+Knights.
+
+Among all those brave men at Malta, on both sides, in this flaming month of
+June 1565, there were none who excelled the Basha of Tripoli. "No one had
+ever seen a more intrepid general officer," says de Vertot. "He passed
+entire days in the trenches and at the batteries. Among his different
+talents none understood better than did he the direction and conduct of
+artillery, which was his special _m�tier_. By his orders on June 1st a
+second battery was constructed closer to the fort and parallel to the one
+already in existence, in order that an absolutely continuous fire might be
+maintained. He mounted four guns on the opposite side of Marsa Muzetto
+Harbour on a projecting point of land, from which a further enfilading fire
+smote the doomed fortress on the flank: this point has been known ever
+since as the Point Dragut."
+
+A ravelin in advance of the fortress on the land side was scourged without
+ceasing by the arquebus fire of the Janissaries. One evening, as the return
+fire had slackened and all seemed quiet within this work, some Turkish
+engineers stole forth from the trenches to reconnoitre. Approaching the
+cavalier, all was still as death; the bold sappers pushed on as far as the
+ditch by which the work was surrounded, creeping on hands and knees. They
+let themselves down noiselessly into the ditch, and then, one standing on
+the shoulders of another, peeped in upon their Christian foes. Whether or
+no the sentry had been slain by a stray shot, or whether he too slept, can
+never be known; but the cavalier was unguarded; all within it slept the
+sleep of men utterly exhausted. The sappers crept back to their trenches,
+fetched scaling-ladders, swept like a flood over the rim of the cavalier,
+and put to death every man whom they found. Profiting by their advantage,
+the Turks dashed over the bridge connecting the cavalier with the fort;
+here, however, they were met by Sergeant-Major Guerare and a handful of
+soldiers aroused by him. These men were instantly succoured by the
+Chevaliers de Vercoyran and de Medran, who were immediately followed by the
+Bailli of Negropont and several other Knights. An obstinate hand-to-hand
+combat now ensued; fresh Turks came up to the attack, but were mown down in
+swathes by an enfilading fire from two cannons which the defenders of the
+fort managed to bring to bear upon them. More pioneers arrived from the
+trenches, carrying planks and sacks filled with wool. These men tried to
+effect a permanent lodgment, but the fire was too hot on the Christian
+side, and men fell in hundreds. Nothing daunted, the Turks reared their
+scaling-ladders against the sides of the fortress itself, and attempted to
+scale the walls; but for this the ladders were too short, and the
+assailants were hurled back into the ditch. This attack, in which the
+Turkish arms were rewarded by the capture of the ravelin behind the
+cavalier, is said to have cost them the lives of three thousand men. It
+lasted from daybreak until midday.
+
+On the side of the Christians twenty Knights and one hundred soldiers were
+slain; but worst of all, from their point of view, the ravelin remained in
+the hands of their enemies. The chevalier Abel de Bridiers de la Gardampe
+having received a ball through his body, some of his comrades ran to place
+him under cover. "Count me no longer among the living," said the Knight.
+"You will be better employed in defending the rest of our brethren." He
+then, unassisted, dragged himself to the foot of the altar in the chapel,
+where his dead body was discovered when all was over.
+
+So far communication remained established between St. Elmo and their
+comrades in Il Borgo on the opposite side of the harbour; in consequence
+the wounded were removed and their places taken by one hundred fresh men
+under the Chevalier Vagnon. To the Bailli of Negropont and the Commandeur
+Broglio, La Valette sent a message to return to Il Borgo. These gallant and
+aged veterans, both of whom were wounded, whose faces were scorched by the
+sun and blackened with powder, whose bodies were well-nigh worn out with
+perpetual vigil and hand-to-hand fighting, refused stoutly to quit their
+post, which now was naught but a dreadful shambles filled with corpses
+mangled out of recognition and heads and limbs which had been torn and
+hacked from their bodies.
+
+Dragut now proposed to erect batteries on the same side of the Great Port
+as that on which Il Borgo was situated; on the point now known as Ricasoli,
+but which was then and for centuries afterwards known as the Punta Delle
+Forche (or Point of the Gallows, because it was here that all pirates was
+executed; and their bodies, swinging in chains, were the first objects that
+met the eye on entering the Great Port). In this he was overruled ruled by
+Piali, who declared that he had not sufficient men to spare, and the
+Knights of II Borgo would soon render the battery untenable even if they
+should succeed in erecting it, which the Turkish admiral now considered
+extremely doubtful. The siege of St. Elmo, which Mustafa had said would
+last at the outside for five or six days, had now been in progress for four
+weeks; and, although the fort was in a ruinous condition, nothing seemed
+capable of daunting those invincible warriors by which it was held.
+
+The position in St. Elmo now was that the Turks still held on to the
+ravelin which they had captured; this they had built up to such a height
+that they could look over the parapet of the fortress and shoot down with
+arquebus fire any one whom they could see. Meanwhile the Turkish sappers
+delved night and day in their endeavour to undermine the parapet, which, if
+blown up, would give them free access to the interior of the fort; while
+another party, by use of the yards of galleys and huge planks of wood,
+busied themselves in constructing a bridge to connect the ravelin with the
+parapet. Lamirande, one of the most active of the defenders of the fort,
+viewed these preparations without undue alarm, as he was aware that, by the
+nature of the ground, it would be almost impossible to excavate
+sufficiently under the parapet to place an effective mine. As, however, the
+sapping was causing the parapet to incline outwards, and it was possible
+that it might almost at any moment fall over into the ditch, he caused a
+second parapet to be erected inside the first and artillery to be mounted
+thereon. Having done this he caused a false sortie to be made on the
+following night, and when the Turks rushed to the attack he, accompanied by
+a party of sappers, sallied out into the ditch and burned the bridge which
+had been made. The Turks, returning after their fruitless assault, found
+their bridge destroyed, but with untiring activity set to work and
+constructed it afresh. Dragging cannon to the very edge of the ravelin,
+they, on the very next evening, revenged themselves by also making a false
+attack: they swarmed into the ditch, and, placing their scaling-ladders
+against the walls, pretended that an escalade was to be attempted. The
+garrison, deceived, appeared on the parapet in large numbers, when a
+murderous fire at point-blank range was opened upon them from the ravelin.
+So great was the execution done on this occasion that the garrison lost
+more men than had hitherto been the case in the most determined attacks
+which they had sustained.
+
+It now seemed as if indeed the end had come, that the garrison had done all
+that was in the power of mortal man and nothing was left for them but to
+retire while there was yet time. Accordingly choice was made of the
+chevalier Median to represent the desperate extremities to which they were
+reduced to La Valette. It was well known that for none among the Knights
+had the Grand Master more respect than he had for Medran, one of the
+bravest and most chivalrous of them all. He, at least, could never be
+suspected of cowardice, feebleness, at a desire to desert his post. This
+gallant Knight crossed the harbour on his dolorous errand and was received
+by his chief: to him he represented the state of affairs as it has here
+been set down, assuring him that at best the fort could but hold out for a
+few days longer.
+
+A chapter of the Knights Grand Cross was immediately held and the most part
+of them were of opinion that the time had come to abandon a hopeless
+position. But this decision did not meet with the approval of the Grand
+Master. No one was more sensible than he of the peril to which their
+brethren were exposed; at the same time, he contended, that there were
+occasions on which it was necessary to sacrifice a certain number for the
+good of the whole Order. He had certain information that, if St. Elmo were
+abandoned, the Viceroy of Sicily would hazard nothing for the relief of the
+island; that upon the arrival of succours depended the existence of their
+ancient and honourable confederacy: therefore, at no matter what cost, they
+were bound to hold out as long as possible. So dominant was the personality
+of the Grand Master that, in a short time, he had won over the votes of the
+chapter and Medran was ordered to return to St. Elmo and deliver to the
+garrison a message that the siege must take its course.
+
+Medran accordingly returned and reported to his comrades the result of his
+embassy. Several of the older Knights received the command with due
+submission, but among those who were younger there were murmurings. These
+men deemed the answer to their appeal hard and cruel; they could see no
+object in the loss of their lives, which they well knew would all be
+sacrificed in the next assault. They accordingly, to the number of
+fifty-three, wrote a letter to the Grand Master, demanding permission to
+abandon St. Elmo and retire to Il Borgo. If their request were denied they
+announced their design to sally forth, sword in hand, and perish in the
+ranks of the enemy. The Commandeur de Cornet was the bearer of this letter,
+which was received by the Grand Master with sorrow and indignation. To
+reassure them, he sent three commissioners to inspect the place. This was
+done, and one of them, a Knight of Greek descent named Constantine
+Castriot, reported that the fort could still hold out a while longer. When
+he announced this at St. Elmo the recalcitrant Knights were so furious with
+him that the Baili of Negropont had to sound "the alarm" to prevent a
+disgraceful fracas. The commissioners returned to Il Borgo. After hearing
+their report La Valette wrote a letter to those by whom he had been
+memorialised to the following effect:
+
+  "Return to the convent, my brothers; you will there be in greater
+  security; and on our part we shall feel a greater sense of security in
+  the conservation of so important a place, on which depends the safety of
+  the island and the honour of our Order."
+
+Never were men so taken aback as were the Knights in St. Elmo when they
+received this response; here it was intimated to them that that which they
+refused to do on account of the danger thereof was to be undertaken by
+others. This was no more than a fact, as La Valette was besieged with
+applications from, not only the Knights, but also the simple soldiers of
+the garrison, to be allowed to pass over to St. Elmo and die if necessary
+to the last man. It was, therefore, with prayers and tears that the Knights
+besought the Grand Master to allow them to remain. At first La Valette was
+adamant. He preferred, he said, the rawest militia which was prepared to
+obey his orders, to Knights who knew not their duty. In the end, however,
+he yielded, and in the fortress of St. Elmo, that crushed and ruined
+charnel-house, its defences gaping wide, its every corner exposed night and
+day to a sweeping murderous fire, there remained a host of men sadly torn
+and battered, but animated by such a spirit that nothing the Turks could
+devise made upon it the least impression. These great and gallant gentlemen
+had had their moment of weakness; they had been heartened to the right
+conception of their duty by the noble veteran who was their chief. To him
+had they turned at last, as his obedient children who had had their moment
+of rebellion in a trial as hard as was ever undergone by man. And now, as
+the inevitable end drew near, it was as if they would imitate the Roman
+gladiator with that terrible chorus of his: "Ave C�sar morituri te
+salutant."
+
+All day and every day did the garrison fight, snatching such repose as was
+possible when their pertinacious enemies, worn out by fatigue and the
+terrible heat, could no longer be led to the attack against those whom they
+now firmly believed to be in league with Shaitan himself; "For how else,"
+demanded Janissary and Spahi alike, "could infidels like these make head
+against those chosen of the Prophet like ourselves."
+
+At this time the garrison took into use a device attributed to the Grand
+Master himself. This consisted in hoops of wood which were first thoroughly
+soaked in alcohol and then boiled in oil; they were then tightly bound with
+cotton or wool, also soaked in inflammable liquids mixed with saltpetre and
+gunpowder. Once these fiendish contrivances were set alight nothing availed
+to put them out, and they were feared as was naught else by the Turks
+during the remainder of the time they were in Malta. They were particularly
+deadly against the Turks, and at times two or more soldiers mounting the
+breach would be caught in one of these fiery circles, and the unfortunate
+wretches would be burnt alive. Even the Janissaries refused to advance at
+times when these fireworks were being flung down upon their flowing
+garments.
+
+On June 16th another attack was made on the fortress, and, incredible as it
+may seem, it was repulsed with such awful slaughter that at last the Turks
+would not face the swords of the garrison. Alter this the enemy succeeded
+in drawing so close a cordon round the place that no more succours could
+reach it, and the end was but a matter of time. The day before it came
+Dragut, who, with his usual intrepidity, was standing in the midst of a hot
+fire, was struck on the side of the head by a stone dislodged from a wall
+by a cannon-ball. At the moment when this happened he was holding a council
+of war in the trenches with Piali, a Sanjak, and the principal Turkish
+engineer. The same shot which wounded Dragut killed the Sanjak on the spot.
+Piali caused a cloak to be thrown over the body of the corsair in order
+that his state should not be observed by the soldiers, and as soon as
+possible had him removed to his tent, where he lay unconscious till the
+following day.
+
+The council on which the corsair had been engaged when he received his
+mortal wound had for its object the complete isolation of St. Elmo from Il
+Borgo; his dispositions were completed and his orders given to the engineer
+just before he was struck.
+
+The agony of St. Elmo was drawing to an end; completely hemmed in by the
+latest dispositions of Dragut, the fortress was at its last gasp; a brave
+Maltese swimmer managed to slip through the cordon, swim the harbour, and
+deliver to the Grand Master a letter from the Bailli of Negropont. The
+Grand Master made one last effort to throw succours and reinforcements into
+the place, but these were beaten off with terrible slaughter: nothing now
+remained but to await the inevitable tragedy.
+
+[Illustration: DEATH OF DRAGUT AT THE SIEGE OF MALTA.]
+
+On the night of June 22nd the defenders of St. Elmo, having now lost all
+hope of being supported, made ready for death. Into them La Valette had
+breathed his own heroic spirit, and none among them counselled or dreamed
+of surrender. The Order to which they had given their allegiance now
+demanded of them the last sacrifice which it was in their power to make,
+and this was offered in the manner most fitting to its tenets. These
+exhausted, war-worn, battle-scarred warriors repaired to the chapel, where
+they confessed, and made ready by partaking together of the sacrament,
+"and, having thus surrendered their souls to God, each retired to his post
+to die on the bed of honour with arms in his hand." Those among the Knights
+who were too severely wounded or too ill to stand caused chairs to be
+carried to the breach in which they seated themselves and awaited the
+assault. For four hours did these indomitable men withstand the might of a
+host innumerable: at the conclusion of this period there remained alive but
+sixty of the garrison. Mustafa ceased the assault for a few moments only to
+replace the storming party by fresh troops, and then the end came. Almost
+the last to fall were the Chevalier Lamirande and the veteran Bailli of
+Negropont, and when the crescent banner was planted on the walls there
+remained alive not one of those defenders who had held the fort. Several of
+Dragut's officers ran to his tent and announced the taking of St. Elmo. The
+great captain was in his last extremity and unable to speak, "He, however,
+manifested his joy by several signs, and, raising his eyes to heaven as if
+in thankfulness for its mercies, immediately expired: a captain of rare
+valour and even abundantly more humane than are ordinarily these corsairs."
+
+The Basha Piali, on entering the fort and observing with what miserable
+resources it had so long been held exclaimed, as he looked across the
+harbour to Il Borgo:
+
+"What will not the parent do to us, when so small a son has cost us the
+lives of our bravest soldiers?"
+
+There is no record of what that cruel savage, Mustafa, said on this
+occasion; his deeds, however, spoke eloquently. He caused the bodies of the
+Knights to be decapitated and nailed to wooden crosses, while across their
+corpses were slashed a cross in derision of the religion of his foes. The
+bodies were then cast into the harbour, and were washed up at the foot of
+Il Borgo. Instantly the Grand Master ordered the decapitation of all the
+Turkish prisoners, and their heads were fired from cannon into the camp of
+Mustafa.
+
+With the remainder of the siege, which was yet to last till September 18th,
+we have no concern in this book. It is only necessary to say that the men
+of Il Borgo were worthy to stand in the same category with the defenders of
+St. Elmo, which is equivalent to stating that in them also was discovered
+the last limit of heroism. The Grand Master survived the siege, his
+monument is the noble city of "Valetta" built on Mount Sceberras. The Turks
+abandoned the siege and returned to Constantinople on the arrival of some
+insignificant reinforcements from Sicily. So terrible had been the
+resistance of the Knights that no heart was left in their armada. Of Dragut
+there remains but little to be said: he was perhaps the best educated of
+the corsairs and less cruel than was usually their habit. Although not so
+renowned as his more celebrated master, Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, this is,
+perhaps, because his career was cut short at the siege of Malta at a
+comparatively early age. Although he never attained the rank of
+Admiralissimo to the Grand Turk, that potentate, as we have seen, placed in
+him the greatest confidence, and relied largely on his judgment, especially
+when sea-affairs were in question. Like the Barbarossas before him, he rose
+from nothing to the height to which he eventually attained by sheer force
+of intellect and character. In the stormy times in which his lot was cast
+he never faltered in his onward way, never repined, never looked back,
+sustained as he was by a consciousness of his own capability to rule the
+wild spirits by whom he lived surrounded. So it is that, whatever other
+opinion we may hold of Dragut, we cannot deny that in this captain of the
+Sea-wolves were blended rare qualities, which caused him to shine as a
+capable administrator, a fine seaman, but above all as a supreme leader of
+men. Dragut died with arms in his hands fighting those whom he considered
+to be his bitterest enemies. He did not live to see the repulse of Piali
+and Mustapha, and it is to be presumed that he died assured in his own mind
+that victory would rest with the Moslem host. For such a man as this no
+death could have been more welcome.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+ALI BASHA
+
+  Ali, the Basha of Algiers, succeeds to Dragut--He conquers the Kingdom
+  of Tunis, captures four galleys from the Knights of Malta, joins Piali
+  Basha in his raidings preliminary to the battle of Lepanto--The
+  gathering of the Christian hosts and the arrival of Don John of Austria
+  in the Mediterranean to take command.
+
+"Now I have heard several mariners and captains of the sea, nay, even
+Knights of Malta, debate among themselves this question, as to which was
+the greater and better seaman, Dragut or Occhiali? And some held for one
+and some for the other; those who held for Occhiali declaring that he had
+held greater and more honourable charges than Dragut, because he commanded
+as General and Admiral for the Grand Turk and that _il fit belle action_ at
+the battle of Lepanto." Pierre de Bourdeille, the Seigneur de Brant�me,
+from whom we make the above quotation, was himself present at the siege of
+Malta and, besides this, as is well known, gossiped in his own inimitable
+way concerning men and women of his time, from corsairs to courtesans. When
+such contemporary authorities as those mentioned could not agree it is
+quite certain that we of the twentieth century cannot decide on the rival
+claims to distinction between the Bashaw of Tripoli and his follower
+Occhiali, as he was known to the Christians, or Ali Basha, as he was called
+by the Turks. Ali Basha has a title to fame in the fact that he is
+mentioned by Cervantes in his _Don Quijote de la Mancha_ under the name of
+"Uchali" in chapter xxxix., "Donde el cautivo cuenta su vida y sucesos."
+The captive is supposed to have been no less a person than the famous
+Cervantes himself, and he briefly describes how Uchali became "Rey de
+Argel," or King of Algiers.
+
+Ali was a Christian, having been born at a miserable little village in
+Calabria called Licastelli. Nothing whatever is known of his birth and
+parentage, and he does not appear even to have possessed a Christian name,
+although born in a Christian land. He followed from his earliest youth the
+calling of a mariner; "he was from infancy inured to salt water," says
+Joseph Morgan, in his _Compleat History of Algiers_, and he was, as a mere
+boy, captured by Ali Ahamed, Admiral of Algiers, and was chained to the
+starboard-bow oar in the galley of that officer. He was thus very early in
+life "inured" to suffering, and must have possessed a constitution of iron
+to withstand thus, in boyhood, the hardships of the life of a galley-slave,
+which as a rule broke down the endurance of strong men in a very few years.
+Morgan presents us with a description of him at this period which in these
+more squeamish days can certainly not be set down in its entirety: suffice
+it to say that he suffered all his days from what is known as "scald-head,"
+and that personal filthiness was one of his principal characteristics.
+
+For some years Ali remained at the heart-breaking toil of the rower's
+bench: cut off from home, which to him meant nothing, devoid of kinsfolk,
+alone--miserably alone in a world which, so far, had given him naught but
+the chain and the whip--it is not a matter for surprise that he became a
+Mussulman, thus freeing himself from slavery. From the time that he took
+this step his fortunes mended rapidly in that strange medley of savagery
+and bloodshed in which his lot was cast.
+
+Alert, strong, capable, and vigorous, he became in early manhood chief
+boatswain in the galley in which his apprenticeship had been passed--a
+position which enabled him to accumulate a small store of ducats, with
+which he bought a share in a brigantine. Here he soon acquired sufficient
+wealth to become captain and owner of a galley, in which he soon gained the
+reputation of being one of the boldest corsairs on the Barbary coast.
+Having in some sort made a name for himself, his next step was to seek for
+a patron who could make use of his valour, address, and capability for
+command. His choice was soon made, as who in all the Mediterranean, in his
+early days, held such a name as Dragut? He accordingly entered the service
+of the Basha of Tripoli, and, under his command, became well known to the
+officers of the Grand Turk, particularly to the Admiral, Piali Basha, to
+whom he was able to render some important services.
+
+There is no object to be gained in lingering over the earlier years of this
+notable corsair, as we should thus only be repeating what has been said
+about Dragut, whose lieutenant and trusted follower he became. He
+accompanied his master to the siege of Malta, and when Dragut was slain the
+Capitan-Basha, Piali, named him as successor to his chief as Viceroy of
+Tripoli. Ali sailed from Malta to Tripoli, taking with him the remains of
+Dragut, to be buried as that chieftain had directed. When he arrived on the
+Barbary coast he made himself master of the slaves and treasure which had
+been left behind by Dragut; shortly after this he was confirmed in his
+Vice-royalty of Tripoli by the Grand Turk; thenceforward increasing, both
+his wealth and the terror in which his name was held, by continual raids
+upon the Christians, more particularly on the coasts of Sicily, Calabria,
+and Naples. It is curious to observe the sort of spite which all the
+renegadoes seem to have harboured against the countries in which they were
+born.
+
+In March 1568, owing to the fall of Mohammed Basha, the Vice-royalty of
+Algiers became vacant, and, through the good offices of his old friend
+Piali, Ali became Governor. He thus returned to occupy a position of
+literally sovereign power to the city which he had first entered as a
+galley-slave.
+
+That he was no negligent Governor and that he took an entirely intelligent
+view of his functions, is proved by an occurrence which took place in this
+same year in Spain. The Moriscoes in the Kingdom of Granada revolted
+against their Spanish Governor, by whom they were sorely oppressed. They
+sent messages to Ali at Algiers, begging for succour against their
+persecutor. But the Basha would send no expedition; he permitted all and
+sundry to go as volunteers, but gave out publicly that "it more concerned
+him to defend well his own State than to interfere in the affairs of
+others." He even went farther than this, and when a number of Moriscoes,
+who were settled at Algiers, embarked a quantity of arms for transportation
+to the coast of Andalusia, he put an embargo on the vessels and would not
+allow them to sail, saying "he would never suffer the exportation of what
+was so necessary for the defence of his own dominions." At last, after much
+importunity, he consented "that all such as had two of a sort--as muskets,
+swords, or other weapons--might, if they thought fit, send over one of
+them, provided they did it gratis and purely for the cause' sake; but he
+would never allow any of them to strip themselves of their arms for lucre."
+
+Ali, being now firmly established at Algiers, took up arms against the
+neighbouring State of Tunis. For long years now the King of Tunis had been
+protected by the Spaniards--a nation whom the Sea-wolves always held in
+singular abhorrence as the most bigoted of the Christian Powers, and who
+held in thrall many of their co-religionists. Hamid, son of Hassan, who now
+ruled in Tunis, had reduced that unfortunate State to anarchy bordering on
+rebellion, and the whole country, torn by internal feud, was ready to rise
+against him. The Goletta was in the hands of the Spaniards; Carouan, an
+inland town, had set up a king of its own, while the maritime towns passed
+from the domination of the Sea-wolves to that of the Christians, and from
+the Christians back to the Sea-wolves, according to which party happened to
+be the stronger for the time being.
+
+El Maestro Fray Diego de Haedo, "Abad de Fromesta de la Orden del Patriarca
+San Benito" and "natural del Valle de Carranca," whose _Topografia e
+Historia de Argel_ (or Algiers) was printed in Valladolid in the year 1612,
+gives an account of Hamid at this time in which he describes that monarch
+as an "unpopular tyrant who sadly persecuted his vassals and the friends of
+his father; who could by no means suffer his tyrannies and those of his
+ministers, the scum of the earth ("hombres baxos"), to whom he had given
+the principal offices of the kingdom. Accordingly, since the time that Ali
+had become Basha of Algiers, letters had been written to him importuning
+him to come to Tunis that he might possess himself of that city and
+kingdom."
+
+There were three principal conspirators--the Alcaid Bengabara, General of
+the Cavalry, the Alcaid Botaybo, and the Alcaid Alcadaar. Ali, however, was
+too shrewd a man to move until he had satisfied himself by reports from his
+own adherents; he, therefore, awaited the result of investigations made by
+spies from Algiers. At last, in the beginning of the year 1569, when the
+offers from the Alcaids had been three times renewed and the Basha was
+assured that the people in Tunis were sincere in their offer to him of the
+sovereignty of the kingdom--which they begged him to conquer and hold in
+the name of the Ottoman Empire--the ex-galley-slave no longer hesitated. He
+left Algiers in the month of October, leaving that city in charge of one
+Mami Corso, a fellow renegado. Unlike Dragut, who would have gone by sea,
+he set out by land with some five thousand corsairs and renegadoes. On the
+way he was reinforced by some six thousand cavalry of the wild tribes of
+the hinterland, then as ever ready to join in a fray with promise of booty:
+doubly ready in this case, as it was to harass so unpopular a tyrant as
+Hamid. Passing through Constantine and Bona, he continued to march towards
+Tunis, his following augmenting as he proceeded, and adding to his forces
+ten light field-guns. Arriving at Beja, a town which Haedo describes as
+being but two short days' march from Tunis, he came upon a fortress,
+recently erected by Hamid, mounting fourteen brass cannon. Here he halted,
+whereupon Hamid sallied out to give him battle at the head of some three
+thousand troops, horse and foot. The engagement had scarcely begun when the
+three Alcaids, who had been in communication with Ali, deserted with all
+their following. Hamid fled to Tunis, expecting to find shelter there, but
+he was hotly pursued by the corsairs, who followed him up to Al-Burdon,
+where his summer palace was situated. Hamid, finding that his people were
+everywhere in revolt, fled to the Goletta, carrying with him a quantity of
+money, jewels, and portable valuables, and placed himself under the
+protection of the Spanish garrison--not, however, without the loss of the
+major portion of his baggage, plundered from him by certain Moors in the
+course of his flight.
+
+Like Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, Ali was now lord of Algiers and Tunis, and as
+he was, for a corsair, a man of wide views, he treated his new subjects
+with consideration. He made, however, one curious mistake not to have been
+expected from one so politic: he demanded tribute from the tribes of the
+hinterland. In those days, particularly in Northern Africa, men paid
+tribute to an overlord because he was stronger than they; because
+retribution followed swiftly and suddenly upon refusal. To order tribute to
+be paid without being ready to strike was merely to expose the man making
+the demand to derision. Particularly was this the case with the fierce
+land-pirates of the desert, whose habit it was to exact and not to pay
+tribute. To Ali the Sheiks replied that "if he wanted tribute from them he
+must demand it lance in hand in the field, for there and nowhere else were
+they accustomed to pay: that their coin was steel lance-heads and not
+golden aspers." After this, says Morgan, "the Basha thought it well to
+dissemble."
+
+Ali, being in no position to wage war in the desert against these people,
+had to swallow the insult and to turn his attention to regulating the
+internal affairs of his newly acquired kingdom. This he succeeded in doing
+sufficiently by the month of June in the following year to enable him to
+leave Tunis in the hands of one Rabadan, a Sardinian renegado, and to start
+himself for Constantinople. His reason for doing this was the old one of
+attempting to consolidate his power in Northern Africa by appealing to the
+Sultan for help. As long as the Goletta remained in the hands of the
+Spaniards no corsair could feel himself secure in either Tunis or Algiers.
+The object of Ali was to beg from the Grand Turk men and ships to assist
+him to chase the Spaniards out of Africa.
+
+The month of June 1570, in consequence, saw Ali once more at sea in his
+"Admiral galley," steering northwards to the Golden Horn. Carrying with
+them a favourable breeze from the south-east, the galleys spread their huge
+lateen sails, and the straining rowers had rest awhile. The squadron
+consisted of twenty-four galleys. Off Cape Passaro, in Sicily, a small
+vessel was captured which gave information that five galleys of the Knights
+of Malta were at anchor at Licata, a small harbour in the neighbourhood,
+and that they were on the point of sailing for Malta. The decision of Ali
+was taken on the instant: were he to go in and attack them with the
+overwhelming force at his command the crews might escape to the shore; even
+the Knights of Malta could hardly be expected to fight twenty-four galleys
+with five. He was anxious to capture the ships, but above all to capture
+those by whom they were manned: to have the satisfactory revenge of seeing
+the proud Knights stripped naked and chained to the benches of his own
+fleet.
+
+The hot Mediterranean sun poured down out of a cloudless sky as the
+Sea-wolves made their offing; out of sight of land they lay, but right in
+the course which the galleys of the Christians were bound to take. The
+great yards, with their lateen sails, were got down on deck, and, oar in
+hand, the Moslems awaited their prey. Presently the Maltese galleys were
+discovered coming leisurely along, under oars and sails, and then--when it
+was too late--the Knights discovered the snare into which they had fallen.
+There was but scant time for preparation or deliberation, and who shall
+blame four out of the five if they decided to try to escape? for it was
+escape or annihilation.
+
+But there was one which did not fly, "Una galera hizo cara a los Turcos"
+(One single galley turned her bows towards the Turks), says that faithful
+chronicler Haedo. She was named the _Santa Ana_, but the name of her heroic
+commander has not come down to us. Even as Grenfell "at Flores in the
+Azores," stood upon the deck of the little _Revenge_ on that memorable
+August day in 1591, when "he chose to die rather than to dishonour himself,
+his country, and her Majesty's ship," so also did this Knight of Malta bear
+down on the twenty-four that were his foes.
+
+When Don John of Austria, being at the time young and inexperienced in
+warfare on the sea, wrote to the Marquis of Villafranca, General of the
+Galleys of Sicily, requesting advice on the subject of galley attacking
+galley, that officer replied to him, "Never fire your arquebus at the foe
+until you are so close at hand that his blood will leap into your face at
+the discharge." If we bear in mind such an instruction as this it will help
+us to picture that close-packed sanguinary conflict upon which the
+Mediterranean sun looked down on this day. Eight to one, all that could
+find room to get alongside of the _Santa Ana_, fought with the Knight and
+his followers. The issue was, of course, never in doubt for a moment.
+"Muertos y cansados" (Dead and deadbeat), says Haedo, the caballeros and
+soldados of the Christian ship could at length hold out no longer. The
+Sea-wolves were victorious, the proud banner of Saint John was lowered; but
+never in all its history had it been more nobly upheld, and the galley
+_Santa Ana_, commanded by that unknown member of the great Christian
+military hierarchy of the sixteenth century, may well stand in the roll of
+fame alongside of the _Revenge_, the _Vengeur_, and the _Victory_.
+
+The _Capitana_, or "Admiral's galley," of the Knights, being hotly pursued,
+ran ashore with one of her consorts at Licata: the crews landed, but were
+pursued and overtaken. One galley escaped altogether, but four out of the
+five were taken. So notable a victory as this over the Knights caused so
+much rejoicing in the fleet of the Sea-wolves that Ali determined to
+celebrate it by a triumphal return to Algiers instead of proceeding
+directly to Constantinople. Accordingly, the ships' heads were turned south
+once more, and upon July 20th, 1570, the fleet arrived in the African port,
+"on sus galeras todas llenas de muchas banderas"--with galleys gaily
+beflagged.
+
+[Illustration: A GALLEY OF THE KNIGHTS OF MALTA.]
+
+The procession entered the harbour in three divisions of eight galleys: and
+towing behind each division was one of the captured galleys of the Knights.
+In memory of his prowess Ali ordered that the shields and bucklers taken
+from the Maltese galleys, which bore upon them emblazoned the white cross
+of "the Religion," should be hung up in the great arched gate of the
+Marina. Also there was placed here the image of Saint John the Baptist,
+taken from the _Capitana_ galley, "all of which remain," says Haedo, "until
+this day" _(i.e._ 1612), except the image of Saint John, which in the reign
+of Hassan Basha, a Venetian renegado, was taken down and burned at the
+instance of the Morabutos, "los letrados de los Moros" (the learned among
+the Moors). It is an instructive commentary on the fear and respect in
+which the Knights of Malta were held that such a man as Ali should have
+considered it a triumph worth the celebrating when he defeated five of
+their vessels with twenty-four of his own.
+
+The next occurrence in the life of Ali was one of those to which the
+Sea-wolves were subjected from time to time, and which do not seem to have
+caused them much trouble or anxiety. This was a mutiny of the Janissaries
+in Algiers, who very reasonably objected to being left without their pay. A
+mutiny of the Janissaries, however, was somewhat a serious matter, as they
+were accustomed to the enjoyment of many privileges, and were, as we have
+said elsewhere, a picked corps who had it in their power even to coerce the
+Sultan himself upon occasions.
+
+Those of them who were in Algiers demanded "Who was this corsair who dared
+to keep the picked men of the army of the Grand Turk waiting for their pay,
+as if they were no better than his slaves?" Such a thing as a mutiny was,
+in the days of which we speak, a matter for which any prudent corsair had
+to be prepared. Ali was in no means discomposed, and, as the crisis had
+become acute on shore, he went to sea, where he was under no obligation to
+pay his men, who paid themselves at the expense of their enemies. He put to
+sea with twenty galleys, and, shortly after leaving Algiers, he met with a
+galley from the Levant, from which he received information that a powerful
+armada was preparing in Constantinople for an expedition against the
+Christians. He steered for Coron in the Morea, where he was almost
+immediately joined by the Ottoman fleet, the commander of which force was
+overjoyed to find so formidable a reinforcement under so renowned a captain
+as Ali.
+
+Soliman the Magnificent had died in 1566, and had been succeeded by his
+son, Selim; this prince, bred in the Seraglio, was weak and licentious,
+given to that strong drink forbidden by the Prophet to an extent which
+caused him to be nicknamed by the Spaniards as "el ebrio," or "el bebedor."
+
+This was a state of affairs which boded ill for the Turkish Empire, and
+Selim II. had been educated in a very different manner from that which had
+hitherto been the custom. Speaking of this, Gibbon says, "Instead of the
+slothful luxury of the Seraglio, the heirs of royalty were educated in the
+council and the field. From early youth they were entrusted by their
+fathers with the command of provinces and of armies; and this manly
+institution, which was often productive of civil war, must have essentially
+contributed to the discipline and vigour of the monarchy."
+
+Drunkard and weakling as he was, Selim had his ambitions. He wished to
+signalise his reign by some great conquest, such as had added lustre to the
+rule of his father; and in consequence he laid claim to the island of
+Cyprus, then belonging to Venice, The Venetians, having strengthened the
+fortifications of the island and fitted out their navy, sought alliances in
+Europe to curb the pretensions of the Porte. In this they found support,
+instant and generous, from the Pope Pius V. Of this great ecclesiastic
+Prescott says: "He was one of those Pontiffs who seemed to have been called
+forth by the exigencies of the time to uphold the pillars of Catholicism as
+they were yet trembling under the assaults of Luther."
+
+The Pope, Philip II. of Spain, and Venice formed what was known as the
+"Holy League," and, having formed it, immediately began to quarrel among
+themselves as to what its functions were to be. The Venetians wished all
+its efforts to be directed to safeguarding Cyprus, while Philip and his
+viceroys were anxious to attack the Sea-wolves on the coast of Africa in
+their strongholds. After much squabbling, an agreement was come to. The
+principal items of this were, that the Pope should pay one-sixth of the
+expenses, Venice two-sixths, and Spain three-sixths; that each party should
+appoint its own Commander-in-Chief, and that Don John of Austria should be
+in supreme command of the whole forces assembled. The contracting parties
+were to furnish 200 galleys, 100 transports, 50,000 foot, 4,500 horse, and
+the requisite artillery and stores.
+
+While the Christians were negotiating and talking, the Turks were acting.
+It was in May that the Pope caused the treaty to be publicly read in full
+consistory; in April the Turkish fleet had got to sea and committed
+terrible ravages in the Adriatic, laying waste to Venetian territory.
+
+While ships and men were gathering, and while the fleet which it was to be
+his fortune to defeat was pursuing its career in the Mediterranean, Don
+John of Austria left Madrid for the south on June 6th, 1571. When he
+arrived at Barcelona he made a pilgrimage to the Hermitage of Our Lady of
+Montserrat, where his father Charles V. had confessed and received the
+sacrament before he sailed on his voyage to the Barbary coast in his
+expedition against Barbarossa. From Barcelona he sailed with thirty galleys
+to Genoa, where he arrived on the 25th, and was lodged in the palace of
+Andrea Doria. In August he arrived by water at Naples.
+
+By this time all Europe was aflame with excitement: warriors of noble birth
+were flocking to serve under the standard of the brother of the King of
+Spain, who was regarded as the very mirror of chivalry. The following
+description of Don John, at Naples, is from the pen of that great historian
+Prescott:
+
+  "Arrangements had been made in that city for his reception on a more
+  magnificent scale than any he had witnessed on his journey. Granvelle,
+  who had lately been raised to the post of Viceroy, came forth at the
+  head of a long and brilliant procession to welcome his royal guest. The
+  houses which lined the streets were hung with richly tinted tapestries
+  and gaily festooned with flowers. The windows and verandahs were graced
+  with the beauty and fashion of the pleasure-loving capital, and many a
+  dark eye sparkled as it gazed upon the fine form and features of the
+  youthful hero, who at the age of twenty-four had come to Italy to assume
+  the baton of command and lead the crusade against the Moslems. His
+  splendid dress of white velvet and cloth of gold set off his graceful
+  person to advantage. A crimson scarf floated loosely over his breast,
+  and his snow-white plumes drooping from his cap mingled with the yellow
+  curls that fell in profusion over his shoulders. It was a picture which
+  the Italian maiden might love to look on. It was certainly not the
+  picture of the warrior sheathed in the iron panoply of war. But the
+  young Prince, in his general aspect, might be relieved from the charge
+  of effeminacy by his truly chivalrous bearing and the dauntless spirit
+  which beamed from his clear blue eyes. In his own lineaments he seemed
+  to combine all that was comely in the lineaments of his race."
+
+At Naples Don John found a fleet at anchor under the command of Don Alvaro
+de Bazan, first marquis of Santa Cruz, of whom much was to be heard in the
+future in his capacity as Admiral of Castile. Here also he received from
+the hands of Cardinal Granvelle a consecrated banner sent to him by the
+Pope at a solemn ceremony in the church of the Franciscan Convent of Santa
+Chiara. On August 25th he left Naples and proceeded to Messina, where he
+landed under a triumphal arch of colossal dimensions, embossed with rich
+plates of silver and curiously sculptured with emblematical bas-reliefs.
+The royal galley in which the hero embarked was built at Barcelona: she was
+fitted with the greatest luxury, and was remarkable for her strength and
+speed; her stern was profusely decorated with emblems and devices drawn
+from history; no such warship had ever been seen in the world before.
+
+Cayetano Rosell, in his _Historia del combate naval de Lepanto_, says that
+the number of vessels, great and small, in the Christian armada was over
+300, of which 200 were galleys, the ordinary warships of the time. He goes
+on to say:
+
+  "In this spacious harbour [Messina] there were collected the squadrons
+  of the League; the people who managed the oars and sails and the
+  innumerable combatants making an immense number when added together.
+  Since the days of Imperial Rome, never had been seen in these seas so
+  imposing a spectacle, never had there been collected so many ships
+  moving towards a single end dominated by a single will. Never was there
+  a spectacle more gratifying in the eyes of justice, nor of greater
+  incentive to men to fight for the cause of religion."
+
+The Spanish fleet comprised 90 royal galleys, 24 nefs, and 50 fregatas and
+brigantines "los mejores que en tiempo alguno se habrian visto" (the finest
+that ever were seen at any time), as they were described by Don John. The
+Pope sent 12 galleys and 6 fregatas, under the command of Mark Antony
+Colonna. The Pope had also made a grant of the "Crusada" and "Excusada,"
+and other ecclesiastical revenues which he drew from Spain, to the King of
+that country, to meet expenses.
+
+Venice appointed Sebastian Veniero to the command of her fleet, which
+consisted of 106 galleys, 6 galeasses of enormous bulk and clumsy
+construction carrying each 40 guns, 2 nefs, and 20 fregatas. These vessels
+were, however, so miserably manned and equipped that Don John had to send
+on board Spaniards and Genoese to complete their complements. In a
+manuscript of the Biblioth�que du Roi (Number 10088) is an account of the
+battle of Lepanto by Commandeur de Romegas. He gives the number of the
+Turkish fleet at 333 ships, of which 230 were galleys, the rest galeasses
+and smaller craft. The total which he gives for the Christian fleet is 271.
+Ali Basha was in supreme command of the Turkish forces, "a man of an
+intrepid spirit, who had given many proofs of a humane and generous
+mature--qualities more rare among the Turks, perhaps among all nations,
+than mere physical courage." With Ali was the Basha of Algiers, that other
+Ali, the corsair, who since his arrival at Coron had done more than his
+share of the fighting, marauding, and devastating which were the
+preliminaries to the battle of Lepanto. In this historic conflict he was to
+show once again how, on the face of the waters, the Sea-wolves were
+supreme; as it was he and his corsairs, out of the whole of the Moslem
+host, who acquitted themselves with the greatest credit on that day so
+fatal to the arms of the Ottoman Turk.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+LEPANTO
+
+  How Ali Basha fought at the battle of Lepanto: his subsequent
+  career--Conclusion.
+
+Lepanto, the last battle of first-class importance in which the Sea-wolves
+bore a leading part, is memorable in many ways. It is one of the most
+sanguinary which was ever fought, the element of personal hatred between
+the combatants, to which we have alluded more than once, being singularly
+in evidence on this occasion. As we have said, this campaign was brought
+about at the initiative of the Venetians, and an incident which occurred
+not long before the battle exacerbated the feelings with which the Turks
+were regarded by the Christians to the point of madness. The city of
+Famagusta, in Cyprus, had been captured by that Mustafa of whom we heard so
+much at the siege of Malta. The Venetian defenders made an honourable
+capitulation, but when the four principal Venetian captains were brought
+before Mustafa, that general caused three of them to be beheaded on the
+spot; the fourth, a noble and gallant gentleman who had been responsible
+for the magnificent defence of the city entrusted to his charge, he caused
+to be flayed alive in the market-square. He then had the skin stuffed with
+straw, and, with this ghastly trophy nailed to the prow of his galley,
+returned in triumph to Constantinople. Bragadino, the defender of
+Famagusta, did not die in vain; his terrible fate excited such a passion of
+anger in the whole of the armada of Don John that each individual of which
+it was composed felt that the sacrifice of his own life would be but a
+small thing if it only led to the destruction of such fiends as those
+against whom they were arrayed.
+
+[Illustration: DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA.]
+
+Lepanto was a magnificent triumph for the arms of Christendom, and taught a
+much-needed lesson to Europe that the Ottoman Turk was not invincible upon
+the sea; it was not, however, an interesting battle from the point of view
+of the student of war and its combinations. Of all the high officers in
+command on that memorable day there was only one who displayed real
+generalship and a proper appreciation of the tactical necessities of the
+situation; that officer was Ali Basha, the leader of the Sea-wolves. The
+account of the battle is somewhat obscured by the fact that on the side of
+the Moslems the name of the Ottoman Commander-in-Chief was also "Ali"; in
+order to avoid confusion in this narration, we shall allude to the Basha of
+Algiers by the name given to him by the Christians, "Occhiali."
+
+It was on Sunday, October 7th, 1571, that the Christian fleet weighed
+anchor from Cephalonia and stood southwards along the Albanian coast, which
+is here fringed with rocky islets. The right wing was commanded by John
+Andrea Doria, the left wing by the Prov�diteur Barbarigo, the centre, or
+"battle," as it was called, by Don John in person, who had on the one side
+of him Mark Antony Colonna, the General of the Galleys of the Pope, and on
+the other that fiery veteran Sebastian Veniero, the commander of the
+Venetians. Here also were stationed the Prince of Parma, nephew to Don
+John, Admiral of Savoy; Duke Urbino, Admiral of Genoa; the Admiral of
+Naples, and the Commandeur of Castile. The reserve, under the command of
+the Marquis of Santa Cruz, consisted of thirty-five galleys. Immediately in
+rear of the _Real_, or royal galley of Don John, was that of the Grand
+Commander Requesens. The number of seamen, soldiers, officers, and
+galley-slaves in the fleet amounted to over eighty thousand persons;
+twenty-nine thousand infantry had been embarked, of which number nineteen
+thousand were Spaniards. Opposed to the Christians on this day was a
+Turkish fleet which had on board no less than one hundred and twenty
+thousand men embarked in two hundred and fifty galleys, without counting an
+innumerable host of smaller vessels.
+
+[Illustration: SEBASTIAN VENIERO. Inset, portraits of Don John and Pope
+Pius V. Heroic statue of Don John dominating Christian and Turkish Fleets.
+The breath of the Almighty destroying the Turkish fleet at Lepanto.]
+
+The authorities on whose accounts of the battle this description is based
+are Prescott, the famous historian; P. Daru, a member of the Acad�mie
+Fran�aise, who wrote an exhaustive _Histoire de Venise_ and Don Cayetano
+Rosell, member of the Spanish Academy, who is responsible for an exposition
+of the subject, known as _Historia del combate naval de Lepanto_. From a
+comparison of the works of these eminent men one fact emerges with great
+clearness, which is that the battle of Lepanto was an indiscriminate m�l�e
+which was decided by some of the most desperate fighting ever recorded, but
+which depended hardly at all upon the tactical abilities of the men in
+chief command. It is true that we are told Don John issued written
+instructions to the commander of each ship, but we are left in the dark as
+to what these instructions were, while at the same time we discover that in
+his line of battle, which in the first instance appears to have been that
+of "single line ahead," the galleys of all nationalities were inextricably
+mixed up; making it thereby impossible for the Papal, Spanish, and Venetian
+commanders to deal, as they should have done, exclusively with their own
+men. On the other hand, Occhiali kept together the squadron of the
+Sea-wolves; he outgeneralled and had all but defeated John Andrea Doria,
+when the end came and he was obliged to retreat.
+
+We are, however, anticipating. Don John passed down his own line in a light
+"fregata" giving a few words of exhortation and advice to each ship under
+his command. If the bastard brother of the King of Spain did not exhibit
+any large measure of ability as a leader on this occasion, he was perhaps
+none the less the right man in the right place, as he had about him so
+winning a way, he was so striking and gallant a figure, that the hearts of
+all under his command went out to him. The seamen and soldiers of the great
+armada greeted him with enthusiastic shouts of delight as he bade them
+remember in whose cause it was that they fought. The last of the
+Knights-errant must have made a brave show as he passed down that line four
+miles in length, the sun shining on his damascened armour, and his yellow
+curls streaming out from beneath his helmet.
+
+Soon after sunrise the Turkish fleet was descried sailing towards the
+Christians, in such apparently overwhelming force that several of the
+Spanish commanders represented to Don John that it would be imprudent to
+risk a battle. To his honour be it recorded that he replied he had come out
+to fight the Turks and that the time for talk was now over. He then hoisted
+all his banners, and the executive signal for the combat to begin was given
+by displaying at his mainmast head the sacred banner blessed by the Pope.
+As this standard floated out upon the breeze there went up a great shout in
+unison from all that were under the command of Don John. The scene of the
+combat was that area of the Ionian Sea which is enclosed on the east by the
+coasts of Albania and Morea and on the west by the islands of Ithaca and
+Cephalonia, Just to the northward, at the entrance to the Gulf of Arta,
+sixteen hundred years before had been fought the battle of Actium between
+Antony and Octavius; the same spot had witnessed, in 1538, the memorable
+battle of Prevesa between Andrea Doria and Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa.
+
+From the point of view of the seaman, who is naturally anxious to discover
+the dispositions of their fleets made by the rival Commanders-in-Chief,
+Lepanto is an almost hopeless puzzle. As far as can be gathered, however,
+it was that the two armadas approached one another in what is known as
+"line ahead," each ship being immediately astern of its next ahead in one
+long continuous line; and that, when they got within striking distance,
+these lines turned so that they formed "line abreast," when each ship,
+having turned at right angles, simultaneously the line advances abreast,
+the ships forming it being broadside to broadside.
+
+When the Turks discovered the allies they were issuing from between the
+islets and the shore. Seeing John Andrea Doria moving to the right, they
+judged that he was executing a turning movement with the object of escaping
+to the northwards, from whence he had come; they were, at the time, unable
+to see the rest of the fleet, which was hidden by the land. With sound
+tactical judgment they accordingly advanced to attack the allies before
+they should have time to issue from the strait. They were, however, too far
+off to accomplish this, and, by the time they arrived within striking
+distance, the Christian fleet had cleared the strait and was ready for
+them, "drawn up for battle," says Monsieur Daru, which is somewhat vague in
+describing the disposition of a fleet. What is certain, however, is that in
+advance of the galleys of Don John were six great galeasses, which were
+armed with guns of immensely superior power to anything which could be
+mounted in galleys. As the Turks advanced to the attack these vessels
+opened fire, and did so much execution that Ali, the Turkish
+Commander-in-Chief, ordered his line to open out and thus avoid their fire.
+Whatever formation the fleet was in at the time--which was, as far as we
+can gather, "line abreast"--this opening-out process, to avoid the
+galeasses, threw it into hopeless confusion. The Turkish right wing, which
+was hugging the coast, and was the first to come into action, passed on in
+an endeavour to turn the left wing of the allies. While this manoeuvre was
+in progress Ali, the Capitan-Basha of the Turks, arrived in his vessel
+opposite to the royal galley of Don John. At the masthead of the galley of
+the Capitan-Bashaw floated the sacred standard of the Ottomans. This, the
+ancient banner of the Caliphs, was covered with texts from the Koran, and
+had upon it the name of Allah emblazoned no less than twenty-eight thousand
+nine hundred times in letters of gold. "It was," says Prescott, "the banner
+of the Sultan, having passed from father to son since the foundation of the
+dynasty, and was never seen in the field unless the Grand Seigneur or his
+lieutenant was there in person." Ali, the Commander-in-Chief, a favourite
+of the Sultan, had been entrusted with this most precious of all the
+possessions of the Padishah, as an incentive to him and all under his
+command to fight their hardest to do honour to the Prophet, and to prevent
+this symbol of their religion from falling into the hands of the Christian.
+Ali, like Don John, was young, and burning to distinguish himself;
+accordingly, as soon as the ships of the two leaders came opposite to each
+other neither regarded any enemy save his rival Commander-in-Chief. Ali
+drove his great galley straight on board of the vessel of Don John, and a
+most obstinate conflict ensued. Veniero and Colonna hastened to the
+assistance of their chief, who was sore beset.
+
+The combat now became general, and, as has been said, was for the most part
+nothing but a melee, in which each ship sought out the nearest of her foes
+and closed with her. For some time the fight went hard with Don John; time
+and again the galley of the Moslem leader was boarded, but on each occasion
+the Spaniards were hurled back upon their own decks. Loredano and Malipier,
+two Venetian captains, fell upon seven Turkish galleys which were hastening
+to reinforce the attack on Don John, and sank one of them. They then fought
+with such fury and resolution with the six that remained that, although
+both captains were killed, it was conceded that they had saved their
+general, entirely altered the complexion of the battle in their
+neighbourhood, and facilitated the capture of the Turkish admiral. The
+determined conduct of the two Venetians allowed the Spanish division to
+close in on the Turkish flagship, which, after an heroic resistance, was
+captured, principally because there were practically none left alive to
+fight. The head of Ali was struck off by a Spanish soldier, the banner of
+the Moslems was replaced by the flag of the Cross, the head of Ali on a
+pike being exhibited in derision above it. The conquerors seem to have seen
+no incongruity in this performance. The lowering of the sacred standard of
+the Capitan-Basha had a disheartening effect upon the Turks; they knew by
+this that their Commander-in-Chief was dead and his ship captured, the
+result being that the resistance of the Ottomans began to weaken. Then
+thirty galleys took to flight from the neighbourhood of the Christian
+flagship; so hotly were they pursued that they ran on shore, the crews
+swimming or wading to the beach and making off inland.
+
+On the right of the Christian line things had not been going so
+propitiously for them. Here Occhiali had managed, by his apparently
+persistent attempts to outflank John Andrea Doria, to decoy that commander
+away from his supports and from the main body of the Christians. This
+tactical manoeuvre of the corsair was successful; having drawn off some
+fifteen of the Christian galleys, he suddenly flung the whole of his
+greatly superior force into the gap and surrounded them. These galleys were
+Spanish, Venetian, and Maltese, and, although they offered a most vigorous
+resistance, they were mostly destroyed or captured. Doria, in spite of all
+his efforts, was on this day both outgeneralled and outfought: the
+Sea-wolves, under their grim leader, manoeuvring for position, obtaining
+it, and then falling like a thunderbolt on the foe. They were all brave men
+at Lepanto on this memorable October day; but few there were like the
+corsair king, in whom a heart of fire was kept in check by a brain of ice,
+who, during the whole combat, never gave away a chance, or failed to swoop
+like an eagle from his eyry when the blunders of his enemy gave him the
+opportunity for which he watched. It was the old story of "the veritable
+man of the sea" pitted against gallant soldiers fighting on an unfamiliar
+element. And yet it was against the best seaman on the Christian side that
+Occhiali pitted himself on this stricken field; and none can deny that with
+him rested such honour as was gained by the Turks on this day, the day
+which broke up for ever the idea of the invincibility of the Ottomans on
+the water. It needs not to say, to those who have read the story of the
+siege of Malta, how the Knights comported themselves in the battle; and yet
+Occhiali captured the _Capitana_, or principal galley of the Order, He was
+towing her out of action, a prize, when the Marquis of Santa Cruz bore down
+upon him with the reserve. By this time the battle was lost; the Moslems
+were in full retreat.
+
+The corsair recognised that he could do no more: sullenly he cast off the
+tow, and, forming up some thirty of his galleys, still in a condition to
+navigate, stood boldly through the centre of where the battle had once
+raged, and escaped. The _Capitana_ of Malta had been taken; and to the
+Sultan did Occhiali present the great standard of Saint John, as an earnest
+of his achievement.
+
+Bernardino de Escalente, in his work _Di�logos del arte militar_, printed
+in Seville in 1583, says that the Captain Ojeda, of the galley _Guzmana_,
+recaptured the _Capitana_ of Malta; and that, in recognition thereof, "the
+Religion" pensioned him for life. Ojeda, it is to be presumed, was under
+the orders of the Marquis of Santa Cruz during the battle.
+
+There remains one incident connected with the battle of Lepanto which must
+be told. In the _Marquesa_ galley, in the division of Doria, was lying in
+his bed sick of a fever a young man twenty-four years of age; a Spaniard of
+Alcala de Henares, "de padres hidalgos y honrados," we are told, although
+these parents were poor. When this young man heard that a battle was
+imminent he rose from his bed and demanded of his captain, Francisco San
+Pedro, that he should be placed in the post of the greatest danger. The
+captain, and others, his friends, counselled him to remain in his bed.
+"Se�ores," replied the young man, "what would be said of Miguel de
+Cervantes should he take this advice? On every occasion up to this day on
+which his enemies have offered battle to his Majesty I have served like a
+good soldier; and today I intend to do so in spite of this sickness and
+fever." He was given command of twelve soldiers in a shallop, and all day
+was to be seen where the combat raged most fiercely. He received two wounds
+in the chest and another which cost him the loss of his left hand. To those
+to whom he proudly displayed them in after-years he was accustomed to say,
+"wounds in the face or the chest are like stars which guide one through
+honour to the skies." Of him the chronicler says: "He continued the rest of
+his life with honourable memory of this wonderful occurrence, and, although
+he lost the use of his left hand, it added to the glory of his right." How
+glorious was that right hand is known to all readers of _El Ingenioso
+Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha._
+
+The losses at the battle of Lepanto are something so prodigious that
+imagination boggles at them. It is said that the Christians lost five
+thousand men and the Turks no less than thirty thousand. Enormous as these
+numbers are, they represent probably a very conservative estimate of the
+loss. The Turks lost two hundred vessels, and when we recollect the number
+of men embarked on board of the sixteenth-century galleys we can see that
+the numbers are by no means exaggerated, especially as no quarter was given
+on either side. When the Captain Ojeda recaptured the battered wreck which
+had been the _Capitana_ of Malta, we are told that on board of her were
+three hundred dead Turks; if this were the cost of the capture of one
+galley we need not be surprised at the total.
+
+With the results to Europe of this amazing battle we have nothing to do in
+this book. That which it demonstrated, as far as the Sea-wolves were
+concerned, was that they still remained the most competent seamen and
+sea-fighters in the Mediterranean, and that the legend of the invincibility
+of the Ottomans at sea rested on what had been accomplished during a long
+period of years by these insatiable pirates and magnificent warriors.
+
+That which the fighting Pontiff, Pius V., said when he heard of the victory
+is in character with everything which history has told us of this
+remarkable occupant of the chair of Saint Peter. It was short but very much
+to the point, consisting of the one sentence, "Fuit homo misus a Deo cui
+nomen erat Joannes."
+
+In a collection of epitaphs printed in Colonia in 1623 (and edited by one
+Franciscus Swertius) is one in Spanish by an anonymous author on Don John
+of Austria. In this, which takes the form of question and answer, it is
+asked of him "who with so much real glory lies so humbly 'neath this
+stone," what it is that Spain can do for him, what temple or what statue
+can she raise to his honour. To this the hero is made to reply that "My
+temple is found in my works, my statue has been my fame." This is not only
+a pretty conceit, but it is very substantially true when we think of the
+place in history which this man attained.
+
+It remains to speak of the future career of Ali Basha after his experiences
+at Lepanto. He now returned to Constantinople, where he found that the
+bitter complaints of the Janissaries concerning their lack of pay had
+preceded him; this must have been annoying, as by this time so
+insignificant a circumstance had probably escaped his memory. His old
+friend and patron Piali Basha was still in power; the Basha used his
+influence, and the corsair laid at the feet of the Sultan the great
+Standard of Saint John captured by him from the Knights--which was the only
+trophy which came to Constantinople from that disastrous battle; and in
+consequence we are told that "instead of reprimands he was loaded with
+caresses and applauses."
+
+There was in Ali the same dauntless quality of never knowing when he was
+beaten which had distinguished Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa. His exploits at
+Lepanto had secured him the high favour of the Sultan, which he used in a
+manner most grateful to that sovereign by approaching him with a request
+that he might be allowed to fit out another fleet to revenge himself on the
+Christians. The Sultan acceded to his request, and such diligence did he
+use that in June 1572, only eight months after the crushing defeat of the
+Turks, Ali took the sea with two hundred and fifty galleys besides smaller
+vessels. So powerful had he now become that Selim nominated him as his
+Admiralissimo, allowing him also to retain the Bashalic of Algiers. With
+his new fleet he sought out the allies once more, finding them at anchor in
+a port in the Morea. He lay outside the harbour defying them to come out,
+which they refused to do--"but they parted without bloody noses"--is
+Morgan's comment. Haedo attributes this inertia on the part of the allies
+to dissension among their leaders; but, however that may have been, Ali
+gained almost as much favour with the Sultan as if he had defeated them in
+a pitched battle. "But these are the judgments of God and things ordered by
+His divine providence and infinite wisdom," says Haedo. The connection is
+somewhat hard to establish.
+
+In 1573 the Bashalic of Algiers passed into the hands of Arab Ahmed, and in
+this same year Don John of Austria recaptured Tunis from the Turks. Ali,
+with a fleet of two hundred and fifty galleys and forty smaller vessels,
+recaptured it again in a siege lasting forty days, and once more returned
+to Constantinople in triumph with thousands of Spanish captives. He was yet
+to live some years to harass the Christians, against whom he ever displayed
+a most inveterate rancour. In 1576 he set out from Constantinople with
+sixty galleys and ravaged the Calabrian coast, where he had been born. In
+1578, the Janissaries of Algiers having assassinated Arab Ahmed the Basha,
+he was sent to chastise them, which he did with a heavy hand.
+
+Ali was never married, and left no descendants; in the later years of his
+life he built himself a sumptuous palace some five miles from
+Constantinople, and no man in all the realm save the Sultan himself was so
+great a man as the Calabrian renegado, the unknown waif from Southern Italy
+who possessed neither name nor kindred. He was tall and robust in stature,
+but all his life suffered from "scald-head"; for a definition of which
+ailment we may refer the curious to the dictionary. He possessed, for a
+chieftain and a fighting man, the disadvantage of a voice so hoarse as to
+be inaudible at a few paces distant. In default of offspring he maintained
+at his charges five hundred corsairs, whom he called his children. He died
+in the year 1580, and with him what has been called the "Grand Period of
+the Moslem Corsairs" in this book may be said to have come to an end.
+
+By the men whose deeds have been here chronicled the pirate States of
+Northern Africa were established; and, as we have seen, they maintained an
+unceasing warfare against all that was mightiest in Christendom, aided and
+abetted by the Sultans of Constantinople. In the sixteenth century the
+Sea-wolves had this at least to recommend them, that they feared neither
+King nor Kaiser, albeit these great ones of the earth were bent on their
+destruction. Villains as they were, they were none the less men to be
+feared, men in whom dwelt wonderful capabilities of leadership. Such,
+however, was not the case with those by whom they were succeeded; and the
+great and civilised nations of the world tolerated for centuries in their
+midst a race of savage barbarians whose abominable insolence and fiendish
+cruelty were only equalled by their material weakness and military
+impotence. Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli became recognised States, and the
+Great Powers degraded themselves by actually accrediting diplomatic agents
+to the "Courts" of these people.
+
+"The Algerines are robbers, and I am their chief," was the remark made by
+the Dey of Algiers to the English Consul in 1641, and the man spoke the
+plain unvarnished truth. Yet at this time the Algerines had no more than
+sixty-five ships, and no organisation which could have held out for
+twenty-four hours against such attacks as had been successfully resisted on
+many occasions in the previous century.
+
+On April 10th, 1682 (O.S.), "Articles of peace and commerce between the
+most serene and mighty Prince Charles II., by the Grace of God King of
+Great Britain, etc., and the most illustrious (_sic_) Lord, the Bashaw,
+Dey, and Aga, Governor of the famous city of Algiers in Barbary," were
+concluded by "Arthur Herbert, Esquire, Admiral of His Majesty's Fleet." It
+need hardly be said that such a treaty as this was not worth the paper on
+which it was written; that the barbarians by whom it was signed were as
+ignorant as they were unprincipled, and that the only argument which they
+understood at that, or any other time, was that of the right of the
+strongest.
+
+When we of the present day read of the deeds of the corsairs we are filled
+with horror, we fail to understand how such things could have been
+tolerated, we seek for some explanation. When we hear of a "League of
+Christian Princes," and find that all its members could accomplish was to
+turn their arms the one against the other, we are even still more puzzled.
+What was it, then, that lay at the root of this problem? The answer would
+appear to be in the ethical standpoint of the sixteenth century. We are so
+accustomed in the present day to hear of the rights of man that we are apt
+to forget that, in the time of Barbarossa, of Dragut, of Charles V., and
+the Medicean Popes such a thing did not exist, and the only rights
+possessed by the common man were those vouchsafed to him by his sovereign
+lord. We have also to take another factor into consideration, which is that
+what we call "humanity" simply did not exist, the result being that the
+raids of the Sea-wolves were not judged by the great ones of the earth from
+the standpoint of the amount of suffering which they inflicted, but in what
+manner these proceedings affected the wealth and power of the lord of the
+territory which had been despoiled. So differently was society constituted
+in those days that the very victims acquiesced more or less meekly in their
+fate, each one unconsciously voicing that most pathetic saying of the
+Russian peasant that "God is high and the Czar is far away."
+
+The fact of the intolerable lot of the common man in these times helps us
+to understand one thing which otherwise would be an insoluble problem:
+which was, why did Christian soldiers so often become renegadoes and fight
+for the corsairs under the banner of those who were the fiercest and most
+irreconcilable foes of themselves and their kindred? The life of the common
+soldier or sailor did not offer many advantages; it was generally a short
+and anything but a merry one, and the thing by which it was most
+profoundly affected was capture by the corsairs.
+
+When this happened he became either a "gallerian," rowing out his heart on
+the benches of the Moslem galleys, or he festered in some noisome dungeon
+in Algiers, Oran, or Tlemcen. For him, however, there was always one avenue
+of escape open: he had but to acknowledge that Mahomet was the Prophet of
+God and the prison doors would fly open, or the shackles be knocked off the
+chain which bound him to the hell of the rower's bench. Many of the
+Christian captives had really nothing to bind them to the faith of their
+fathers--neither home nor lands, wealth nor kindred, and they were
+doubtless dazzled by the amazing success which accompanied the arms of the
+leaders of the pirates. Is it wonderful, then, that such men in such an age
+should grasp at the chance of freedom and throw in their lot with their
+captors?
+
+It was treachery, it was apostasy, and no amount of sophistry can prove it
+to have been otherwise; but the man who would sit in judgment in the
+present day must try to figure to himself what the life of a galley-slave
+meant--a life so horrible and so terrible that it is impossible, in the
+interest of decency, to set down a tithe of what it really was.
+
+We who in the present day sit in judgment upon the virtues and vices of a
+bygone age can, in the ordered security of our modern civilisation, see
+many things which were hidden from our forefathers, even as in another
+three hundred years our descendants will be able to point the finger of
+scorn at the mistakes which we are now committing. We have seen how it was
+that the pirate States arose; we have seen also how, in future generations,
+they were allowed to abide. We cannot, in common honesty, echo the words
+already quoted of the historian that "these are the judgments of God, and
+things ordered by His divine providence and infinite wisdom," neither can
+we acquit the heirs of the ages for that slackness which prevented them
+from doing their duty; we have, however, to ask ourselves this question,
+that, had it fallen to our own lot to deal with the problem of the
+extermination of the pirates, should we have done better?
+
+One word in conclusion. That which they did has been set down here; the
+record, however, is not complete, as many of their acts of cruelty, lust,
+and oppression are not fitted for publication in the present day. It has
+been said, with truth, that no man is much better or much worse than in the
+age in which he lives; and to hold the scales evenly--if one were tempted
+to shock contemporary opinion by too literal a transcript of all that was
+done by the corsairs--it would also be necessary to cite the reprisals of
+their Christian antagonists. It has seemed better to leave such things
+unchronicled: to present, with as much fidelity as possible, the public
+lives and acts of these troublers of the peace of the sixteenth century.
+Looking back, as we do, over three hundred and fifty years, and judging as
+fairly as is possible, it would seem that there is little which can be said
+in their favour.
+
+But we may at least concede that, no matter how infamous were the
+Barbarossas, Dragut, and Ali, they proved that in them dwelt one rare and
+supreme quality, which, in all the ages, has covered a multitude of sins.
+At a time when every one was a warrior and the whole world was an armed
+camp, men sought great captains in whose following to serve. Among the
+Moslems of Northern Africa, in ordered succession, there rose to the
+surface "veritable men of the sea," in the wake of whose galleys ravened
+the Sea-wolves. When we consider how undisciplined and how stupidly violent
+these pirates were by nature, and how they were welded into a homogeneous
+whole by those of whom we speak, we are forced to the conclusion that
+seldom, in all the ages, have abler captains arisen to take fortune at the
+flood, to dominate the minds and the bodies of a vast host, to prove that
+they were, in deed and in truth, supreme as leaders of men.
+
+
+
+
+AUTHORITIES CONSULTED
+
+Sailing Ships and their Story. E. Keble Chatterton.
+
+Barbary Corsairs: Story of the Nations. Stanley Lane Poole.
+
+Compleat History of the Present Seat of War in Africa between Spaniards
+  and Algerines. 1632. Joseph Morgan.
+
+History of Philip II. William Hickling Prescott.
+
+History of Charles V. Robertson.
+
+Histoire de Barberousse. Richer.
+
+Vie des plus c�l�bres marins. Richer.
+
+Histoire de Barberousse. Sander Rang et Ferdinand Denis.
+
+Doria et Barberousse. Les derniers jours de la Marine aux Rames. Admiral
+  Jurien de la Gravi�re.
+
+Histoire de Barbarie et ses corsaires. Pierre d'An. Paris, 1637.
+
+Histoire d'Alger. Laugier de Tassy.
+
+Messire Pierre de Bourdeille Seigneur de Brant�me. Vie des hommes
+  illustres et grands capitaines etrangers de son temps. 1594.
+
+Histoires de les Chevaliers de Malte. Mons l'Abb� de Vertot. Paris, 17S6.
+
+Histoire de Venise. P. Daru.
+
+Topografia e Historia general de Argel El Se�or Don Diego de Haedo.
+
+Reverendissimo Arcobispo de Palermo. Presidente y Capitan-General del
+  Reyno de Sicilia por el Rey Felipe Segundo. Nuestro se�or.
+  Valladolid, 1612.
+
+Descripcion general de Africa. Don Luys de Marmol Caravajal. Granada,
+  1573.
+
+Historia de Carlos Quinto. El Maestro Don Fray Prudencio
+  de Sandoval, Obispo de Pampluna. 1612.
+
+El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha. Cervantes.
+
+Arte de Navegar. Martin Cortes.
+
+Di�logos del arte militar. Bernardino de Escalante.
+  Seville, 1583.
+
+Historia del combate naval de Lepanto. Cayetano Rosell.
+
+Epitaphia joco-seria. Francisco Swertius. 1623.
+
+La Guerra dei pirati e la marina Pontifica dal 1500 al 1560.
+  Padre Alberto Guglielmotti.
+
+Storia della sacra religione et illustrissima milizia de San
+  Giovanii Gerosolimitano. Jacopo Bosio.
+
+Lo Assedio di Malta, 18 Maggio-8, Settembre, 1565. Conte
+  Carlo, Sanminiatelli, Zabarella, Colonello.
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF THE KINGS OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, SPAIN, SULTANS OF TURKEY, POPES OF
+ROME, AND GRAND MASTERS OF MALTA, BETWEEN THE DATES 1492-1580, THE PERIOD
+COVERED IN THIS BOOK.
+
+
+ENGLAND
+
+Henry VII., 1485-1509.
+Henry VIII., 1509-47.
+Edward VI., 1547-53.
+Mary, 1553-58.
+Elizabeth, 1558-1603.
+
+
+FRANCE
+
+Charles VIII., 1483-98.
+Louis XII., 1498-1515.
+Francis I., 1515-47.
+Henry II., 1547-59.
+Francis II., 1559-60.
+Charles IX., 1560-74.
+Henry III., 1574-89.
+
+
+SPAIN
+
+Granada, taken by Ferdinand and Isabella, the sovereigns of Aragon and
+Castile ("Los Reyes Catolicos") in 1492. Their daughter, Joanna, married
+Philip, son of the Emperor Maximilian of Germany. Ferdinand died 1516, and
+was succeeded by Charles V., son of Philip and Joanna, as King of Spain, in
+1517. On the death of his grandfather Maximilian, in 1519, Charles was
+elected Emperor of Germany. He resigned all his dignities and retired to
+the monastery of Yuste in 1555, and was succeeded by his son, Philip II.
+Charles died 1558. Philip II., who married as his first wife Mary Tudor, of
+England, reigned from 1555 till 1598.
+
+
+SULTANS OF TURKEY
+
+Bajazet II., 1481-1512; Selim the Cruel, 1512-20; Soliman the Magnificent,
+1520-66; Selim II., known to the Spaniards as "el bebedor" (the
+drunkard), 1566-74; Murad III., 1574-95.
+
+
+POPES OF ROME
+
+Pius III., 1503; Julius II., 1503; Leo X., 1513; Hadrian VI., 1522; Clement
+VII., 1523; Paul III., 1534; Julius III., 1550; Marcellus II., 1555; Paul
+IV., 1555; Pius IV., 1559; Pius V., 1566; Gregory XIII., 1572; Sixtus V.,
+1585.
+
+
+GRAND MASTERS OF THE KNIGHTS OF MALTA
+
+Pierre d'Aubusson, 1476-1503; Emeri d'Amboise, 1503-13; Fabrice Carette,
+1513-21; Villiers de L'Isle Adam, 1521-36; Juan d'Omedes, 1536-53; Claude
+de la Sangle, 1553-57; Jean Parisot de la Valette, 1557-68; Pierre Dumont,
+1568-72; Jean Levesque de la Cassi�re, 1572-82.
+
+
+
+
+DISTANCES IN SEA MILES ON THE COAST OF NORTHERN AFRICA
+
+Gibraltar to Oran                                   225'
+Oran to Tenes                                       110'
+Tenes to Shershell                                   41'
+Shershell to Algiers                                 40'
+Algiers to Bona                                     104'
+Bona to Jigelli                                      30'
+Jigelli to Bizerta                                  205'
+Bizerta to Tunis                                     55'
+Tunis to Susa                                       120'
+Susa to Sfax                                         86'
+Sfax to Jerbah, otherwise known as Los Gelues        54'
+Jerbah to Tripoli                                   130'
+Gibraltar to Algiers                                410'
+Algiers to Tunis                                    391'
+Algiers to Tenes                                     91'
+Tunis to Malta                                      232'
+Malta to Tripoli in Barbary                         200'
+Tripoli to Cape Serrano                             350'
+Jerbah to Malta                                     210'
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+Abdahar, 141.
+
+Abu-Abd-Allah-Mahomed, 40.
+
+Actium, battle of, 189, 199, 366.
+
+Adam, Prince Philippe Villiers L'Isle, Grand Master of the Knights of St.
+    John, 42, 124, 299.
+
+Adorno, Antony, 103.
+
+Adriatic, coasts of the, 182.
+
+Adrumentum, 251.
+
+"Africa," town of, position and fortifications, 251,
+  attacked and taken by Dragut, 257-259;
+  besieged by Andrea Doria, 265;
+  captured, 267;
+  mutiny, 268;
+  blown up, 268.
+
+Ahmed, Arab, Basha of Algiers, 375,
+  assassinated, 375.
+
+Albania, coast of, 363, 366.
+
+Al-Burdon, 350.
+
+Alcadaar, Alcaid, 349.
+
+Alcala, Duke of, 311.
+
+Alcala de Henares, 371.
+
+Alcaudite, Count of, his defence of Marzaquivir, 10.
+
+Aldemar, St., Geoffrey de, 291.
+
+Aleppo, 120, 125.
+
+Alexander IV., Pope, 290.
+
+Alexander VI., Pope, 99.
+
+Alexander VII., Pope, initiates the "Alliance of Christian Princes," 38.
+
+Alexandria, 49.
+
+"Alexandria, The Young Moor of," defeated, 177,
+  released, 178.
+
+Alfonso, King of Navarre and Aragon, 291.
+
+Alghieri, Bay of, 235.
+
+Algiers, 2,
+  attacks on, 30, 88;
+  captured, 62, 64;
+  Moorish refugees at, 63;
+  appeal for help, 66;
+  surrenders, 89;
+  mutiny of Janissaries, 355;
+  treaty with King Charles II., 377.
+
+Ali Ahamed, Admiral of Algiers, 345.
+
+Ali, at the siege of Malta, 328.
+
+Ali Basha, or Occhiali or Uluchali, 6, 14, 22,
+  present at the conference held by Soliman, 316;
+  his birthplace, 345;
+  endures the life of a galley-slave, 345;
+  becomes a Mussulman, 346;
+  enters the service of Dragut, 346;
+  at the siege of Malta, 346;
+  appointed Viceroy of Tripoli, 347;
+  Governor of Algiers, 347;
+  view of his duties,347;
+  offered the sovereignty of Tunis, 349;
+  expedition against Hamid, 349;
+  captures Tunis, 350, 375;
+  captures galleys of the Knights, 352-355;
+  at the battle of Lepanto, 363,368-371;
+  his banner, 368;
+  captures the _Capitana_, 370;
+  withdraws and escapes, 371;
+  returns to Constantinople, 373, 375;
+  nominated Admiralissimo, 374;
+  his palace, 375;
+  ailment of "scald-head," 375;
+  death, 376.
+
+Ali Basha, in command of the Turkish forces, 361,
+  at the battle of Lepanto, 367;
+  beheaded, 369.
+
+Ali-Chabelli defeated, 180.
+
+Al-Mehedi, his fortifications of "Africa" blown up, 268.
+
+Amalfi, 287.
+
+Ambracian Gulf, 189.
+
+Amburac, Ibrahim, his plot with Dragut, 253, 256.
+
+Ampasta, Rio de, 83.
+
+An, Rev. Frere Pierre d', on the dangers from the corsairs of
+    Barbary, 20-22, 27.
+
+Andalusia, 4, 15.
+
+Andior, 246.
+
+Andrade, Captain Diego de, 73.
+
+Andros, island of, 187.
+
+Angelo, Michel, 139.
+
+Aponte, Antonio de, "Electo Mayor" of "Africa," 268.
+
+Aragon, Alfonso d', 235.
+
+Aragon, Ferdinand of, acquires Granada, 29,
+  attempts to recover Naples, 99.
+
+Arba, Francisco d', 210, 217.
+
+Archipelago, islands of the, 182,
+  raid on, 187.
+
+Arta, Gulf of, 189, 191, 195, 366.
+
+Aubusson Pierre D', Grand Master of the Knights of St. John, 37,
+    38, 39, 298.
+
+Augustus Caesar, at the battle of Actium, 189, 199.
+
+Austria, Don John of, 23, 230,
+  in command of the forces of the "Holy League," 357;
+  at Barcelona, 357;
+  reception at Naples, 358;
+  dress, 358;
+  appearance, 359, 365;
+  at Messina, 359;
+  his fleet, 364;
+  instructions, 365;
+  at the battle of Lepanto, 366-371;
+  recaptures Tunis, 375
+
+
+Baetio, 141.
+
+Bairan-Ogli, the Reis, in command of the "puissant galleon," 313.
+
+Balearic Islands, 32, 66.
+
+Barbarigo, Prov�diteur, at the battle of Lepanto, 363.
+
+Barbarossa, Hassan, left in charge of Algiers, 312.
+
+Barbarossa, Khoyr-ed-Din, 6, 14, 17, 22, 108,
+  King of the Sea, 24;
+  his birth, 43;
+  title, 45, 51;
+  joins his brother at the island of Jerba, 50;
+  attacks _The Galley of Naples_, 51-54;
+  his wealth, 56;
+  captures Jigelli, 56-58;
+  his embassy to Soliman, 60, 76;
+  character, 67, 75, 114-116, 127, 219;
+  treatment of Hassan, 85-87;
+  defeated by Venalcadi, 87;
+  his allies, 88;
+  fight against Venalcadi, 88;
+  assisted by Spanish captives, 89;
+  captures Algiers, 89;
+  lays siege to the fortress of Navarro, 92-95;
+  his plunder of the Christians, 108;
+  requested to take the command of the Ottoman fleet, 111;
+  voyage to Constantinople, 112-117;
+  his captures, 113, 133;
+  cruelty, 115, 133, 220;
+  entry into Constantinople, 117;
+  gifts to Soliman, 118;
+  reception, 120;
+  at Aleppo, 125;
+  appointed head of the fleet, 127;
+  his age, 127, 190;
+  appearance, 127;
+  speech to the Sultan, 128-130;
+  raids on the coast of Italy, 133-137;
+  sacks Reggio, 133;
+  captures 11,000 Christian slaves, 133;
+  his attempt to capture Julia Gonzaga, 134-136;
+  enters Tunis 138;
+  massacre of the inhabitants, 141;
+  his fame, 142;
+  appeal for help against the Christian hosts, 146;
+  preparations for defence, 152;
+  joined by the tribesmen, 153;
+  defeated, 158;
+  flight, 159;
+  sufferings of his army, 163;
+  at Bona, 164;
+  embarks, 165;
+  retires to Algiers, 168;
+  return of his men, 169;
+  captures the castle of Minorca, 172;
+  recalled to Constantinople, 173, 178, 182;
+  ravages, 182;
+  number of slaves, 182;
+  sets sail, 185;
+  his innovation in the manning of galleys, 185-187;
+  raid on the islands of the Archipelago, 187;
+  his age, 190;
+  hesitates to fight, 193;
+  anchored in the Gulf of Arta, 194-207;
+  at the battle of Prevesa, 208-216;
+  withdraws from the battle, 213, 2l5, 2l7;
+  his death, 220, 250;
+  ransoms Dragut, 248.
+
+Barbarossa, Uruj, 7, 74,
+  his birth, 43;
+  character, 44;
+  first attempt at piracy, 45;
+  taken prisoner, 46;
+  escapes, 47, 48;
+  presented with a ship, 48;
+  winters at Alexandria, 49;
+  at the island of Jerba, 50;
+  joined by his brother, 50;
+  treaty with the Sultan of Tunis, 51;
+  attackes _The Galley of Naples_, 51-54;
+  wounded, 54;
+  attacks on Bougie, 55, 58;
+  loses an arm, 55;
+  appeal from the Algerines, 66;
+  treatment of Kara-Hassan, 66;
+  besieges Navarre's Tower, 67;
+  slaughters the Berbers, 68-70;
+  defeats Don Diego, 71;
+  marches on Tlemcen, 72;
+  blockaded, 73;
+  killed, 73.
+
+Barbary, coast of, 236.
+
+Barbary, corsairs of, their character, 21.
+
+Barbezieux, his attempt to seize Andrea Doria, 104.
+
+Barcelona, 148, 357.
+
+Bazan, Don Alvaro de, General of the Galleys of Spain, at Barcelona, 149,
+  Admiral of Castile, 359.
+
+Beachy Head, battle of, 283.
+
+Beja, 350.
+
+Bengabara, Alcaid, 349.
+
+Berber tribes, their character, 57,
+  number, 57;
+  conspiracy against Uruj Barbarossa, 68;
+  slaughtered, 69.
+
+Bergerac, Jean Marteille de, on the treatment of slaves on board
+    the galleys, 224.
+
+Bianco, Cape, 189.
+
+Biba, island of, 113.
+
+Bizerta, 2, 40,
+  captured, 41;
+  massacre of, 141.
+
+Boabdil el Chico, yields up Granada, 29.
+
+Bona, 153, 164, 350,
+  Cape, 264.
+
+Bonifacio, Straits of, 113, 136.
+
+Borgo, Il, fortress, siege of, 32, 324, 342.
+
+Bosworth, battle of, 215.
+
+Botaybo, Alcaid, 349.
+
+Bougaroni, Cape, 56.
+
+Bougie, 2, 153,
+  attacks on, 55, 58.
+
+Bouillon, Godfrey de, defeats the Saracens, 287.
+
+Bourdeille, Pierre de, 242, 344.
+
+Bragadino, his defence of Famagusta, 362,
+  killed, 362.
+
+Brigantines, 18, 151, 240.
+
+Broglio, Commandeur, at the siege of Malta, 333.
+
+Byzacena, 40.
+
+Byzantine, Empire, fall of the, 33.
+
+
+Cabri, 246.
+
+Cachidiablo, 88, 90.
+
+Cadiz, 4.
+
+Cadolin, defeated, 100.
+
+Cagliari, Bay of, 152, 236.
+
+Calabria, 345.
+
+Calibia, castle of, surrender, 264.
+
+Canale, Girolame, his victory over the Moslems, 177.
+
+Candia, 187.
+
+Ca�ete, Marquis de, Viceroy and Captain General of Navarre, 147.
+
+Cantara, La Bocca de, 272, 274.
+
+Capello, Vicenzo, his age, 190,
+  in command of the Venetian fleet, 191, 215;
+  at Corfu, 191.
+
+_Capitana_, the, captured, 354, 370,
+  retaken, 371.
+
+Capua, Prior of, his designs for the building of St. Elmo fortress, 325.
+
+Caracosa, Marie, 98.
+
+Caramania, coast of, 35, 37, 45, 48.
+
+Caravajal, Don Luys de Marmol, his "Descripcion general de Affrica," 272.
+
+Caravels, 231.
+
+Carouan, 348.
+
+Castel Rosso, Isle of, 47.
+
+Castile, Isabella of, 29.
+
+Castriot, Constantine, his report on the condition of St. Elmo, 337.
+
+Centurion, Adan, fails to attack Barbarossa, 165.
+
+Cephalonia, 313, 363, 366.
+
+Cervantes, Miguel de, his mention of Ali Basha, 345,
+  at the battle of Lepanto, 371;
+  his wounds, 372.
+
+Charabulac, 242.
+
+Charlemagne, Emperor, his renown, 286.
+
+Charles II., King of England, his treaty with Algiers, 377.
+
+Charles V., Emperor, 14, 79,
+  history of, 43;
+  determines to crush the corsairs, 80;
+  total fleet and army, 81,191;
+  caught in a storm, 82;
+  his wrath on the fall of Navarro, 97;
+  acquisitions, 98;
+  suzerain of Genoa, 101;
+  joined by Andrea Doria, 105;
+  his trust in him, 107;
+  preparations for his attack on Barbarossa, 143;
+  at Barcelona, 148;
+  joined by his allies, 148-150;
+  reviews the armada, 150;
+  embarks in the _Galera Capitana_, 150;
+  attack on the fortress of La Goletta, 156;
+  defeats Barbarossa, 159;
+  letter to the potentates, 163;
+  evacuates Tunis, 166;
+  his mistaken policy, 167;
+  at Corfu, 191;
+  orders the destruction of Dragut, 245, 261;
+  orders the capture of "Africa," 265;
+  denunciation of Dragut, 271;
+  concentrates his fleet at Messina, 278.
+
+"Christian Princes, Alliance of," formed, 38,
+  artillery, 39;
+  seize Naples, 40.
+
+Christian slaves, number of, captured, 133.
+
+Citt� Notabile, 308.
+
+Civita Lavinia, 140.
+
+Coeva, Andrea, 98.
+
+Colonna, Camille, taken prisoner, 101.
+
+Colonna, Mark Antony, in command of the Papal fleet, 360, 364.
+
+Colonna, Vespasian, 134.
+
+Columbus, his caravels, 231.
+
+Comares, Marquis de, 80.
+
+Condalmiero, Alessandro, Captain of the _Galleon of Venice_, 192, 194,
+  attacked by the Moslems, 209-213;
+  his victory, 213.
+
+Constantine, 350.
+
+Constantinople, fall of, 33,
+  entry of Barbarossa into, 117.
+
+C�rdoba, Don Martin de, his defence of Oran, 10.
+
+C�rdoba, Gonsalvo de, the "Great Captain," 39,
+  war against Roverejo, 99;
+  besieges the fortress of Rocca Guillelma, 99.
+
+C�rdoba, Mosque at, 64.
+
+Corfu, siege of, 179.
+
+Cornet, Commandeur de, 337.
+
+Cornillan, Pierre de, appointed Grand Master of the Knights of
+    St. John, 298.
+
+Coron, 355.
+
+Coronado, Capt. Juan Vasquez, 273.
+
+Corsairs, Moslem, their iron and rigid discipline, 7.
+  _See_ Moslem
+
+Corsica, coast of, 246.
+
+Corso, Mami, left in charge of Algiers, 349.
+
+Cos, or Lango, island of, fortifications of, 292.
+
+Curtogali, at Bizerta, 40,
+  his depredations, 41;
+  attempt to carry off the Pope, 41, 140;
+  Governor of Rhodes, 42.
+
+Cyprus, island of, 34, 356.
+
+
+Daoud Pasha, Admiral, defeats Grimani, 38.
+
+Dardanelles, 116,
+  fortification of the, 34.
+
+Daru, P., _Histoire de Venise_, 364, 367.
+
+Delizuff, joins forces with Barbarossa, 112,
+  killed, 113.
+
+Diou-Donn�, Gozon de, his mode of killing a serpent, 294-296,
+  praises of his services, 297;
+  appointed Grand Master of the Knights of St. John, 298;
+  his death, 298.
+
+Doria Andrea, 6, 22, 108,
+  his birth, 98;
+  parents, 98;
+  sent to Rome, 98;
+  at the court of Urbino, 99;
+  in the service of the King of Aragon, 99;
+  joins Roverejo, 99;
+  takes service with Lodovico Sforza, 100;
+  appointed General of the Galleys, 100;
+  captures the Fort of the Lantern, 100;
+  defeats Cadolin, 100;
+  appointed Captain-General of the Galleys of France, 101;
+  the treatment of Francis I., 102, 104;
+  letter to him, 103;
+  joins Charles V., 105;
+  honours received from Genoa, 105;
+  Admiralissimo of the Navy, 107, 151;
+  defeats the Turks at Patras, 109;
+  at Barcelona, 148;
+  captures Bona, 166;
+  pursuit of Barbarossa, 166;
+  defeats Ali-Chabelli, 180;
+  wounded, 180;
+  appearance, 180;
+  age, 190;
+  his fleet, 192;
+  anchors outside the Gulf of Arta, 194-207;
+  at Sessola, 207;
+  tactics at the battle of Prevesa, 214;
+  sails away, 216;
+  ordered to capture Dragut, 261, 271;
+  his pursuit of him, 262-264;
+  expedition against "Africa," 265;
+  blockades Dragut at Jerbah, 271-275;
+  allows him to escape, 275.
+
+Doria, David, 99.
+
+Doria, Dominique, 98.
+
+Doria, Franco, 192.
+
+Doria, Jannetin, captures Dragut, 245-247.
+
+Doria, John, 165.
+
+Doria, John Andrea, at the battle of Lepanto, 363, 367, 370.
+
+Doria, Philippin, defeats Moncada, 101.
+
+Dragut-Reis, 10, 14, 22,
+  his birth and parents, 242;
+  career, 242;
+  offers his services to Barbarossa, 243;
+  in command of twelve galleys, 243;
+  his destruction ordered, 245, 261;
+  captured by Jannetin Doria, 245-247;
+  employed as a galley slave, 248;
+  ransomed, 248;
+  increase of power, 250;
+  his desire to capture "Africa," 251;
+  plot with Ibrahim Amburac, 253;
+  preparations for the attack, 254-256;
+  wounded, 257;
+  attack on the city, 257-259;
+  pursued by Andrea Doria, 262-264, 271;
+  his "Horrid Devastations," 264;
+  in the siege of "Africa," 265;
+  escapes, 267;
+  at Constantinople, 269, 276;
+  denounced by Charles V., 270;
+  appointed Sandjak, or governor, of the island of Santa Maura, 271;
+  blockaded at Jerban, 271-275;
+  mode of escape, 275;
+  hatred of the Knights of Malta, 276, 286;
+  autocrat of Tripoli, 309;
+  characteristics, 315;
+  at the siege of Malta, 329-339;
+  mortally wounded, 339;
+  death, 341.
+
+Dupuy, Raimond, joins the Hospice of St. John, 288,
+  appointed Grand Master, 289;
+  forms a military corps, 289.
+
+
+Eginard, 286.
+
+Egypt, Soldan of, his treatment of the Knights of Saint John, 34,
+  besieges Rhodes, 36.
+
+Elmo, St., siege of, 6, 301-305, 323-341,
+  appeal of the garrison to abandon the fortress, 335-337;
+  their use of fireworks, 339;
+  fall, 341.
+
+Escalente, Bernardino de, his "Di�logos del arte militar," 371.
+
+Esquemelin, John, his literary labours, 1.
+
+Etienne, St., Mount, 294.
+
+Eutemi, Selim, besieges Algiers, 65,
+  assassinated, 68.
+
+Exmouth, Lord, bombards Algiers,30.
+
+
+Famagusta, captured, 362.
+
+Ferdinand V., King of Spain, joins the "Alliance of Christian Princes," 38,
+  his death, 65.
+
+_Florence_, the, 236.
+
+Floreta, M. de., 144.
+
+Forfait, on the speed of the galley, 234.
+
+Francis I., 14,
+  appoints Andrea Doria Captain of his fleet, 101;
+  attempts to levy a fine, 102;
+  treatment of him, 102;
+  fortifies Savona, 103;
+  letter from Andrea Doria, 103;
+  attempts to take him prisoner, 104;
+  refuses to join in the war against Barbarossa, 144;
+  treachery, 144.
+
+Fundi, 134,
+  sacked by the corsairs, 136.
+
+
+Galeasse, the, 18,
+  description of a, 233.
+
+_Galera Capitana_, 150,
+  number of flags and banners on board, 151.
+
+_Galleon of Venice_, 192, 194, 208,
+  attacked by the Moslems, 209-213;
+  victory, 213.
+
+Galley, 2, 18,
+  sufferings of the rower, 19, 221;
+  innovation in the manning, 185;
+  mobility, 222;
+  length, 222;
+  number of men on board, 223;
+  treatment of the slaves, 223-229, 379;
+  size, 229;
+  mode of opening fire, 230;
+  speed, 234;
+  obsolete, 236.
+
+_Galley of Naples, The_, attacked by the brothers Barbarossa, 51-54.
+
+Gardampe, Chevalier Abel de Bridiers de la, killed at the siege of
+    Malta, 333.
+
+Gelves, 271.
+
+Genoa, 32,
+  arrangement with the Grand Turk, 34;
+  confers honours on Andrea Doria, 105.
+
+Gerard, the founder of the Order of St. John, 287,
+  death, 288.
+
+Gibraltar, Straits of, 15.
+
+Giou, Chevalier de, 313.
+
+Goialatta, 246.
+
+Goletta, La, 348,
+  attack on the fortress, 156;
+  fall, 157;
+  captured, 313.
+
+Gomez, Alvar, left in charge of Bona, 166.
+
+Gonzaga, Hernando de, his advice at the battle of Prevesa, 198.
+
+Gonzaga, Julia, attempt to capture her, 134-136,
+  escape, 136.
+
+Gozo, island of, Knights of St. John at, 277, 299,
+  sacked, 309.
+
+Granada, fall of, 4, 8, 22,
+  expulsion of the Moors from, 8, 29;
+  revolt in, 347.
+
+Grandenico, Count, 178.
+
+Granvelle, Cardinal, 7, 359.
+
+Gravi�re, Admiral Jurien de la, 17, 54, 127, 214,
+  his description of a Galeasse, 233.
+
+_Great Harry_, 232.
+
+Grimani, Antonio, the Venetian Admiral, defeated at Zonchio, 38.
+
+Grimani, Marco, in command of the Papal contingent, 191, 214,
+  at Corfu, 191;
+  raid on Arta, 191.
+
+Guasto, Marquis de, taken prisoner, 101,
+  his suggestion to Andrea Doria, 104;
+  in command of the army, 156.
+
+Guerare, Sergeant-Major, at the siege of Malta, 332.
+
+Guglielmotti, Alberto, his work "La Guerra dei Pirati," 39, 41, 180.
+
+Guimeran, Commandeur de, success of his ambush, 307.
+
+_Guzmana_, the galley, 371.
+
+
+Hadj-Hossein, his embassy to Selim I., 76-78.
+
+Haedo, Don Fray Diego de, his _History of Algiers_, 96, 348, 353, 374.
+
+Hamid, King of Tunis, character of his rule, 348,
+  conspiracy against, 349;
+  flight, 350.
+
+Hassan Ali, 53,
+  ravages towns and villages, 83;
+  repulsed by Spaniards, 84;
+  flogged and imprisoned, 86;
+  released, 87;
+  attacks Barbarossa, 87.
+
+Hassem, his attack on Oran, 10,
+  retreat, 10.
+
+Henry II., 34.
+
+Henry VII., 215.
+
+Henry VIII., 14.
+
+Herbert, Arthur, concludes a treaty with Algiers, 377.
+
+Himeral, Basha, 114, 125.
+
+Hogue, La, battle of, 283.
+
+Honor� II., Pope, 291.
+
+Horusco, Pero Lopez de, 166.
+
+Hunyadi, John, 14.
+
+Hy�res, island of, 234.
+
+
+Ibrahim, Grand Vizier to Soliman, 9,
+  his mission to Aleppo, 120;
+  advice, 123;
+  impressions of Barbarossa, 126;
+  return from Aleppo, 132;
+  his relations with Soliman, 173;
+  murdered, 176.
+
+Innocent VIII., Pope, 98.
+
+Ionian Islands, 179.
+
+Ionian Sea, 49.
+
+Ithaca, island of, 366.
+
+Iviza, 82.
+
+
+Janissaries, their character as soldiers, 8,
+  institution, 279;
+  system of training, 280;
+  mutiny in Algiers, 355.
+
+Jerbale, 2, 50, 153, 251.
+
+Jerusalem, Hospice of St. John at, 287.
+
+Jigelli, 2, 56,
+  siege of, 57.
+
+John of Jerusalem, St., Knights of, 18.
+  _See_ Knights
+
+Judeo, El, 88.
+
+
+Kara-Hassan, takes possession of Shershell, 66,
+  beheaded, 67.
+
+Khorkud, Governor of Caramania, 48.
+
+Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, or Knights of Malta, their bigotry, 18,
+  take refuge at Limasol, 34;
+  characteristics, 35, 36;
+  fortifications of Rhodes, 35;
+  faith, 36;
+  repulse the Turks, 37;
+  expelled from Rhodes, 42, 277;
+  forced to retreat to Malta, 42, 277, 292;
+  their use of galleys, 229;
+  fight for their "Religion," 277;
+  warfare against the corsairs, 277;
+  history of the Order, 286-291;
+  founded at Jerusalem, 287;
+  Grand Masters, 289-298, 301;
+  crusade against the Infidel, 289;
+  composition of the Order, 289;
+  languages, 290;
+  dress, 290;
+  form of government, 291;
+  in the siege of Malta, 300, 324-342;
+  number of deaths, 300;
+  capture fortresses, 312;
+  capture the "puissant galleon," 313;
+  at Licata, 352;
+  their galleys captured by Ali Basha, 352-355.
+
+Knights Templars, foundation of the Order, 291,
+  code of regulations, 291.
+
+Kustir-Aga, chief Eunuch of the Seraglio, 313.
+
+
+Lamirande, Chevalier, at the siege of Malta, 334,
+  killed, 341.
+
+_Lancaster_, the cruiser, 231.
+
+Lanciani, extract from "The Golden Age of the Renaissance," 139.
+
+Lantern, Fort of the, captured, 100.
+
+Lautrec, Marshal de, 104.
+
+Leo X., Pope, 41,
+  attempt on his life, 140;
+  flight to Rome, 141.
+
+Lepanto, battle of, 6, 23, 362-372;
+  number of killed and wounded, 372.
+
+Lerici, 104.
+
+Leyva, Antonio de, 143.
+
+Leyva, Don Sancho de, Governor of "Africa," 267.
+
+Liazzo, 246.
+
+Licastelli, 345.
+
+Licata, 352.
+
+Limasol, 34.
+
+Loredano, Jacques, 34.
+
+Loredano, Captain, at the battle of Lepanto, 369.
+
+Los Gelues, 112, 271.
+
+Louis XII., 100,
+  joins the "Alliance of Christian Princes," 38.
+
+
+Magliana, Castle of, 140.
+
+Mahan, Rear-Admiral, his books on "Sea Power," 14.
+
+Mahomedi, banished from Constantinople, 43,
+  his sons, 43.
+
+Mahomet, result of his death, 286.
+
+Mahomet II., Caliph, captures Constantinople, 33,
+  fortifies the Dardanelles, 34;
+  defeated Rhodes, 38;
+  death, 38.
+
+Majorca, 172.
+
+Malipier, Captain, at the battle of Lepanto, 369.
+
+Malta, siege of, 6, 22, 299-305, 324-342,
+  number of deaths, 300;
+  position, 315;
+  expedition against, 316;
+  preparations for the siege, 318-321.
+
+Malta, Knights of.
+  _see_ Knights
+
+_Marquesa_, the galley, 371.
+
+Marsa Muzetto harbour, 325, 331.
+
+Marsaquivir, attack on, 10.
+
+Maura, Santa, island of, 207, 271.
+
+Mecca, 4.
+
+Medina-Celi, Juan la Cerda, Duke of, expedition against Tripoli, 311.
+
+Medran, Chevalier Gonzales de, at the siege of St. Elmo, 327, 332, 335.
+
+Mehedia, 251.
+
+Melac, Commandeur Gozon de, 312.
+
+Mendoza, Bernard de, in command of La Goletta, 166.
+
+Mendoza, Don Luis Hurtado de, 143.
+
+Messina, 180, 278, 359.
+
+Minorca, 172.
+
+Mitylene, island of, 43.
+
+Monastir, 2, 250.
+
+Moncada, Don Hugo de, Viceroy of Sicily, 80,
+  escapes to Iviza, 82;
+  defeated and slain, 101.
+
+Mondejar, Marquis de, 143.
+
+Monferrato, Monastery of Nuestra Se�ora de, pilgrimages to, 150, 357.
+
+Monte Cristo island, 113.
+
+Montmorency, Anne de, 281.
+
+Monuc, the eunuch, 206.
+
+Moors, their characteristics, 4,
+  expulsion from Granada, 8, 29;
+  their condition in Algiers, 63.
+
+Morea, the, 355, 366.
+
+Morgan, Sir Henry, his capture of Panama, 24.
+
+Morgan, J., his _Compleat History of Algiers_, 243, 250, 345.
+
+Moriscoes, their persecutions, 5,
+  revolt in Granada, 347.
+
+Mosca, Lodovico del, 39.
+
+Moslem corsairs, their cupidity, 3,
+  driven out of Spain, 4, 29;
+  characteristics, 4, 67, 241;
+  fanaticism, 5, 17;
+  supremacy on the sea, 8;
+  frequent defeats, 10;
+  tyranny, 11;
+  ships, 18;
+  booty, 24;
+  cruel methods, 24, 32;
+  retrogression, 239;
+  mode of commencing their careers, 240;
+  conquer Palestine, 286;
+  at the siege of Malta, 300;
+  number of deaths, 300.
+
+Motte, Chevalier de la, at the siege of St. Elmo, 327.
+
+Mourad-Reis, 201.
+
+Moustafa-Billah, Caliph, 287.
+
+Muley Hamid, negotiations with, 330.
+
+Muley Hassan, King of Tunis, 130, 137,
+  restored to his kingdom, 161;
+  terms of his vassalage, 162.
+
+Mustafa, in command of the land forces against Malta, 316, 322,
+  captures Famagusta, 362.
+
+
+Naples, seized, 40,
+  invasion of, 90;
+  reception of Don John of Austria at, 358.
+
+Navarro, Count Pedro de, seizes the town of Bougie, 55,
+  captures Algiers, 62, 64;
+  his Tower, 64.
+
+Navarro's Tower, siege of, 65, 67, 91-95,
+  captured, 95;
+  pulled down, 97.
+
+Nef, the, 18, 232.
+
+Negropont, Bailli of, at the siege of Malta, 326, 332, 333,
+  killed, 341.
+
+Nunez, Martin, his embassy to the Pope, 163.
+
+
+Occhiali.
+  _See_ Ali Basha.
+
+Ojeda, Captain, rescues the _Capitana_ at the battle of Lepanto, 371.
+
+Omedes, Juan d', Grand Master of the Knights of St. John, 278,
+  warned of the approach of the corsairs, 281;
+  refuses to take alarm, 281, 306.
+
+Oneglia, 98.
+
+Oran, 2, 73,
+  attack on, 10.
+
+Oristano, Gulf of, 236.
+
+Osmanli, their warlike achievements on land, 15.
+
+Ottoman, 292,
+  his siege of Rhodes, 293.
+
+_Our Lady of the Conception_, 45.
+
+
+Palamos, Bay of, 236.
+
+Palermo, 265.
+
+Palestine, conquered by Moslems, 286.
+
+Palma, 172.
+
+Panama, capture of, 24.
+
+Pantellaria, island of, 236.
+
+Pantera, Captain Pantero, "L' Armata Navale," 225.
+
+Parma, Prince of, at the battle of Lepanto, 364.
+
+Paschal II., Pope, 301.
+
+Passaro, Cape, 352.
+
+Patras, Turks defeated at, 109.
+
+_Patrona_ galley, capture of, 275.
+
+Paul III., his scheme of defence for Rome, 139.
+
+Paxo, island of, 180.
+
+Payens, Hugues de, founds the Order of the Knights Templars, 291.
+
+Pedro, Francisco San, 371.
+
+Penne, Barras de la, on the treatment of men on board the galleys, 223.
+
+Peter the Hermit, 287.
+
+Philip II., King of Spain, 274, 311,
+  forms the "Holy League," 357;
+  his fleet, 360.
+
+Piali, Admiral, 10,
+  in command of the fleet against Malta, 316, 322.
+
+Pierre, St., Isle of, 235.
+
+Pius V., Pope, 356, 373,
+  forms the "Holy League," 357.
+
+Portugal, Don Juan, King of, his armada at Barcelona, 148.
+
+Portugal, Prince Luis of, at Barcelona, 148, 150.
+
+Prescott, William Hickling, 4,
+  his description of the Janissaries, 279;
+  of Don John of Austria, 358;
+  of the battle of Lepanto, 364, 368.
+
+Press-gang, methods of the, 226.
+
+Prevesa, battle of, 6, 22, 108, 189, 190, 194-218, 366.
+
+Punta delle Forche, 277, 333.
+
+
+Rabadan, Celebi, 92, 112.
+
+Rabadan, left in charge of Tunis, 351.
+
+Raschid, 130, 137.
+
+Raschid, Caliph Haroun, 287.
+
+Ravenstein, Count Philip of, 39.
+
+_Real_, the, 364.
+
+Reggio, 32,
+  sack of, 133.
+
+Reis, Aisa-, left in charge of "Africa," 261, 264,
+  his defence, 266;
+  captured, 267.
+
+Reis, Dragut-,
+  _See_ Dragut
+
+Requesens, Don Luiz de, disaster to his fleet, 234.
+
+_Revenge_, the, 354.
+
+Rhodes, island of, 242,
+  seized by the Knights of St. John, 35, 292;
+  besieged, 36, 293;
+  serpent at, 294-296;
+  derivation of the name, 297.
+
+Ribera, Don Perisan de, 80.
+
+Ricasoli, 333.
+
+Richard II, 215.
+
+Rio, Juan del, taken captive, 71.
+
+Rivi�re, Chevalier La, 322.
+
+Robeira, Captain, repulses the corsairs, 84.
+
+Rocca Guillelma, fortress of, besieged, 99.
+
+Rodas, Capitan de, 111.
+
+Roderick the Goth, conquered by the Osmanli, 15, 29.
+
+Rome, fortifications of, 139.
+
+Romegas, Commandeur de, 312, 313,
+  his account of the battle of Lepanto, 360.
+
+Rosell, Don Cayetano, his _Historia del combate naval de
+    Lepanto_, 359, 364.
+
+Roverejo, Juan, war with Cordoba, 99.
+
+Roxalana, Sultana, her influence over Soliman, 174,
+  characteristics, 174;
+  jealousy, 174;
+  murders Ibrahim, 176.
+
+
+Salaerrez, 88.
+
+Saleh-Reis, 187.
+
+Salerno, Gulf of, 101.
+
+Sallee, the rovers, 237.
+
+Sandoval, El Maestro Don Fray Prudencio de, his history of
+    Charles V., 43, 70, 71, 108, 142, 144, 150, 155.
+
+Sangle, Claude de la, his death, 309.
+
+Sangullo, Antonio de, 139.
+
+_Santa Ana_, bravery of the, 353.
+
+Santa Cruz, Marquis of, at the battle of Lepanto, 364,
+  rescues the _Capitana_, 371.
+
+_Santa Maria_, the flagship of Columbus, 231.
+
+Sardinia, 136.
+
+Satalie, Gulf of, 47.
+
+Savona, fortification of, 103.
+
+Sceberass, Mount, 301, 307, 325, 342.
+
+Scutari, 38.
+
+Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean,
+  take refuge in Northern Africa, 1;
+  their deeds of terror, 2;
+  cupidity, 3;
+  fanaticism, 5, 17;
+  autocratic rule, 7, 25;
+  equality, 7;
+  aptitude for the sea, 8;
+  defeats, 10;
+  nefarious doings, 15;
+  characteristics of their leaders, 16, 25, 284, 376;
+  ships, 18;
+  character of the men, 26;
+  leagues against, 29;
+  relations with the Turks, 33.
+
+Seignelay, his criticism of Admiral de Tourville, 283.
+
+Selim I., Sultan of Turkey.
+  _See_ Soliman
+
+Selim II., Sultan of Turkey, 356,
+  his character, 356;
+  lays claim to the island of Cyprus, 356.
+
+Serpent, method of killing, 294-296.
+
+Sesse, Duke of, 311.
+
+Sessola, islet of, 207.
+
+Sfax, 2, 250.
+
+Sforza, Lodovico, Duke of Milan, 100.
+
+Shershell, 2, 66.
+
+Shott-el-Jerid, 153.
+
+Sinan-Reis, in command of La Goletta fortress, 156,
+  at the battle of Prevesa, 197;
+  in command of the Janissaries, 279, 281;
+  character as a leader, 285, 307;
+  his expedition against Malta, 306;
+  sacks the island of Gozo, 309;
+  captures Tripoli, 309.
+
+Skiathos, 187.
+
+Skios island, 187.
+
+Slaves, on board galleys, their treatment, 223-229,
+  mutiny at Lepanto, 228.
+
+Smyrna, Basha of, 48.
+
+Soliman the Magnificent, Sultan of Turkey, 9, 14, 109,
+  expels the Knights of St. John from Rhodes, 42, 277, 299;
+  embassy from Barbarossa, 60, 76;
+  sends reinforcements, 61;
+  recalls his ships, 61;
+  his conquest of the Mamelukes, 77;
+  invites the cooperation of Barbarossa, 110;
+  appoints him commander of his fleet, 111, 117, 127;
+  receives gifts from him, 118;
+  his reception of him, 120;
+  relations with Ibrahim, 173;
+  under the influence of Roxalana, 174;
+  declares war against Venice, 179;
+  defeated, 179;
+  preparations for campaigns, 183, 277, 316;
+  his demands from Charles V., 270;
+  loss of his "puissant galleon," 313;
+  lamentations of his people, 314;
+  holds a conference, 316;
+  expedition against Malta, 316;
+  his death, 356.
+
+Spaniards, under Moorish rule, 30,
+  expedition against the Barbarossas, 62;
+  repulse Hassan, 84;
+  captives, assist in the capture of Algiers, 89;
+  restored to liberty, 89.
+
+Spartivento, Cape, 136.
+
+Spezzia, Gulf of, 104.
+
+Susa, 2, 250.
+
+Swertius, Franciscus, his collection of epitaphs, 373.
+
+
+Tabas, 88.
+
+Taranto, 32.
+
+Tarik, 15, 29.
+
+Tenes, 2,
+  fall of, 72.
+
+Thevenot, his Travels, 297.
+
+Tiber, the, 139.
+
+Tineo, Garzia de, kills Uruj Barbarossa, 73.
+
+Tlemcen, 2.
+
+Tlemcen, Sultan of, his flight to Fez, 72.
+
+Toledo, Don Garcia de, 230;
+  in the expedition against Dragut, 265;
+  his character as a ruler, 317.
+
+Toledo, Don Pedro de, 273.
+
+Tours, Viscomte de, sent to Genoa, 102.
+
+Tourville, Admiral de, criticism on, 283.
+
+Traparni, 265.
+
+Tripoli, 2, 153,
+  defence of, 10;
+  capture, 309;
+  fortifications, 311;
+  expedition against, 311.
+
+Trivulce, Theodore, 104.
+
+Tunis, 2,
+  captured by the corsairs, 137, 375;
+  massacre in, 141, 159;
+  fortifications repaired, 146;
+  rebellion in, 348;
+  appeal to Ali Basha, 349;
+  flight of Hamid, 350.
+
+Tunis, Sultan of, his treaties with the Barbarossas, 51, 61,
+  repudiates treaty, 59.
+
+Turks, their character as soldiers, 8, 124,
+  relations with the Sea-wolves, 33;
+  attack on Rhodes, 37;
+  defeated at Patras, 109.
+
+Tuscany, Duke of, 235.
+
+
+Urbain II., Pope, 287.
+
+Urbino, Duke of, 99,
+  at the battle of Lepanto, 364.
+
+
+Vagnor, Chevalier, 333.
+
+Valentia, ravaged by corsairs, 83.
+
+Valetta, position of, 307, 342.
+
+Valette, Jean Parisot de la, Grand Master of the Knights of
+  St. John, 6, 248;
+  his characteristics, 301, 309;
+  creed, 302;
+  personal example in the siege of Malta, 302-305;
+  his high conception of duty, 310;
+  expedition against Tripoli, 311;
+  repulsed, 312;
+  summons help, 318;
+  preparations for the siege, 318-321;
+  address to his brethren, 319;
+  at the siege of Malta, 324-328;
+  reinforcements, 328.
+
+Vargas, Martin de, in command of the fortress of Navarro, 91,
+  besieged, 91-95;
+  wounded and taken prisoner, 95;
+  beheaded, 96.
+
+Vasto, Marquis de, 143.
+
+Vega, Don Alvaro, in command of "Africa," 267.
+
+Vega, Don Juan de, Viceroy of Sicily, 273,
+  in the expedition against Dragut, 265.
+
+Velez, Pe�on de, captured, 312.
+
+Venalcadi, 73,
+  escapes, 86;
+  attacks Barbarossa, 87;
+  fight, 88;
+  beheaded, 88.
+
+_Vengeur_, the, 354.
+
+Venice, 32,
+  treaty of commerce concluded, 34;
+  relations with Soliman, 179;
+  war declared, 179;
+  "Holy League" formed, 357.
+
+Veniero, Sebastian in command of the Venetian fleet, 360, 364.
+
+Vera, Don Diego de, sent to capture Algiers, 70,
+  defeated, 71.
+
+Vercoyran, Chevalier de, at the siege of Malta, 332.
+
+Vertot, M. L'Abb� de, 273, 297, 311.
+
+_Victory_, the, 354.
+
+Villaret, Fulke de, Grand Master of the Knights of St. John, 35,
+  seizes Rhodes, 35, 292.
+
+Villegagnon, Commandeur de, his interview with the Grand Master, 281.
+
+Villeneuve, Helion de, Grand Master of the Knights of St. John, 293,
+  character of his rule, 293;
+  death, 297.
+
+Vittoriosa, 299.
+
+Volo, Gulf of, 187.
+
+
+Ximenes, Fray Francisco, Cardinal Bishop of Toledo, 70.
+
+
+Yamboli, 216.
+
+Yonis Bey, sent to Venice, 178.
+
+
+Zante, island of, 114, 313.
+
+Zara, port of, 227.
+
+Zay, Basha, 114, 125.
+
+Zonchio, battle of, 38.
+
+
+
+
+PRINTED BY
+
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+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean
+by E. Hamilton Currey
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+Project Gutenberg's Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean, by E. Hamilton Currey
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
+
+
+Title: Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean
+
+Author: E. Hamilton Currey
+
+Release Date: October 10, 2004 [EBook #13689]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SEA-WOLVES OF THE MEDITERRANEAN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Robert Connal and the Online Distributed Proofreading
+Team, from images generously provided by the Million Books Project.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+SEA-WOLVES OF THE MEDITERRANEAN
+
+
+
+[Illustration: KHEYR-ED-DIN BARBAROSSA--CORSAIR, ADMIRAL, AND KING.]
+
+
+
+SEA-WOLVES OF THE MEDITERRANEAN
+
+
+THE GRAND PERIOD OF THE MOSLEM CORSAIRS
+
+
+
+
+BY COMMANDER E. HAMILTON CURREY, R.N.
+
+
+WITH PORTRAITS AND ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+  "Ships be but boards, sailors but men:
+  There be land rats and water rats, land thieves and water thieves,
+  I mean pirates."
+
+  _Merchant of Venice_.
+
+
+LONDON
+
+JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W
+
+1910
+
+
+
+
+TO THAT GRACIOUS LADY TO WHOSE COUNSEL AND ENCOURAGEMENT I OWE SO MUCH MORE
+THAN ANY ONE--SAVE I--CAN IMAGINE...
+
+TO MY WIFE
+
+I DEDICATE THIS BOOK
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+When the ship is ready for launching there comes a moment of tense
+excitement before the dogshores are knocked away and she slides down the
+ways. In the case of a ship this excitement is shared by many thousands,
+who have assembled to acclaim the birth of a perfected product of the
+industry of man; the emotion is shared by all those who are present. It is
+very different when a book has been completed. The launching has been
+arranged for and completed by expert hands; she like the ship gathers way
+and slides forth into an ocean: but, unlike the ship which is certain to
+float, the waters may close over and engulf her, or perchance she may be
+towed back to that haven of obscurity from which she emerged, to rust there
+in silence and neglect. There is excitement in the breast of one man
+alone--to wit, the author. If his book possesses one supreme qualification
+she will escape the fate mentioned, and this qualification is--interest. As
+the weeks lengthened into months, and these multiplied themselves to the
+tale of something like twenty-four, the conviction was strengthened that
+that which had so profoundly interested the writer, would not be altogether
+indifferent to others. For some inscrutable reason the deeds of sea-robbers
+have always possessed a fascination denied to those of their more numerous
+brethren of the land; and in the case of the Sea-wolves of the sixteenth
+century we are dealing with the very aristocrats of the profession.
+Circumstances over which they had no control flung the Moslem population of
+Southern Spain on to the shores of Northern Africa: to revenge themselves
+upon the Christian foe by whom this expropriation had been accomplished was
+natural to a warrior race; and those who heretofore had been land-folk pure
+and simple took to piracy as a means of livelihood. It is of the deeds of
+these men that this book treats; of their marvellous triumphs, of their
+apparently hopeless defeats, of the manner in which they audaciously
+maintained themselves against the principalities and the powers of
+Christendom always hungering for their destruction.
+
+The quality which Napoleon is said to have ascribed to the British
+Infantry, "of never knowing when they were beaten," seems to have also
+characterised the Sea-wolves; as witness the marvellous recuperation of
+Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa when expelled from Tunis by Charles V.; and the
+escape of Dragut from the island of Jerba when apparently hopelessly
+trapped by the Genoese admiral, Andrea Doria. All through their history the
+leaders of the Sea-wolves show the resourcefulness of the real seamen that
+they had become by force of circumstances, and it was they who in the age
+in which they dwelt showed what sea power really meant. Sailing through the
+Mediterranean on my way to Malta in the spring of this year, as the good
+ship fared onwards I passed in succession all those lurking-places from
+which the Moslem Corsairs were wont to burst out upon their prey. Truly it
+seemed as if
+
+  "The spirits of their fathers might start from every wave,"
+
+and in imagination one pictured the rush of the pirate galley, with its
+naked slaves straining at the oar of their taskmasters, its fierce,
+reckless, beturbaned crew clustered on the "rambades" at the bow and stern.
+It might be that they would capture some hapless "round-ship," a
+merchantman lumbering slowly along the coast; or again they might meet with
+a galley of the terrible Knights of St. John or of the ever-redoubtable
+Doria. In either case the Sea-wolves were equal to their fortune, to
+plunder or to fight in the name of Allah and his prophet.
+
+That which differentiated the Sea-wolves from other pirates was the
+combination which they effected among themselves; the manner in which these
+lawless men could subordinate themselves to the will of one whom they
+recognised as a great leader. To obtain such recognition was no easy
+matter, and the manner in which this was done, by those who rose by sheer
+force of character to the summit of this remarkable hierarchy, has here
+been set forth.
+
+E. HAMILTON CURREY.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY                                                 1
+
+CHAPTER I
+THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS                                  13
+
+CHAPTER II
+THE COMING OF THE CORSAIRS                                  28
+
+CHAPTER III
+URUJ BARBAROSSA                                             43
+
+CHAPTER IV
+THE DEATH OF URUJ BARBAROSSA                                59
+
+CHAPTER V
+KHEYR-ED-DIN BARBAROSSA                                     75
+
+CHAPTER VI
+THE TAKING OF THE PENON D'ALGER; ANDREA DORIA               91
+
+CHAPTER VII
+THE APOTHEOSIS OF THE CORSAIR KING                         107
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+THE RAID ON THE COAST OF ITALY; JULIA GONZAGA              123
+
+CHAPTER IX
+BARCELONA, MAY 1535; THE GATHERING OF THE
+CHRISTIAN HOSTS                                            139
+
+CHAPTER X
+THE FALL OF TUNIS AND THE FLIGHT OF BARBAROSSA             155
+
+CHAPTER XI
+ROXALANA AND THE MURDER OF IBRAHIM                         172
+
+CHAPTER XII
+THE PREVESA CAMPAIGN; THE GATHERING OF THE
+  FLEETS                                                   189
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+THE BATTLE OF PREVESA                                      205
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+THE NAVY OF OARS. THE GALLEY, THE GALEASSE,
+  AND THE NEF                                              221
+
+CHAPTER XV
+DRAGUT-REIS                                                238
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+DRAGUT-REIS                                                254
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+DRAGUT-REIS                                                269
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+THE KNIGHTS OF ST. JOHN                                    286
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+DRAGUT-REIS                                                306
+
+CHAPTER XX
+THE SIEGE OF MALTA                                         324
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+ALI BASHA                                                  344
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+LEPANTO                                                    362
+
+AUTHORITIES CONSULTED                                      383
+
+LIST OF THE KINGS OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, SPAIN,
+  SULTANS OF TURKEY, POPES OF ROME, AND GRAND
+  MASTERS OF MALTA FROM 1492 TO 1580                       385
+
+DISTANCES IN SEA MILES ON THE COAST OF NORTHERN
+  AFRICA                                                   387
+
+INDEX                                                      389
+
+
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+I wish to record my cordial recognition of the kindness shown to me at
+Malta by Mr. Salvino Sant Manduca. The picture of the carrack opposite to
+page 300 was a gift from him. The galley of the Knights of Malta is a
+reproduction of a picture hanging in his house. I should also like to thank
+him for the time and trouble which he took on my behalf during my stay at
+Malta, and the keen interest he displayed in my subject.
+
+R. HAMILTON CURREY.
+
+
+KHEYR-ED-DIN BARBAROSSA--CORSAIR, ADMIRAL, AND KING      _Frontispiece_
+
+                                                            FACING PAGE
+
+URUJ AND KHEYR-ED-DIN BARBAROSSA                                     44
+
+ANDREA DORIA, PRINCE OF ONEOLIA, ADMIRAL TO CHARLES V.               92
+
+SOLIMAN THE MAGNIFICENT                                             110
+
+THE EMPEROR CHARLES V                                               150
+
+MULEY HASSAN KING OF TUNIS                                          162
+
+GALEASSE UNDER SAIL                                                 194
+
+GALLEY UNDER OARS                                                   222
+
+BRIGANTINE CHASING FELUCCA                                          236
+
+GOZON DE DIEU-DONNE SLAYING THE GREAT SERPENT OF RHODES             294
+
+CARRACK IN WHICH THE KNIGHTS ARRIVED AT MALTA, 1530                 300
+
+JEAN PARISOT DE LA VALETTE, GRAND MASTER OF THE KNIGHTS
+  OF MALTA, AT THE SIEGE OF THAT ISLAND BY THE TURKS
+  IN 1565                                                           324
+
+DEATH OF DRAGUT AT THE SIEGE OF MALTA                               340
+
+A GALLEY OF THE KNIGHTS OF MALTA                                    354
+
+DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA                                                 362
+
+SEBASTIAN VENIERO                                                   364
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY
+
+In all the ages of which we have any record there have been men who gained
+a living by that practice of robbery on the high seas which we know by the
+name of Piracy. Perhaps the pirates best known to the English-speaking
+world are the buccaneers of the Spanish Main, who flourished exceedingly in
+the seventeenth century, and of whom many chronicles exist: principally
+owing to the labours of that John Esquemelin, a pirate of a literary turn
+of mind, who added the crime of authorship to the ill deeds of a sea-rover.
+The Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean in the preceding century did not raise
+up a chronicler from among themselves: for not much tincture of learning
+seems to have distinguished these desperate fighters and accomplished
+seamen, descendants of those Spanish Moslems who had, during the Middle
+Ages, lived in a land in which learning and culture had been held in the
+highest estimation. Driven from their homes, their civilisation crushed,
+their religion banned in that portion of Southern Spain in which they had
+dwelt for over seven centuries, cast upon the shores of Northern Africa,
+these men took to the sea and became the scourge of the Mediterranean. That
+which they did, the deeds which they accomplished, the terror which they
+inspired, the ruin and havoc which they wrought, have been set forth in the
+pages of this book.
+
+It was the age of the galley, the oar-propelled vessel which moved
+independently of the wind in the fine-weather months of the great inland
+sea. Therefore to the dwellers on the coast the Sea-wolves were a perpetual
+menace; as, when booty was unobtainable at sea, they raided the towns and
+villages of their Christian foes. During all the period here dealt with no
+man's life, no woman's honour, was safe from these pirates within the area
+of their nefarious activities. They held the Mediterranean in fee, they
+levied toll on all who came within reach of their galleys and their
+scimitars. Places unknown to the geography of the sixteenth century became
+notorious in their day, and Christian wives and mothers learned to tremble
+at the very names of Algiers and Tunis. From these places the rovers issued
+to capture, to destroy, and to enslave: in Oran and Tlemcen, in Tenes,
+Shershell, Bougie, Jigelli, Bizerta, Sfax, Susa, Monastir, Jerbah, and
+Tripoli they lurked ready for the raid and the foray. At one time all
+Northern Africa would thrill to the triumph of the Moslem arms, at another
+there would go up the wail of the utterly defeated; but in spite of
+alternations of fortune the Sea-wolves abode in the localities of their
+choice, and ended in establishing those pirate States which troubled the
+peace of the Mediterranean practically until the introduction of steam.
+
+The whole record of the sixteenth century is one of blood and fire, of
+torture and massacre, of "punic faith" and shameless treason; the deeds of
+the sea-rovers, appalling as they were, frequently found a counterpart in
+the battles, the sieges, and the sacking of towns which took place
+perpetually on the continent of Europe.
+
+There was so much history made at this period, the stage of world politics
+was occupied by so many great, striking, and dazzling personalities, that
+the Sea-wolves and all they accomplished were to a great extent
+overshadowed by happenings which the chroniclers of the time considered to
+be of greater importance. In this no doubt they were right in the main;
+but, in spite of this opinion which they held, we find that time and again
+the main stream of events is ruffled by the prows of the pirate galleys.
+Such men as the Barbarossas, as Dragut, and Ali Basha could only have been
+suppressed and exterminated had the whole might of Christendom been turned
+against them, for they held in their hands two weapons, the keenest and
+most powerful with which to attain the objects which they had in view.
+
+The first and more powerful of these was the appeal in a rough and warlike
+age to the cupidity of mankind. "Those who are content to follow us," they
+said in effect, "are certain to enrich themselves if they are men stout of
+heart and strong of hand. All around us lie rich and prosperous lands; we
+have but to organise ourselves, and to take anything that we wish for; we
+can, if we like, gather a rich harvest at comparatively small trouble."
+Such counsels as these did not fall on deaf ears. Driven from the land of
+plenty--from glorious Andalusia with its fruitful soil, its magnificent
+cities, its vines and olives, its fruit and grain, its noble rivers and
+wide-spreading _vegas_--the Spanish Moslem of the day of the Sea-wolves was
+an outcast and a beggar, ripe for adventure and burning for revenge on
+those by whom he had been expropriated.
+
+Great historians like William Hickling Prescott tell us that, in the course
+of the seven centuries of the Moslem domination in Spain, the Moors had
+become soft and effeminate, that "the canker of peace" had sapped, if it
+had not destroyed, the virile qualities of the race, that luxury and
+learning had dried up at their source those primitive virtues of courage
+and hardihood which had been the leading characteristics of those stark
+fighters who had borne the banner of the Prophet from Mecca even to Cadiz.
+Tom by faction, by strife among themselves, they had succumbed to the arms
+of the Northern chivalry; by its warriors they had been driven out, never
+to return.
+
+When this was accomplished, when the curtain fell on the final scene of the
+tragedy, and the Moors, after the fall of Granada, were driven across the
+sea into Africa, there came to pass a most remarkable change in those who
+had been expropriated. The learning, the culture, the civilisation, by
+which they had been so long distinguished, seemed to drop away from them,
+cast away like a worn-out garment for which men have no further use. In
+place of all these things there came a complete and desperate valour, a
+bitter and headstrong fanaticism.
+
+It was one of the attributes of the Moslem civilisation in Spain, and one
+of the most enlightened thereof, that religious toleration flourished in
+its midst. Jew and Christian were allowed to worship at the altars of their
+fathers, no man hindering or saying them nay; one rule, and one alone, had
+to be preserved: none must blaspheme against Mahomet, the Prophet of God,
+as he was considered to be by the Moslems. The penalty for infraction of
+this rule was death; otherwise, complete liberty of conscience was
+accorded.
+
+We have spoken of the two weapons held by the leaders of the Sea-wolves.
+The first, as we have, said, was cupidity; the second was fanaticism, the
+deadly religious hatred engendered, not only by the wholesale expropriation
+of the Moslem population, but also by the persecution to which the
+Moriscoes--as those Moslems were known who remained in Spain--were
+subjected by their Christian masters. It requires little imagination to see
+how these two weapons of avarice and intolerance could be made to serve the
+purpose of those dominant spirits who rose to the summit of the piratical
+hierarchy. Not only did they dazzle the imaginations of those who followed
+in their train by promises of wealth uncounted, but they added to this the
+specious argument that, in slaying and robbing the Christian wheresoever he
+was to be found, the faithful Moslem was performing the service of God and
+the act most grateful to his holy Prophet.
+
+Could any rule of life be at the same time more simple and more attractive
+to the beggared Mohammedan cast on the sterile shores of Northern Africa to
+starve?
+
+With the main stream of history, to which we have before referred, we have
+no concern in this book. He who would embark thereon must sail a powerful
+vessel which must carry many guns. Also for the conduct of this vessel many
+qualities are necessary: a commanding intellect, acute perceptions,
+indefatigable industry, complete leisure, are among those things necessary
+to the pilot. These must be supplemented by a genius for research, a
+knowledge of ancient and modern languages, and an unerring faculty for
+separating the few precious grains of wheat from those mountains of chaff
+which he will have to sift with the utmost care. There are, however,
+subsidiary rivulets which feed the onward flow of events, and of such is
+the story of the Sea-wolves of the Mediterranean. On these the adventurous
+mariner can sail his little cockboat, discreetly retiring before he becomes
+involved and engulfed in the main stream. That he cannot altogether avoid
+it is shown by the fact that the men who are here chronicled took part in
+events of first-class importance in the age in which they lived.
+Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa fought the battle of Prevesa against his lifelong
+antagonist, Andrea Doria. Dragut was killed at the siege of Malta, at the
+moment almost of the fall of the castle of St. Elmo; had he lived it is
+more than probable that Jean Parisot de la Valette and his heroic garrison
+would have been defeated instead of being victorious. Ali Basha was the one
+Moslem commander who increased his reputation at the battle of Lepanto,
+because, as was usual in all maritime conflicts of the time, the corsairs,
+who had the habit of the sea, were more than a match for soldiers embarked
+to fight on an unfamiliar element.
+
+We shall speak, later on, of the autocratic rule of these leaders who
+possessed so absolute a domination over the men by whom they were followed.
+The fact of this absolute supremacy on the part of the chiefs is very
+curious, as theoretically in the confederacy of the Sea-wolves all were
+equal; we are, in fact, confronted with pure democracy, where every man was
+at liberty to do what seemed best in his own eyes. He was a free agent,
+none coercing him or desiring him to place himself under discipline or
+command. This, be it observed, was the theory. As a matter of fact the
+corsairs, who were extraordinarily successful in their abominable trade,
+abode beneath an iron and rigid discipline. This was enforced by the lash,
+as we shall see later on when it is related how Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa
+flogged one Hassan, a captain who, he considered, had failed in his duty:
+or by the actual penalty of death, which Uruj Barbarossa inflicted on one
+who had dared to act independently of his authority.
+
+The theory of equality obtained among the Mediterranean pirates; but the
+Barbarossas, Dragut, and Ali believed that, in practice, the less
+interference there was with their designs by those, whom Cardinal Granvelle
+denominated in a letter to Philip II. as "that mischievous animal the
+people," the better it would be for all concerned. The conception held of
+rights and duties of "the mischievous animal" by these militant persons
+was, that it should behave as did those others recorded of the Roman
+centurion in Holy Writ: if it did not, and difficulties arose, the leaders
+were not troubled with an undue tenderness either towards the individual or
+the theory. Of this we shall see examples as we go on.
+
+This period has been called "The Grand Period of the Moslem Corsairs"
+because it was in something less than a century, from the year of the
+expulsion of the Moors from Granada in 1492 to the death of Ali Basha in
+1580, that the Sea-wolves were at the height of their power, that the
+piratical States of the Mediterranean were in the making. That subsequently
+they gave great cause of trouble to Christendom is written in characters of
+blood and fire throughout the history of the succeeding centuries; but the
+real interest in the careers of these men resides in the fact that they
+established, by their extraordinary aptitude for sea-adventure, the
+permanent place which was held by their descendants. Time and again in the
+sixteenth century the effort was made to destroy them root and branch: they
+were defeated, driven out of their strongholds on shore, crushed apparently
+for ever. But nothing short of actual extermination could have been
+successful in this; as, no matter how severe had been the set-back, there
+was always left a nucleus of the pirates which in a short time grew again
+into a formidable force. The Ottoman Turk, magnificent fighter as he was on
+land, seemed to lose his great qualities when the venue was changed from
+the land to the sea. The Janissaries, that picked corps trained as few
+soldiers were trained even in that age of iron, who never recoiled before
+the foe but who fought only to conquer or die, seem to have failed when
+embarked for sea-service. That which the hard teaching of experience alone
+could show--that the man who fights best upon the sea is he who has the
+habit of the sea--was at this time not generally recognised, and this it
+was that rendered the corsairs so supreme on the element which they had
+made their own. Some among the great ones of the earth there were who
+appreciated this fact, who, like that great statesman Ibrahim, Grand Vizier
+to Soliman the Magnificent, recognised what it was to lay their hands upon
+"a veritable man of the sea"; but the rule was to embark men from the shore
+and to entrust to them the duty of fighting naval actions.
+
+When "the Grand Period" came to an end, as it did about the date already
+indicated, the corsairs had become a permanent institution; they remained
+established at Algiers, Tunis, and other ports on the littoral of Northern
+Africa as a recognised evil. Pirates they remained to the end of the
+chapter, the scourge of the tideless sea; but no longer did they array
+themselves in line of battle against the mightiest potentates of the earth
+allied for their complete destruction. It was the men of the sea who set up
+this empire; it was they who defied Charles V., a whole succession of
+Popes, Andrea Doria and his descendants, the might of Spain, Venice, Genoa,
+Catalonia, and France. It was they who taught the so-called civilised world
+of the age in which they lived that sea-power can only be met and checked
+by those who dispose of navies manned by seamen; that against it the master
+of the mightiest legions of the land is powerless.
+
+This contention is by no means invalidated by the fact that frequently the
+corsairs were defeated by land forces embarked on board ship. Thus when
+Dragut was defending Tripoli against an expedition sent against him in 1559
+by the combined forces of Spain, Tuscany, Rome, Naples, Sicily, and Genoa,
+of one hundred sail which embarked fourteen thousand troops, he was
+relieved by Piali, the Admiral of Soliman the Magnificent, who came to his
+assistance with eighty-six galleys, each of which had on board one hundred
+Janissaries, and who gained so striking a victory over the Christians that
+the Turkish Admiral returned to Constantinople with no less than four
+thousand prisoners. But in this case, as in so many others, the actual
+hostilities took place on shore, where the troops had the opportunity of
+displaying their sterling qualities.
+
+There is very little doubt that critics will point out that the corsairs
+were by no means universally successful; that, as in the case of the attack
+by Hassem, the ruler of Algiers in 1563, on Oran and Marzaquivir (a small
+port in the immediate vicinity of Oran), in the end the Moslems were badly
+beaten. This undoubtedly was the case, and there is no desire to magnify
+the deeds of the Sea-wolves or to minimise the heroic defence of
+Marzaquivir by the Count of Alcaudete, or that of Oran by his brother, Don
+Martin de Cordoba, At the last moment of their wonderful defence they were
+relieved by a fleet sent by the King of Spain, and Hassem had to abandon
+his artillery, ammunition, and stores and beat a hasty retreat to the place
+from whence he had come.
+
+There was nothing remarkable in the fact that the corsairs were frequently
+defeated; what is really strange is that they should have achieved so great
+a success--success vouched for by the concrete instance that they
+established those sinister dynasties on the coast of Northern Africa which
+were the outcome of their piratical activities.
+
+In speaking of them, historians of later date than that at which they
+flourished are apt to hold them somewhat cheaply, to dismiss them as mere
+barbarians of no particular importance in the scheme of mundane affairs; as
+men who caused a certain amount of trouble to civilisation by their inroads
+and their plunderings. That which is certain is that they were for
+centuries a standing shame and disgrace to the whole of Christendom.
+
+To those who may perhaps be called the pioneers--that is to say, the men
+treated of in this book--a certain amount of sympathy and understanding may
+be conceded; for they had been driven from the land which had been theirs,
+it was their countrymen and their co-religionists who were being ground to
+powder beneath the fanatical cruelty of the Spanish Inquisition. That which
+they did was doubtless abominable, but it cannot be contended that they had
+not received the strongest provocation both from the material and the
+religious points of view.
+
+Once the "Grand Period" was passed, that period in which such men as the
+Barbarossas, Dragut, and Ali flourished, the chronicle of the Moslem States
+founded by them sinks to the degraded level of sheer robbery and murder; of
+a history of a tyranny established within one hundred miles of the shores
+of Europe, and of great kings and princes bargaining with piratical
+ruffians who held in thrall thousands upon thousands of their subjects. How
+it came about that the Christian States tolerated such an abuse is one of
+those mysteries which can never be explained; and if subsequent centuries
+displayed a greater refinement of manners, a more apt appreciation of all
+that is softer and kindlier in the human relationships of nation towards
+nation and of people towards people, they have not perhaps so much to plume
+themselves upon as had their rude forefathers of the sixteenth century,
+who, seeing the evil and feeling the effects thereof, did their best to
+extirpate those by whom this evil was caused.
+
+The question may be asked, how can it be that the lives and actions of such
+men as these are worth chronicling? It is because, not only that they
+modified profoundly the course of history in the age in which they lived,
+but also because that, hidden deep down, somewhere, in these men stained by
+a thousand crimes, ruthless, lustful, bloodthirsty, cruel as the grave, was
+the germ of true greatness, some dim spark of the divine fire of genius.
+Contending against principalities and powers, they held their own; in the
+welter of anarchy in which they lived they proved that there existed no
+finer fighting men, which alone give them some claim to consideration; but
+that which is most interesting to watch is the absolute domination obtained
+by the leaders over their followers. There is no other record of pirates
+who commanded on so large a scale; there is none which shows men such as
+these bargaining on equal terms with the great ones of the earth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS
+
+There is, in the deeds of men of action, an interest which is never aroused
+by those persons of brains and capacity by whom the world is really ruled.
+The statesman in his cabinet is the god within the machine; it is he who
+directs the acts of nations, it is he who moves the fleets and armies as if
+they were pieces on the chess-board; to him, as a rule, is the man of
+action subordinate, obeying his behests. Rule and governance are his, power
+both in the abstract and the concrete. Seldom in the history of the world
+do we come across the men who are at one and the same time statesmen and
+soldiers, who, taking their destiny in their own hands, work it out to the
+appointed end thereof. But, as we stray in the by-paths of history, we meet
+with some who, in their day, have influenced not only the age in which they
+lived themselves, but also the destinies of generations yet unborn. It
+would seem incredible that mere pirates, such as the Moslem corsairs of the
+Mediterranean, could be included in this category, and yet, as their story
+is unfolded, we shall see how the Sea-wolves rose from the humblest
+beginnings to trouble the peace of Europe, to found for themselves
+dynasties which endured.
+
+Uruj Barbarossa, Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, Dragut Reis, and Occhiali, or All
+Basha, were men who, in the sixteenth century, did much to change the
+conditions of the times in which they lived: it was the time of the
+Renaissance in Europe, a period of splendour in all the arts and sciences.
+These men added nothing to the knowledge of the civilised world as it then
+existed, save and except in one particular, which was, as Kheyr-ed-Din
+explained to Soliman the Magnificent on a certain memorable occasion, that
+he who rules on the sea will rule on the land also. In the present day,
+when all the nations and languages sit at the feet of Captain (now
+Rear-Admiral) Mahan, and acclaim his "Sea Power" series of books, it is
+interesting to find that he was anticipated in the most practical fashion
+possible by a corsair of the sixteenth century.
+
+This period was one in which great men abounded. The Emperor Charles V.,
+Francis I. of France, and Henry VIII. of England, were on the thrones of
+their respective countries; in Hungary was John Hunyadi, at Constantinople
+Soliman the Magnificent held rule, while in Rome the "fatal house of
+Medici" were the successors of Saint Peter. War was a commonplace state of
+the times, but until the Crescent began to sweep the seas it had its
+manifestation in the perpetual quarrels of the nations of Christendom,
+which represented, as a rule, the insatiable ambitions of its rulers. But
+now new men forced themselves to the front, a new power arose which was
+very imperfectly understood, and which practically held the sea at its
+mercy. Gone were the halcyon days of peaceful trade which had been pursued
+for generations by Venetian and Genoese, by Spaniard and Frenchman; gone
+also, apparently never to return, was all sense of security for the
+wretched dwellers on the littoral of the Mediterranean, who lived in daily,
+and particularly in nightly, dread of the falcon swoop of the pirate
+galleys.
+
+It is amusing to read the old chroniclers, sticklers as they were for "the
+dignity of history," continually having to turn aside from the main stream
+of their narrative of emperors, popes, and kings to descend to the level of
+the Sea-wolves, and to be constrained to set down the nefarious doings of
+these rovers of the sea. Bell, book, and candle were invoked against them
+in vain, and mighty monarchs had to meet them in the stricken field not
+merely once or twice--to their utter undoing and discomfiture--but many
+times, while victory inclined first to one side and then to the other.
+
+The Osmanli had ever been warriors since the times of the Prophet, of
+Abu-Bekr, of Othman, and of Ali; but so far their warlike achievements had
+been always on land, their only sea experience being confined to the
+crossing of the Straits of Gibraltar, when in the eighth century, under
+Tarik, they had swarmed into Andalusia, conquered Roderick the Goth, and
+set up that Moslem domination in Southern Spain which lasted until 1492,
+just before the events set forth in this book took place. Piracy in all
+ages is a thing in which a curious shuddering interest has been taken, and
+the deeds of the outlaws of the sea have never lacked chroniclers. There is
+for this a reason apart from the record of robbery and murder, which is the
+commonplace of piratical deeds: it resides in the perennial interest which
+men take in individual achievement, in the spectacle of absolute and
+complete domination by one man over the lives and the fortunes of others.
+This intense form of individualism is nowhere so well exhibited as in the
+story of piratical enterprise, where a band of men, outside of the law and
+divorced from all human kind by the atrocity of their deeds, has had to be
+welded into one homogeneous mass for the purpose of preying upon the world
+at large. Therefore he who would hold rule among such outlaws must himself
+be a man of no common description, for in him must be that quality which
+calls for instantaneous obedience among those with whom he is associated;
+behind him is no constituted authority, discipline is personal, enforced by
+the leader, and by him alone. Beneath him are men of the rudest and
+roughest description, slaves to their lusts and their passions, prone to
+mutiny, suspicious, and--worst of all--stupid.
+
+It is with these constituent elements that the piratical leader had to
+deal, trusting to the strength of his own arm, the subtlety of his own
+unassisted brain. Some among these leaders have risen to eminence in their
+evil lives, most of them have been the captains of single ships preying on
+commerce in an indiscriminate manner; but this was not the case with the
+Sea-wolves of the Mediterranean, Primarily sea-robbers they were of course,
+but as time and opportunity developed their characters they rose to meet
+occasion, to take fortune at the flood, in a manner that, had they been
+pursuing any other career, would most certainly have caused them to rise to
+eminence. Into the fierce and blood-stained turmoil of their lives there
+entered something unknown to any other pirates: this was religious
+fanaticism--a fanaticism so engrained in character, a belief held to with
+such passionate tenacity, that men stained with every conceivable crime
+held that their passage to Paradise was absolutely secure because of the
+faith which they professed. Tradition, sentiment, discipline, were summed
+up in one trite formula; but though we, at this distance of time, may hold
+it somewhat in derision, it was a vital force in the days of Soliman the
+Magnificent; and there was an added zest to robbery and murder in the fact
+that the pirates, as good Mohammedans, were obeying the behests of the
+Prophet every time that they cut a Christian throat, plundered a Christian
+argosy, or carried off shrieking women into a captivity far worse than
+death.
+
+That a pirate should be a warrior goes without saying, that a pirate should
+be a statesman is a thing almost incredible; but those who will read the
+story of the life of Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa will be forced to admit that
+here, at least, was a pirate who achieved the apparently impossible.
+Admiral Jurien de la Graviere has remarked that the Moslem corsairs of the
+sixteenth century were great men, even when measured by the standard of
+Henry VIII., of Charles V., of Soliman the Magnificent, of Ibrahim, his
+Grand Vizier, or of Andrea Doria, greatest among contemporary Christian
+mariners. To the seaman, of course, there is much that is fascinating in
+the deeds of his forerunners, and the ships of the corsairs had in them
+something distinctive in that they were propelled by oars, and were in
+consequence, to a certain extent, independent of the weather. Like the
+sailors of all ages, to the Sea-wolves gales and storms of all sorts and
+descriptions were abhorrent; and in consequence they had a well-marked
+piracy season, which, as we shall see, covered the spring and summer, while
+they carefully avoided the inclement months of autumn and winter.
+
+In a later chapter an attempt has been made to place before the reader
+pictures of the galley, the galeasse, and the nef, which were the names
+attached to the ships then in use; the name brigantine, far from having the
+significance attached to it by the sailor of the present day, seems to have
+been a generic term to denote any craft not included in the names already
+given.
+
+Although the sixteenth century had outgrown the principle of the general
+massacre of the enemy by the victors, still chivalry to the fallen foe was
+far to seek, as all persons captured at sea were, no matter what their rank
+and status, immediately stripped and chained to the rowers' bench, where
+they remained until ransom, good fortune, or a kindly death, for which
+these unfortunates were wont to pray, should come to their release. To a
+large extent this savagery may be traced to the religious rancour which
+animated the combatants on both sides, as the fanaticism of the Moslem, of
+which we have already spoken, was fully matched on the side of the
+Christians by the bigotry of the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem,
+otherwise known as the Knights of Malta, who were vowed to the
+extermination of what they, on their side, called "the infidel." It was an
+age of iron, when men neither gave nor expected grace for the misfortunes
+which might befall them in the warrior life which they led. It was
+distinguished by many gallant feats of arms on both sides, but pity formed
+no part of the equipment of the fighting man bent on the death or capture
+of his enemy. Honestly and sincerely each side believed that they were
+doing the service of the Almighty in destroying the other party root and
+branch. The amount of human misery and suffering caused by the rise and
+progress of the Moslem corsairs was absolutely incalculable; the slavery of
+the rower in the galley in the time of which we speak was an agony so
+dreadful that in these days it is a thing which seems altogether
+incredible, a nightmare of horror almost impossible even to imagine.
+
+The life of the "gallerian" was so hard that his sufferings in many cases
+were mercifully ended in death in a very short time, as none save those of
+iron constitution could stand the strain imposed by the desperate toil and
+wretched food. Yet there are cases on record of men who had worked at the
+oar for actual decades, so unconquerable in their strength that even such a
+life as this had not the power to break them down.
+
+To the peaceful mariner who wished merely to trade, to the individual whose
+business called him overseas, this epoch must have been one of terror
+unspeakable. The ordinary perils of the deep were quite enough to keep
+timid folk at home in those days of clumsy, ill-found sailing ships, which
+could by no means work to windward, and did not sail remarkably well even
+with the most favouring breezes; when to this we add that every ship which
+started on a voyage in the Mediterranean had before her the chance of being
+captured by the corsairs, it was no wonder that he whose business led him
+oversea should make his last will and testament and bid a fond farewell to
+all his relatives.
+
+There is a record in the Memoires of the Rev. Frere Pierre d'An, Bachelier
+en Theologie de la Faculte de Paris, etc., who wrote in a most heartfelt
+manner concerning the danger of the sea and the perils to be expected from
+the Barbary corsairs. He says, date 1637:
+
+  "An ancient writer, considering how little assurance can ordinarily be
+  placed in the sea, and how hazardous it is to expose oneself and one's
+  goods to its mercy, has remarked, with much reason, that it is
+  infinitely preferable to be poor on shore than to be rich at sea. In
+  which saying he mocks indeed at those ambitious, avaricious, and
+  mercenary men who, in order to gain false glory and the things of this
+  world, expose themselves rashly to the manifest perils which are most of
+  the time the inevitable lot of the seaman. This same consideration
+  causes him also to utter these remarkable words: that he repents himself
+  of but one thing, and that is ever to have travelled by sea when it was
+  possible to have done so by land. And, to say truth, he has good reason
+  to speak as he does, because it is impossible for the most hardy
+  navigators not to tremble with fear when it is represented before their
+  eyes that they must combat with the winds, the waves, and the foam every
+  time that they adventure upon the deep.
+
+  "Because it is indisputable that this is the very Theatre of the storms,
+  and the place in the world most capable of all sorts of violence and
+  tragic adventure. This, however, does not prevent those who covet the
+  perishable goods of this world from straying upon the sea, even in
+  unknown and untraversed regions, without ceasing and without rest.
+
+  "If, however, they abandon the ocean for a time, it is but to return to
+  it again to seek once more war with their ships, in order unjustly to
+  make themselves masters of the bodies and of the riches of others.
+
+  "Of such it may be remarked to-day are, in all the maritime coasts, the
+  implacable Corsairs of Barbary. For, however great may be the dangers of
+  which we have just spoken, and no matter now many examples they may see
+  of the fury and inconstancy of Neptune, they cease not their irritating
+  performances, kindling warfare in all the coasts of the Christian
+  nations. It is there that they exercise their infamous piracies, and
+  there also that they glory in the most shameful of all commerce--the
+  trade of the brigand.
+
+  "Which in all towns that are well policed have always met with a swift
+  and just retribution, because the law is ordained against those who
+  maintain such practices.
+
+  "But such does not happen among these pirates.
+
+  "On the contrary, it may truthfully be said that, while in towns in
+  which good persons dwell good actions receive the palms and the crown,
+  it is among the Corsairs but to the wicked to whom are given recompense
+  and praise.
+
+  "In effect the most determined among them--I mean the most unworthy
+  robbers who are best versed in all the infamies of their trade and most
+  accustomed to the practice of violence--are those who are covered with
+  honours, and who pass in the estimation of their fellows for men of
+  heart and courage.
+
+  "Indeed experience has taught all Christian merchants that the infidels
+  of the coast of Barbary are all brigands.
+
+  "Among these those of Algiers carry off the prize for riches, for ships,
+  for strength, and for villainy."
+
+The bachelor in theology is somewhat sweeping in his criticisms, and his
+meaning is, perhaps, somewhat clearer than his grammar. One thing, however,
+is perfectly plain, that, in the opinion of the reverend brother, those who
+go to sea are to be divided into two categories, rogues and fools, with a
+strong preponderance of the worse Element of the two.
+
+Of the corsairs dealt with in this record of their deeds the two
+Barbarossas were the sons of a Mohammedan father and a Christian mother.
+Dragut Reis was a pure Mohammedan, and Ali Basha was a pure-blooded
+Italian. All these men, as will be seen, raised themselves to eminence in
+the profession of piracy; in each and every separate case starting at the
+very bottom rung of the ladder and rising, by sheer stress of valour and
+character, to the very top. Each in turn became Admiralissimo to the Grand
+Turk at Constantinople. Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa commanded the Ottoman fleet
+at the great battle of Prevesa, at which he met with his life-long
+competitor at sea, the famous Genoese Admiral, Andrea Doria. Dragut Reis
+was killed at the siege of Malta in 1565, and Ali Basha was the only Moslem
+commander who increased his reputation at the battle of Lepanto in 1571,
+when Don John of Austria shattered the power of the Moslem at sea for the
+time being.
+
+Although the "renegado" was very much in evidence in the vessels of the
+Moslem corsairs, still of course the bulk of the fighting men, by which the
+galleys were manned, were Mohammedans, the descendants of the warriors who
+had swept through Northern Africa like a living flame in the early days of
+the Mohammedan conquest.
+
+Cut adrift from the homes which had been theirs for over seven
+centuries--as we shall see in the next chapter--there was nothing left for
+the erstwhile dwellers in Andalusia but to gain their living by the strong
+hand. The harvest of the sea was the one which they garnered--a harvest of
+the goods of their mortal enemies strung out in lines of hapless
+merchant-vessels throughout the length and breadth of the tideless sea.
+
+It booted not that the great Powers of Europe sent expedition after
+expedition against them; these they fought to the death with varying
+fortune, ready, when the storm had passed over their heads, to start once
+more on the only career which promised them the chance of acquiring riches.
+Their whole history is a study of warfare, waged as a rule on the petty
+scale, but rising at times, as in the cases already mentioned, into events
+of first-class historical importance.
+
+The deeds of the buccaneers of the next century in the Spanish Main sink
+into comparative insignificance when compared with what was accomplished by
+such a man as Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, who was known, and rightly known, by
+his contemporaries, and for many generations of Moslem seamen yet to come,
+as "the King of the Sea." The capture of Panama by Sir Henry Morgan in
+January 1671 was possibly as remarkable a feat of arms as was ever
+accomplished, but it cannot rank in its importance to civilised mankind on
+the same plane as those memorable battles in the Mediterranean of which
+mention has been made as having been fought by the Moslem corsairs.
+
+Fighting for their own hand, the booty reaped by these men was incredible
+in its richness. Sea-power was theirs, and they took the fullest advantage
+of this fact, fearing none save the great community of the Knights of Saint
+John of Jerusalem, which, vowed to the destruction of the infidel, neither
+gave nor accepted quarter.
+
+We have said that the real interest in the lives of the corsairs arose from
+the fact that it was personal ascendancy, and that alone, which counted in
+the piratical hierarchy. Against Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa plots arose again
+and again, only to be defeated by the address of the man against whom they
+were directed.
+
+It was one of the cruellest of ages, and rough cruelty was the principal
+means adopted to ensure success; sheer terror was the weapon of the leader.
+Thus when one Hassan, a subordinate of Kheyr-ed-Din, failed to take a
+Spanish ship because she made too stout a resistance, his chief caused him
+to be soundly flogged and then thrown into prison. Such methods naturally
+raised up hosts of enemies in the wake of the piratical commanders, ready
+at any time to do them a mortal injury, and it is little short of
+miraculous that they should throughout a long period of years have been
+able not only to maintain, but to increase, their supremacy over the wild
+spirits of which their following was composed. It was, however, the golden
+age of autocracy, when men surrendered their judgment to some great leader,
+content to follow where he led, to endorse his policy at the cost of their
+lives.
+
+It is the autocrat who is made by the circumstances of his life who
+ultimately becomes supreme. The leaders among the corsairs were tried by
+every test of prosperity and of adverse fortune; they emerged from the ruck
+in the first instance because it was in them to display a more desperate
+valour than did their contemporaries, and it was only when they emerged
+triumphant from this, the first test, that they could begin to impose their
+will upon others. It was then that their real trials began, as the
+undisciplined are ever prone to suspicion, much given to murmuring against
+a leader who is not perpetually successful.
+
+As a rule, however, there were but few to criticise, as the office of
+critic was one fraught with far too much danger to be alluring. In
+maintaining their authority the leaders stopped at nothing, and the heads
+of the recalcitrant were apt to part with amazing suddenness from their
+bodies if they repined overmuch. The Moslem leader was, it is true, merely
+_primus inter pares_, and was distinguished by no outward symbol of the
+power which he possessed; but life and death lay in his hands, and life was
+cheap indeed.
+
+We have spoken hitherto of the leaders, but what of the men of which their
+following was composed? Rough, rude, and reckless, these latter lived but
+to fight and to plunder; to them any other life would have seemed
+impossible, and indeed this was practically the fact. In the communities in
+which they lived the adult male had no other means of gaining a livelihood.
+Since their expulsion from their ancient homes no ordered and peaceful
+method of existence had been possible for them. In the surroundings in
+which their forefathers had lived the arts of peace had been carried on in
+a civilisation to which there had been none comparable in the world as it
+then existed; on all this the Moslem had now to turn his back, and to earn
+a precarious living by the strong hand. War, sanguinary and incessant, was
+henceforward to be his lot, and it must be said that he turned to this
+ancient avocation with a zest which left but little to be desired from the
+point of view of those by whom he was led. In the new life of bloodshed and
+adventure he seemed to delight. Like the free-lance in all ages, he seems
+to have squandered his booty as soon as it was acquired, and then to sea
+once more, to face the desperate hazard of an encounter with the knights,
+to raid defenceless villages, to lie _perdu_ behind some convenient cape,
+dashing out from thence to plunder the argosy of the merchantman.
+Intolerable conditions of heat and cold he endured, he suffered from
+wounds, from fever, from hunger and thirst, from hope deferred, from
+voyages when no plunder came his way.
+
+His reward was the joy of the fight, the delight of the ambush skilfully
+laid, to see the decks of the enemy a dreadful shambles, with the Crescent
+of the Prophet above the detested emblem of the Cross. Then the return to
+Algiers laden with spoil: to tow behind him some luckless Christian ship,
+while aboard his own war-worn galley the drums beat and the trumpets
+sounded, and the banners floated free to the stainless Mediterranean sky.
+Then the procession of the captives through the crowded streets laden with
+what a short time before had been their own property--a mournful _cortege_
+of men doomed to an everlasting slavery and of women destined for the
+harems of the Bashas.
+
+Thus was his life lived, and when death came it came as a rule from the
+slash of a sabre or the ball from an arquebus or a bombard; and then what
+matter, for had not Hassan Ali or Selim fallen in strife against the
+enemies of his faith, and did not the portals of heaven open wide to
+receive the man who had lost his life testifying to the fact that there was
+but one God, and that Mahomet was the Prophet of God?
+
+True in substance and in fact is that which was said by the Frere Pierre
+d'An that "it is indisputable that the sea is the Theatre of the storms and
+the place in the world most capable of all sorts of violence and tragic
+adventure." Those who "coveted the goods of others straying on the sea,"
+called by the reverend brother "the implacable, corsairs of Barbary," were
+to make life intolerable on that element for centuries to come, and if the
+Crescent did not supersede the banner of the Cross in the blue waters of
+the Mediterranean Sea, it remained as a portent and a dread symbol of human
+misery and unutterable suffering.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+THE COMING OF THE CORSAIRS
+
+The rise and progress of the Moslem corsairs of the Mediterranean is a most
+curious and interesting historical fact. The causes which led to results so
+deplorable to commerce, civilisation, and Christianity are set forth in
+this chapter in order that some idea may be formed of the state of affairs
+in that region at the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the
+sixteenth centuries, and also that the reflex action of the great triumph
+of the Christian armies in Spain may be more fully understood.
+
+The maritime Christian States of the Mediterranean at this epoch were at
+the height of their power and prosperity, but were faced by the might of
+the Ottoman Empire, against which they waged perpetual warfare. Bitter and
+unceasing was the strife prosecuted by the Cross against the Crescent, and
+by the Crescent against the Cross; and riding, like eagles on the storm
+came the corsairs in their swift galleys ready to strike down the luckless
+argosy of the merchantman wheresoever she was to be met. But this was not
+all, as the shore as well as the sea yielded up to them its tribute in the
+shape of slaves and booty, and Christian mothers trembling in the
+insecurity of their homes would hush their wailing children with the terror
+of the names of Barbarossa, of Dragut, or of Ali Basha.
+
+Popes and emperors, kings and princes, found themselves compelled to form
+leagues against these Sea-wolves who devoured the substance of their
+subjects, and great expeditions were fitted out to fight with and destroy
+the corsairs. Had Christendom been united no doubt the object would have
+been attained; but, as will be seen at the end of this chapter, an
+"Alliance of Christian Princes against the Turks"--which generic term
+included the corsairs--was not always used in the manner best calculated to
+injure those common enemies.
+
+When in 1492 Granada was yielded up to "Los Reyes Catolicos," Ferdinand of
+Aragon, and Isabella of Castile, by that luckless monarch known as Boabdil
+el Chico (or "the little"), the last remnant of the power of the Moors in
+Spain had gone never to return. On that small hill on the way to the coast
+still known as "el ultimo suspiro del Moro" (the last sigh of the Moor),
+Boabdil, as he looked for the last time on his lost capital of Granada, is
+said to have burst into tears. His fierce mother Ayesha had, however, no
+sympathy for her fallen son: "Thou doest well to weep like a woman for that
+which thou daredst not defend as a man," was her biting--and totally
+unjust--comment, and the cavalcade pursued its miserable journey to the
+coast, from whence it embarked for the kingdom of Fez.
+
+Great was the jubilation in Christendom; for more than seven centuries the
+followers of the Prophet had dwelt in the land from which Tarik had
+expelled Roderick the Goth in the eighth century. There they had dwelt and
+held up a lamp of learning and comparative civilisation which shone
+brightly through the miasmatic mists of cruelty and bloodshed in the Middle
+Ages, and none can question that, under Moorish rule in Spain in those
+centuries, the arts of peace had flourished, and that science, agriculture,
+art, and learning had found generous and discriminating patronage in the
+courts of Cordoba and Granada.
+
+And now all was over the iron chivalry of the North had broken in pieces
+the Paynim hosts. They were expelled for ever from Christian soil, or else
+were forced to live in a state of degrading servitude, sore oppressed by an
+alien rule, in the land which their forbears had won and kept by the sword.
+
+There was jubilation, as has been said, in Christendom, but the knights and
+nobles who flocked from all parts of Europe to join the standard of the
+Catholic monarchs had no prevision of the consequences, no idea of the
+legacy that they were leaving to their descendants.
+
+It is of this legacy that we have to speak, and there has been none more
+terrible, none fraught with more awful suffering for the human race. The
+broken hosts of the Moslem chivalry became the corsairs of the
+Mediterranean: ruthless pirates freed from all restraint of human pity,
+living only to inflict the maximum of suffering upon their Christian foes,
+who, having sown the wind at the taking of Granada, reaped in the coming
+centuries a whirlwind of blood and agony which continued down to the
+bombardment of Algiers by Lord Exmouth in 1816, and even later than that
+date.
+
+Warriors to a man, the hosts of Boabdil crossed the Straits of Gibraltar
+into Africa; warriors but now broken men, from whom had been reft not only
+their lands and houses but even the chance of remaining in their native
+country. Religious toleration had been the rule of the Moslem States in
+Spain. In the name of religion they had been expropriated; therefore
+toleration was slain, and to exalt the Crescent above the Cross became the
+duty of every fighting Mohammedan. Into all the ports and harbours of the
+North African littoral the Moslems intruded themselves, their one
+preoccupation to revenge themselves upon the Christians, of no matter what
+race or nationality. There was at this date but small opposition from the
+rulers of the Pagan States who held in their weak and inefficient hands
+such strong places of arms as Algiers and Tunis.
+
+Very soon the Moslems acquired the habit of the sea, and very soon the
+Christian States discovered how different was the Mohammedan dwelling at
+peace in Andalusia, or at worst fighting with his co-religionists, to the
+desperate corsairs created by their own act who now ravaged the shores of
+the tideless sea.
+
+In the years succeeding to the conquest of Granada the corsairs became the
+scourge of the Mediterranean. France, Spain, Genoa, Venice, were all at
+odds with them; as the trading vessels, which had hitherto passed to and
+fro unmolested, were now captured, haled into North African ports, their
+cargoes sold, and their hapless crews forced to labour, naked and chained
+to the benches of the pirate galleys, until death came and mercifully put
+an end to their sufferings.
+
+From Reggio to Genoa, from Venice to Taranto, the cry of rage and fear went
+up; it was re-echoed from the coasts of France and of the Balearic Islands,
+while Southern Spain seethed with disaffection, and the Moriscoes, as those
+Moors who remained in the country were known, were ever on the lookout to
+assist their bold brethren, the rovers of the sea. Christendom was
+completely bewildered: hitherto the relations between the nations and the
+Kings of Tunis, Tlemcen, Fez, and others of the North African potentates,
+had been of the most agreeable description. Both parties had denounced
+piracy, and had as far as in them lay done all in their power to discourage
+this form of robbery. But now all was changed, and, as has been said in the
+previous chapter, a situation arose analogous to that of the Spaniards in
+the West Indies a century and a half later when Morgan and the buccaneers
+were at the height of their maleficent prowess. The situation was
+analogous, but whereas Morgan, Scott, L'Ollonais, and others terrorised
+only such forces as Spain possessed in far-distant colonies, the corsairs
+were a terror to all the great nations of the world.
+
+Granada fell, as has been said, in 1492 amid the rejoicings of the
+Christian States; but it had been well for Christendom as a whole if the
+Caliphs of Cordova and Granada had never been defeated, and they and their
+subjects driven from their homes: to form the nucleus of those piratical
+States which existed from this date until well into the nineteenth century,
+as the scourge and the terror of all those who, during those ages, desired
+to "pass upon the seas on their lawful occasions." The capture of Granada
+was separated from the fall of the Byzantine Empire by a period of
+thirty-nine years, as it was in the year 1453 that Constantinople was
+captured by the Caliph Mahomet II. Byzantium fell, and perhaps nothing in
+the records of that Empire became it so well as that last tremendous
+struggle; and when on May 29th, 1453, the Ottoman legions were victorious,
+the body of the last Emperor of Byzantium was found beneath a mountain of
+the slain only recognisable by his purple mantle sewn with golden bees. The
+Cross which Constantine the Great had planted on the walls 1125 years
+before was replaced by the Crescent, and the Christian Cathedral became
+that Mosque of St. Sophia which still endures.
+
+From the earliest days of the Moslem corsairs of the Mediterranean they
+were in close communication with their co-religionists of the Ottoman
+Empire; and this for a very good reason, which was that the Turk had not
+the habit of the sea, but was essentially a land warrior, and, as the story
+of the Sea-wolves progresses, we shall see how in a sense the Grand Turk
+and the pirates became interdependent in the ceaseless wars which were
+waged in the epoch of which we treat.
+
+The fall of Constantinople resounded throughout Christendom as though it
+had been the crack of doom, and all men held their breath wondering what
+next might portend. So stunned were the maritime States that they took no
+action, letting "I dare not wait upon I would." Their indecision was fatal.
+Had the Venetians, the Genoese, and the Catalans at this juncture formed an
+alliance, they might have chased the Turks from off the face of the waters;
+but to mutual jealousy and indecision was added fear--fear of this new and
+mighty power which had arisen and had swept away one of the landmarks of
+Europe. So it fell out that Genoa entered into an arrangement with the
+Grand Turk, and Venice concluded a treaty of commerce on April 18th, 1454.
+It was the Caliph Mahomet who first fortified the Dardanelles, where he
+mounted thirty heavy guns before which Jacques Loredano, the Venetian
+admiral, recoiled, reporting to the Republic that henceforward none could
+pass the Straits. We have, however, nothing to do with the Grand Turk in
+these pages, save, and except in so far, as he had an effect on the lives
+of the corsairs. This effect will develop itself as we proceed.
+
+There is one body of men, however, concerning whom it may be as well to
+treat of briefly in this place, as the lives which they led and the deeds
+which they performed were inextricably entangled with those of the
+corsairs. These men were the members of that association first known as the
+Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem, later as the Knights of Malta. Between
+them and the corsairs it was war to the death; and not only with these
+robbers, but also with any ship which sailed beneath the insignia of the
+Crescent.
+
+In 1291 the Soldan of Egypt chased the Knights Hospitallers, as they were
+also known, from the soil of the Holy Land; Philip IV. of France welcomed
+them in the island of Cyprus, and gave them the town of Limasol as an
+asylum. This for the time the knights were bound to accept, but they were
+impatient of charity, resentful of tutelage, proud and independent.
+Considering their own order as the greatest and most stable bulwark of the
+Christian faith, they bowed before neither King nor Kaiser; and the only
+boon they asked of great potentates, when allied temporarily with them in
+their eternal warfare, was that on all occasions theirs should be the post
+of the greatest danger.
+
+This, indeed, they did not ask as a favour, but claimed as a right. It is
+easily understood that such desperate warriors, who fought only to conquer
+or die, were allies sought for eagerly by all professing the same faith.
+
+Fulke de Villaret, Grand Master of the order in 1310, seized upon Rhodes,
+which, though nominally belonging to Greece, was at this time a refuge for
+bad characters of all nationalities. This island was in the most
+advantageous position, as it commanded the sea-route from Constantinople to
+Egypt and the ports of Asia Minor, and was also in close proximity to the
+coast of Caramania, from whence the order could draw the necessary timber
+for the building of their galleys and incidentally their motive power--in
+the shape of slaves--for the oars by which they were propelled.
+
+The knights fortified the island until it was practically unassailable in
+that age. In the meanwhile their navy grew so rapidly that, in 1436, they
+were actually in a position to fight the Turks in line of battle. To Rhodes
+came the younger sons of noble families from every nation in Europe, all
+aflame with ardour to fight for "the religion"; and the great nobles
+themselves did not disdain to take service in so chivalrous an order.
+
+Their former enemy, the Soldan of Egypt, made a descent on the island in
+1440, and in 1444 besieged the place in form; but he was beaten off, after
+forty-two days' ceaseless fighting, with great slaughter.
+
+"Soldier and sailor too" were the bold Knights of Saint John; for them no
+toil was too arduous, no danger too great. In heat and cold, in storm and
+tempest, they plied their trade of war, their holy crusade to extirpate the
+infidel from off the face of the waters. They looked for no material
+reward, and riches and honours they contemptuously rejected. Strong in
+their marvellous faith that on their shoulders rested the propagation of
+Christianity in these latter days, they swept the seas with a calm
+assumption of victory which caused it to be half assured before the fight
+began. And when the battle was joined, where could be found such paladins
+as these men who claimed it as an inalienable right to head the hurricane
+rush of the boarders from the decks of their galleys, to be ever the
+leaders when the forlorn hope should mount the breach? Life for the
+knights of this order was looked at literally with a single purpose--the
+advancement of Christianity and the downfall of that pestilent heresy which
+proclaimed that Mahomet was the prophet of God. Against all who bowed the
+knee in the mosques of the false prophet their lives were vowed, and it is
+but the barest justice to them to record that on the altar of this their
+faith these were ungrudgingly poured forth.
+
+Naturally reprisals were the order of the day. Equally fanatical was he who
+held to the Moslem faith; in consequence many were the attempts to stamp
+out, once and for all, the prime enemies of the Ottoman Empire. In 1480 a
+Turkish fleet of one hundred and forty ships issued from the Dardanelles,
+an army awaited it on the coast of Caramania which was rapidly embarked,
+and on May 23rd the fleet anchored a few miles from the town of Rhodes.
+Here, then, was a trial of strength in which the Hospitallers delighted.
+After repeated attacks in detail, on July 28th a grand assault was made
+which the Turks considered would be absolutely decisive: it was decisive,
+but not in the fashion which they anticipated.
+
+The standard of the Janissaries already floated on the first curtain of the
+rampart when Pierre D'Aubusson rallied the knights for one last desperate
+effort. "Shall it be said in days to come that 'the Religion' recoiled
+before a horde of Moslem savages; that the banner of Saint John was soiled
+by their infamous touch? But this is no time for talk. Ye have swords,
+Messires; use them!"
+
+Thus the Grand Master; and then the knights, in their battered armour and
+with their hacked and dinted swords, flung themselves once more upon the
+foe. The Janissaries closed in around them; but these fine troops were not
+what they had been two months before, and the close contact with the
+Hospitallers, which had endured sixty-five days, had been to them a lesson
+fraught with disaster: they had already lost six thousand men, and their
+adversaries were still absolutely undismayed. His helmet gone, his banner
+held aloft over his head, Pierre D'Aubusson was ever in the thickest of the
+fray unconquered, unconquerable; and pressing close behind him came the
+knights, each jealous for the glory of his "Auberge." French, Venetian,
+Catalan, Genoese German, none can tell who fought best that day; but the
+Janissaries were beaten, and three thousand of their corpses cumbered the
+ditch into which they were hurled by their foes; there were besides fifteen
+thousand wounded in the Turkish camp.
+
+The heart was out of that great army which had embarked to the sound of
+trumpets and the blessings of the Mullahs but ten weeks before, and they
+sailed away a beaten force. Mahomet II. swore to avenge his defeat, but his
+days were numbered, and he died at Scutari on May 3rd, 1481, at the age of
+fifty-two, and in the thirteenth year of his reign.
+
+In the year 1499 Daoud Pasha, Admiralissimo to Bajazet, the successor to
+Mahomet II., defeated Antonio Grimani the Venetian admiral in that combat
+known to the Republic as "La deplorabile battaglia del Zonchio." The
+populace of Venice demanded that Grimani should be instantly beheaded, but
+he not only escaped their vengeance but lived to be nominated as Doge
+on June 6th, 1521, at the age of eighty-seven: certainly a curious record
+for an unsuccessful admiral of that date.
+
+In 1500 was formed the "Alliance of Christian Princes" at the initiative of
+the Borgia Pope Alexander VII. Louis XII., King of France, and Ferdinand V.
+of Spain announced their adherence to this effort against the Turk, and
+Pierre D'Aubusson, the veteran Grand Master of the Knights of Saint John,
+was nominated as Captain-General of the Christian armies. For the purposes
+of this war the admiral of the Papal galleys in the Mediterranean, Lodovico
+del Mosca, purchased from Ferdinand, King of Naples, all his artillery, of
+which a description is given by the Padre Alberto Guglielmotti, a Dominican
+friar, author of a work entitled, "La Guerra dei Pirati e la Marina
+Pontifica dal 1500 al 1560 A.D." "There were thirty-six great bombards,
+with eighty carts pertaining to them; some drawn by horses, some drawn by
+buffaloes harnessed singly, or two, four, or even six together; two waggons
+laden with arquebuses for ships' boats; nine with about forty smaller
+bombards (_bombardelles_) placed three, four, or even six on each waggon;
+twelve with ordinary pieces of artillery; as many more for the service of
+twelve big guns; thirty-seven carts of iron balls; three with gunpowder;
+and finally five laden with nitre, darts, and bullets. Splendid artillery
+of most excellent workmanship and great power escorted by two thousand men
+under arms, without mentioning the companies who marched before and after
+each waggon."
+
+The French king had prepared a fleet and army under Count Philip of
+Ravenstein; the Spaniards were under the command of Gonsalvo de Cordoba,
+the "Great Captain." The history of the "Alliance of Christian Princes" is
+illustrative of the methods of those potentates at that time. After one or
+two unimportant skirmishes with the Turks, in which no great harm was done
+on either side, the French and Spaniards joined together, and seized the
+Kingdom of Naples: the prudent king of this territory, having sold his
+artillery to Lodovico del Mosca, did not await the coming of his Christian
+brethren.
+
+In the territory known to the Romans as Byzacena, which stretched from
+Algiers to the confines of Tripoli, there was reigning at this period one
+Abu-Abd-Allah-Mahomed, a Berber Moslem of the dynasty of Hafsit. Between
+this dignitary and Genoa a treaty of commerce had been arranged and signed.
+But treaties on the shores of the Mediterranean were capable of very
+elastic interpretation; they never reckoned with the corsairs, and these
+latter were in the habit of intruding themselves everywhere, and upsetting
+the most carefully laid plans. Curtogali, a corsair who had collected a
+great following, was now a power with which to reckon, and high in the
+favour of the Grand Turk at Constantinople. This robber presented himself
+at Bizerta--one of the ports of Abd-Allah-Mahomed--with a squadron of
+thirty ships, and demanded hospitality. As Curtogali disposed of thirty
+ships and some six thousand fighting men it would probably have been
+impossible for Abd-Allah to have refused his request in any case; but he
+was far from wishing to do so, as, by a convenient interpretation of the
+Koran, the pirate had to deliver up one-fifth part of all the booty which
+he reft from the Christians to the ruler of the country in whose harbours
+he sheltered. There was no place so convenient for the purposes of the
+pirate as Bizerta: from here he could strike at Sicily, at the Balearic
+Islands, at Rome, Naples, Tuscany, and Liguria, while at the same time he
+held the trade slowly sailing along the North African littoral at his
+mercy. Great were the depredations of Curtogali, and even Pope Leo X.
+trembled on his throne, while Genoa, Venice, and Sicily seethed with
+impotent fury.
+
+In the meanwhile who so happy as Abu-Abd-Allah-Mahomed? We cannot do better
+than to take the description of his position from the pages of the good
+Padre Alberto Guglielmotti. The Franciscan says: "He [that is, Abd-Allah]
+desired peace with all and prosperity for his own interests. Friendly to
+the merchants in their commerce; friendly to the corsairs in their spoils.
+Let all hold by the law: the former contentedly paying customs dues, the
+latter cheerfully handing over a fifth part of their robberies, and
+Abd-Allah--their common friend--would ever continue at peace with them all.
+Outside his ports the merchants and the pirates might fall by the ears if
+they would: that was no reason for him to trouble his head. On the
+contrary, he would joyfully await them on their return either with customs
+dues or tribute of the fifth as the case might be."
+
+However well this state of affairs may have suited Abd-Allah, the Genoese
+held that the situation was far from satisfactory. In consequence they sent
+an army against Curtogali, and on August 4th, 1516, they captured Bizerta,
+set free a number of Christian captives, and plundered the town. But they
+did not capture Curtogali, who, only five weeks after, made a daring
+attempt to carry off the Pope in person from the sea-shore in the
+neighbourhood of Rome. Curtogali ended his days as the Governor of Rhodes,
+from which the Knights of Saint John were finally expelled by Soliman the
+Magnificent on December 22nd, 1522. This was the greatest blow which the
+fraternity ever received. On December 24th the Turks made a triumphal entry
+into the town, and it was said that "Sultan Soliman was not insensible to
+the sorrowful position of his vanquished enemies, and when he saw the
+Christian Commander, Prince Philippe Villiers L'Isle Adam, he remarked: 'It
+weighs upon me somewhat that I should be coming hither to chase this aged
+Christian warrior from his house.'" At the beginning of the following year
+the knights left the island, never to return. On the day of this desolate
+embarcation the herald blew upon his trumpet the "Salute and Farewell" and
+the identical instrument upon which this call was sounded is still
+preserved in the armoury at Malta, to which barren island the knights were
+forced to retreat.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+URUJ BARBAROSSA
+
+In the year 1457 an obscure Roumelian or Albanian renegado named Mahomedi
+was banished from Constantinople by the Grand Turk; he established himself
+in the island of Mitylene and there married a Christian widow named
+Catalina, by whom he had two sons, Uruj and Khizr. The father had been a
+sailor and both sons adopted the same profession. It is from the pages of
+El Maestro Don Fray Prudencio de Sandoval that we glean these bare facts
+concerning the birth and parentage of these men who, in after-years, became
+known to all the dwellers on the shores of the Mediterranean as the
+"Barbarossas," from their red beards. Sandoval, Bishop of Pampluna,
+published in the year 1614 his monumental history of the Emperor Charles
+V., and through his splendid volumes the deeds of the Moslem corsairs run
+like the scarlet thread which is twisted through a Government rope. It is
+evident that the fact of having to deal with such rascals annoys the good
+Bishop not a little, as his severe and caustic comments frequently display.
+There was incident and accident enough in the life of the famous "Carlos
+Quinto" without the historian having to turn aside to chronicle the deeds
+of the pirates; but their exploits were so daring, the consequences thereof
+were so far-reaching, that the ominous crimson thread had to be woven into
+any narrative of the times in despite of the annoyance of the man by whom
+the rope was twisted.
+
+Of Mahomedi we possess no record save the remark concerning him to the
+effect that "el qual fue gran marinero": in what way he displayed his gifts
+as a seaman we are not told. We have remarked before on the curious fact of
+how the "renegado," or Christian turned Mohammedan, became the most
+implacable foe of his former co-religionists. We see in the case of the two
+Barbarossas that they had no drop of Moslem blood in them, as both parents
+came from Christian stock: and yet no greater scourges ever afflicted the
+people from whom both their father and mother originally sprang than did
+Uruj and Khizr Barbarossa.
+
+[Illustration: URUJ AND KHEYR-ED-DIN BARBAROSSA.]
+
+The characters of the two brothers were widely different. The elder was no
+doubt a "first-class fighting man," a fine seaman, a born partisan leader;
+but here his qualities came to an end. Rough, cruel, imperious, brutal, he
+imposed himself upon those who became his followers; but in him were to be
+found none of the statesmanlike qualities which distinguished his far
+greater younger brother. His was the absolutely finite intellect of the
+tactician as opposed to the strategist, who, seeing his objective, was
+capable of dealing with circumstances as they immediately arose; but,
+partly no doubt from defective education, but principally from the lack of
+intellectual appreciation of the problems of the time in which he lived,
+could never rise to the heights which were scaled by Khizr, better known by
+the title conferred upon him later on by the Grand Turk as "Kheyr-ed-Din,"
+or "The Protector of Religion."
+
+The sons of Mahomed, that "gran marinero," naturally took to the sea, and
+as a young man Uruj became possessed of a ship--how we do not know, and it
+were better perhaps not to inquire. In this small craft he repaired to the
+coast of Caramania to make war upon the Christians; or, in other words, to
+begin an independent piratical career. Uruj in these days was young and
+inexperienced, or he would not have chosen this locality for his first
+venture, as this coast was in close proximity to the island of Rhodes, from
+whence the great galleys of the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem set
+forth to exterminate the enemies of their faith.
+
+So it came about that Uruj, sailing out in his little ship from under the
+shadow of a wooded point, came in full sight of _Our Lady of the
+Conception_. There was nothing for it but immediate flight, and Uruj put
+his helm up and scudded before the breeze; but the great galley
+"goose-winged" her two mighty lateen sails, and turned in pursuit. The ship
+which carried Uruj and his fortunes was both fast and handy, and for a time
+she held her own; but it was only for a time, as those on board _Our Lady
+of the Conception_, finding that they were not gaining on the chase, put
+forth their oars and soon changed the aspect of affairs. The galley of the
+knights carried twenty-seven oars a-side, and each of these oars was manned
+by nine Moslem slaves. The sea was smooth and favourable for rowing, and
+soon the ravening pursuit closed in on the doomed corsair. As the interval
+between chaser and chased became less and less, those on board the pirate
+ship could see for themselves the fate which was awaiting them, as on the
+central gang-plank, which separated the rowers' benches, the boatswain and
+his mates were unmercifully flogging the bare backs of the straining
+oarsmen to urge them to greater exertions. He who was captured at sea in
+those days was set to row until he died, and the calculating mercy which
+causes a man to feed and treat his beast well in order that it may do the
+better work was not to be relied upon here, as life was cheap and slaves
+were plentiful. Very soon the beak of the galley overhung the stern of the
+little ship. Escape was impossible, to fight would have meant the massacre
+of all on board; the choice was instant submission or a watery grave. Uruj
+lowered his sail, and he and his little company were ironed and flung into
+the depths of the galley until such time as they should be wanted to take
+their turn at the oars. In this ignominious fashion ended his first attempt
+at independent piracy.
+
+But a storm was brewing, and a heavy sea got up. The sails of the galley
+were lowered, her beak was put head-on to the wind, and she made for the
+shore. In this noisome confinement Uruj could hear above the crash of the
+seas and the whistling of the wind the shrieks of the hapless slaves as the
+whips of their taskmasters bit through skin and flesh: the galley-slave
+rowed stark naked chained to his bench. This was to be his fate, and he was
+well aware of the fact.
+
+At last, after nightfall, the galley anchored under the Isle of Castel
+Rosso, at the entrance of the Gulf of Satalie. It still blew hard, but, in
+the comparative peace of the anchorage, sounds hitherto hidden by the war
+of the elements now made themselves manifest. There were the snores of the
+sleepers, the clank of the leg-chains as the wretched slaves shifted their
+positions in the attempt to gain an easier place on the bench, there was
+also the sound of men carousing with loud laughter in the stern of the
+vessel; but above them all rose the hollow groaning as of one in mortal
+agony. This proceeded from a slave who was quite close to Uruj. There came
+a spell in the laughter and loud voices in the stern, and presently an
+imperious voice spoke: "That noise disturbs me; see that it ceases at
+once." An obsequious answer came from out of the prevailing darkness: "It
+shall cease at once, Excellency." Then came men with lanterns, who
+unshackled the wretch who groaned and--flung him overboard.
+
+The night grew worse, the wind backed, and the galley began to drag her
+anchors. The slaves were roused, and the oars got ready to shift her from
+her dangerous position on what had now become a lee-shore. Uruj had managed
+to slip his shackles, a defective bolt having given him his liberty; for
+him it was now or never, and he was a bold swimmer. He had seen enough and
+heard enough of _Our Lady of the Conception_, and, as the great oars
+plunged once more into the sea, the corsair, preferring the mercy of the
+elements to that of the knights, slipped over the side unobserved and swam
+for the shore. He reached dry land by a miracle, and from Satalie he found
+his way to Egypt, where he took service as a mariner in a ship of the
+Soldan of Egypt which was bound for the coast of Caramania, from which
+province the Egyptians, as well as the knights, drew the timber which they
+required for shipbuilding. But again this neighbourhood proved disastrous
+to Uruj, as the ship in which he sailed was attacked by a Christian galley,
+and he once more had to save himself by swimming on shore. There was no
+lack of incident in the life of a corsair of the sixteenth century.
+
+This time he presented himself to Khorkud, the Governor of Caramania,
+brother to Sultan Selim, the Grand Turk. The Governor, recognising him as
+an intrepid mariner, ordered the Basha of Smyrna to furnish him with a ship
+fitted for that _guerre de course,_ which he desired to pursue against the
+Christians. The value of the corsair as an auxiliary was beginning to be
+recognised among the high Turkish officials. For the complaisance of
+Khorkud there were two reasons: in the first place, he was acting in the
+interests of his brother in sending to sea any really capable man to make
+head against his enemies, and the fact that Uruj was a pirate pure and
+simple did not weigh for a feather in the balance; in the second place, it
+was a decidedly good mercantile speculation as he ordered his inferior, the
+Basha of Egypt, to bear the expense of fitting out the necessary
+ship--which came to some 5,000 ducats--and doubtless received a handsome
+percentage on all captures from his grateful protege.
+
+This latter, as may easily be imagined, had had quite enough of the
+Caramanian coast, which had turned out a veritable nest of hornets; also,
+he had no desire at present to cultivate the further acquaintance of the
+knights, and therefore put the whole width of the Ionian Sea between
+himself and them, and succeeded in taking several rich prizes. He avoided
+Mitylene and returned to Egypt, wintering at Alexandria. It may here be
+remarked that the corsairs, as a rule, regarded the winter as a close
+season, as in those early days the mariner did not, if he could avoid it,
+risk his ship by sailing her at this period of storm and tempest. In
+consequence there was nothing to tempt the pirates to range the seas during
+these months, and if they had had a successful summer and autumn, as they
+generally did, they could well afford to lay up and await the coming of
+spring.
+
+But when storm and rain gave way to the smooth waters and balmy breezes,
+the Sea-wolves were certain of their prey, as the whole length and breadth
+of the tideless sea was sure to be filled with the ships of the detested
+Christians trafficking in every direction. In the ethics of the Moslem all
+ships which sailed under the banner of the Cross, no matter to what nation
+they belonged, were fair game, even supposing that her insignia were the
+Crescent--well, supposing the spot to be sufficiently remote, dead men tell
+no tales, and the pirates were to be trusted to see to it that none
+escaped.
+
+But, however this might have been, it is quite certain that no qualms of
+conscience troubled Uruj concerning those others: Genoese, Neapolitans,
+Catalans, Andalusians, French, or the dwellers of the Balearic Islands,
+were all fish sent by a bountiful Providence to be enclosed in his net, and
+he seized upon them without distinction. When in the full tide of his
+success there was but one thing which preoccupied the mind of the corsair,
+which was to find a ready market for his spoils and a convenient place in
+which to rid himself of an embarrassing number of captives. This, however,
+did not present an insuperable difficulty, as we have already seen in the
+case of Curtogali, and a similar arrangement was carried out by Uruj
+Barbarossa and his brother.
+
+Uruj now established himself at the island of Jerba, on the east coast of
+Tunis, which formed an admirable base from which to "work" the
+Mediterranean from the piratical point of view. Jerba had originally been
+conquered and occupied by the Spaniards in 1431, but the occupation had
+been allowed to lapse, and the island was lying derelict when the
+Barbarossas made it their headquarters. Here Uruj was joined by his younger
+brother Khizr, destined to become so much the more famous of the two; he
+had already made himself some reputation in piratical circles, and now
+brought his cool judgment and wise counsel to the assistance of that fiery
+fighting man his elder brother. The first question to be decided was that
+which we have already mentioned, namely, the disposal of spoil from
+prospective captures, and with this end in view the corsairs approached the
+Sultan of Tunis. This potentate made a gracious response to their
+overtures, and wished them all success in their enterprises. He promised
+them succour and support on the same terms which Curtogali had obtained,
+namely, one-fifth of all the spoil landed in his dominions.
+
+The price to be paid was a stiff one, and was so regarded by the active
+partners in this arrangement; they were, however, young and unknown, and
+had not the least intention of holding to their bargain when more
+favourable circumstances presented themselves. Now they held fair speech
+with the puppet princes of North Africa; the day was to come when they
+should chase them from their insecure thrones. It was at this time, shortly
+after the treaty with the Sultan of Tunis was concluded, that the younger
+Barbarossa received from the Grand Turk the glorious name of Kheyr-ed-Din,
+or "The Protector of Religion." It was a somewhat remarkable title for a
+pirate, but perhaps its bestower was slightly deficient in a sense of
+humour.
+
+Sailing from Tunis in the spring of the year 1512, the brothers, with three
+galleys, fell in with _The Galley of Naples_, an enormous nef with a crew
+of three hundred. They instantly attacked, but were repulsed, night falling
+without either side having gained an advantage. This audacious proceeding
+illustrates the hardihood of the Moslem corsairs at this time. They were
+amply strong enough to range the Mediterranean and to capture, with no risk
+to themselves, the weak and unprotected argosies plying their trade in this
+sea; but this was not the method of the Barbarossas. Villains they may have
+been according to modern standards, pirates they were unquestionably; but
+they were grim, hard-bitten, fighting men, who shrank from no dangers in
+the pursuit of their prey, who reckoned that the humiliation and defeat of
+their Christian antagonists was as sweet a morsel as the booty reft from
+their hands. All night the three Moslem galleys and the great nef lay
+becalmed awaiting the conflict which was to come with the break of day; and
+it is easy to imagine that there was not much quiet sleep on board of
+either the Moslem or the Christian ships, for both on the one side and the
+other the issues loomed large. The corsairs had, so far, made no such
+important capture as this, which, could it be accomplished, would add
+enormously to their prestige, in addition to such spoils as they might
+acquire; but the combatants were fairly evenly matched in the matter of
+numbers, and the fight was one to a finish. The advantage on the side of
+the corsairs lay in the fact of their being three to one, and their being
+thus enabled to attack in three separate places at the same time. Terrible
+must have been that night of waiting for the unfortunates on board _The
+Galley of Naples_; there was no escape, and on board of her among her
+passengers were many women, whose fate was too terrible to contemplate
+should the day go against them. The first assault had been beaten off, it
+is true, but the struggle had been hard and bitter; would they be equally
+successful when the assault was renewed?
+
+Even such a night as this, however, comes at last to an end, and the
+prospect of action must have been welcomed by the men on both sides; of the
+women with so horrible a fate impending one can hardly bear to think. The
+ghostly fingers of the dawn touched the grey sea with a wan yellow light,
+outlining the nef and the slender, wicked-looking galleys with their banks
+of oars; over the surface of the deep a slight mist hovered, as though some
+kindly spirit of the sea would hide, if such a thing were possible, the
+deeds which were to come. The three galleys lay close together, and Uruj
+and his brother held a few last words of counsel.
+
+"It is agreed, then," said the elder; "you, my brother, attack the
+starboard side and I on the port side, while Hassan Ali [indicating the
+captain of the third galley] will await the time when we are fully engaged,
+and will then board over the stern."
+
+"It is agreed," answered Kheyr-ed-Din, and Hassan Ali.
+
+As the strong sun of a perfect May morning in the Mediterranean leapt above
+the horizon, Uruj loosed his hounds upon their prey; the oars of the
+galleys churned the clear blue waters into foam, and the air was filled
+with the yells of the corsairs. "Allah! Allah!" and "Barbarossa!
+Barbarossa!" they cried. It was a war-cry that was destined to re-echo over
+many a conflict, both by land and sea, in the years that were to come.
+
+In a simultaneous, and as we have seen a concerted attack, the beaks of the
+galleys crushed into the broadsides of _The Galley of Naples_, and, ever
+foremost in the fray, Uruj and Kheyr-ed-Din were the first two men to
+board. Then, when men were hand to hand and foot to foot, when Moslem
+scimitar rang on Christian sabre, and the air was filled with the oaths and
+shouts of the combatants, the third remaining pirate craft grappled _The
+Galley of Naples_ by the stern, and a tide of fresh, unwounded men burst
+into the fray. This was the end; the Christians were both outnumbered and
+outfought, for among them were many who were not by profession warriors,
+whereas no man found a footing among the Sea-wolves, or was taken to sea as
+a fighting man, unless he had approved himself to the satisfaction of his
+captain that he was a valiant man of his hands. We have no record or list
+of the dead and wounded in this battle, but among the latter was Uruj, who
+was severely hurt. Not so Kheyr-ed-Din, who escaped scatheless and took
+command now that his brother was incapacitated. The dead were flung
+overboard with scant ceremony, and the wounded patched up as best might be,
+and then _The Galley of Naples_ was taken in tow, and the corsairs returned
+in triumph to Tunis. Faithful to their treaty, so far, they laid one-fifth
+of their spoils at the feet of the Sultan.
+
+A great procession was formed of Christian captives marching two and two.
+Four young Christian girls were mounted on mules, and two ladies of noble
+birth followed on Arab horses sumptuously caparisoned. These unfortunates
+were destined for the harems of their captors. The Sultan was greatly
+pleased at the spectacle, and as the mournful procession defiled before him
+cried out, "See how heaven recompenses the brave!" Jurien de la Graviere
+remarks: "Such was the fortune of war in the sixteenth century. A man
+leaving Naples to go to Spain might end his days in a Moorish bagnio and
+see his wife and daughters fall a prey to miscreants of the worse
+description."
+
+It was not till the following spring that Uruj was fit once more to pursue
+his chosen calling, so severe had been his wounds; but once he was whole
+and sound again he put to sea accompanied by Kheyr-ed-Din, and this time he
+had conceived a singularly bold and desperate enterprise. Two years before
+the famous Spanish captain, Pedro de Navarro, had seized upon the coast
+town of Bougie, and had unfortunately left it in the hands of a totally
+insufficient garrison. This departure from the sound rules of warfare had
+already been punished as it deserved, as the garrison was perpetually
+harassed and annoyed by the surrounding Arab tribes. The idea of Uruj was
+to seize upon Bougie by a _coup de main_. The corsair, however, was a far
+finer fighter than he was a strategist, and was possessed of a most
+impatient temper. All went well to begin with, as he managed to intercept
+and to capture a convoy of Spanish ships sent to revictual the place, and
+had he been content to wait he might have counted with certainty on
+reducing the garrison by starvation, as it depended on this very convoy for
+its supplies. In vain the wary and cool-headed Kheyr-ed-Din counselled
+prudence and delay, but these words were not to be found in the vocabulary
+of his elder brother. "What had to be done," he replied, "had better be
+done at once," and at the head of only fifty men landed and assaulted the
+still uncompleted ramparts of Bougie.
+
+But if Uruj were rash and headstrong, so was not the commander of the
+Spanish garrison, who, massing his men for the repulse of the assault,
+waited till the last moment, and then received them with a volley of
+arquebuses, which laid many of them low, and so badly wounded their leader
+that he had to have his arm amputated on the spot: it says much for his
+constitution that he survived the operation.
+
+For the time being the brothers had had enough of shore enterprises, and
+confined themselves strictly to their piratical business at sea, which
+prospered so exceedingly that they became exceedingly rich and their fame
+and power increased day by day. As time went on and the wealth of the
+brothers and partners increased, there entered into the calculating brain
+of Kheyr-ed-Din the idea that the payment of one-fifth share to the Sultan
+of Tunis was but money thrown away. Twenty per cent, was eating into the
+profits of the firm in an unwarrantable manner, he considered, and now that
+the active partners therein had established so good a business connection,
+they were quite strong enough to dispense with a sleeping partner. Times
+had changed for the better, and Kheyr-ed-Din was anxious to take full
+advantage of the fact; if possible he determined to seize upon and hold
+some port, in which, not only would they be exempt from tribute, but also
+in which he and his brother Uruj should be the supreme arbiters of the fate
+of all by whom it might be frequented.
+
+Of Bougie and its stout Spanish garrison the brothers had had quite enough
+for the present: they sought, in consequence, for some harbour which
+presented equal advantages of situation, and their choice fell upon
+Jigelli, then belonging to the Genoese, who occupied a strong castle in
+this place.
+
+Jigelli lies well outside the confines of the kingdom of Tunis, about
+equi-distant from Bougie and Cape Bougaroni, some forty miles from each. It
+would appear that on this occasion it was the younger of the two brothers
+who took charge of the enterprise, and there were no slap--dash,
+unconsidered methods employed. By this time the fame of the Barbarossas had
+gone abroad from Valencia to Constantinople, from Rome to the foot--hills
+of the Atlas Mountains, and, to circumvent the Genoese garrison of Jigelli,
+Kheyr-ed-Din called to his aid the savage Berber tribes of the hinterland
+of this part of Northern Africa.
+
+Turbulent, rash, unstable as water, were these primitive dwellers of the
+desert; but they were fighters and raiders to a man, and ready for any
+desperate encounter if only it held out the promise of loot: they were as
+veritably the pirates of the land as were the Barbarossas pirates of the
+sea.
+
+Small chance, indeed, had the five hundred Genoese soldiers by which
+Jigelli was garrisoned when attacked from the sea by the Barbarossas and by
+land by an innumerable horde of Berbers who were reckoned to be as many as
+20,000. Invested by land and sea, the garrison did all that it was possible
+for men to do. Provisions and water ran short, ammunition was failing, the
+ring of their enemies was encircling them day by day closer and ever
+closer. From the land nothing could be expected but an augmentation of
+their foes, and day by day the commander of the garrison strained his eyes
+seaward to watch if haply the proud Republic, to which he and his men
+belonged, would send succour, or the redoubtable Knights of Saint John
+would come to his aid.
+
+But the days lengthened into weeks, and the soldiers were gradually
+becoming worn out by the perpetual strain imposed upon them. There was one
+chance left, and one alone, which was to cut their way out through the
+besieging lines. Massacre to a man was their fate in any case, and thus it
+was that the commander, whose name has not come down to us, mustered his
+men for the last supreme effort. At dead of night the garrison, having
+destroyed as far as possible all that might be of use to the enemy, sallied
+out to their doom. They fought as men fight who know that the end has come;
+but valour could not avail against the numbers arrayed on the side of the
+enemy, and they were wiped off the face of the earth. The tribes looted the
+castle of everything portable, and then retired from whence they had come.
+For this Kheyr-ed-Din cared nothing; they were welcome to the poor
+possessions of some hundreds of half-starved Italian soldiers--let them
+take the shell, for him remained the kernel in the shape of a strong place
+of arms.
+
+Hardly, however, had the brothers succeeded in this enterprise when that
+tireless fighter Uruj again attempted the capture of Bougie; but his second
+attempt was even more disastrous than his first, and he lost half his
+flotilla. Then he asked for succour from Tunis; but the Sultan, much
+offended at the idea of the brothers setting up in a piratical business in
+which he was no longer a sleeping partner, angrily refused.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+THE DEATH OF URUJ BARBAROSSA
+
+The events recorded in the last chapter bring us down to the end of the
+year 1515, and while every endeavour has been made to present affairs in
+chronological sequence, it must be remembered that the dates of piratical
+expeditions are often impossible to obtain: the wrath of the chroniclers at
+the nefarious deeds of the corsairs greatly exceeding their desire for a
+meticulous accuracy in the matter of the exact time of their occurrence.
+Uruj, as has been seen, had by his headstrong folly once again placed his
+brother and himself in a decidedly awkward situation. By the losses which
+he had incurred in his second ill-advised attempt on Bougie he had so
+weakened the piratical confederation that the countenance of some potentate
+had again become necessary for their continued existence, and the Sultan of
+Tunis had now repudiated all connection with these ingrates.
+
+But, if craft and subtlety were not to be found in Uruj there was one who
+never failed to exhibit these qualities when they became necessary, and
+Kheyr-ed-Din once more came to the front. The Russian peasantry have a
+saying that "God is high and the Czar is far away." In the sixteenth
+century the Grand Turk was in every sense "far away" from the struggling
+corsairs on the littoral of Northern Africa, and was a sovereign of such
+great and mysterious might that any man with a less fine instinct into the
+psychology of the times in which he lived than Kheyr-ed-Din would have
+hesitated long and anxiously before addressing him directly; would probably
+in the end not have done so at all. But desperate diseases require
+desperate remedies, and the politic corsair well knew that even the moral
+support of such an one as the Sultan of Constantinople was worth more than
+even material aid from a Sultan of Tunis.
+
+Consequently, greatly daring, he sent an embassy to the Sublime Porte with
+one of his most trusted captains at its head to lay the homage of the
+corsairs at the feet of Selim I. Very naturally these ambassadors did not
+go empty-handed, but took with them rich presents and numerous slaves.
+Selim was much pleased at the attention, coming as it did from such a
+distance--we have to remember that the coast of North Africa was an immense
+journey from Constantinople in those days--and the insight of Kheyr-ed-Din
+was triumphantly vindicated. Not only did the Sultan send a gracious reply
+in return, but--what was far more to the purpose--he sent a reinforcement
+of fourteen vessels to the corsairs bidding them to go on and prosper in
+their efforts to spread the true faith among the Christian heretics.
+
+There is nothing more curious in the history of the corsairs than the
+perpetual ups and downs of their lives. Thus in the present instance the
+ill-advised attack of Uruj on Bougie had reduced them to terrible straits;
+immediately afterwards the action of the Grand Turk once more set them upon
+their feet and enabled them to pursue an unchecked career of devastation.
+Aided by the reinforcements sent by Selim, their depredations assumed ever
+larger proportions, and, had they continued to receive this assistance, the
+course of history itself might have been changed. Ground to powder beneath
+the iron heel of their ruthless conquerors, the Moriscoes of Southern Spain
+were ever waiting the chance to rise and shake off the yoke by which they
+were so sore oppressed; from far and near reports were coming to hand of
+the continued successes of the corsairs, and all Andalusia seethed with
+passionate hope that the day of deliverance was at hand.
+
+But, alas for the vanity of human wishes! in the opening months of the year
+1516 Selim recalled his ships and the chance was gone, never again to
+arise.
+
+It may have been that "the sorrowful sighing of the captives" never reached
+the ears of the successor of Othman in his palace on the shores of the
+Golden Horn; in any case, the Sultan was preparing for the conquest of
+Egypt, and in consequence recalled the ships which he had lent to assist
+the corsairs. The Moriscoes were thus left without hope, but so far as the
+corsairs were concerned they were enabled to strike another bargain with
+the Sultan of Tunis. This monarch had now got over his fit of the sulks,
+and discovered that customs dues from the peaceful trading mariners,
+although desirable enough, were not by any means so lucrative a form of
+revenue as was the one-fifth share of the booty of the pirates. Uruj and
+Kheyr-ed-Din for their part, although they had captured Jigelli, were
+totally unable to hold it: the capture had indeed been principally due to
+the assistance which they had received from the Berber tribesmen, but these
+nomads had disappeared into the deserts from whence they came, once the
+looting of the town and fortress had been completed.
+
+The corsair had to be armed at all points, in the moral as well as the
+material sense, as he was the enemy of all men, and all were vowed to his
+destruction. Every cruise which he took raised up against him fresh hatred
+and a more bitter animus, and we must remember that it was not only men
+individually, but Principalities and Powers that were arrayed in line of
+battle for his destruction. At the present juncture Spain was specially
+hostile, for not only had her possession of Bougie been twice attacked by
+the Sea-wolves, but a valuable convoy had been captured. An expedition, in
+consequence, was sent by the Spaniards against the Barbarossas, but this
+effort did not result in much damage being done to the offenders. The
+Spaniards destroyed four piratical vessels which had been abandoned by
+their crews at Bizerta, and pushed a strong reconnaissance into the Bay of
+Tunis itself. Here shots were exchanged between the Spanish fleet and the
+forts--under which Kheyr-ed-Din had drawn up his ships--and the Spaniards
+then abandoned the enterprise and returned from whence they had come.
+
+In the year 1510 the Spaniard, Count Pedro Navarre, had seized upon
+Algiers, which town was at this time one of the principal refuges of the
+Moorish fugitives, who had been driven from Granada, from Cordoba, and from
+Southern Spain generally by Ferdinand and Isabella eighteen years
+previously. To say that the condition of these people was desperate is to
+speak but the bare truth, for what could exceed the misery of the situation
+in which they were left after the successful incursion of their Christian
+foes? What we are apt to lose sight of in the light of present-day
+circumstances is the fact that these Spanish Moors were a most highly
+civilised people, far more so indeed than their Christian contemporaries;
+that they had been driven with fire and sword from the land in which they
+and their forefathers had dwelt for over seven centuries, and that they now
+had been cast out literally to starve on the inhospitable shores of
+Northern Africa. So it came about that the common people exchanged the life
+of the peaceful and prosperous artisan or husbandman for that of the
+hand-to-mouth pirate, and the case of knight and noble among them was no
+better--perhaps rather worse--than the meanest among those who had been
+expropriated.
+
+Those who know the region in which these unhappy folk lived are aware of
+the material monuments which still exist and testify to the glorious past;
+and, seeing what they have seen, it is no great stretch of the imagination
+to picture to themselves the comfort, the elegance, and the luxury with
+which the inhabitants of Granada and Cordoba lived surrounded. Over there,
+away across some few leagues of shining blue water, were the ruined homes
+of which many of the banished people still possessed the keys, awaiting the
+day when Allah and the Prophet should vouchsafe to them that return which
+they so naturally and ardently desired. To this day the key of the great
+Mosque at Cordoba is preserved at Rabat as a sacred relic of former dignity
+and power--a symbol to the Moslem of his perpetual banishment. If Cordoba
+with its mosque--still one of the wonders of the world, with its eleven
+hundred marble columns--were the principal shrine and holy of holies to
+these people, there were in addition hundreds of other temples of their
+faith now for ever desecrated in their eyes by the misfortune which had
+placed them in Christian hands. In Andalusia were the dishonoured graves of
+their kinsfolk, and, last and worst of all, in this land still dwelt
+thousands upon thousands of their co-religionists held in a degrading
+bondage by their implacable enemies.
+
+The capture of Algiers by Count Pedro Navarro was a crowning misfortune for
+the exiles, and when this commander seized upon the place he extracted from
+the inhabitants an oath of fidelity to the Spanish crown; he further
+erected a strong tower to overawe the town, and to keep its turbulent
+inhabitants in order. But such an oath as this, extracted at the point of
+the sword, was writ in water; it meant, of course, the suppression of
+piracy, and it also meant the starvation of most of those persons who dwelt
+in the vicinity. How the Moslem population existed for the six years after
+the incursion of Navarro is a mystery; but they probably moved their
+galleys, of which they possessed some twenty, further along the coast out
+of the range of the guns from Navarro's Tower, and secure from the
+observation of those who held it for the Spanish king.
+
+In the year in which Selim descended upon Egypt the King of Spain,
+Ferdinand V., died, and grave troubles immediately broke out in Spain. This
+was an opportunity too good to be missed, as no reinforcements could
+possibly be expected for the garrison in Algiers as long as these
+disturbances lasted, and the Algerines took counsel together as to the best
+means of driving out their enemies. It is a commentary on the detestation
+in which they held the Spaniards that they should have allied themselves
+for this purpose with the savages of the hinterland. This, however, was
+what they did. As in the case of Jigelli, these people could always be
+relied upon to go anywhere in search of booty, and one Selim Eutemi entered
+the town at the head of his tribe. But sheer, stark, savage valour could
+make no impression on Navarro's Tower and the ordnance that was mounted on
+its walls. The result was a stalemate, as the Spaniards could by no manner
+of means get out, and neither could their enemies, who swarmed innumerable
+in the town and the surrounding country, get in. In time, of course, they
+might hope to bring the garrison to surrender by starvation; but time
+pressed, and no man knew when the troubles in Spain might be adjusted and
+help come to the beleaguered. In the meanwhile Selim Eutemi and his men,
+who had been taught some rude lessons in the power of firearms, kept out of
+range of the cannon, while the Algerines held yet another council of war,
+the result of which was that they decided to ask help from Uruj and
+Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, and to them they appealed. By this time their fame
+was known to all men, and they could supply that which was lacking--namely
+ships, artillery, a first-class fighting force, and last, and best of all,
+the moral support which would stiffen and put heart into the motley horde
+which at present surged around the gates of the fortress of Navarro.
+
+The Algerines did not appeal in vain, and an instant promise of succour was
+forthcoming. Kheyr--ed--Din was away at sea, but Uruj, that indomitable
+fighter, started at once. From whence we are not told, but he must have
+been somewhere in the neighbourhood, as he and his men marched along the
+shore; while, keeping pace with them, came a fleet of eighteen galleys and
+three barques laden with stores.
+
+But before proceeding to the assistance of the Algerines Uruj had a
+personal matter to which to attend, and he wished to combine pleasure with
+serious business. One of his old companions had seceded from his command
+and had established himself at Shershell, where he lived the life of an
+independent corsair within easy striking distance of the Balearic Islands
+and the coast of Spain, his following composed of a horde of those broken
+men of whom mention has been made. Shershell was an unfortified town, and
+surrendered unconditionally upon the arrival of Uruj and his army.
+Kara-Hassan, for such was the name of this independent corsair, came out to
+greet his old-time chief; he was met with violent reproaches, and the
+altercation ended by Uruj having him beheaded on the spot. It was ill to
+quarrel with the Barbarossas.
+
+Freed from this rival, the Mitylene corsair had now uncontested supremacy
+on the coast, a supremacy none was likely to contest in the future, as he
+brooked no opposition, and had come to consider that independent piracy in
+the Mediterranean was in some sort an infringement of the rights of himself
+and his brother. One of the most salient peculiarities of the corsairs at
+this time was the apparent recklessness with which they assailed others who
+were participants in their nefarious business. Self-interest and policy
+would seem, to the observer in the present day, to have dictated quite a
+different course of action; but we shall see, when we come to deal with the
+life-history of Kheyr-ed-Din, that this infinitely wiser and more
+intellectual man apparently allowed himself to be swayed by gusts of
+passion, in which he savagely maltreated those with whom he was associated,
+and from whom dangerous hostility was certainly to be feared if they
+escaped with their lives. At this distance of time it is impossible to
+gauge the motives by which men such as these were actuated, more
+particularly in the case of Kheyr-ed-Din, whose character was a blend of
+the deepest subtlety and calculated ferocity.
+
+Having settled with Kara-Hassan, Uruj continued his march along the coast.
+Arrived at Algiers, he opened in form a siege of Navarro's Tower; but,
+being unable to make any impression on its defences, he abandoned the siege
+after twenty days' fruitless fighting, during which he lost a number of men
+in his assaults. Baffled and furious, he turned on the Berber chieftain,
+the luckless Selim Eutemi, and caused him to be assassinated, regarding him
+as being responsible for the failure. The Spanish chroniclers relate, with
+some wealth of detail, how Uruj personally fell upon Selim Eutemi, when
+that chieftain was in his bath, and strangled him with his own hands.
+However this may have been, the Spanish records of the deeds of the
+corsairs cannot well be taken _au pied de la lettre_; there is no doubt
+that Selim was murdered, and from that time the Berbers recognised that he
+who had come to help was now remaining to plunder. Uruj now established
+himself in the town, and set to work making raids into the adjoining
+country, carrying off sheep, cattle, and slaves. For the Berbers this was a
+true awakening. He who now oppressed them had come in the guise of a
+champion to assist them in the sack and plunder of Navarro's Tower; they
+had exchanged King Log, who dwelt securely locked up, for a King Stork of
+the most active description. Although we cannot sympathise with such
+people, it is quite possible to understand their very natural annoyance at
+the turn which things had taken, and it does not surprise us (in this age
+of "punic faith") that a conspiracy was set on foot between the dwellers of
+the hinterland and the Spaniards of the fortress.
+
+Uruj was informed of all that was going on through his own spies, and,
+although he kept his finger on the pulse of the conspiracy, he acted as
+though the tribesmen were still his very faithful friends and allies. The
+corsair was more patient than his wont. In this affair he wished for ample
+proof of delinquency, and also for a vengeance adequate to the occasion
+when he should discover all the guilty parties; and so some weeks went by
+while the plot was maturing, apparently, from the point of view of the
+conspirators, to a successful conclusion. But Uruj had bided his time with
+a subtlety and _finesse_ which would have done credit to Kheyr-ed-Din
+himself,
+
+It was the custom of the corsair and his chief adherents to attend the
+principal mosque on Fridays; and therefore, when the conspirators were
+cordially invited to attend on the following Friday, and, after the service
+was over, to attend Uruj to his dwelling and there confer with him, they
+went, nothing doubting, to their deaths. As the discourse of the Mullah
+came to an end a crash resounded throughout the building: six stalwart
+swordsmen had flung the great gates of the mosque together, and barred all
+exit. Excepting the conspirators, twenty-two in number, the remainder of
+the edifice was filled with the galley's crews of the corsair, men who, had
+he given the order, would have cheerfully set alight to the sacred building
+itself and roasted the Mullahs themselves in the flames.
+
+To the corsairs, after they were seated in the mosque, the word had been
+passed that the Berber tribesmen had meditated this treachery against them,
+which, had it succeeded, would have meant the death or enslavement of them
+all. It was therefore a trap of a singularly deadly description into which
+the countrymen of Selim Eutemi walked on this Friday morning.
+
+The doors being closed, the conspirators were one by one dragged before
+Uruj, who, bitterly reproaching them, gave order for their instant death.
+They were haled out through rows of jeering pirates, and beheaded in the
+street immediately in front of the principal entrance of the mosque. When
+the slaughter of the twenty--two was accomplished Uruj strode from the
+mosque over the weltering corpses of the traitors amid the plaudits of his
+own men, ever ready to acclaim deeds of blood and cruelty. After this there
+were no more plots against the corsair in Algiers. News of all these
+desperate doings in Algiers had by this time filtered across into Spain,
+and El Maestro Don Fray Prudencio de Sandoval recounts how, when the
+tidings came to Fray Francisco Ximenes, the Cardinal Archbishop of Toledo,
+that that prelate, much scandalised that the might of Imperial Spain should
+be flouted by a mere pirate, sent Don Diego de Vera with some fifteen
+thousand men to recapture the town, and relieve the beleaguered garrison in
+the tower. This was in the month of September 1516.
+
+Don Diego landed "en el dia de San Hieronymo," and threw up entrenchments
+within gunshot of the town. Great things were expected of this expedition,
+as Sandoval notes that in 1513 Don Diego de Vera, in the war against the
+French, had gained the approval of Count Pedro Navarro ("avia bien aprovado
+con el Conde Pedro Navarro"), and it was not expected that a mere pirate
+rabble would ever make head against the Spanish troops. De Vera opened fire
+on the walls of the town from his entrenchments, but hardly had he done so
+when Uruj, leading his corsairs, which formed the spearhead to an
+innumerable army of Berbers and Arabs, made a sortie.
+
+  "Upon them one day did Barbarossa make an onslaught, and when he saw
+  that the Spanish soldiers were ill commanded, he flung his forces upon
+  them with loud cries. And so great was the fear inspired by Barbarossa
+  that they were routed almost without loss to the Moors; and with much
+  ease did these latter slay three thousand men and capture four hundred
+  on the day of San Hieronymo in this year."
+
+  ("Salio un dia a el Barbarossa y como vio los soldados Espanoles
+  desmandados dio en ellos con gran gritos. Y fue tan grande el miedo que
+  vieron que Barbarossa los desbarato casi sin dano y con mucho facilidad
+  mato tres mil hombres y cautivo quatro cientos dia de San Hieronymo
+  deste ano.")
+
+This quotation is given in full to set out the amazing fact that in this
+battle over three thousand were killed while only four hundred were
+captured, which shows that it must have been in the nature of an
+indiscriminate massacre; the only captive of any note was the captain, Juan
+del Rio. Diego de Vera had had enough of the corsairs, and sailed away with
+the remainder of his force. Of what became of him or of them there is no
+record, but he must have been a singularly incompetent commander when he
+could not make head against a rabble of pirates and Moors with the army at
+his disposition. Sandoval does not attempt to minimise the defeat, which,
+of course, would have been impossible; he contents himself with the
+following delightfully quaint reflection: "But many, many times Homer nods;
+this disaster must have come upon us for our sins, upon which it is most
+important that we should always think and meditate."
+
+Who so triumphant now as Uruj Barbarossa? It is true that the fortress of
+Pedro Navarro still remained in the hands of its splendid and undaunted
+garrison, and was destined so to remain for some years to come; but they
+were impotent for harm, and the conqueror of Don Diego now turned his arms
+in another direction. Kheyr-ed-Din was at Jigelli when he heard of the
+victory gained by his brother, and sailed at once with six ships to his
+support. The town of Tenes fell into the hands of the brothers, with an
+immense booty, and then Uruj marched on Tlemcen. The Sultan of Tlemcen, the
+last of the royal race of the Beni-Zian, did not await the coming of the
+corsair. All through the northern coasts of Africa the name of Barbarossa
+was a synonym of terror; the sad fate of Selim Eutemi, of Kara-Hassan, of
+the twenty-two conspirators of the mosque, had been noised abroad, and the
+superstitious tribesmen firmly believed that these red-bearded corsairs
+were the accomplices of Shaitan, even if they did not represent him
+themselves in their own persons. Who were these men, they asked one another
+tremblingly, who feared neither God nor devil, and who caused even the
+redoubtable Spaniards to fly before them like the leaves in front of an
+autumn gale?
+
+When men begin to talk and to think like this there is not much fight left
+in them, and so it came about that, after the most feeble of resistances,
+the Sultan of Tlemcen fled to Fez. Thus, almost without striking a blow,
+Uruj found himself master of a province from which the Spaniards were
+accustomed to draw the necessary provisions for the upkeep of the garrison
+of Oran. But Tlemcen is but some seventy miles from Oran, and Oran is so
+close to Spain as to be easily reinforced; in consequence Uruj was soon
+blockaded by the Spaniards, and remained so for seven months. But no
+blockade could keep Uruj Barbarossa for long within stone walls; sortie
+after sortie did the gallant corsair lead against the foe, and it was in
+one of these that he characteristically came by his death. Ever rash and
+impetuous, he allowed himself to be drawn too far away from possible
+shelter or support; and, as there was something dramatic in the whole life
+of this man, so also was there in the manner of his death. They had him
+trapped at last, this grim Sea-wolf, and he stood at bay in a stone corral
+used for the herding of goats.
+
+  As the wolves in winter circle round the leaguer on the heath,
+  So the greedy foe glared upward panting still for blood and death.
+
+By his side was his faithful lieutenant Venalcadi. In a breathless melee
+Christian sword and Moslem sabre clashed and rang. His turban gone, his
+great curved scimitar red to the hilt, the undaunted corsair fought his
+last fight as became the terror of his name. Almost had he succeeded in
+breaking through the ring of his foes when Garzia de Tineo, _alferez_ (or
+lieutenant) to Captain Diego de Andrade, wounded him severely with a pike.
+Uruj stumbled, was struck on the head with another weapon; he reeled and
+fell. The fight was over, and one of the Barbarossas bit the dust. Garzia
+de Tineo leaped upon the fallen man and cut off his head. It is recorded
+that Garzia de Tineo was wounded in the finger by Uruj in the course of the
+combat, and that for the rest of his life he proudly exhibited the scar as
+a sign that it was none other than he who had killed the famous corsair.
+
+Uruj Barbarossa was undoubtedly a remarkable man. At a time when the
+Mediterranean swarmed with warriors none was more feared, none was more
+redoubtable than he. By sheer valour and tenacity he had fought his way to
+the front, and the son of the obscure renegado of Mitylene died a king. It
+is true that his sovereignty was precarious, that it was maintained at the
+edge of the sword; none the less, in that welter of anarchy in which he
+lived he had forced himself to the summit, and, pirate, sea-wolf, and
+robber as he was, we cannot withhold from him a meed of the most hearty
+admiration.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+KHEYR-ED-DIN BARBAROSSA
+
+Uruj had arrogated to himself the title of King of Tlemcen, but with his
+death this shadowy sovereignty came to an end, and the Spaniards seized
+upon the province. This, however, did not avail them much, as the Sultan of
+Fez sent against them an innumerable army, and they in their turn were
+dispossessed. It was in the year 1518 that Uruj fell beneath the pike of
+Garzia de Tineo, and now the first place in the piratical hierarchy was
+taken by Kheyr-ed-Din. In this man the genius of the statesman lay hidden
+beneath the outward semblance of the bold and ruthless pirate; ever
+foremost in the fight, strong to endure, swift to smite, he had by now long
+passed his novitiate, had established an empire over the minds of men which
+was to endure until the end of his unusually prolonged life. With a brain
+of ice and a heart of fire, he looked out, serene and calm, upon the
+turbulent times in which he lived, a monstrous egotist desiring nothing but
+his own advancement, all his faculties bent upon securing more wealth and
+yet more power.
+
+He played a lone hand, for he brooked even less than did his truculent
+brother any approach to an equality with himself among the men who followed
+in his train. Absolute supremacy was his in the life which he lived, but
+none knew better than he upon what an unstable basis his power rested. He
+now called himself the King of Algiers, but still that lean, sun-dried
+garrison held with desperate tenacity to the tower of the redoubtable
+Navarro, and any moment a fresh Spanish relieving force might be upon him
+and chase him forth even as Uruj had been chased from Tlemcen. He saw that
+he must consolidate his power, must for the present, at any rate, have some
+force at his back which would provide that material and moral backing which
+was essential to his schemes. Once before he had successfully approached
+the Grand Turk, the Padishah, the head of the Mohammedan religion, and from
+him he had received that which he had asked; on this former occasion,
+however, he had not been in the same position as he now occupied.
+
+The corsair must have meditated long and anxiously on the best way in which
+to approach the autocrat of Constantinople; in the end he probably hit upon
+the best solution of the problem by again sending an ambassador with
+precise instructions as to the manner in which he was to act. For this
+important service his choice fell upon one of his captains, Hadj-Hossein by
+name, and to him he imparted all that he was to say, and--what was almost
+as important--what he was not to say.
+
+The duty of the ambassador was to magnify the importance of his master, but
+to do so in such a manner that the Padishah was not to imagine that a rival
+to his own greatness had arisen at Algiers. Selim was at this time in
+Egypt, where he had just completed the conquest of the Mamelukes, and
+thither did Hadj-Hossein repair. He laid at the feet of the conqueror the
+respectful homage of the King of Algiers, who, he assured Selim, desired
+nothing better than to become the vassal of the Commander of the Faithful.
+Also, he informed him, that in the name of Selim public prayer was offered
+in the mosques on Fridays, that his image and superscription were struck on
+the coins, that in every manner possible recognition was made of the fact
+that he, and he alone, was the chosen of God upon earth. This manner of
+stating the situation was both delicate and politic. A less wise man than
+Kheyr-ed-Din might have assumed a note of equality from one Moslem
+potentate to another, but the corsair was perfectly conscious of his
+limitations--he knew exactly how the Grand Turk could be useful to him, and
+he was not going to mar his chance by the display of an untimely arrogance.
+
+Hadj-Hossein proved himself to be a tactful and successful ambassador. The
+Sultan accepted the homage offered, and made many inquiries concerning the
+war prosecuted by Hossein's master against the enemies of the true faith in
+the distant region of Algiers. His queries were all answered with deep
+submission and the most subtle of flattery, much of which latter was no
+doubt a perfectly honest expression of opinion. As to the average
+Mohammedan of this period the Padishah was a being set apart by Heaven to
+fulfil the decrees of the Prophet.
+
+The ambassador, when he rejoined his master, must have been a proud man, as
+so well had he fulfilled his mission that he carried back with him to
+Algiers not only a gracious message, but the insignia of the Sanjak,
+Scimitar Horse and Tambour, conferred upon that loyal Moslem Kheyred-Din
+Barbarossa, who, in the words of the Padishah, "abandoning a sterile
+independence, sought in all the bloody hazards of his life nought but the
+glory of God and His Prophet" To us this hyperbole, addressed to a pirate,
+seems merely ridiculous, but in those days of fanaticism the beliefs of
+men, both Christians and Moslems, are something which it is impossible for
+us to realise. On either side the way of salvation was the path of
+conquest, and the man who was heretic to the faith which you professed was
+rightly served if you could cut him and his off from among the
+congregation.
+
+It was well for the corsair to make as many friends as possible, as among
+his enemies he counted all the kings of Christendom; and, looking back on
+his career, it seems but little short of a miracle that he was not crushed
+out of existence, not once but a hundred times. But, as has been said
+already, the root of true statesmanship was in Kheyr-ed-Din. He watched
+with eager eye the quarrels of the great kings on the continent of Europe;
+he saw his life-long rival at sea, the greatest of all Christian mariners,
+Andrea Doria, the Genoese admiral, transfer his allegiance from the French
+King Francis I. to the Emperor Charles V. He noted and took full advantage
+of the perpetual squabbles between the Genoese and Venetian Republics, and
+all the time was in touch with the Sea-wolves, who swarmed on the coasts of
+Africa, and lurked in every creek and harbour of the Ionian Sea. "In all
+the bloody hazards of his life," to quote once again the words of the Grand
+Turk, "he could, in the end, depend more or less on the corsairs, whether
+they ostensibly sailed beneath his banner or whether they did not, as when
+danger threatened what name was so potent as that of Barbarossa, which his
+followers asserted to be worth ten thousand men, when shouted on the day of
+battle!"
+
+That which is most extraordinary in the life of Kheyr-ed-Din is the
+perpetual danger and stress in which it was lived. Time and again the heavy
+menacing clouds gathered around his head; strenuous and unceasing were the
+efforts made by his enemies to destroy his power, to capture the person of
+this militant robber who flung an insolent defiance to the whole of
+Christendom. The storms gathered and broke with various effects, which
+sometimes sent the corsair flying for his life a hunted fugitive, as others
+saw him once more victorious. But no reverses had the power to damp his
+ardour, or to render him less eager to arise, like some ill-omened phoenix,
+from the ashes of defeat: to vex the souls of those who held themselves to
+be the greatest men on earth.
+
+It was shortly after the death of his brother Uruj that the storm arose
+which bade fair to sweep, not only Kheyr-ed-Din but all the corsairs of the
+North African coast, clean out of their strongholds, for the Emperor
+Charles V., at this time young, eager, and enthusiastic, gave orders for
+their destruction. These robbers troubled the peace of Europe; they did
+more than this, they insulted the Majesty of the Emperor, and Charles
+regarded their perpetual incursions in the light of an affront to his
+personal dignity. The divinity which hedged such a monarch as the grandson
+of "Los Reyes Catholicos," Ferdinand and Isabella, was a very real thing,
+and, if offended, was likely to find concrete expression in the most
+vigorous form. Charles, much annoyed at the necessity for chastising a band
+of robbers, determined that he would make an end of them once and for all.
+To Don Hugo de Moncada, the Viceroy of Sicily, to Don Perisan de Ribera at
+Bougie, to the Marquis de Comares at Oran, orders were sent to prepare
+their forces for an attack on Algiers.
+
+There was no lack of good-will on the part of the Christian princes,
+nobles, and governors. The Spanish veterans in Sicily were rusting for want
+of employment, the levies on the African littoral welcomed anything in the
+way of war as a distraction from the deadly monotony of their lives. The
+soldier in these days who rested too long upon his arms became in time
+practically useless for the purpose for which he existed; but such rulers
+as Charles V. gave their fighting men but small cause of complaint in the
+matter of want of employment. The Pope sent his blessing and a contingent,
+and, to show how serious was the purpose of the Emperor, who took the
+command in person, let us set forth the total of the expedition which was
+to utterly destroy and root out the corsairs and their leader:
+
+FLEET.
+
+  Galleys of the Pope               4
+    "     of Malta                  4
+    "     of Sicily                 4
+    "     of Antony Doria           6
+    "     of Naples                 5
+    "     of Monaco                 2
+    "     of Marquis of Terra Nova  2
+    "     of Vicome de Cigala       2
+    "     of Fernando de Gonzaga    7
+    "     of Spain                 15
+    "     of Andrea Doria          14
+
+  Total Galleys                    65
+  Add Transports                  451
+                                  ---
+  Total Fleet                     516
+
+SAILING-SHIP TRANSPORT.
+
+  The Frigate of Malta               1
+  Division of Spezzia              100
+    "      of Fernando Gonzaga     150
+    "      of Spain                200
+
+  Total Transports                 451
+
+
+We now come to the military side of the expedition, which consisted of:
+
+  The Household of the Emperor     200
+  Noblesse                         150
+  Knights of Malta                 150
+  Servants                         400
+  German Corps                   6,000
+  Italians                       5,000
+  Spanish from Naples and Sicily 6,000
+  Soldiers from Spain              400
+  Adventurers                    3,000
+  Italian Cavalry                1,000
+  Spanish Cavalry from Sicily      400
+  Light Cavalry                    700
+                                ------
+  Total Army                    23,900
+                                ======
+
+We next come to the Armament of the Fleet:
+
+  Soldiers of the Galleys (50 in each)            3,250
+  Galley Slaves (average 70 in each)              4,500
+    "      "    The Frigate of Malta                 80
+  540 sailing ships of all sorts, mostly
+        small (at an average of 10 each)          4,500
+                                                  -----
+  Total _Personnel_ of the Fleet                 12,330
+  Add Army                                       28,900
+                                                 ------
+  Total _Personnel_ of the Expedition.      36,230 men.
+                                                 ======
+
+It was late autumn when the expedition at last set sail, and the imperious
+temper of Charles was such that he refused to be governed by the advice of
+the seasoned mariners, such as Andrea and Antony Doria, and others who
+dreaded the effect of the gales which the armada was likely to encounter on
+the coast of Africa. The Emperor was not to be gainsaid, and the fleet set
+sail. They arrived, says Sandoval, "en el dia de San Hieronymo," Saint
+Bartholomew's day; and there then arose such a storm as the Mediterranean
+seldom sees. Some of the army had landed, some were still afloat, the
+corsairs accounted for the luckless soldiers ashore, the elements destroyed
+many left in the ships: 26 ships and 4,000 men were lost.
+
+Bitterly mortified, Charles, who had personally displayed valour and
+conduct of unusual distinction in this disastrous expedition, returned to
+Europe to turn his attention to his everlasting quarrels with the King of
+France. Meanwhile Don Hugo de Moncada had escaped with a remnant of his
+forces to Iviza, in the Balearics, where he wintered, and where his men
+mutinied because he was unable to pay them.
+
+As there was depression almost amounting to despair in the camps of
+Christendom, so was there concurrently the widest rejoicing in the tents
+and on board of the galleys which flew the Moslem flag. What mattered it
+that it was the elements which had saved Kheyr-ed-Din from annihilation?
+was it not a cause the more for jubilation, as had not the Prophet of God
+himself come to the assistance of those who were upholding his holy
+standard? Were not his favours made manifest in that he had sent, to lead
+his votaries to victory, such an one as Kbeyr-ed-Din Barbarossa?
+
+Pope and Emperor, King, Duke, and Viceroy had tried conclusions with the
+pirates, and their fleet and army had melted away as the mists melt in the
+hot sunshine on the Mediterranean; truly were the descendants of the
+dispossessed Moors of Codoba and Granada taking a terrible revenge on
+those by whom they had been expropriated.
+
+Barbarossa was never one to let the grass grow under his feet; he had the
+Christians on the run, and he intended to take full advantage of this
+pleasing circumstance. Accordingly he despatched a trusted lieutenant, one
+Hassan, with instructions to harass the coast of Valentia, to ravage with
+fire and sword all those unfortunate towns and villages which he could
+reach. This corsair entered the Rio de Ampasta and destroyed all before
+him, the inhabitants fleeing as the news was carried by escaped fugitives
+and by the red glare of the villages flaming to heaven in the night.
+Satiated with blood, laden with spoil, and burdened with many wretched
+captives, Hassan put to sea once more in triumph.
+
+It may here be mentioned how terrible was the damage wrought by the
+piratical fraternity in the Mediterranean, and the manner in which it has
+been brought to light in somewhat remarkable fashion quite recently. Since
+the French occupation of Tunis it was charged against them that they had
+taken away from the natives of the country those fertile lands which lay
+upon the shores of the sea, and had given them to French subjects. The
+facts of the case were that for centuries these lands had been entirely out
+of cultivation, the reason being that, until the complete suppression of
+piracy in the Mediterranean took place, none dared to dwell within raiding
+distance of the sea for fear of being carried off into slavery.
+
+But to return to Hassan. That warrior, having cleared the Spanish coast,
+got separated from three of his consorts during the night. The next day, at
+dawn, he sighted a Spanish sailing-vessel, which he thought to make an easy
+prize. The wind was light, and the galleys--that is to say, the one on
+which Hassan was aboard and his remaining consort--were soon churning up
+the waters in pursuit as fast as their oars could carry them. Hassan
+reckoned on an easy capture, as he made certain she was but a peaceful
+trader with some score or so of throats to cut. He was, however, badly out
+of his reckoning, as on board of her was a veteran company of Spanish
+infantry, stark fighters to a man, who feared no odds, and who were
+skilfully commanded by Captain Robeira, grown grey in the Moorish wars.
+With bloodcurdling yells the galleys swept alongside with the fighting men
+massed on the high poops and forecastles of their vessels. Behind the high
+bulwarks of the "round ship" (as the sailing craft of the day were
+denominated to distinguish them from the long ships, or galleys) crouched
+the Spaniards, their muskets in their hands. Captain Robeira had them
+perfectly in hand, and not a piece was discharged until the beaks of the
+galleys crashed into her sides.
+
+Robeira then gave the order to fire, and at the short range into packed
+masses of men the volley did terrible execution. Completely surprised, the
+corsairs attempted to board, but were repulsed and driven back with more
+slaughter. His men becoming demoralised, Hassan withdrew amidst the
+ferocious taunts of the Spaniards, who had escaped almost unscathed. Sore
+and angry, the corsairs continued their voyage for another three days, at
+the expiration of which they arrived at Algiers. Hassan, who had acquired
+quite a considerable booty, expected a warm reception; this he received,
+but hardly in the way that he expected. He told his tale to Kheyr-ed-Din,
+which that commander received in frowning silence; when he had finished the
+storm burst.
+
+"O miserable coward! dost thou dare to stand in my presence and to confess
+that thou hast been whipped like a dog by those sons of burnt fathers, the
+Spaniards?"
+
+The miserable Hassan attempted to justify himself by reference to the booty
+which he had obtained and the number of captives with which he had
+returned; but this, far from assuaging the wrath of Barbarossa, only made
+it worse.
+
+"Dastard and slave! thou boastest that, thou hast destroyed defenceless
+villages and brought back many captives, but that shall avail thee nothing.
+No profit shalt thou derive from that. Let the captives be brought before
+me."
+
+This was done, and to the horror even of those hardened men of blood who
+followed in the train of Barbarossa, they were all executed. Even this
+wholesale massacre did not assuage the wrath of the corsair. Standing and
+surveying the weltering shambles which tainted the air, he pulled
+ferociously at his red beard, and commanded that they should whip Hassan
+till the blood ran; when this was done thoroughly and to the satisfaction
+of the despot, he gave orders that he should be chained and thrust into the
+prison of the fortress.
+
+Terror stalked abroad in Algiers. No man knew when his turn might come
+after this awful example of what it meant to incur the wrath of Barbarossa.
+The corsair gave orders for the execution of Venalcadi, who, it will be
+remembered, was with Uruj when that warrior came by his death; but
+Venalcadi was popular among the pirates, and they connived at his escape.
+
+For so cool and politic a man as Kheyr-ed-Din this outburst is wholly
+inexplicable. Judged by our standards, the flogging of Hassan was not only
+brutal but silly, as raising up to himself enemies of the most bitter
+description in the midst of his own followers; and yet cruelty was so
+engrained in this man that he never forewent his revenge. It is a standing
+miracle that he escaped assassination in the age in which he lived, and the
+only explanation would appear to be that men were too much afraid of him to
+make the attempt.
+
+The immediate result of the flogging of Hassan and the attempted murder of
+Venalcadi was that the latter collected a following and made war upon
+Kheyr-ed-Din, who, with incredible folly, then released Hassan, and sent
+him with five hundred men to fight against Venalcadi. The result was what
+might have been anticipated: Hassan joined forces with Venalcadi, and
+together they attacked the tyrant and drove him out of his stronghold.
+
+Kheyr-ed-Din had the one supreme merit of never knowing when he was beaten.
+Driven from the shore, there was for him always the sea to which to retire;
+so on this occasion he embarked his family and such of his riches as were
+portable, and took to the sea once more. "Yendo a buscar nuevos asientos y
+nuevos amigos" (seeking a new home and new friends), says Sandoval.
+
+It was well for the corsairs that the Christians had selected the previous
+year for their attack, as, had they fallen upon them when Barbarossa was no
+longer in power at Algiers and the pirates were fighting among themselves,
+the latter would have been wiped out of existence. It was ill fighting with
+Kheyr-ed-Din, whether you professed the religion of Christ or that of
+Mahomet, and this the revolting corsairs were very soon to discover.
+Barbarossa sailed away from Algiers a hunted fugitive, only to return again
+as a conqueror.
+
+Eastward the dispossessed ruler of Algiers took his course, and very soon
+discovered that which he sought--allies to assist him against the revolted
+Venalcadi and the recalcitrant Hassan. Lurking in the neighbourhood of
+Bizerta, he discovered El Judeo (the Jew), Cachidiablo (Hunt the Devil),
+Salaerrez, Tabas, and other corsairs, who collectively composed a
+formidable force. These were all old acquaintances and some old followers
+of Kheyr-ed-Din, and to them did he relate the piteous tale of the
+cowardice of Venalcadi, whom he accused of having deserted his brother Uruj
+in his direst necessity, thereby causing his death; the abominable conduct
+of Hassan, who had turned and bitten the hand that fed him. With tears in
+his eyes did this accomplished actor reluctantly reveal the base
+ingratitude of which he had been the recipient; so much did he contrive to
+work upon the feelings of his auditors that they one and all vowed to stand
+by him, and to replace him as ruler of Algiers, from which he had been
+thrust by men whose shameful treachery was only equalled by their
+ingratitude.
+
+Forty sail in strength, they set out to avenge the wrongs of the gentle and
+long-suffering Kheyr-ed-Din, that master of craft in every sense of the
+word. Reaching Algiers, they disembarked artillery and stores and began an
+attack in form; but Venalcadi, whose forces were equal, in fact slightly
+superior, to those of his antagonists, made a sally, and battle was joined
+in the open. A most sanguinary combat ensued, in which the forces of
+Kheyr-ed-Din were decidedly worsted. For a considerable period his fate
+hung in the balance. Then occurred one of those singular and remarkable
+things only possible in such an age of anarchy and bloodshed. Barbarossa
+had in his train sixty Spanish soldiers captured by him from the force of
+Don Hugo de Moncada. Well did the corsair know their value: there were no
+finer fighting men in all the Christian armies. Hastily summoning them, he
+promised them their freedom if they would now throw in their lot with him
+and assist in the downfall of Venalcadi.
+
+The offer was no sooner made than accepted, and the Spanish veterans, fresh
+and unwearied, threw themselves into the heart of the fray. Shoulder to
+shoulder and blade to blade in their disciplined valour, they broke through
+all opposition; they fought for liberty as well as life, to exchange the
+noisome confinement of the piratical galley for the free air of their homes
+and their country. Soon the soldiers of Venalcadi turned and fled back to
+the city; the day was once again with Kheyr-ed-Din. For four days longer
+did Algiers hold out, and then a traitor betrayed Venalcadi into the hands
+of his enemies. Instantly his head was struck off, placed on a pole, and
+paraded in full sight of the garrison, who were promised their lives on
+condition of surrender.
+
+The city opened its gates once more, and Barbarossa entered in triumph. The
+corsair was as good as his word to his Spanish captives, and restored to
+them their liberty. He went even further, and was liberal in his _largesse_
+to those who had fought so well for him. If he can be credited with such an
+emotion as gratitude, he must have felt it for Moncada's stout infantrymen,
+as, had it not been for them, it would have been his head and not that of
+Venalcadi which would have decorated the pole. The Spaniards departed to
+their own country--that is to say, such of them as desired to do so; but
+one Hamet, a Biscayan, declared that life was so intolerable for a common
+man such as he in his own country that he desired to throw in his lot with
+Barbarossa. Thirty-nine others followed his example, abjuring the Christian
+faith and becoming renegadoes.
+
+Those of the garrison left alive were glad enough to return once more to
+their allegiance to their former master. The episode of the mutiny of
+Venalcadi and Hassan was a lesson not only to them: the fame of it spread
+far and wide throughout the Mediterranean. Who now could be found to combat
+Barbarossa? and all along the coasts of the tideless sea echo shudderingly
+answered--Who?
+
+With the new accession to his strength Kheyred-Din had no difficulty in
+making himself master of Tunis, and he sent Cachidiablo with seventeen
+galleys to harry once more the coast of Spain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+THE TAKING OF THE PENON D'ALGER; ANDREA DORIA
+
+Although Kheyr-ed-Din had made himself master of Algiers, there still
+remained the fortress of Pedro Navarro in the hands of the Spaniards. This
+strong place of arms had now been in their practically undisputed
+occupation for twenty years; from out of its loopholed walls and
+castellated battlements the undaunted garrison had looked forth while the
+tide of war both by land and sea had swept by. They had been unmolested so
+far, but now their day was to come.
+
+In command of the Penon d'Alger, as it was called by the Spaniards, was a
+valiant and veteran cavalier, by name Martin de Vargas. For twenty years,
+as we have said, the gold-and-crimson banner of Spain had floated from its
+crenulated bastions; since the days of Pedro Navarro it had held its own
+against all comers. It must have been with a sinking heart that Martin de
+Vargas and his brave garrison beheld the town fall once again into the
+hands of Kheyr-ed-Din; they knew, as by this time did all the Mediterranean
+and the dwellers on the coasts thereof, the implacable enmity of the
+corsair to the Christians, and how short a shrift would be theirs should
+they fall into his hands.
+
+On his side Kheyr-ed-Din looked with longing eyes on this remnant of the
+power of Spain in Africa. Could he but dislodge Martin de Vargas, he had
+the whole of Northern Africa practically at his disposal; Algiers would
+then be really his, to fortify for all time against the inroads of his
+foes. He was master by land and sea, the time was propitious; the corsair
+decided that the hour had come. He had seen the repulse of his brother
+Uruj, none knew better than did he the temper of the men by whom the Penon
+was held, or the valiance and the unswerving fidelity of that caballero of
+Spain, Martin de Vargas. He tried to induce that officer to surrender to
+him, offering every inducement to the Spanish commander to come to terms.
+He was met with a haughty refusal, couched in the most contemptuous
+language. He tried the most blood-curdling threats, which were no empty
+menaces, as his adversary well knew: these were received in silence.
+
+One more embassy he tried, and to this he received the following answer:
+
+  "I spring from the race of the De Vargas, but my house has never made it
+  a practice to boast of the glory of their long descent: they professed
+  merely to imitate the heroism of their ancestors. Spurred forward by
+  this worthy desire, I await with calmness all your efforts, and will
+  prove to you, with arms in my hands, that I am faithful to my God, my
+  country, and my king."
+
+[Illustration: ANDREA DORIA, PRINCE OF ONEGLEA, ADMIRAL TO CHARLES V.]
+
+Barbarossa summoned to his palace his kinsman and trusted adherent Celebi
+Rabadan, and they mutually decided that there was nothing they could do
+save take up arms against this most insolent and uncompromising warrior. In
+the meanwhile they would try what craft would do; and accordingly two young
+Moors were introduced into the Penon, under the pretext that they had seen
+the error of their ways and were anxious to embrace the Christian religion.
+Martin de Vargas, like all Spanish caballeros, was an ardent proselytiser,
+and he ordered the two young men to be taken into his own house and
+instructed by the chaplain of the garrison. The next day was Easter Day,
+and the two young Moors, while the entire garrison were at Mass, signalled
+to their co-religionists a prearranged sign indicating that now was the
+time to attack. Unfortunately for them, a woman in the employment of De
+Vargas saw them, and they were immediately hanged from the battlements in
+full view of Barbarossa. That potentate was filled with fury at what he
+considered an insult to the Mohammedan religion, and again consulted with
+Celebi as to the feasibility of another assault. It was true, he said, that
+his messengers had been hanged, but they had made the prearranged signal.
+Still, the walls were hardly sufficiently breached, he thought, and his own
+men were singularly disheartened by the ill success of their previous
+efforts. Did Celebi Rabadan think another attempt desirable?
+
+That person was in a quandary, because he could not gather what it was that
+Barbarossa wished him to say. He knew that if he recommended an assault,
+and that it proved once again unsuccessful, that the full fury of the
+tyrant would fall upon his head; at the same time he was almost equally
+afraid to broach the idea which had been prevalent in Algiers for some time
+that Martin de Vargas must assuredly be in league with Shaitan, or he could
+never have held out in the way that he had done. In consequence he
+temporised and hesitated, while Barbarossa pulled at his famous red beard
+and regarded him with scowling brows.
+
+The situation was saved for Celebi Rabadan by an accident. There swam off
+to the ship a traitor from the Spanish garrison, and this man informed them
+that his whilom comrades were positively at their last gasp, ammunition all
+but exhausted, and the food-supply barely sufficient to last another two
+days.
+
+"To such an end come those who deny the Prophet of God," exclaimed
+Barbarossa, and gave orders that this news be communicated to all his men,
+who were to prepare for the final assault on the morrow. He further offered
+a reward for the capture of Martin de Vargas alive.
+
+On May 16th, 1530, the corsairs once again advanced to the assault. By this
+time the walls had been battered until a practicable breach had been
+formed, and over this swarmed thirteen hundred of the starkest fighters of
+the Mediterranean, In the breach, bareheaded, his armour hacked and dinted,
+stood the undaunted chieftain of the Spaniards: over his head floated that
+proud banner which had never cast its shadow on a worthier knight of Spain.
+The garrison, worn to a shadow by their hardships and their hunger, most of
+them wounded, and all of them sore spent, were in no case to resist this,
+the most formidable attack to which they had been subjected. It was all
+over in a very short time, and a dreadful massacre ensued.
+
+Martin de Vargas, though sorely wounded, was taken alive and conducted to
+the presence of Barbarossa. Wounded, shaken, bruised, his fortress in the
+hands of his enemy, the dying shrieks of his murdered garrison still
+ringing in his ears, the amazing spirit of the man was still utterly
+unsubdued. "It is to the treason of a ruffian that you owe your triumph,"
+he said to his captor, "and not to your valour: had I received the smallest
+relief I could still have repulsed and kept you at bay. You have my maimed
+and mutilated body in your possession, and I hope that you are satisfied.
+But my body is accustomed to pain, and I therefore defy you and your
+dastardly cruelty."
+
+To do Barbarossa justice he admired the undaunted spirit of his prisoner,
+and he replied:
+
+"Fear nothing, De Vargas, I will do all in my power to ease your hurts if
+you will do that which I ask of you."
+
+De Vargas replied:
+
+"As an earnest of your faith, I demand the punishment of the traitor
+through whose information you were enabled to take the citadel."
+
+Barbarossa ordered the soldier to be brought before them, and, having
+nearly flogged him to death, had him beheaded. He then presented the head
+to De Vargas, saying:
+
+"You observe my complaisance. I now ask you to embrace the Mohammedan
+faith; then I will overwhelm you with benefits and honours, and make you
+the Captain-General of my guards."
+
+De Vargas looked at him in indignation and replied:
+
+"Dost thou believe that I, who but now demanded the just punishment of a
+man who had forsworn himself, could stoop to such an act of baseness as
+this? Keep your ill-gotten riches; confer your dignities on others; insult
+not thus a caballero of Spain."
+
+There was a breathless pause. None had ever used such language to
+Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa and lived to tell the tale. Nor was it to be so in
+this case.
+
+"You and yours have caused me too much trouble," he answered indifferently.
+He made a sign to the executioner who had beheaded the soldier, and the
+next moment the head of De Vargas was swept from his body.
+
+The gallant Spaniard, it is to be hoped, came by his end in the way just
+narrated; but the chroniclers disagree among themselves, and "El Senor Don
+Diego de Haedo, Arcobispo de Palermo y Capitan General del Reyno de Sicilia
+por El Rey Felipe nuestro senor," states that Barbarossa kept De Vargas in
+confinement for three months and then had him beaten to death. One can only
+sincerely hope that the first account is the true one; but Haedo was nearer
+to the time of the occurrence, and, as he wrote in the reign of Philip II.,
+is more likely to have known the facts. But however this may have been,
+there was an end for all time of Spanish domination on the north coast of
+Africa, and from this we may date the permanent establishment of those
+piratical States in that part of the world.
+
+The star of Kheyr-ed-Din was once more in the ascendant. Not only had he
+crushed out the incipient mutiny of Venalcadi and taken his life, but he
+had consolidated his power by the taking of the Penon d'Alger. He
+celebrated this occasion in the most practical manner possible: a stop was
+put to the indiscriminate massacre of the garrison, and five hundred of the
+Spaniards were captured alive; it was their dreary fate to pull down
+entirely the tower of Pedro Navarro, which they had defended so gallantly
+and to utilise the material in making a causeway from the Penon to the
+shore. Barbarossa was determined that on no future occasion should his
+enemies have the chance of dominating his town of Algiers. He was now a
+sovereign in fact and in deed, regarding even so mighty a monarch as
+Charles V. with comparative equanimity. Terrible was the wrath of the
+latter when the news of the fall of the Penon, the massacre of the
+garrison, and the death of his trusty servant De Vargas, was brought to
+him. The Sea-wolves seemed to exist but to exasperate him, and this latest
+news came just at one of the most prosperous epochs of his career.
+
+The titles of "Carlos Quinto," as recorded by Sandoval, read like the roll
+of some mighty drum. Nor were these titles mere vain and empty boastings,
+as was so often the case at that time among the minor rulers of the earth.
+On February 22nd, 1580, just before the fall of the Penon, he had placed on
+his own head the iron crown of Lombardy; his viceroys ruled in Naples and
+Sicily, his dukes and feudatories in Florence and Ferrara, in Mantua and in
+Milan; there was no more Italy. All these recent acquisitions had been
+rendered possible by the defection of Andrea Doria, the Genoese seaman,
+from Francis I. of France to the side of the Emperor. From henceforward it
+was against this modern Caesar that Barbarossa had to contend; the monarch
+under whose banner swarmed the terrible Schwartz-Reiters of Germany, for
+whose honour marched the incomparable infantry of Spain, for whom the
+fleets of the gallant Genoese sailed in battle-array under the orders of
+the greatest admiral of the day, Andrea Doria. All these disciplined
+legions of Christendom were arrayed against the corsair king; banded
+together for the destruction of that daring pirate whose flag floated in
+insolent triumph above the white walls of Algiers.
+
+As from this time onwards we shall hear much concerning Andrea Doria, it is
+fitting that some account should here be given of this great patriot, great
+soldier, and still greater seaman. Andrea Doria, of the family of the
+Princes of Oneglia, of Genoa, was born at Oneglia on November 30th, 1468,
+and was the son of Andrea Coeva and Marie Caracosa, both of the family of
+Doria. At the death of his mother the young Andrea, then nineteen years of
+age, was sent to Rome, where his kinsman Dominique Doria, of the elder
+branch of the family, was captain of the Papal Guard of Pope Innocent VIII.
+Here he rose rapidly: owing to his extraordinary address in all military
+exercises, he was marked out for preferment, and would probably have
+succeeded his kinsman as grand officer, had it not been for the death of
+Innocent VIII. The successor to Innocent, Alexander VI., was not favourable
+to the claims of the Dorias; so young Andrea, acting on the advice of
+Dominique, repaired to the court of Duke Urbino, then regarded as the best
+school for young nobles desirous of following a military career. After some
+time spent at the court of Urbino, Dominique counselled that Andrea should
+enter some other service, as there was no glory to be obtained under a
+prince who was never at war. Accordingly Andrea passed into the service of
+the King of Aragon, who, having invaded Naples, was giving plenty of
+employment to all would-be warriors.
+
+In the record of his early days we find that in the year 1495 he made a
+journey to Jerusalem to visit the holy places, and that he then returned to
+Italy, where Ferdinand of Aragon was attempting to recover the kingdom of
+Naples. "The Great Captain," Gonsalvo de Cordoba, was warring against
+Doria's kinsman, Juan Roverejo; this commander had rendered a great service
+to the Dorias by rescuing David Doria from imprisonment at Ancona, and
+Andrea decided to throw in his lot with him. He accordingly armed
+twenty-five cavaliers at his own expense, and joined Roverejo, who put him
+in charge of the fortress of Rocca Guillelma. In this place Andrea was
+besieged by Gonsalvo de Cordoba, the first warrior of the age; here he
+displayed such extraordinary ability in defence that, on the occasion of a
+truce, Gonsalvo urged upon Andrea to join the Spaniards. Andrea made answer
+that honour bound him to Roverejo, but, could he be released from his
+arrangement with him, he might then consider the proposition of "The Great
+Captain." Roverejo refused, but, as Charles VIII. immediately afterwards
+evacuated Italy, Andrea was free to follow his own inclinations, and took
+service with Lodovico Sforza, Duke of Milan.
+
+From this time onward until 1503 Andrea was constantly employed in war, and
+made for himself such a reputation that in this year the Republic of Genoa
+requested him to take command of their navy. This offer he refused, as he
+said that he knew nothing about the sea. They pressed him, saying that to a
+man of his genius nothing was impossible, and in the end he gave a somewhat
+reluctant consent. He soon proved his competence in his new sphere of
+activity, as his first act was to capture the Fort of the Lantern, in the
+neighbourhood of Genoa, which was then held by the French for Louis XII.
+The Republic confirmed his appointment as General of the Galleys with many
+compliments, and he put to sea and captured three of the war-galleys of the
+corsairs, also two Turkish ships laden with valuable merchandise. He fitted
+out the galleys for his own service, sold the merchantmen, and made an
+immense sum of money.
+
+His next act was to defeat the corsair, Cadolin, who had eight galleys to
+Doria's six; these he added to his own fleet, which now consisted of
+fourteen vessels, he having begun with three. As Cadolin was one of the
+most famous corsairs of the day, this capture made an immense sensation,
+and all men, Moslems as well as Christians, were asking one another, "Who
+was this Doria?"
+
+They had their answer, as time passed, in the career of this astonishing
+warrior, who in his time played so many parts, who served under so many
+flags, and yet who remained consistently a patriot all the time. As this is
+not a history of Doria, we have no space to trace out his life step by step
+as it was lived; suffice it to say that, disapproving of the government of
+his native Republic under the family of the Adorno, Andrea offered his
+sword and his fleet to the King of France, Francis I. His offer was
+received with joy, and he was made Captain-General of the Galleys of
+France. In his new capacity he sailed for the coast of Provence, which was
+being devastated by the fleet of Charles V. He sank several of the Spanish
+vessels, captured others, and secured sufficient booty to pay his soldiers
+and sailors--a fact most welcome to Francis, who was in desperate straits
+for money.
+
+Eventually, however, a dispute arose between Francis and Doria, which was
+to have disastrous effects for the King. At this time Charles V. was
+suzerain of Genoa, which was held for him by the Adorno. Philippin Doria,
+nephew of the admiral, met at sea with Hugo de Moncada outside the Gulf of
+Salerno; a battle ensued, in which Philippin was victorious and Moncada was
+slain. Amongst others who were captured was the Marquis de Guasto and
+Camille Colonna; these high officers, together with three of the captured
+galleys, were sent by Philippin to his uncle at Genoa.
+
+In the meantime some malcontents reached the Court of France and complained
+to the King that Andrea Doria had not captured Sicily, which they averred
+he could easily have done. These men were backed up by a certain number of
+the courtiers, who were bitterly jealous of the fame of Doria and the
+esteem in which he had been held by Francis. The monarch, easily swayed by
+any determined and persistent attack, decided to levy a fine on the
+inhabitants of Genoa as a punishment for the supineness of their
+countryman, who was his Captain-General of the Galleys; his argument being
+that they must pay him for the plunder Doria had missed by not taking
+Sicily when he should have done so.
+
+This was worse than a crime--it was blunder of the very first magnitude,
+and such a blunder as could only have been made by a very stupid as well as
+a very arrogant man. Doria by this time was a warrior of European
+celebrity, and one to whom even kings used the language of persuasion; to
+attempt to browbeat him was to court disaster.
+
+Francis sent the Vicomte de Tours to Genoa to levy the fine, but the
+Vicomte did not prosper on his mission. Outside of Genoa he was met by the
+outraged admiral on horseback at the head of some fifty Genoese nobles and
+a numerous company of foot-soldiers. De Tours reported that the name and
+authority of the King of France was held in derision by the fierce old
+admiral, who so alarmed the envoy himself that he thought it prudent to
+retire to Florence, from whence he wrote a long letter to his master
+complaining of his reception by Doria.
+
+This attempt to levy a fine on Genoa was not, however, the only deadly blow
+which the King of France was aiming at her. The children of Francis were at
+this time in Madrid, as hostages for the good behaviour of their father,
+and that monarch was in treaty secretly with Charles to restore Italy to
+the _status quo ante bellum_, which would have had the effect of handing
+over Genoa to Antony Adorno. He also began the fortification of Savona, in
+order that from there he might be in a position to strike at the
+Genoese--from a military point of view, if necessary--but in any event to
+cripple the trade of that city. Andrea Doria, as soon as he became aware of
+this latter action on the part of Francis, was thoroughly roused, and wrote
+him the letter quoted below, which illustrates the fact that he was quite
+aware of his own great importance in Europe. It was not a time in which men
+held such language as did Doria on this occasion unless they were very sure
+of themselves and their followers.
+
+  "GREAT PRINCE,
+
+  "It is an ill use of power to reverse order in human affairs. Genoa has
+  always been the capital of Liguria, and posterity will see with
+  astonishment that your Majesty has deprived it of this advantage with no
+  plausible pretext. The Genoese are well aware how inimical to their
+  interests are your projects with regard to Savona. They beg of you that
+  these may be abandoned, and that you will not sacrifice the general good
+  to the views of a few courtiers. I take the liberty to add my prayers to
+  theirs, and to ask of you this grace as the price of the services I have
+  rendered to France. Should your Majesty have been put to
+  expense, I shall join to my request the sum of forty thousand gold
+  crowns.
+
+    "With the humble duty of Andrea Doria,
+      Captain-General of the Galleys of France."
+
+Theodore Trivulce, who held Savona for the King of France, was roundly told
+by Doria that "the people of Genoa would never suffer the taking of Savona
+by the King of France, as it had from time immemorial belonged to them,"
+and added, "for myself I will sacrifice the friendship of the King in the
+interests of my fatherland."
+
+The last straw came, however, when the Marshal de Lautrec demanded from
+Andrea the prisoners taken by Philippin Doria at Salerno. To this Doria
+returned a curt negative, whereupon Francis sent one Barbezieux to
+supersede Doria and to seize upon the person of the veteran admiral. But
+that seaman, now sixty years of age, was not to be taken by any king or
+soldier. He moved his twelve galleys from Genoa to Lerici, on the east
+coast of the Gulf of Spezzia, and when Barbezieux arrived he sarcastically
+told him to take the galleys. Barbezieux had no better fortune than his
+predecessor, the Vicomte de Tours, and retired discomfited and boiling over
+with rage to report matters to the King.
+
+It has been said that among the prisoners of Philippin Doria was the
+Marquis de Guasto. This nobleman had been an interested spectator of the
+quarrel, and now approached Doria suggesting that he should throw in his
+lot with Charles. The admiral, who all through had been acting in the
+interests of his native country, seeing its ruin approaching from the
+ambitions of Francis, consented, and wrote to his nephew Philippin telling
+him of his decision, and his reasons for that which he proposed to do.
+Philippin therefore rejoined his uncle at Lerici with his eight galleys.
+The negotiations were short, sharp, and decisive, and were conducted
+through the medium of De Guasto. Charles offered the admiral sixty thousand
+ducats a year; this was accepted. The only other stipulation made by the
+Emperor was natural enough, which was that all the Spanish galley-slaves in
+the fleet of Andrea should be released and their places taken by men of
+other nationalities. This was of course conceded, and the transaction was
+complete. Henceforward the most formidable force at sea on the Christian
+side was at the disposal of the Spanish King.
+
+This transference took place in the year 1528, and it was in the same year
+that the citizens of Genoa, in recognition of the unexampled services of
+the admiral to the State, elected him perpetual Doge.
+
+This honour Doria declined, declaring that it was more glorious to have
+deserved than to possess the honour, and that he considered he could be of
+more use to his fellow citizens by gaining for them the protection of great
+princes than by remaining as chief judge in his own country.
+
+The Senate of Genoa, astonished by his noble modesty, hailed him as the
+father and liberator of his country, ordered that a statue of him should be
+erected in the public square, that in the same place a palace should be
+built for him at the public expense, and that it should be called Plaza
+Doria; further, that he and his posterity should be for ever exempted from
+taxation, and that a device should be engraved on a plate of copper and
+attached to the walls of the palace, where it could be seen of all men,
+announcing to posterity the services that this great man had rendered to
+his fellow citizens, to be for ever a memorial of their gratitude.
+
+The chronicler of these events draws a parallel between Doria and
+Themistocles, who, when discontented with the Athenians, passed into Persia
+and offered his services to Xerxes, to the great joy of that monarch, who
+cried aloud, "I have Themistocles, I have Themistocles."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+THE APOTHEOSIS OF THE CORSAIR KING
+
+If Charles V. made no such outward manifestation of his joy as did the
+Persian monarch, he possibly was no less pleased than Xerxes; this he
+showed by his acts, and the value that he attached to the services of Doria
+was instanced in the directions which he gave. He ordered the Governors of
+all his possessions in Italy to do nothing without first consulting the
+admiral; to lend him prompt aid, whether he demanded it in his own name or
+in that of the Republic of Genoa. He made him Admiralissimo of his navy,
+with power to act as he liked without even consulting him, as his Emperor.
+It will be seen that Charles had in him sufficient greatness to trust
+whole-heartedly when he trusted at all; the faith which he reposed in the
+Genoese seaman was amply justified by events, and no action of his during
+the whole of his singularly dramatic reign was ever to result so entirely
+to his profit. When in after-life Charles had received from the Pope the
+Imperial Crown, and when, on his return, he put into Aigues-Mortes in
+Doria's galley, he there met with Francis, who, in a burst to confidence,
+advised the Caesar never to part with his admiral.
+
+On that stage, which was the blue waters of the tideless sea, we shall,
+from this time forward, watch the fortunes of those two great sea-captains,
+Andrea Doria and Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa. With them the ebb and flow of
+conquest and defeat alternated. Great as was the one, it cannot be said
+that he was greater than the other; but when the supreme arbitrament was
+within the grasp of both, as it was at the naval battle of Prevesa, neither
+the Christian admiral nor the Moslem corsair would reach out his hand and
+grasp the nettle of his fate. Hesitation at this moment, when, in the
+fulness of time, the rivals stood face to face with arms in their hands,
+was the last thing that would have been expected of such dauntless
+warriors, such born leaders of men! and the battle of Prevesa presents a
+psychological problem of the most baffling and perplexing description. We
+are, however, anticipating events which will fall into their proper
+sequence as we proceed.
+
+Kheyr-ed-Din, now firmly established in Algiers, devoted his energies to
+the undoing of his Christian foes by the systematic plunder of their
+merchant-vessels. At this period he, personally, seems to have remained
+ashore, and sent his young and aspiring captains to sea to increase his
+wealth by plunder, his consequence by the hordes of slaves which they swept
+into the awful bagnios of Algiers; and Sandoval, that quaint and delightful
+historian, is moved to indignation and complains with much acrimony of "las
+malas obras que este corsario hizo a la Christiandad" (the evil deeds done
+to Christianity by this corsair). These were on so considerable a scale at
+this time that he had to devote to them far more space than he considered
+consonant with the dignity of history.
+
+But if all were going on well on the coast of Africa for the Crescent, such
+was far from being the case in the northern waters of the Mediterranean;
+for Andrea Doria, serving His Most Catholic Majesty at sea, had defeated
+the Turks at Patras and again in the Dardanelles, which unpleasant fact
+caused no little annoyance to Soliman the Magnificent. On land the Sultan
+was sweeping all before him; at sea this pestilent Genoese was dragging
+into servitude all the best mariners who sailed beneath the banner of the
+Prophet. There was wrath and there was fear at Constantinople, and the
+captains of the galleys which sailed from the Golden Horn felt that their
+heads and their bodies might at any moment part company--the Grand Turk was
+in an ill humour, which might at any moment call for the appeasement of
+sacrifice; so it was that men trembled.
+
+It was at this time, in 1533, that Soliman bethought himself of
+Kheyr-ed-Din. There was no better seaman, there was no fiercer fighter,
+there was no man whose name was so renowned throughout the length and
+breadth of the Mediterranean, than was that of the corsair king who was
+vassal to the Sublime Porte. Soliman was confronted with a new, and, to
+him, an almost mysterious thing, for the onward conquering step of the
+Moslem hosts was being checked by that sea-power so little understanded of
+the Turk, and the imperious will of the Sultan seemed powerless to prevent
+the disasters conjured from the deep.
+
+[Illustration: SOLIMAN THE MAGNIFICENT.]
+
+Soliman the Magnificent, who was not inaptly described by this title, for
+he was successful as both warrior and statesman, meditated both long and
+anxiously on the new development of affairs before he made up his mind to
+the step of calling to his assistance the corsair king. But he possessed
+that truest attribute of greatness in a ruler, the faculty of discerning
+the right man for any particular post. Brave and reckless fighters he
+possessed in super-abundance, but somehow--somehow--none of these fiery
+warriors had that habit of the sea which enabled them to make head against
+such a past-master in the craft of the seaman as Andrea Doria. The Genoese
+was chasing the Turkish galleys from off the face of the waters.
+Constantinople itself was a sea-surrounded city; it was necessary that a
+check should be administered to the arms of the Christians on this element.
+It is easy to imagine the preoccupations of the Turkish monarch. The despot
+rules by force, but he also holds his power by the address with which it is
+wielded, and he can by no means afford to disregard his personal popularity
+if he is to make the best use of his fighting men in such a turbulent epoch
+as was the first half of the sixteenth century. Soliman had the wit to know
+that he had no mariner who was in any way comparable to Doria; he was also
+aware that Kheyr-ed-Din had risen from nothing to his present position by
+his sheer ability as a seaman. It would appear, therefore, a very natural
+thing that he should invite the co-operation of the King of Algiers, but
+that with which he had to reckon was the furious jealousy that such an
+appointment must inevitably arouse among his own subjects.
+
+It says much for the steadfast moral courage of the man that he eventually
+decided to take the risk; it says even more for the absolute correctness of
+his judgment that he never afterwards repented of the step which he then
+took.
+
+Once the mind of the Grand Turk was made up he hesitated no longer. The
+Capitan de Rodas, one of his personal guard, was sent to Barbarossa to
+request him to come to Constantinople and take command of the Ottoman
+fleet. There were no conditions attached; the honour was supreme.
+Barbarossa loaded the messenger with rich gifts, and overwhelmed him with
+honours. For Kheyr-ed-Din this was in a sense the apotheosis of his career.
+The Grand Turk, the head of the Mohammedan religion, had not only
+recognised his kingship, but had conferred on him an honour unprecedented,
+unlooked for, and one of the highest value to a man of such an insatiable
+ambition. Into the cool and crafty brain of this prince among schemers
+instantly sprang the thought that now at last his kingdom was secure, that
+in future the whole of the Barbary coast would own no other lord than he.
+
+Preparations for the voyage were immediately begun, and, as an earnest of
+the new importance which he derived from the advances of Soliman, the
+corsair actually sent presents to the King of France and proffered him his
+aid against his enemies. To such a pass as this had one of the most
+powerful monarchs in Christendom been reduced by the defection of Andrea
+Doria. Algiers he left in the keeping of his son Hassan, and in charge of
+Hassan his kinsman Celebi Rabadan and a captain of the name of Agi. In the
+middle of August, 1533, Barbarossa left Algiers, his fleet consisting of
+seven galleys and eleven fustas. Sailing northward, he fell in with a fleet
+which he at first feared was that of Doria, but which, fortunately for him,
+was that of a corsair named Delizuff from Los Gelues. Courtesies were
+interchanged between the two leaders, and Barbarossa succeeded in
+persuading Delizuff to accompany him to Sicily, where it was possible they
+might fall in with Doria, and with their combined forces inflict defeat
+upon the Christian admiral. Delizuff was nothing loath to join forces with
+so noted a commander as Kheyr-ed-Din, as he had no desire to tackle Doria
+single-handed, and at the same time wished to extend the sphere of his
+plunderings, which had been cruelly restricted recently by the wholesome
+fear instilled into the Sea-wolves by the new admiral of Charles V.
+
+Accordingly, reinforced by the fifteen fustas and one galley of Delizuff,
+the Algerian fleet once more proceeded on its voyage. Although bound for
+Constantinople at the request of Soliman, at a time when it would have been
+thought that delay was not only dangerous but impolitic, and although the
+corsair was endeavouring to merge the pirate in the king who dealt on terms
+of equality with those whom he now regarded as his brother monarchs, still
+the old instinct of robbery was too strong to be resisted; the lust of gain
+and the call of adventure were still inherent in the man whose famous beard
+was now far more white than red. Advancing age had not tamed the spirit nor
+weakened the frame of this leader among the Moslems.
+
+Sailing through the Straits of Bonifacio, they touched Monte Cristo, a
+small island where they found a slave who had formerly belonged to
+Delizuff. This man was base enough to betray his own native island of Biba
+into the hands of the corsairs, who sacked it thoroughly and carried off
+its inhabitants; they also captured thirteen large ships going to Sicily
+for wheat, and burnt them, making slaves of their crews. In the fight with
+these vessels Delizuff was killed. Shortly after this, some disagreement
+arising between the crews of the ships of Barbarossa and the men in
+Delizuff's fleet, the Algerian commander seized a man out of one of
+Delizuff's galleys and had him summarily shot. The death of Delizuff
+naturally caused some confusion in his command, and the high-handed
+proceeding of Kheyr-ed-Din caused great resentment, not unmixed with fear,
+as the terror inspired by the Barbarossas was a very real sentiment. Under
+their command no man knew when or at how short notice his life might not be
+required of him; but the glamour of success was ever around them, and they
+never, in consequence, lacked for followers. But the taking out and
+shooting of one of their comrades was too much for the pirates from the
+islands of Los Gelues, from whence Delizuff was in the habit of
+"operating." In the words of Sandoval, "they were not used to such tyranny
+and cruel usage." In consequence they concerted among themselves and one
+dark night sailed off, leaving Kheyr-ed-Din to continue his voyage with his
+original following.
+
+That warrior, nothing disconcerted, pursued his way to the island of Zante,
+where he fell in with a Turkish "flota," under the command of the Bashas
+Zay and Himeral. To these officers of the Grand Turk Barbarossa used most
+injurious language, bitterly reproaching them with not having sought out
+and destroyed Andrea Doria, which he declared they ought to and should have
+done. This is yet another instance of the extraordinary character of the
+man. These persons were the highest officers in the fleet of the Ottoman
+Empire; it was more than possible that they would be placed under the
+command of Barbarossa as soon as his new position as Admiralissimo was
+adjusted at Constantinople; and yet, in spite of these facts, the corsair
+had taken the very first opportunity which presented itself grossly to
+insult these men. It is true, as we shall see, that his injurious words
+came home to roost in the future; but arrogant, conquering, contemptuous,
+Barbarossa seems to have shouldered his way through life, fearing none and
+feared by all.
+
+The fact of his known cruelty accounts for much of the dread which he
+inspired, but it was something far more than this which caused the son of
+the Albanian renegado to ride roughshod as he did over all with whom he was
+brought into contact. Men felt, in dealing with Barbarossa, that here was a
+rock against which they might dash themselves in vain. In all his
+enterprises he spared not himself. He asked no man to do that which he was
+not prepared to do, but if any failed him there was no mercy for that man;
+and, although in deference to modern susceptibility no mention is made of
+the tortures he so frequently caused to be inflicted on his victims, they
+were none the less a daily spectacle to those who lived under his rule. He
+possessed, it is true, the rough geniality of the fighting man, a certain
+"Hail fellow, well met!" manner in greeting old comrades, and yet none of
+these men there were who did not tremble in an agony of fear when the bushy
+brows were bent, when the famous red beard bristled in one of his
+uncontrollable furies. The real secret of his success must have been that,
+no matter how uncontrollable did his passions appear to be, the man was
+always really master of himself. Further, he possessed a marvellous insight
+as to where his own interests lay. He used as his tools the bodies and the
+minds of the men who were subject to him, and he carried his designs to an
+assured success by the aid of that penetrating, far-seeing mental power
+with which, above all else, he must have been gifted. He could drive men,
+he could lead them, he could invariably persuade when all else failed him.
+In this we have had an instance when he was chased from Algiers by the
+combined efforts of Venalcadi and Hassan, whom he had flogged; for no
+sooner did he meet with other corsairs than he persuaded them to take up
+his quarrel--which, it must be understood, was none of theirs--and to
+replace him on that precarious throne from which he had been so rudely
+thrust. We have already said that he was a man who never knew when he was
+beaten, and in the years which we have yet to chronicle this characteristic
+appears again and again; for age had no effect apparently, either mentally
+or physically, on this man of iron who had by this time reached the age of
+seventy-seven.
+
+Leaving the high officers of his future master, the Grand Turk, smarting
+under the opprobrium which he had heaped upon their heads, Barbarossa fared
+onward with his fleet to Salonica, capturing a Venetian galley on the
+voyage: from thence he made his way to the Dardanelles, where he anchored
+and remained several days, to make ready his fleet for the spectacular
+entry which he intended to make into Constantinople.
+
+The city on the Golden Horn was all agog for the arrival of Barbarossa; no
+matter what private opinions the inhabitants might have had concerning him,
+of which we shall hear more presently, they were none the less all curious
+to a degree to catch sight of this man, so famous in his evil supremacy on
+that distant shore of Northern Africa.
+
+Kheyr-ed-Din, among his other qualities, possessed in the highest degree
+that of a successful stage-manager; no pageant which he undertook was ever
+likely to fail from the want of the striking and the dramatic. It was now
+his business to impress the citizens of Constantinople with an idea of his
+greatness, and none knew better than he that it is the outward and visible
+sign which counts among the orientals, more perhaps than the inward and
+spiritual grace: he may also possibly have felt that he did not possess the
+latter to any overwhelming extent.
+
+Even before he left Algiers this entry to the chief city of the Ottoman
+Empire had been in the mind of Barbarossa, who had caused to be embarked a
+quantity of flags and pennons for the decoration of his grim war-galleys
+when they should stream into the Golden Horn. There were also bands of
+music, which, it is to be presumed, utilised the delay in the Dardanelles
+to attain to something like "a concord of sweet sounds," as the incidents
+of the voyage from Algiers, so far, had hardly been conducive to much time
+to spare for band-practice. The galleys were scrubbed and gaily painted;
+round the ship of Kheyr-ed-Din ran a broad streak of gold on the outer
+planking to denote the presence of a King of Algiers, and at last all was
+ready. The fleet weighed anchor, and, with banners flying and bands
+playing, entered the harbour. The shores were black with spectators; even
+the Sultan himself deigned to look forth on the coming of the man from whom
+he expected such great things.
+
+Ceremonial was the order of the day. Soliman the Magnificent was too wise a
+man not to know what was being said in his capital that day; it was his
+part to accustom the minds of men to the fact that he, Soliman, had chosen
+Barbarossa to command his fleet, and that there could be no looking back.
+The decree had been signed, the invitation had been sent, the man had
+arrived, there could be no possible retreat from the situation. The anchors
+splashed into the placid waters close to the shore, and the ships were soon
+so surrounded by boats as to be almost unapproachable; then came official
+persons from the Sultan with greetings to the famous seaman; also came
+Bashas and officers ("con carga de guerra," says Sandoval), to offer a
+welcome and to stare in undisguised curiosity at the man chosen by their
+sovereign to make head against the famous Andrea Doria. This preliminary
+courtesy completed, there came the next act in the drama, which consisted
+in the immemorial custom of the East in the offering of gifts from
+Barbarossa to the Sultan, from the vassal to his suzerain. The Janissaries,
+splendid in scarlet and gold, tall above the ordinary stature of man,
+bristling with weapons inlaid in gold and silver, cleared the common vulgar
+from the streets approaching the palace of the Sultan; they formed the
+spearhead of the procession clearing a way for the King of Algiers, who,
+mounted on a splendid bay stallion, the gift of the Sultan on his arrival,
+headed the captives who bore the gifts. Of these the exact number is not
+stated, but the procession was headed by two hundred women and girls, each
+of whom carried in her hand a gift of gold or silver; one hundred camels
+were loaded with silks and golden ornaments, and other "curious riches"
+("con otras mil cosas de que hizo ostentacion"), says Sandoval. There were
+also lions and other animals, brocades and rich garments.
+
+All of this reads no doubt somewhat too like the tales in the "Arabian
+Nights"; but we have to remember that, if you have led a long and eminently
+successful life as a robber, you have necessarily accumulated a store of
+riches. In the case of Barbarossa he had begun in extreme youth, and was
+now an old man; he had been quite in the wholesale way as a thief, and now
+desired to pay a good price for that which he coveted, namely, the post of
+Admiralissimo to the Grand Turk. It may be objected that he had already
+been offered and had already accepted the post; this is quite true, but
+there were certain conventions to be fulfilled on the side of the recipient
+of the bounty of the Sultan quite understood on both sides, although no
+word had passed on the subject. In those days the man who desired the
+favour of an Eastern potentate never dreamed of approaching him
+empty-handed, and the more liberal that he was in the matter of gifts the
+greater was the favour with which he was regarded. Therefore the principle
+acted upon by Kheyr-ed-Din on this occasion was both wise and politic; that
+is to say, he placed certain of his riches in a perfectly sound investment,
+certain to yield him an admirable percentage, not only in added personal
+prestige, but also in the placing under his command of such a force as he
+had never before commanded, with unlimited opportunities of preying on the
+detested Christian on a far larger scale than it had ever been his good
+fortune to do before.
+
+The Sultan Soliman was not called "the Magnificent" without just cause; his
+life was splendid in its social prodigality, as it was in war and in
+statesmanship; yet even he was somewhat astonished at the amazing richness
+of the gifts which were laid at his feet by a man whom he knew to be, in
+spite of the kingly title which he had assumed, merely a rover of the sea.
+Therefore, in spite of himself, he was impressed. To him, it is true, in
+his splendour and magnificence, the intrinsic value of that which was
+brought to him by Barbarossa mattered but little; but the fact that the
+corsair was in a position to do so opened the eyes of the Sultan to the
+manner of man with whom he had to deal. Hitherto he had but known of him by
+hearsay, as the one Moslem seaman who was likely to be capable of making a
+stand against the terrible Doria, who had now become the plague of the
+Sultan's existence. He now knew that the man who disposed of such
+incredible riches must be, no matter what his moral character, a man who
+stood a head and shoulders over any commander in the Ottoman fleet sailing
+out of the Golden Horn.
+
+Both materially and psychologically this man somewhat bewildered the
+despot: and his _alter ego_, the Grand Vizier, happening to be away on a
+mission to Aleppo, Soliman had no one with whom to confer in a strictly
+confidential manner; for, after the manner of autocrats, he had but few
+familiars, in fact it may be said none at all save the statesman mentioned.
+His reception of the corsair lacked, however, nothing in cordiality. He
+inquired after the incidents of the voyage, interested himself graciously
+in all that he was told concerning Africa and the conflicting claims of
+Christian and Moslem in that region, and was generally courteous to his
+distinguished visitor. He placed at his disposal a palace and attendants on
+a scale commensurate with the state of a reigning sovereign, and sent his
+most distinguished generals to confer with Kheyr-ed-Din. The latter, for
+the first time in his life, was thoroughly out of his element. His had been
+the life of the seaman and the soldier to begin with, and of later years
+that of a rude and unquestioned despot on a savage coast, surrounded by
+myrmidons to whom his voice had been as the voice of a god. Never had it
+been his lot before to dwell within the limits of such a comparative
+civilisation as that which obtained in Constantinople at this date; never
+before had it been necessary for him to restrain that naturally fiery and
+impetuous temper of his and to speak all men fairly.
+
+The strain must have been great, the effort enormous, and he knew, as he
+was bound to know, that his coming had unloosed jealousies and
+heart-searchings innumerable, with which he could not deal in the usual
+drastic fashion common to him. The winter was coming on, which was, as we
+have before remarked, very much of a close season both for the pirate and
+the honest merchant seaman. In consequence there was not very much chance
+against the foes of Soliman for the present. When that opportunity offered
+he promised himself that the courtiers and the soldiers of the Grand Turk
+would very soon discover that the fame of Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa was no
+empty matter, and that there existed no seaman in all the Ottoman dominions
+with whom they could compare the "African pirate," as he had reason to
+believe that he was scornfully called behind his back.
+
+A weaker man would have been daunted by his surroundings, by the manifestly
+unfriendly atmosphere in which he lived, and by the dread that perhaps,
+after all, Soliman might go back upon his word. There were no lack of
+counsellors, he knew very well, who would advise the Sultan to his undoing,
+if that monarch gave them the opportunity; and, as time passed, so his
+anxiety grew. Soliman also could not have felt particularly comfortable at
+this juncture, with a sullen spirit possessing his men "con carga de
+guerra," bitterly resenting the step which he had taken, and the
+appointment which he had made. For the present, however, he made no sign,
+treating Kheyr-ed-Din with distinguished courtesy, but making no reference
+to the future. Soliman was revolving the problem in his acute mind,
+doubtless weighing the unpopularity of the step which he had taken against
+the services likely to be rendered to him by his strange guest. And thus
+several weeks passed at Constantinople, probably amongst the most trying of
+all those in the unusually prolonged life of Kheyr-ed-Din.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+THE RAID ON THE COAST OF ITALY; JULIA GONZAGA
+
+The Grand Turk had spoken, the appointment had been made, Barbarossa had
+arrived; but though autocrats can cause their mandate to be obeyed, they
+cannot constrain the inward workings of the minds of men. In spite of the
+awe in which Soliman the Magnificent was held, there were murmurs of
+discontent in the capital of Islam. The Sultan had been advised to make
+Barbarossa his Admiralissimo by his Grand Vizier Ibrahim, who was, as we
+have said, his _alter ego_. This great man had risen from the humblest of
+all positions, that of a slave, to the giddy eminence to which he had now
+attained by the sheer strength of his intellect and personality. The Grand
+Vizier it was who had pointed out to his master that which was lacking in
+the Ottoman navy: brave men and desperate fighters he had in plenty, but
+the seaman who cleared the Golden Horn and made his way through the
+archipelago into the open sea beyond had forces with which to contend
+against which mere valour was but of small avail. Out there, somewhere
+behind the blue line of the horizon, did Andrea Doria lie in wait; and if
+the Moslem seaman should escape the clutches of the admiral of the
+Christian Emperor, were there not those others, the Knights of Malta, who,
+under the leadership of Villiers de L'lsle Adam, swept the tideless sea in
+an unceasing and relentless hostility to every nef, fusta, and galley which
+flew the flag of the Prophet?
+
+It had come to a pass when the Ottoman fighting man was by no means anxious
+to go to sea. He was still as brave as those marvellous fanatics of seven
+centuries before, who, in the name of God and of His Prophet Mahomet, had
+swept all opposition aside from the path of Islam, had conquered and
+proselytised in a manner never paralleled in the world before. At the call
+of the Padishah, for the honour of the Prophet, the sons of Islam were as
+ready to march and to fight as had ever been the warriors of the earlier
+Caliphs. But they had ever been soldiers; the habit of the sea was not
+theirs, and they found that, time after time, such sea-enterprises as they
+did undertake were shattered by the genius of Doria, or broken into
+fragments by the reckless, calculating assaults of the knights. And so it
+came about that there was but little heart in the navy of the Padishah, and
+those who served therein had but slight confidence in those by whom they
+were led. To use a metaphor from the cricket-field, it was time "to stop
+the rot" by sending in a really strong player. He was not to be found
+within the confines of orthodox Islam, and must be imported from outside.
+
+The man had been found; could he be forced on an unwilling and discontented
+populace? Who, it was asked in Constantinople, was this man who had been
+called in to command the ships of the Ottomans at sea? They answered their
+own question, and said that he was a lawless man, a corsair: were there not
+good seamen and valiant men-at-arms like the Bashas Zay and Himeral, who
+should be preferred before him; this man who had come from the ends of the
+earth, and of whom nobody knew anything good? Again, could he be trusted?
+Something of the history of the Barbarossas had penetrated to the capital
+of Turkey, and it was known that scrupulous adherence to their engagements
+had not always characterised the brothers: who should say that he might not
+carry off the galleys of the Grand Turk on some marauding expedition
+designed for his own aggrandisement? There was yet more to be urged against
+him: not only was he infamous in character, but he was no true Mussulman,
+for had not his father been a mere renegado, and--worst of all--had not his
+mother been a Christian woman?
+
+It was thus that the talk ran in that blazing autumn in Constantinople.
+Naturally there were plenty of persons who carried reports to Kheyr-ed-Din,
+and that astute individual soon made up his mind as to the most
+advantageous course for him to pursue. With the full concurrence of the
+Sultan, he left Constantinople and journeyed to Aleppo to see Ibrahim. The
+latter was both cunning and tenacious. Removed from the capital, the tide
+of gossip and discontent only reached him at second-hand; but he was not to
+be deterred by popular clamour even had he been in the midst of it. None
+knew better than he who and what was Barbarossa; in fact, it may be
+confidently asserted that none in Constantinople had anything like the same
+knowledge of this man and all that concerned him. Ibrahim had not named
+Barbarossa to his sovereign without weighing all the pros and cons of the
+matter, and that which was now happening in the capital had been fully
+anticipated by him. It pleased the Grand Vizier very much that Kheyr-ed-Din
+should take this long journey to see him; not from any ridiculous idea that
+this was an act of homage due to the dignity of his position--Ibrahim was
+far too great a man for such pettiness--but because it enabled him to see
+for himself what manner of man was this redoubtable pirate on whom he was
+relying to defeat the enemies of the Sublime Porte at sea. The corsair must
+have made the most favourable impression possible on the Grand Vizier, as
+that statesman wrote to Soliman:
+
+  We have put our hands on a veritable man of the sea. Name him without
+  hesitation Basha, Member of the Divan, Captain-General of the Fleet.
+
+The Grand Turk had no intention of going back upon the appointment already
+made, but he was none the less pleased to receive from his Vizier so strong
+an endorsement of his policy; and now the time had come to stop the mouths
+of the murmurers and scandal-mongers of Constantinople. Accordingly he
+formally recalled Barbarossa from Aleppo, gave him, with his own hand, a
+sword and a royal banner, and invested him with plenary power over all the
+ports of his kingdoms, over all the islands owning his jurisdiction,
+command of all ships, vessels, and galleys, and of all soldiers, sailors,
+and slaves therein. The die was cast, the erstwhile corsair, the son of the
+renegado of Mitylene and his Christian wife was henceforward the supreme
+head of the Ottoman fleet.
+
+The following description of the famous corsair may be found interesting at
+this juncture.
+
+Barbarossa was at this time seventy-seven years of age. Courageous and
+prudent, he was as far-seeing in war as he was subtle in peace. A tireless
+worker, he was, above all things, constant in reverse of fortune, for no
+difficulties dismayed him, no dangers had power to daunt his spirit. His
+ruddy skin, his bushy eyebrows, his famous red beard, now plentifully
+streaked with white, his square, powerful frame, somewhat inclined to
+stoutness, above all, his penetrating and piercing eyes, gave to his aspect
+a certain terror before which men trembled and women shrank appalled.
+
+All this harmonised well with his reputation as a chief so resolute, so
+pitiless, that it was the boast of his followers that his very name shouted
+in battle put to flight the Christian vessels. His smile was fine and
+malicious, his speech facile, revealing beneath the rude exterior of the
+corsair the subtle man of affairs, who, from nothing, had made himself King
+of Algiers, and was now, by the invitation of Soliman the Magnificent,
+Admiralissimo of the Ottoman navy.
+
+Well may Jurien de la Graviere say that "in the sixteenth century even the
+pirates were great men."
+
+It has been stated that in speech Barbarossa was facile. He was not only
+so, but he possessed a power of addressing such a man as Soliman in terms
+which, while delicately flattering that mighty monarch, gave him also a
+lead which he might follow in the future disposition of such power as he
+possessed at sea.
+
+On his return from Aleppo Kheyr-ed-Din was received in audience by the
+Sultan. We must be pardoned if we give the long speech which he addressed
+to his new master in its entirety; and we have to remember that the man who
+made it was now an old man who, all his life, had been absolutely free and
+untrammelled, owing allegiance to no one, following out his own caprices,
+and sweeping out of his path any whom he found sufficiently daring as to
+disagree with him. That this ruthless despot should have been able so to
+change the whole style and manner of his address so late in life is only
+one proof the more of the marvellous gifts which he possessed.
+
+It was in the following words that the corsair addressed the Sultan:
+
+  Dread Sovereign, fortune itself has made it a law to second you in all
+  your enterprises because that you are always ready to declare war upon
+  the enemies of Mahomet the Prophet of God, on whom be peace. You have
+  extended the limits of your vast possessions, you have vanquished and
+  slain the King of Hungary, you have humiliated Charles V., this Emperor
+  with whom the Christians dare hold you in comparison. These have been
+  the recompenses received by you for the pure flame with which
+  your zeal for the religion of Mahomet has ever burned.
+
+  "But these successes and these triumphs are not capable of contenting
+  that thirst for glory with which your being is animated, and I am humbly
+  desirous of indicating to you the means of culling fresh laurels.
+  Experience has taught me the way, and I can assert, without fear of
+  being accused of vanity, that in this matter I can be of great
+  assistance to your Majesty.
+
+  "That which fortune has done for me in the past that will it continue to
+  do for me in the future. Age has not enfeebled me, continual exercise
+  has but rendered me stronger; I can therefore promise to you the most
+  ready service both by land and sea. The desire which has always been
+  mine to persecute the Christians caused me to conceive the idea of
+  serving in your sea-army.
+
+  "If Heaven is favourable to my vows, the Spaniards will soon be chased
+  from Africa; the Carthaginians, the Moors, will soon be your very
+  submissive subjects; Sardinia, Corsica, Sicily, will obey your will. As
+  for Italy, it will soon be desolated by famine when I attack it in
+  formidable force, without fearing that the Christian Princes will come
+  to its aid.
+
+  "Mahomet II., your illustrious grandfather, formed the project of
+  conquering this country; he would have succeeded had he not been carried
+  off by death. If I counsel you, dread Sovereign, that you should carry
+  war into Europe and Africa, it is not that I desire your arms should be
+  turned back in Asia from against the Persians, the ancient enemies of
+  the Ottomans. I require but your sea-army, which is no use against the
+  Persians. While you shall be conquering Asia I shall be
+  subduing Africa. The first enterprise which I shall undertake will be
+  against Muley Hassan, the King of Tunis; he has all the vices and
+  possesses not one single virtue. He is a man of sordid avarice, of
+  unexampled cruelty; he has rendered himself odious to the entire human
+  race.
+
+  "He had twenty-two brothers, all of whom he has caused to be murdered.
+  That which is a common failing among tyrants is his: he dare not place
+  himself at the head of his troops. He prefers to endure the outrages
+  which he suffers at the hands of the Moors to taking up arms and
+  inflicting upon them a salutary vengeance. He had the baseness to enter
+  into an alliance with the Spaniards, and to favour their conquests in
+  Africa. It will be all the easier for me to exterminate this wild beast
+  because I have with me his brother, who prayed me to save him from the
+  cruelty of Muley Hassan.
+
+  "When I besiege Tunis I shall present him to the inhabitants, who love
+  him as much as they hate Muley Hassan. They will open their gates to me,
+  and I shall gain the town without the loss of a single man: it will be
+  then you who will be master. On my way thither I will do what harm I can
+  to the Christians; I will endeavour to defeat Andrea Doria, who is my
+  personal enemy and my rival in glory: should I succeed in defeating him
+  your Majesty will possess the empire of the sea. Be then persuaded,
+  great Prince, by me, and believe that he who is master of the sea will
+  very shortly become master on land."
+
+It is somewhat difficult to fathom the reasons which induced Barbarossa to
+treat Soliman to his sanctimonious diatribe concerning the King of Tunis;
+coming, as it did, from a pirate, it was merely ludicrous, and could not
+for one instant have deceived the remarkably shrewd person to whom it was
+addressed. The corsair stated the facts correctly, but the reasons which
+led to an Eastern autocrat disposing of his family in this manner were so
+obvious at the time that, if Soliman felt any emotion at all concerning the
+event, it was probably one of admiration! Regarded from the practical,
+apart from the sentimental side, what the proposition amounted to was that
+Barbarossa should attack a king with whom the Grand Turk had no sort of
+quarrel, and that, once his territory had been reft from him, that it
+should be handed over to the ruler of Constantinople for the greater glory
+of the Sublime Porte. What mental reservations there were on the part of
+the corsair we are not told, but had Soliman known him better he would have
+been aware that never had Barbarossa pulled any chestnuts from the fire of
+life which were not intended for his own eating; and that it was extremely
+unlikely, at his time of life, that he was now going to alter the habits of
+his long and strenuous career.
+
+There was one thing, however, that Kheyr-ed-Din was not; he was no bragger
+or boaster, and, whatever may have been his mental reservations in his
+interview with the Sultan, that which he stated he would do, that he did.
+And now the time had come when the grim old Sea-wolf had done with intrigue
+and the unaccustomed atmosphere of a Court and went back to his native
+element, the sea.
+
+Soliman, it must be said to his credit, was no man to deal in
+half-measures, and when once he had given his trust he gave it
+whole-heartedly, generously. In consequence he gave Barbarossa eighty
+galleys, eight hundred Janissaries, eight thousand Turkish soldiers, and
+eight hundred thousand ducats for expenses (some three hundred thousand
+pounds sterling of our money). All the necessary preparations were carried
+out under the orders of Barbarossa, who was given a roving commission to do
+what seemed best to him for the advancement of the glory of his master and
+the discomfiture of his Christian foes. The commission which he now
+received was practically that which had been given by Charles V. to Doria,
+the most flattering with which any man can be entrusted, as in his hands
+were left issues of peace and war usually only vested in the sovereign.
+
+All through the early summer of 1534 the dockyards and the arsenals of
+Constantinople hummed with the note of preparation; Ibrahim had returned
+from Aleppo and threw himself, heart and soul, into these activities, which
+meant the sailing of the Ottoman fleet under the command of "that veritable
+man of the sea," Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa. Stilled were the murmurs of the
+year before; the corsair, invested with plenary powers by the Sultan
+himself, was now in a position to make his authority felt; added to this,
+the more sensible of the malcontents had been won round by the Grand Vizier
+to the view that as, so far, the Ottoman navy had been conspicuously
+unsuccessful at sea, it was just as well to make use of the most capable
+Moslem seaman upon whom they could lay their hands. As to his moral
+character, that they could afford to discount, and as to the question of
+his faithfulness or the reverse, it was pointed out with irresistible logic
+by Ibrahim, that never before had the Sea-wolf had such glorious
+opportunities of plunder as now, when he could count ten ships for every
+one that had followed in his wake before.
+
+It was in July 1534 that the Ottoman fleet left Constantinople, and
+Kheyr-ed-Din began operations by a descent upon Reggio, which he sacked. On
+August 1st he arrived at the Pharos of Messina, where he burnt some
+Christian ships and captured their crews; then he worked north from Reggio
+to Naples, ravaging the coast and depopulating the whole littoral, burning
+villages, destroying ships, enslaving people. In this expedition he is said
+to have captured eleven thousand Christian slaves. There is perhaps nothing
+more amazing in the whole history of this epoch than the number of the
+slaves captured by the corsairs, and the damnable cruelties exercised upon
+them; these were, of course returned by the Christians with interest
+whenever possible. As an instance of the treatment to which the slaves were
+subjected it is only necessary to mention the course taken by Barbarossa
+when he left Algiers in the previous year. There were at that time seven
+thousand Christian captives in his power; immediately before starting he
+had the entire number paraded before him, and, under the pretext of having
+discovered a plot, which in no circumstances could possibly have existed,
+owing to the supervision of the slaves, he caused twenty of them to be
+beheaded on the spot in order to strike terror into the remainder during
+his absence.
+
+Back to the Golden Horn streamed ship after ship laden with plunder and
+with slaves. "The veritable man of the sea" was proving the correctness of
+the choice of the Sultan, the acumen of the Grand Vizier who had
+recommended his appointment. Barbarossa was determined to leave nothing
+undone to prove to Soliman that his choice had indeed been a worthy one
+when he had selected him as admiral of his fleet: also he had in his mind
+those others who spoke slightingly of him as "the African pirate"; they
+should know as well as their master of what this pirate was capable.
+Northward the devastating host of Barbarossa took its way; the fair shores
+of Italy smoked to heaven as the torches of the corsairs fired the
+villages. Blood and agony, torture and despair, followed ever on the heels
+of the Sea-wolves of the Mediterranean. And now a fresh pack had been
+loosed, as it was, of course, in enormously increased strength that
+Barbarossa returned to the scene of so many of his former triumphs.
+
+Plunder and slaves were all very well in their way, and acceptable enough
+on the shores of the Golden Horn; but Kheyr-ed-Din had a pet project in
+view on this particular cruise, which was to capture Julia Gonzaga and to
+present her to Soliman for his harem. The lady destined by him for this
+pleasant fate was reported to be the loveliest woman in Europe, a fitting
+gift for such an one as the Grand Turk. The fame of her surpassing
+loveliness had reached even the corsairs. She was the widow of Vespasian
+Colonna, Duchess of Trajetto, and Countess of Fundi; she had now been a
+widow since 1528, and lived at Fundi, some ninety miles north-east of
+Naples. Barbarossa laid his plans with his accustomed acuteness, and it was
+only through an accident that they miscarried.
+
+There was one undeniable advantage in the system which swept off into
+slavery the whole of the inhabitants of a country-side, and that was, if at
+any time you required a guide at any particular point on the coast, he was
+sure to be forthcoming from one of the vessels in the fleet. Now Barbarossa
+did not exactly know where Julia Gonzaga was to be found, so he set his
+captains to work to discover the necessary slave. This was soon
+accomplished, and there was really no occasion for a slave on this
+occasion, as a renegado of Naples knew the castle in which Julia Gonzaga
+was residing at the time, and readily agreed to act as guide to the
+expedition sent to accomplish her capture. Kheyr-ed-Din had made a sudden
+dash along the coast with some of the swiftest of his galleys for the
+purposes of this capture. In consequence the people in Naples and the
+neighbourhood were not even aware that the piratical squadron was on the
+coast before they anchored, as near as it was practicable to do, to the
+residence of the Duchess of Trajetto. The fleet actually arrived after
+dark, having kept out to sea and out of sight during the day.
+
+As soon as the anchors were down a party of two thousand picked men were
+landed and marched silently and with all expedition to the castle of Fundi.
+The escape of the Duchess was really providential. She had already gone to
+bed, and the fierce marauders were actually within the grounds of the
+castle before her distracted people became aware of their presence. But
+fortunately some among them kept their heads, and it also so happened that
+her bed-chamber was the opposite side of the castle to that by which the
+pirates approached. A horse was brought round under the window of the room,
+and, in her night-dress with nothing but a shawl wrapped around her, was
+Julia Gonzaga lowered out of her window on to the back of her horse. As she
+galloped for dear life down the avenue of her home she heard the shrieks of
+her miserable household murdered in cold blood by the furious pirates who
+had thus been balked of their prey.
+
+Dire was the vengeance taken by the corsairs. They sacked Fundi and burned
+the town; they killed every man on whom they could lay their hands, and
+carried off the women and girls to the fleet.
+
+Kheyr-ed-Din was furious with anger and disappointment. "What is the value
+of all this trash?" he demanded, with a thundering oath, of the commander
+of the unsuccessful raiders, surveying as he spoke the miserable, shivering
+women and girls. "I sent you out to bring back a pearl without price, and
+you return with these cattle."
+
+Thus balked of his prey, Barbarossa swung his fleet round to the southward
+and westward and sailed for Sardinia, where, from the Straits of Bonifacio
+to Cape Spartivento, he left no house standing that would burn, or man
+alive who was not swept in as a captive. The descent of the corsairs in
+force, such as Kheyr-ed-Din now had at his disposal, was one of the most
+awful calamities for a country that it is possible to imagine. When
+Sardinia had ceased to yield up either booty or slaves the fleet sailed for
+Tunis, where it arrived before Bizerta on August 15th. The arrival of the
+corsairs was totally unexpected, and caused the greatest consternation. The
+story which Barbarossa had told to Sultan Soliman concerning the reigning
+King Muley Hassan was correct in every detail, and there is no doubt that
+he was a bloody and cruel tyrant of the worst description.
+
+Therefore when the wily Barbarossa sent on shore and informed the sheiks
+and ulemas of the place that he had come in the name of the head of the
+Mohammedan religion to free them from this monster by whom they were
+oppressed, and that he intended to place on the throne the brother of Muley
+Hassan, Raschid, who had miraculously escaped from the fate which had
+overtaken all the other members of his house, the townspeople were inclined
+to listen to his advances and to admire the picture which he drew of the
+peace and prosperity which would accrue to them should Raschid, and not
+Muley Hassan, be on the throne of their country. That which he inferred in
+all his dealings with these people was that he had Raschid with him ready
+to step into the shoes of his unpopular brother as soon as the latter
+should be deposed by a justly indignant populace. The fact of the matter
+was that Kheyr-ed-Din had taken the fugitive prince with him to
+Constantinople, thinking to make use of him, and that, when he was sailing,
+Soliman had absolutely forbidden him to remove Raschid from his capital.
+
+Completely deceived, the townspeople allowed the landing of eight hundred
+Janissaries. The tyrant, who was, as Barbarossa had told the Sultan, a
+craven coward, waited for no further demonstration of force, but
+incontinently fled into the interior with such valuables as he could carry.
+As soon as this was reported to Barbarossa he landed in force and entered
+the town, and then the townspeople noticed that the soldiers were all
+shouting for Soliman and for Barbarossa. They then demanded that Raschid
+should be produced according to promise, but naturally he was not
+forthcoming. Those who had acclaimed the soldiers of Soliman as liberators
+now began to arm against them, and they very shortly discovered, from some
+Tunisians who had come in the fleet from Constantinople, that Raschid had
+been left behind in that city.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+BARCELONA, MAY 1535; THE GATHERING OF THE CHRISTIAN HOSTS
+
+Some idea of the terror inspired by the actions of the Sea-wolves at this
+date is contained in the following extract from "The Golden Age of the
+Renaissance," by Lanciani:
+
+  "The Bastione del Belvedere, which towers in frowning greatness at the
+  north-east end of the Vatican Garden and commands the approach to the
+  Borgo from the upper-end valley of the Tiber, was begun by Antonio de
+  Sangullo the younger, and finished by Michel Angelo after the death of
+  Antonio, which took place on September 30th, 1546. This great piece of
+  military engineering must not be considered by itself, but as a part of
+  a great scheme of defence conceived by Paul III, to protect the city
+  against a hostile invasion from the sea. The Pope could not forget that,
+  in August 1534, the fleet of infidels commanded by Barbarossa had cast
+  anchor at the mouth of the Tiber to renew its supply of water, and that
+  if its leader had thought fit they could have stormed, sacked, and
+  plundered the city, and carried off the Pope himself into slavery
+  without any possibility of defence on the Christian side. This point has
+  not been taken into due consideration by modern writers; the
+  fortifications of Rome, designed or begun or finished at the time of
+  Paul III., have nothing to do with the sack of 1527, with the Connetable
+  de Bourbon, or with the Emperor Charles V. All the bastions, that of the
+  Belvedere excepted, point towards the sea-coast, which was perpetually
+  harried and terrified by Turkish or Barbary pirates. These would appear
+  with lightning-like rapidity in more than one place at a time, and carry
+  off as many unfortunate men, women, and children as they could
+  collect.... To prevent the recurrence of such disasters the sea-coast
+  was lined with watch-towers, the guns of which could warn the peasants
+  of the approach of suspicious vessels."
+
+That Paul III. had good warrant for the precautions which he designed to
+take is not only instanced by the fact of Barbarossa anchoring in the mouth
+of the Tiber on the occasion of the raid with which we are at present
+concerned, but from what had occurred to his predecessor on the Papal
+throne in 1516. Pope Leo, son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, was accustomed to
+leave Rome in the autumn for hunting, and fishing in the sea, of which
+latter pastime he was particularly fond. One of his favourite resorts was
+the castle of Magliana, five miles from Rome, on the banks of the Tiber. On
+September 18th, 1516, he left Rome and proceeded to Civita Lavinia, on the
+Laurentian coast. Here he was waited for by the corsair Curtogali, who,
+with fifteen ships off the coast and an ambush on shore, was ready to carry
+him off. Curtogali is supposed to have derived his information as to the
+movements of the Pope from some traitor about the Papal Court who desired
+the downfall of "the fatal House of Medici."
+
+Some one, however, warned the Pope, who fled, accompanied by his retinue,
+at a headlong gallop to Rome, never drawing bridle until he reached the
+safe seclusion of the Vatican.
+
+We must now return, however, to that eagle who fluttered so sorely the
+dovecotes, both Christian and Moslem, and whose loudly proclaimed faith in
+the Prophet never permitted his religion to stand inconveniently in the way
+of his material advancement in the world. The soldiers and sailors of the
+corsair entered Bizerta shouting for Soliman and Barbarossa. There was no
+mention of Raschid, that Prince of the Hafsit dynasty, whom Kheyr-ed-Din
+had declared to the townspeople he had come to restore to the throne of his
+ancestors. Too late the town sprang to arms, under a chief named Abdahar,
+and in the first instance accomplished a considerable success. Barbarossa's
+men were unprepared, and a number of them were slain. Driven into a bastion
+of the walls, a party of the corsairs were desperately defending
+themselves, when one Baetio, a Spanish renegado, discovered that a cannon
+behind them pointing seawards was loaded. He succeeded, with the assistance
+of others, in slewing it round and discharged it at close quarters into the
+packed masses of the enemy. This caused a frightful demoralisation to set
+in; the corsairs rallied and soon swept all before them. The massacre
+turned from the one side to the other, and it is said that no less than
+three thousand of the unfortunate townspeople were slain. Barbarossa only
+called off his men when they were wearied out by the slaughter.
+
+Kheyr-ed-Din now graciously accepted the submission of the townsfolk; that
+is to say, such of them as were left, and took charge of the entire kingdom
+as governor for the Sultan of Turkey. He sent out ambassadors to the
+neighbouring Arab and Berber chieftains of the hinterland, repaired
+fortifications, appointed magistrates--all ostensibly in the name of that
+phantom prince whom the Tunisians were destined never to see, and who never
+returned to his native country.
+
+King of Algiers, _de facto_ King of Tunis, Admiralissimo to Soliman the
+Magnificent, his name a portent in Christendom, his fame reaching from
+Spartel to Tunis, and from the shores of France to the foothills of the
+Atlas, Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa was at the height of his power. Never before
+had a corsair risen to such eminence, never again was there destined to be
+so magnificent a sea-robber. Thus it was that the year 1535 opened gloomily
+for all those Powers whose coasts were washed by the tideless sea. Italy,
+torn and bleeding, her strong men slain, her fairest matrons and maids
+carried off into the most odious captivity, was lamenting the terrible fate
+to which she had been exposed by the raids of the pirate admiral. In
+Catalonia, in Genoa, in Venice, along what is now known as the Riviera, men
+trembled and women wept; for who could say that it might not be upon them
+that the next thunderbolt might fall? In Venice taxation was raised to the
+breaking strain to provide galleys wherewith to combat the foe, while the
+Genoese fortified their coasts and poured out money like water upon arms,
+armaments, and ammunition. Says Sandoval:
+
+  "Desde el Estrecho de Mecina hasta el de Gibraltar ninguno de la parte
+  de Europa pudiera tomer comida ni sueno seguro de lo que viviera en las
+  riberas del mar." (From the Straits of Messina to those of Gibraltar
+  none living in Europe on the shores of the sea were able to eat in peace
+  or to sleep with any sense of security.)
+
+The Emperor Charles V. was roused to action, stung by the intolerable
+humiliation of the position into which he had been placed by a mere
+corsair.
+
+King of Sicily, Naples, and Spain, as well as Emperor of Germany, in any
+direction he might turn he would find a trail of blood and fire over the
+fair face of his dominions in the Mediterranean. Although it might gall his
+pride to admit that his enemy was formidable, Charles was too wise a man,
+too experienced a warrior to underrate his foe. He repaired the
+fortifications of Naples and Sicily at great cost: he wrote letters to the
+Pope, to Andrea Doria, to the Viceroys of Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia, to
+the Marquis de Vasto, and Antonio de Leyva to collect all the arms and
+munitions necessary for the attack on Barbarossa. He sent orders to Don
+Luis Hurtado de Mendoza, Marquis de Mondejar, Captain-General of the
+Kingdom of Granada, to collect money and to have men ready in the ports of
+Andalusia. He gave orders for eight thousand German soldiers to hold
+themselves in readiness; these were to be joined by the veterans of Coron
+and Naples, which body counted four thousand more; in Italy he also raised
+another eight thousand men. All this was done under the seal of secrecy,
+which the Emperor most peremptorily ordered was to be observed.
+
+But news travelled in the first half of the sixteenth century, although
+newspapers, war correspondents, and telegraphs were not; when all the
+feudatories of the greatest king in Christendom were busy it was impossible
+for the matter to remain hidden. Even had it been within the range of
+possibility to conceal what was going on there was one circumstance which
+would have rendered all effort to this end nugatory. Charles had invited
+Francis of France to join in this holy war against the scourge of
+Christendom: not only did Francis refuse to join, but he had the incredible
+baseness to betray the scheme to Barbarossa. It would be pleasanter to
+think that some mistake had been made in this matter, but unfortunately it
+is beyond dispute, as the facts have been placed on record by Sandoval,
+whose history, it must be remembered, was published in 1614. In this matter
+he is quite precise, as he states that a "Clerigo Francese," one Monsieur
+de Floreta, was sent with despatches from Francis to Barbarossa at Tunis,
+and that this treacherous envoy from Christendom gave the corsair king all
+the available information that he had been able to collect before starting.
+
+This was typical of that "Golden Age of the Renaissance" in which it took
+place; when real devotion to all arts, sciences, and amenities of a higher
+civilisation went hand in hand with crime of the vilest and treachery of
+the basest description. Well might Barbarossa, and such as he, laugh to
+scorn the pretension that his Christian enemies were one whit better than
+were they, when they could point to the fact that, to serve a private
+revenge, a great Christian king could betray his co-religionists to their
+Moslem foes. Shamelessly did the Sea-wolves seek their prey wherever it was
+to be found; their methods were villanous and seemingly without excuse,
+but, after all, there was some colour, some shadow of right in what they
+did, for their argument was that they were merely getting back from
+Christendom that which had been reft from them in the near past in the
+kingdoms of Cordova and Granada. But who shall find excuse for the
+Christian kings, governors, and princes at this epoch? They sought their
+prey no less ravenously than did the pirates, and with just about the same
+amount of justification: witness the sacking of Rome by Charles V. in 1527,
+and the unexampled act of treachery just recorded of Francis of France.
+
+Kheyr-ed-Din had lived all his turbulent life among wars and rumours of
+wars: the head of the tiller, the hilt of the scimitar, the butt of the
+arquebus, had been in his hand since early youth; bloodshed and strife were
+the atmosphere in which he lived and breathed. Desperate adventures by land
+and sea had been his ever since he could remember; there was no hazard that
+he had not run, no peril which he had not dared. But now even he, the
+veteran of far more than one hundred fights, was grave and preoccupied when
+he considered the greatness, the imminence of his peril. The "Clerigo
+Francese" had put him in possession of the fact that Carlos Quinto was
+exerting all his strength for the combat which was to come; and Barbarossa
+was far too old a fighter, far too wise a warrior, to underrate by one
+soldier or by one galley the forces that the Emperor could put into line
+against him; from far and near his foes were gathering for his destruction,
+and he did not deceive himself in the least as to what the fate of his
+followers and himself would be should the Christian hosts be victorious.
+
+But, nevertheless, such an emergency as this found the man at his best:
+ready to take fortune at the flood when she smiled upon him, he was perhaps
+at his very greatest in adversity; and when all around him trembled and
+paid one of their infrequent visits to the Mosque to implore the aid of the
+Prophet, the veteran corsair was coolly reviewing the situation, seeking a
+way to weather the tempest before which lesser men shrank appalled,
+declaring that the end had come. The storm was coming in a squall of such
+violence as even he had never before experienced, but, thanks to his friend
+the King of France, he had been forewarned. He sent at once to his master,
+Soliman the Magnificent, at Constantinople, to impart to him the direful
+intelligence; then the bagnios were thrown open, and, under pitiless lash
+and scourge, the Christian captives toiled from dawn till dark to repair
+the fortifications of Tunis. Silent and unapproachable, conferring with
+none, the grim old Sea-wolf sat in his palace overlooking the bay and
+considered the question of whether he should give battle by land or sea
+when the time came. If it were possible, he came to the conclusion that it
+should be the latter; he had been evicted from his kingdom on land once
+before, but he knew that in the open ocean few cared to face Barbarossa,
+and he might fall on Doria first and the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem
+second if matters turned out favourably for him. In any case, he must
+summon all the aid that was possible.
+
+East and west flew the galleys of Kheyr-ed-Din, scudding before the wind if
+that were favourable, or churning the surface of the sea with straining,
+strenuous oars should the wind be foul or a calm prevail.
+
+It was an appeal for aid to the Moslem corsairs from Algiers, from Tlemcen,
+from Oran, from Los Gelues (or Jerbah), and from all the countless islands
+of the Archipelago, where they lurked to seize their prey--Tunis, which
+flew the Crescent flag of the Prophet, was in danger--let them rally
+against the grandson of the man who expelled the Moors from Spain.
+
+Grim and sinister, the corsairs came flocking to the standard of
+Barbarossa. Well they knew that, should he fall, it was but a matter of
+time for them all to be chased from off the face of the waters. Of cohesion
+there was but little among them, and, in spite of the bond of a common
+religion and a common hatred of the Christian, they were swayed far more by
+a lust for plunder than by such considerations as these. In times of
+imminent danger, however, men naturally crave for a leader, and in
+piratical circles all was now subordinated to the instinct of
+self-preservation.
+
+Meanwhile, in Christendom their great enemy was maturing his plans. To the
+Marquis de Canete, Viceroy and Captain-General of the Kingdom of Navarre,
+Charles wrote, confiding to his care the charge of the Empress, with
+instructions that her orders were to be implicitly obeyed during his
+absence. Having done this he journeyed to Barcelona, at which city he
+arrived on April 8th, 1535. Here he was immediately joined by the armada of
+Portugal--twenty caravelas raised, armed, and paid for by the King, Don
+Juan of Portugal. This fleet was commanded by the Infante Don Luis, brother
+to the Empress, and carried on board the vessels of which it was composed a
+whole host of nobles and gentlemen of quality, who had come to fight under
+the approving eyes of the Caesar of the modern world.
+
+On May 1st came Andrea Doria with twenty-two galleys, and those already in
+the harbour crowded the sides of their vessels to watch the arrival of the
+famous Genoese seaman.
+
+Four abreast in stately procession the great galleys swept into the
+harbour. With that love of "spectacle" so inherent in the southern nature,
+everything was done to ensure the military pomp and circumstance of the
+coming of the first sea-commander of the Emperor. At first with furious
+haste, and then slowing down to make the approach more stately, the fleet
+of Andrea moved on. From mast and yard and jackstaff of the galleys of the
+admiral floated twenty-four great banners of silk and gold embroidered with
+the arms of the Emperor, with those of Spain, of Genoa, and of the Dorias,
+Princes of Oneglia. The principal standard bore upon it a crucifix,
+broidered at the sides with pictures of Saint John and the Virgin Mary;
+another represented the Virgin with her Son in her arms. With the sound of
+trumpets, clarions, chirimias, and atambours the fleet moved to within a
+short distance of the Portuguese and saluted them; then, as the thunder of
+the guns ceased and the light wind blew away the smoke, they circled round
+and stopped abreast of the royal vessel on which Charles had embarked. Once
+again the guns barked a royal salute, while knights and nobles, seamen and
+soldiers hailed their Emperor with frenzied shouts of "Imperio! Imperio!"
+
+Then Andrea Doria stepped into his boat and was rowed across the shining
+water to visit the Emperor, who received him, we are told, "with great
+honour and many tokens of love."
+
+On May 12th arrived Don Alvaro de Bazan, General of the Galleys of Spain.
+This magnificent caballero made an entrance in much the same state and
+circumstance as did Doria, and during the remainder of the stay of the
+armada in Barcelona there was much banqueting and feasting and drinking of
+healths to the Emperor and confusion to the Moslem foe. It was once again
+as it had been in those days in which Ferdinand and Isabella had descended
+upon the doomed city of Granada, and had built, in full sight of its
+defenders, the town which they called Santa Fe (or the Holy Faith) as an
+earnest that they would never leave until that symbol of their faith had
+triumphed. To witness this victory the best blood of Europe had flocked,
+and now, forty-three years later, when the audacious Moslem had raised his
+head once more, the descendant of the warriors who had followed "Los Reyes
+Catolicos" rallied to that standard which Carlos Quinto, their grandson,
+had set up on the shores of Catalonia. Sandoval devotes pages of his work
+to the names, styles, and titles of the noble caballeros who joined the
+army for the destruction of Barbarossa.
+
+On May 16th Charles embarked in the _Galera Capitana_ of Andrea Doria,
+accompanied by many grandees and caballeros of the Court, as well as
+illustrious foreigners like Prince Luis of Portugal, and held a review of
+the armada. There was much expenditure of powder in salutes to the Emperor,
+and all vied with one another in shouting themselves hoarse in honour of
+the great monarch who deigned to lead in person the hosts of Christendom
+against the infidel, who had defied his might and dared to offer him
+battle. On May 28th the Emperor travelled some leagues inland, starting
+before dawn, to visit the Monastery of Nuestra Senora de Monferrato, in
+which was kept a singularly holy image of the Virgin. Here he confessed and
+received the sacrament, and then returned to Barcelona.
+
+[Illustration: THE EMPEROR CHARLES V.]
+
+On May 30th he embarked in the Royal Galley, the _Galera Bastarda_, which
+had been prepared for him by Andrea Doria, his Captain-General of the
+Galleys. This vessel seems to have somewhat resembled the barge of
+Cleopatra in the magnificence of its appointments, as its interior was
+gilded, and it was fitted up with all the luxury that could be devised at
+this period. Silken carpets and golden drinking-vessels, stores of the most
+delicate food and of the rarest wines, were embarked to mitigate, as far as
+possible, the inevitable hardships of a sea-passage, and there were not
+lacking instruments of music wherewith to beguile the Caeesar with concord
+of sweet sounds. Perhaps that which strikes the modern seaman most in this
+recital of all the useless matters with which the vessels of the great were
+burdened at this period is the extraordinary number of flags and banners
+with which they went to sea.
+
+The catalogue of those in the _Galera Bastarda_ makes one rather wonder how
+there was room for anything else of more practical usefulness when it came
+to fighting. There were in this galley twenty-four yellow damask banners,
+inscribed with the imperial arms; a pennon at the main of crimson taffeta
+of immense length and breadth, with a golden crucifix embroidered thereon.
+Two similar ones bore shields with the arms of the Emperor, and there was a
+huge flag of white damask sewn with representations of keys, communion
+chalices, and the cross of Saint Andrew, in crimson, with a Latin
+inscription. There were yet two others of scarlet damask "of the same
+grandeur," embroidered round the edge with "Plus Ultra," the device of
+Spain. Among a further varied assortment was one which bore the
+inscription: "Send, O God, thine angel to guard him in all his goings."
+
+The fleet under the command of Andrea Doria numbered sixty-two galleys and
+one hundred and fifty nefs. There were also a miscellaneous assortment of
+small craft, known in those days as "brigantines," employed in the carriage
+of stores and ammunition. We have seen, on a former occasion, what terrible
+losses attended one of these armadas when really bad weather was
+encountered, and therefore it is not surprising that, on his second
+venture, Charles should have selected the finest season of the year for his
+descent upon the coast of Africa. They were brave men, these Mediterranean
+seamen, and the risks which they ran in their strangely formed, unseaworthy
+craft were of course much enhanced when they were loaded to the gunwale
+with stores, provisions, horses, banners, and last, but by no means least,
+a mob of seasick soldiery.
+
+Into this armada were crowded twenty-five thousand infantry and six hundred
+lancers with their horses.
+
+Cagliari, in Sardinia, was the last rendezvous of the expedition, and here
+it arrived in the early part of June, where a week was spent in making the
+final preparations; and at last, on June 10th, a start was made for the
+coast of Africa.
+
+Meanwhile in Tunis Kheyr-ed-Din was working double tides. He was kept well
+informed by his spies of all that was going on, and his preparations for
+defence were as adequate as they could be made; the corsairs, as we have
+said, had come flocking in at his call. He had withdrawn as many of his
+fighting men from Algiers as he deemed prudent. Knowing that the attack was
+directed against him personally, he had not much fear that it would be
+diverted at the last moment. It would have been true strategy on the part
+of Charles to have done this, but the Emperor considered that his honour
+required that the attack should be an absolutely direct one, and so Algiers
+was left on one side, to the ultimate upsetting of his plans. We say this
+because, although in this case he was to take Tunis and to restore to the
+throne of that country the puppet King Muley Hassan, and although he was to
+rescue some twenty thousand Christian captives, he did not capture
+Barbarossa, who was to live for many years to continue and to carry on his
+unceasing war against the Christians.
+
+There was no artifice left untried by the despot of Tunis. To the African
+princes, Moors as well as Arabs and Berbers, did Kheyr-ed-Din send
+embassies. For these he chose cunning men well versed in the means of
+exciting the furious passions of these primitive and ferocious peoples, and
+it was their mission to represent Muley Hassan as an infamous apostate who
+was prompted by ambition and revenge, not only to become the vassal of a
+Christian king, but to conspire with him to extirpate the Mohammedan faith.
+The subtle policy inflamed these ignorant and bigoted Mohammedans to the
+point of madness, and from far and near they threw in their lot with the
+man who represented himself to be the rallying-point for all those in
+Africa who desired not only to preserve their holy religion but also their
+personal liberty. From Tripoli and Jerba, from Bougie and Bona, from the
+shores of Shott-el-Jerid, through all the dim hinterland that stretches
+from thence north-westwards to Algiers, the tribesmen came flocking in. The
+wild riders of the desert had been rounded up, and it is said that no less
+than twenty thousand horsemen, in addition to an innumerable crowd of
+infantry, responded to the call of the master schemer who was but using
+these guileless savages to further his own personal ends. The land-pirates
+of the desert, those stormy petrels whose lives only differed from those of
+the followers of Kheyr-ed-Din in that they carried on their depredations on
+the land instead of on the sea, camped in their thousands in the environs
+of Tunis and boasted of the deeds which they were about to perform.
+Kheyr-ed-Din stimulated their enthusiasm with presents of the most costly
+description. Ever wise and politic, he knew when it was necessary to pay
+royally, and on this occasion surpassed himself in prodigality. For all
+this he himself cherished no illusions; he had the measure of the fighting
+men of his foes at his fingers' ends, and the most that he expected from
+these wild irregulars was that they might, perchance, stay an onset and
+worry the imperial army with dashing cavalry raids. But that they should
+hold their own with the incomparable infantry of Spain, or make head
+against the stolid valour of the German men-at-arms, was not contemplated
+by Barbarossa. In his Janissaries, in his hard-bitten fighting men from the
+galleys, he could expect much; but there were but some few thousands of
+these, while the disciplined host against which he was called upon to
+combat was at the least twenty-five thousand--the flower of the imperial
+forces. The situation was unique, one on which the world had never looked
+before--all the might of Christendom going up against one who, no matter by
+what titles he might choose to describe himself, was no more than a vulgar
+robber. He was, however, a robber on such a scale as had never before been
+equalled--a force which remained unsubdued during the whole of his
+extraordinary and unusually protracted career.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+THE FALL OF TUNIS AND THE FLIGHT OF BARBAROSSA
+
+Autocracy in the sixteenth century was a very real and concrete fact. The
+orders of great kings were, as a rule, implicitly obeyed, and, when they
+were not, there was likely to be trouble of the worst description for those
+by whom they had been contravened. It is this that causes us to regard as
+most extraordinary one of the happenings in the armada which sailed from
+Barcelona for the coast of Africa. A most peremptory order was issued that
+no women, no boys, no one, in fact, save fighting men of approved worth,
+should find a place in the ships. Says Sandoval, "No se consintiesen en la
+armada mugeres ni muchachos ni otra gente inutil, mas de aquellos solos que
+eran para pelear." (There were not allowed in the armada women, boys, or
+useless persons, but only those who were capable of fighting.) It appears,
+however, that the women paid no sort of attention to this ordinance, and
+the historian gravely relates that "it was no use turning them out of the
+ships as, as soon as you sent them down one side they returned and climbed
+up the other," It seems almost incredible, but is none the less a fact,
+that four thousand women accompanied the expedition and landed at Tunis.
+The autocracy of the Emperor apparently stopped short where women were
+concerned, or else he was indifferent whether they came or not.
+
+On June 16th the armada arrived before Tunis, and the army disembarked to
+attack the fortress known as La Goletta. Into this strong place of arms
+Barbarossa had sent some six thousand of his best men, mostly Turkish
+soldiers, under the command of Sinan-Reis, a renegado Jew, and one of the
+fiercest and most faithful of his followers. To the camp of the Emperor
+came the fugitive King, Muley Hassan, in whose cause the armada had
+nominally been assembled--how nominal this was we shall see later by the
+light of the treaty concluded between him and the Emperor. Charles had
+complete command of the sea for the time being, and, in consequence, the
+ex-Sultan was amazed at the profusion and luxury which reigned in the camp
+of the Christians; and he concluded that these indeed must be the lords of
+the earth, as luxury and profusion was hardly the note of such courts as
+then existed in the northern portion of the African continent.
+
+Although the army was landed, and with it artillery for the bombardment of
+the Goletta, there remained, of course, "the army of the sea," under the
+orders of the redoubtable Doria; and while the Marquis del Guasto, who was
+in supreme command on shore, prepared to batter down the defences of the
+fortress on the land side, the attack was carried on simultaneously from
+the sea by the galleys. The actual presence of the Emperor stimulated the
+various nationalities under his eyes to vie with one another in deeds of
+daring, and they contended among themselves for the posts of the most
+honour and danger. The attacks of the African horsemen were brushed on one
+side by the disciplined valour of the Andalusian cavalry, while the great
+guns thundered from land and sea against the walls of the doomed Goletta.
+Sinan and his Ottoman soldiers performed prodigies in the way of repairing
+breaches in the walls as soon as they were made; but Kheyr-ed-Din from the
+city watched the progress of the bombardment gloomily, as he saw and knew
+that the fall of the Goletta was but a matter of days. All this time he was
+far from idle; sortie after sortie did the dauntless old warrior lead in
+person against those engaged in the task of bombardment. Time and again he
+heartened the Arab and Berber levies to attack, but the sallies were
+repulsed, and the lightly armed Africans were driven like chaff before the
+wind when they swooped down on the lines of investment.
+
+But the time came at last when Sinan and his gallant Turks could hold the
+place no longer; the walls were breached in six or seven places, and
+Spaniards, Germans, and Italians made a simultaneous attack. Sinan fighting
+to the last, evacuated the fortress, and retired actually through the water
+across a shallow part of the bay to the city, with the remnant of his once
+magnificent force; and now Barbarossa knew that the end was come, and that
+Tunis must pass from his hands to those of the Christian Emperor. It was
+not only the fall of the Goletta that troubled him, but the equally
+important fact that by this the fleet of the enemy was enabled to lay hands
+upon his own fleet, consisting of eighty-seven galleys and galliots,
+together with his arsenal, and no less than three hundred cannon, mostly
+brass guns of excellent construction, mounted on the walls and planted on
+the ramparts. The surprising amount of this artillery gives a measure of
+the strength of the fortress and the efforts it must have cost the
+besiegers with such a man as Sinan in command.
+
+That the end was near was known to all, and not the least of their
+embarrassments was the presence within the city walls of some twenty
+thousand Christian captives. The city was large, the defences were spread
+out over a great area, it was abundantly evident that it could not be held,
+and, in consequence, Barbarossa summoned his principal officers and
+communicated to them his decision.
+
+  "We will not remain here to be slain like rats in a trap by the accursed
+  of God by whom we are attacked. No, rather will we perish, sword in
+  hand, as our fathers have done before us; but first there is a danger
+  against which we have to guard. Within these walls are twenty thousand
+  prisoners who will rise against us at the first opportunity; let us,
+  then, first put them to death, and then we will leave this place and
+  show our enemies how the true Moslems can die."
+
+Even those hardened men of blood shrank before the horror which was
+proposed to them by their chief, and Sinan-Reis took up his parable and
+spoke the minds of all when he said that follow him to the death they would
+cheerfully do, but stain themselves with so awful a massacre was to place
+themselves outside the pale of humanity for ever. It was seldom that they
+crossed his mood, and Barbarossa listened in frowning silence, accepting as
+a partial excuse that time pressed, and to put to death twenty thousand
+persons would occupy longer time than they could spare. On the morrow a
+battle was fought which, as Kheyr-ed-Din anticipated, ended in the complete
+rout of the Moslems. Everywhere the Corsair King was in the forefront of
+the battle, and it is said that he disposed of fifty thousand men on this
+occasion; but this is probably an exaggeration, and in any case the bulk of
+his forces consisted of those African levies which, in a pitched battle
+against European troops, were practically useless owing to their want of
+discipline and cohesion. Very soon the hosts of the Emperor had prevailed,
+and the Arabs and Berbers had fled back into the wilderness from whence
+they had come and whither it was useless to pursue. Barbarossa, at the head
+of such of his corsairs and Turks as were left--a number estimated at some
+three to four thousand--burst through all opposition and also escaped,
+travelling so rapidly that pursuit was abandoned almost at once. And then
+the event happened which the Moslem leader had foreseen: some of the
+Christian captives managed to get free from their shackles within the city
+and released others; they overpowered those left to guard them, and threw
+open the gates to the soldiery of the Emperor.
+
+Then occurred one of those awful horrors of which this time was so
+prolific: before Charles or his generals could prevent them the soldiery
+had swept into the town and commenced to slay, to plunder, and to ravish,
+without distinction of age, sex, or nationality. Ostensibly these Christian
+warriors had come to rescue the inhabitants of Tunis from the oppression of
+Barbarossa, but while that chieftain was in full flight across the
+mountains to Bona, those by whom he had been defeated entered the town,
+which they had come to save, and perpetrated a massacre so awful that it is
+said that no less than thirty thousand people perished. It is a terrible
+blot on the escutcheon of the Emperor; as, although he and his generals
+deprecated the massacre--and indeed to do them justice tried to prevent
+it--this is no excuse for allowing their men to get out of hand, when they
+must have been aware of the inevitable result: as the Moslem corsairs at
+their worst were equalled in their iniquities by the European soldiery,
+once the strong hand of discipline had relaxed its grip.
+
+It may have been that the Emperor was displeased with this excess of zeal
+on the part of his army; but, if it were so, the chroniclers are silent
+concerning the matter, being far too busy singing the praises of the Caesar
+to think of such a trifle as the massacre of most of the persons whom he
+had come to deliver. The wretched inhabitants of Tunis must have found it
+somewhat difficult to distinguish between the corsair, who killed three
+thousand of their fellow townsmen, and the Christian Emperor, who had
+massacred ten times that number. Charles, however, reaped great glory from
+an expedition which had but one good result, which was, that he succeeded
+in rescuing twenty thousand captives; these men, very naturally, on their
+return to their homes in every corner of Europe, magnified the wonderful
+deeds of that prince who had been instrumental in securing their release,
+and the massacre of the Tunisians was conveniently ignored. Charles had
+defeated Barbarossa and expelled him from Tunis; he had now displayed his
+magnanimity and altruism by the terms which he imposed on the miserable
+Muley Hassan. As far as that individual was concerned, he certainly
+deserved nothing better; but, as a _finale_ to an expedition blessed by the
+Pope, and looked upon almost in the light of a modern crusade, it certainly
+displays a remarkably keen eye for the main chance.
+
+The preamble of the treaty runs as follows:
+
+  That the King of Tunis, recognising that he had been expelled from his
+  kingdom by Barbarossa, and that the Emperor in person, with a powerful
+  armada, had come and expelled this tyrant, taking from him the fortress
+  and town of Tunis and restoring them to the King Muley Hassan: that this
+  monarch is most grateful for so magnificent a service, and in
+  recognition thereof contracts to liberate all Christian captives who may
+  be in his realm, to give them a free passage to their homes, and from
+  this time forward binds himself to extend to all Christians kind and
+  generous treatment.
+
+There can be no exception taken to this, which was the least which the
+Emperor had the right to expect; but this was only, as we have said, the
+preamble.
+
+Muley Hassan was further made to contract to hold his kingdom in fee to the
+Spanish Crown, to covenant that no corsair should use his ports for any
+purpose whatsoever, that the Emperor should not only retain the Goletta but
+that all other fortified seaports should be put into his hands, that the
+King of Tunis should in future pay twelve thousand crowns per annum 'for
+the subsistence of the Spanish garrison of the Goletta, that he should
+enter into no alliance with the enemies of the Emperor, and should annually
+present, as an acknowledgment of his vassalage, six Moorish horses and six
+hawks.
+
+Muley Hassan had exchanged the comparatively dignified position of a prince
+in exile, who has been expropriated by the strong hand, for that of the
+puppet of one of the greatest enemies of his religion. Neither he nor his
+people were one whit the better for the change, and, as far as vassalage
+was concerned, they would in all probability, in the state of religious
+feeling at the time, have sooner been subordinate to the Moslem corsair
+than to the Christian King.
+
+[Illustration: MULEY HASSAN, KING OF TUNIS.]
+
+Barbarossa, as we have seen, frankly acknowledged that he sought his own
+advantage, and, when he possessed himself of Tunis, made no pretence of any
+altruistic motive. The Emperor, on the other hand, having come in the guise
+of a Christian reformer, simply stole the kingdom from Barbarossa and kept
+it for himself. Incidentally he released the captives, which enabled him to
+pose once more as the great champion of the oppressed. But, however this
+may have been, there is no doubt that he had performed a notable feat of
+arms, and even the most mighty monarch then in Europe felt uplifted by the
+fact that he had defeated the greatest of the corsairs: accordingly, on
+July 25th Charles wrote to England, France, Portugal, Milan, Florence,
+Venice, Genoa, Siena, Mantua, and Naples: "De manera que en pocas dias se
+supo in toda Europa su buena fortuna." (So it was in a few days the whole
+of Europe was acquainted with his good fortune.)
+
+Martin Nunez, "Caballero de Toledo," was sent on a special embassy to the
+Pope to acquaint the Pontiff at first hand of all that happened, and the
+success which had attended the arms of the Emperor, and also to thank his
+Holiness for the assistance which he had rendered by sending the Papal
+galleys. Jorge de Melo, a Portuguese caballero, was sent to his own country
+with despatches, and other nobles and high officials were despatched to the
+Emperor's Viceroys in the various parts of his dominions. In the long
+circular letter which Charles addressed to all these potentates--and which
+is reproduced in its entirety by Sandoval--he says "that the Christian
+captives found in Tunis amounted to something like eighteen to twenty
+thousand, that Barbarossa had escaped with some five thousand Turks,
+corsairs, and renegadoes, of which three thousand were on horseback and two
+thousand afoot; that, as they suffered from great scarcity of provisions,
+and the almost total lack of water, many were falling by the way, and many
+others were being murdered by their quondam allies for such goods as they
+possessed, or for the value of their arms and clothing."
+
+We must now return to Kheyr-ed-Din. What the sufferings of that chieftain
+and the remnant of his gallant army must have been in their flight to Bona
+they alone knew. It was the height of summer, and burning tracks of desert
+and rugged mountain passes had to be surmounted; naturally they could have
+carried but very little food, and water they had to find on the way. In
+addition to this, as we have seen in the despatch of Charles, the tribesmen
+turned against them, cutting off stragglers and murdering and plundering as
+opportunity offered. Barbarossa himself was an old man, so old that it
+seems nothing short of a miracle that he should have survived the hardships
+of this awful march. Not only did he do this, but apparently arrived at
+Bona in condition to continue his journey by sea at once, had he cared to
+do so. He had lost his newly acquired kingdom, he had lost nearly his
+entire fleet, his arsenal and stores were in the hands of his enemies; if
+ever a man was completely crushed it was he on this memorable occasion. As
+we have said before, however, it was in times of the greatest stress when
+the indomitable character of this man rose to meet the occasion, and, while
+his foes were congratulating one another that at last there was an end of
+the scourge of the Mediterranean and the bugbear of Christendom, the hunted
+fugitive was merely preparing himself for fresh acts of aggression.
+
+The real fact of the matter was that he was above all and before all a
+seaman. The defeat of Kheyr-ed-Din meant merely the transference of his
+malign activities from one sphere to another--from the sea to the land, or
+from the land to the sea. King he called himself, and king _de facto_ he
+was both in Algiers and Tunis, reigning with unexampled cruelty, a
+prototype of those other corsair kings by whom he was succeeded. But the
+real source of his power lay, not in stone walls and fortifications, nor in
+ill-trained levies of African tribes, but in his own genius for command at
+sea, and the manner in which he was able to inspire with his own dauntless
+and desperate spirit those hardy mariners who followed in his train, the
+descendants of the "Moriscoes" who hailed from the ancient Moorish kingdoms
+of Cordoba and Granada.
+
+Thus it was in the present instance. He had been unable to withstand the
+might of Caesar and his legions, but Tunis was not the whole of Northern
+Africa, nor had quite all his eggs been kept in that one basket. He had
+kept fifteen galleys in reserve at Bona, and, in consequence, on his
+arrival there, was able to embark at once. This he did, and hardly had he
+done so when there appeared upon the scene fifteen galleys commanded by
+Adan Centurion and John Doria. Kheyr-ed-Din had had enough of fighting just
+for the present; his men and he were wearied out by the hardships of their
+flight, and accordingly he drew up his galleys under the fort at Bona and
+awaited an attack, should the enemy care to deliver one. But Adan
+Centurion's heart failed him; to cut out the old Sea-wolf from under one of
+his own batteries was more than he had the stomach for, and he accordingly
+sailed away. "Fue sin duda la perdida grande" (this no doubt was a great
+pity), is the comment of Sandoval, who goes on to say that, had the Genoese
+been the men that they had been aforetime, this would never have been, and
+that they would have gone in and burnt or disabled the galleys of the
+corsair, slain their leader, or driven him ashore. Hot on the tracks of
+Adan Centurion and his nephew John came the veteran Andrea Doria with forty
+galleys, but he was too late, and the bird had flown; had it been he who
+had arrived in the first instance, then it is more than probable that
+matters would have turned out differently, and Kheyr-ed-Din had then and
+there terminated his career. It is true that Andrea possessed himself of
+Bona, and the Corsair King was shorn of yet another of his land-stations,
+but for the time he had cut himself adrift from the land, and had gone back
+to that element in which he was particularly at home.
+
+Doria left Bona in the charge of Alvar Gomez and a company of Spanish
+troops and then sailed away, if possible to find and capture Barbarossa,
+thus to set the seal of completeness on the victory which had been won by
+his master the Emperor. Another stronghold of the corsairs was now in most
+competent hands, as Alvar Gomez Zagal was one of the most renowned
+caballeros of Spain, son of that Pero Lopez de Horusco on whom the Moors
+themselves had bestowed the title of "Al Zagal," or "The Valiant," on
+account of his extraordinary bravery.
+
+On August 17th Charles re-embarked his army and evacuated the country,
+leaving, however, one thousand Spanish veterans, under the command of
+Bernard de Mendoza, in charge of the Goletta, as a permanent memorial of
+the expedition, and as a guarantee that the wretched Muley Hassan should
+fully comply with the treaty obligations which had been imposed upon him.
+It is true that Barbarossa had not been captured, but his city had been
+taken, his fleet had been destroyed, and he himself was now a fugitive,
+unable any further to trouble the peace of Christendom or the dignity of
+the Emperor by whom he had been so soundly chastised. In consequence the
+Caesar departed well pleased with himself and with those who had been acting
+under his orders, to whom he distributed orders and titles, as a memento of
+the occasion upon which they had finally broken up the power of those by
+whom his peace had so long been troubled.
+
+One of the difficulties in dealing with the career of Kheyr-ed-Din
+Barbarossa is that, in times when he was unsuccessful, or when, as on the
+present occasion, he had received a severe setback, it is next to
+impossible to find out what he was doing or where exactly he was preparing
+for his next coup. In this case, in particular, the old-time historians
+were thanking God that the Emperor had rid the world of a particularly
+pestilent knave, and ceased to trouble themselves much about him until he
+forced himself once more upon their notice. Had Charles at this time
+recognised the greatness of the man whom he had just so signally defeated
+he might have changed the course of history. Had he, instead of sailing
+back to Europe, content with that which he had accomplished in Tunis,
+pushed his attack home on Algiers, he might have made himself master of the
+whole of Northern Africa, as, in the disorganised state in which the
+corsairs now found themselves, they could certainly have offered no
+effective resistance. But to the Emperor these rovers of the sea presented
+themselves merely in the light of robbers. Robbers, it is true, on a
+somewhat large scale, but still not persons of sufficient importance to
+detain him from the infinitely more pressing affairs which awaited him on
+the opposite shores of the Mediterranean Sea.
+
+In addition to the fifteen galleys which Kheyr-ed-Din picked up at Bona he
+had in reserve at Algiers some fifty others. Escaping the attention of Adan
+Centurion and John Doria, and the infinitely more formidable squadron of
+Andrea, he headed once more for Algiers, and for a time seems to have
+remained quiet, no doubt recuperating from the fatigues, disappointments,
+and physical hardships which he had so recently undergone. He was
+apparently undisturbed during the winter by his Christian enemies, and was
+in consequence able to think out his future plans of campaign and to
+collect and put heart into his scattered followers, who, in ones and twos,
+were gradually, such of them as were left, finding their way back to the
+headquarters of piracy and its indomitable chieftain.
+
+That cool calculator of the chances of life knew that this must be so; the
+power of the corsairs generally had received the worst blow it had ever
+encountered since the dispossessed Moriscoes had taken to the sea for a
+living; those of them who remained alive were without ships--that is to
+say, without their only means of making a livelihood--and that they should
+gravitate towards Algiers and its master was as nearly a certainty as
+anything human could be. And, as was anticipated by the chief, so it came
+to pass. Into the city straggled broken, starving, sullen men who had lost
+their all, for whom the future held nothing but misery and despair unless
+they could get to sea once more.
+
+It was on occasions such as this that the intellectual eminence of
+Barbarossa was so marked. Rough and cruel as he was, he possessed
+nevertheless a magnetic power over the minds of men, on which, when it so
+pleased him, he could play with the most extraordinary effect. And now,
+when the rank and file of the corsairs were ragged, hungry, and smarting
+under defeat, he dealt with them tenderly and graciously; and the sum of
+his teaching was to the effect that they had but to follow him once more
+and all the evils from which they were suffering would be presently
+remedied. So it came about that men who, before the defeat, had commanded
+ships of their own, were glad enough to become units on board the galleys
+of Kheyr-ed-Din, animated by the pleasing hope that soon again, under the
+leadership of this man, they might regain all, nay more, than they had
+lost. It must be remembered that Barbarossa argued from sound premises when
+he held out such hopes as these to the desperate remnant of the corsairs in
+Algiers in that sad winter of 1535. He was the greatest of them all, and
+they, as well as he, knew this to be a fact: if they had lost their all in
+the past battles, they had been fighting in a common cause to preserve
+their own lives and their liberty to plunder the Christian at sea. And now
+there was work and there was bread to eat for those who once again would
+throw in their lot with their old leader; and, although it may be said that
+these men had no alternative, still they threw themselves with heartiness
+into that which the master mind decreed should be their work, and this was
+none other than the preparation of the galleys for another campaign against
+the Christian.
+
+"What matter, comrades?" said the veteran on one occasion when he was
+superintending the fitting out of the galleys. "These dogs have gone back
+from whence they came, and they have left that creature, Muley Hassan, to
+do their will in Tunis. It is true that there is Mendoza and his thousand
+Spaniards in the Goletta, but did not Martin de Vargas hold the Penon here?
+And where is De Vargas, and in whose hands is the Penon now? We know from
+whence the garrisons of Spain draw their supplies, and believe me that
+there will be hungry men in the Goletta in this coming year. Once we get to
+sea again, there will be more than enough for every good man who believes
+in the Prophet, and who has the sense to follow Barbarossa. For every ducat
+that you have lost see, in the coming year, if you do not gain ten; the
+Christians are off their guard now, and they think that they have done with
+me because they have captured Tunis." He laughed his great, jovial laugh.
+"By the beard of the Prophet--upon whom be peace!--they have yet to find
+out the man with whom they have to deal."
+
+It took a master mind to instil heart of grace into men who so recently had
+had so bad a beating as these; but in the end they began to cheer up, and
+to recollect how Barbarossa had sooner or later always risen from defeat as
+strong or stronger than before; also they recalled the fact that he was the
+chosen of the Padishah, and that that potentate, the representative of the
+Prophet on earth, would assuredly come to his assistance now that Tunis,
+which had been taken in his name, had been reft from Barbarossa by the
+Christians. Gradually hope took the place of despair, and when the corsairs
+took to the sea in the early part of the following year it was with renewed
+confidence in both themselves and their leader.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+ROXALANA AND THE MURDER OF IBRAHIM
+
+At the coming of spring Barbarossa was at sea again with thirty-two ships
+ready for any eventuality, his crews aflame with ardour for revenge against
+those by whom they had been so roughly handled. He chose for the scene of
+operations a place on the coast of Majorca some fifteen miles from Palma;
+from here he commanded the route of the Spaniards from their country to the
+African coast, and it was against this nation that he felt a great
+bitterness owing to recent events. Eagerly did the corsair and his men
+watch for the Spanish ships, the heavier vessels lying at anchor, but the
+light, swift galleys ranging and questing afar so that none might be
+missed. Very soon the vigilance of the Moslems was rewarded by the capture
+of a number of vessels, sent by Bernard de Mendoza laden with Turkish and
+Moorish slaves, destined to be utilised as rowers in the Spanish galleys.
+These men were hailed as a welcome reinforcement, and joyfully joined the
+forces of Kheyr-ed-Din when he moved on Minorca, captured the castle by a
+surprise assault, raided the surrounding country, and captured five
+thousand seven hundred Christians, amongst whom were eight hundred men who
+had been wounded in the attack on Tunis--all these unfortunates were sent
+to refill the bagnio of Algiers.
+
+This private war of revenge was, however, destined soon to come to an end,
+as Soliman the Magnificent in this year became involved in disputes with
+the Venetian Republic, and recalled "that veritable man of the sea," as
+Barbarossa had been described by Ibrahim, to Constantinople.
+
+In this city by the sea there had taken place a tragedy which, although it
+only involved the death of a single man, was nevertheless far-reaching in
+its consequences; for the man was none other than that great statesman
+Ibrahim, Grand Vizier, and the only trusted counsellor of the Padishah. He
+who had been originally a slave had risen step by step in the favour of his
+master until he arrived at the giddy eminence which he occupied at the time
+of his death. It is a somewhat curious commentary on the essentially
+democratic status of an autocracy that a man could thus rise to a position
+second only to that of the autocrat himself; and, in all probability,
+wielding quite as much power.
+
+Ibrahim had for years been treated by Soliman more as a brother than as a
+dependent, which, in spite of his Grand Viziership, he was in fact. They
+lived in the very closest communion, taking their meals together, and even
+sleeping in the same room, Soliman, a man of high intelligence himself, and
+a ruler who kept in touch with all the happenings which arose in his
+immense dominions, desiring always to have at hand the man whom he loved;
+from whom, with his amazing grip of political problems and endless
+fertility of resource, he was certain of sympathy and sound advice. But in
+an oriental despotism there are other forces at work besides those of _la
+haute politique_, and Ibrahim had one deadly enemy who was sworn to compass
+his destruction. The Sultana Roxalana was the light of the harem of the
+Grand Turk. This supremely beautiful woman, originally a Russian slave, was
+the object of the most passionate devotion on the part of Soliman; but she
+was as ambitious as she was lovely, and brooked no rival in the affections
+of Soliman, be that person man, woman, or child. In her hands the master of
+millions, the despot whose nod was death, became a submissive slave; the
+undisciplined passions of this headstrong woman swept aside from her path
+all those whom she suspected of sharing her influence, in no matter how
+remote a fashion. At her dictation had Soliman caused to be murdered his
+son Mustafa, a youth of the brightest promise, because, in his intelligence
+and his winning ways he threatened to eclipse Selim, the son of Roxalana
+herself.
+
+This woman possessed a strong natural intelligence, albeit she was totally
+uneducated; she saw and knew that Ibrahim was all-powerful with her lover,
+and this roused her jealousy to fever-heat. She was not possessed of a cool
+judgment, which would have told her that Ibrahim was a statesman dealing
+with the external affairs of the Sublime Porte, and that with her and with
+her affairs he neither desired, nor had he the power, to interfere. What,
+however, the Sultana did know was that in these same affairs of State her
+opinion was dust in the balance when weighed against that of the Grand
+Vizier.
+
+Soliman had that true attribute of supreme greatness, the unerring aptitude
+for the choice of the right man. He had picked out Ibrahim from among his
+immense entourage, and never once had he regretted his choice. As time went
+on and the intellect and power of the man became more and more revealed to
+his master, that sovereign left in his hands even such matters as despots
+are apt to guard most jealously. We have seen how, in spite of the
+murmurings of the whole of his capital, and the almost insubordinate
+attitude of his navy, he had persevered in the appointment of Kheyr-ed-Din
+Barbarossa, because the judgment of Ibrahim was in favour of its being
+carried out. This, to Roxalana, was gall and wormwood; well she knew that,
+as long as the Grand Vizier lived, her sovereignty was at best but a
+divided one. There was a point at which her blandishments stopped short;
+this was when she found that her opinion did not coincide with that of the
+minister. She was, as we have seen in the instance of her son, not a woman
+to stick at trifles, and she decided that Ibrahim must die.
+
+There could be no hole-and-corner business about this; he must die, and
+when his murder had been accomplished she would boldly avow to her lover
+what she had done and take the consequences, believing in her power over
+him to come scatheless out of the adventure. In those days, when human life
+was so cheap, she might have asked for the death of almost any one, and her
+whim would have been gratified by a lover who had not hesitated to put to
+death his own son at her dictation. But with Ibrahim it was another matter;
+he was the familiar of the Sultan, his _alter ego_ in fact, It says much
+for the nerve of the Sultana that she dared so greatly on this memorable
+and lamentable occasion.
+
+On March 5th, 1536, Ibrahim, went to the royal seraglio, and, following his
+ancient custom, was admitted to the table of his master, sleeping after the
+meal at his side. At least so it was supposed, but none knew save those
+engaged in the murder what passed on that fatal night; the next day his
+dead body lay in the house of the Sultan.
+
+Across the floor of jasper, in that palace which was a fitting residence
+for one rightly known as "The Magnificent," the blood of Ibrahim flowed to
+the feet of Roxalana. The disordered clothing, the terrible expression of
+the face of the dead man, the gaping wounds which he had received, bore
+witness that there had taken place a grim struggle before that iron frame
+and splendid intellect had been levelled with the dust. This much leaked
+out afterwards, as such things will leak out, and then the Sultana took
+Soliman into her chamber and gazed up into his eyes. The man was stunned by
+the immensity of the calamity which had befallen him and his kingdom, but
+his manhood availed him not against the wiles of this Circe. Ibrahim had
+been foully done to death in his own palace, and this woman clinging so
+lovingly around his neck now was the murderess. The heart's blood of his
+best friend was coagulating on the threshold of his own apartment when he
+forgave her by whom his murder had been accomplished. This was the
+vengeance of Roxalana, and who shall say that it was not complete?
+
+The Ottoman Empire was the poorer by the loss of its greatest man, the
+jealousy of the Sultana was assuaged, the despot who had permitted this
+unavenged murder was still on the throne, thrall to the woman who had first
+murdered his son and then his friend and minister. But the deed carried
+with it the evil consequences which were only too likely to occur when so
+capable a head of the State was removed at so critical a time. Renewed
+strife was in the air, and endless squabbles between Venice and the Porte
+were taking place. With these we have no concern, but, in addition to other
+complaints, there were loud and continuous ones concerning the corsairs.
+Venice, "The Bride of the Sea," had neither rest nor peace; the pirates
+swarmed in Corfu, in Zante, in Candia, in Cephalonia, and the plunder and
+murder of the subjects of the Republic was the theme of perpetual
+representations to the Sultan. The balance of advantage in this guerilla
+warfare was with the corsairs until Girolame Canale, a Venetian captain,
+seized one of the Moslem leaders known as "The Young Moor of Alexandria,"
+The victory of Canale was somewhat an important one as he captured the
+galley of "The Young Moor" and four others; two more were sunk, and three
+hundred Janissaries and one thousand slaves fell into the hands of the
+Venetian commander. There being an absence of nice feeling on the part of
+the Venetians, the Janissaries were at once beheaded to a man.
+
+The whole story is an illustration of the extraordinary relations existing
+among the Mediterranean States at this time. Soliman the Magnificent,
+Sultan of Turkey, had lent three hundred of his Janissaries, his own picked
+troops, to assist the corsairs in their depredations on Venetian commerce.
+Having done this, and the Janissaries having been caught and summarily and
+rightly put to death as pirates, the Sultan, as soon as he heard of what
+had occurred, sent an ambassador, one Yonis Bey, to Venice to demand
+satisfaction for the insult passed upon him by the beheading of his own
+soldiers turned pirates. The conclusion of the affair was that the
+Venetians released "The Young Moor of Alexandria" as soon as he was cured
+of the eight wounds which he had received in the conflict, and sent him
+back to Africa with such of his galleys as were left. There was one rather
+comical incident in connection with this affair, which was that when Yonis
+Bey was on his way from Constantinople to Venice he was chased by a
+Venetian fleet, under the command of the Count Grandenico, and driven
+ashore. The Count was profuse in his apologies when he discovered that he
+had been chasing a live ambassador; but the occurrence so exasperated
+Soliman that he increased his demands in consequence.
+
+Barbarossa, who had spent his time harrying the Spaniards at sea ever since
+the fall of Tunis, was shortly to appear on the scene again. He received
+orders from the Sultan, and came as fast as a favouring wind would bring
+him. Kheyr-ed-Din had been doing well in the matter of slaves and plunder,
+but he knew that, with the backing of the Grand Turk, he would once again
+be in command of a fleet in which he might repeat his triumph of past
+years, and prove himself once more the indispensable "man of the sea."
+
+Soon after his arrival his ambitions were gratified, and he found himself
+with a fleet of one hundred ships. Since the death of Ibrahim, and the
+incident which terminated with the despatch of Yonis Bey to Venice, the
+relations between the Grand Turk and the Venetian Republic had become
+steadily worse, and at last the Sultan declared war. On May 17th, 1537,
+Soliman, accompanied by his two sons, Selim and Mohammed, left
+Constantinople. With the campaign conducted by the Sultan we are not
+concerned here; it was directed against the Ionian Islands, which had been
+in the possession of Venice since 1401. On August 18th Soliman laid siege
+to Corfu, and was disastrously beaten, re-embarking his men on September
+7th, after losing thousands in a fruitless attack on the fortress. He
+returned to Constantinople utterly discomfited. It was the seventh campaign
+which the Sultan had conducted in person, but the first in which the
+ever-faithful Ibrahim had not been by his side.
+
+This defeat at the hands of the Venetians was not, however, the only
+humiliation which he was destined to experience in this disastrous year;
+for once again Doria, that scourge of the Moslem, was loose upon the seas,
+and was making his presence felt in the immediate neighbourhood of Corfu,
+where the Turks had been defeated. On July 17th Andrea had left the port of
+Messina with twenty-five galleys, had captured ten richly laden Turkish
+ships, gutted and burned them. Kheyr-ed-Din was at sea at the time, but the
+great rivals were not destined to meet on this occasion. Instead of
+Barbarossa, Andrea fell in with Ali-Chabelli, the lieutenant of Sandjak Bey
+of Gallipoli. On July 22nd the Genoese admiral and the Turkish commander
+from the Dardanelles met to the southward of Corfu, off the small island of
+Paxo, and a smart action ensued. It ended in the defeat of Ali-Chabelli,
+whose galleys were captured and towed by Doria into Paxo. That veteran
+fighter was himself in the thickest of the fray, and, conspicuous in his
+crimson doublet, had been an object of attention to the marksmen of
+Chabelli during the entire action. In spite of the receipt of a severe
+wound in the knee, the admiral refused to go below until victory was
+assured. He was surrounded at this time by a devoted band of nobles sworn
+to defend the person of their admiral or to die in his defence. His
+portrait has been sketched for us at this time by the Dominican Friar,
+Padre Alberto Gugliel-motto, author of "La guerra dei Pirati e la marina
+Pontifica dal 1500 al 1560." The description runs thus: "Andrea Doria was
+of lofty stature, his face oval in shape, forehead broad and commanding,
+his neck was powerful, his hair short, his beard long and fan-shaped, his
+lips were thin, his eyes bright and piercing."
+
+Once again had he defeated an officer of the Grand Turk; and it may be
+remarked that Ibrahim was probably quite right in the estimation, or rather
+in the lack of estimation, in which he held the sea-officers of his master,
+as they seem to have been deficient in every quality save that of personal
+valour, and in their encounters with Doria and the knights were almost
+invariably worsted. For the sake of Islam, for the prestige of the Moslem
+arms at sea, it was time that Barbarossa should take matters in hand once
+more.
+
+The autumn of this year 1537 proved that the old Sea-wolf had lost none of
+his cunning, that his followers were as terrible as ever. What did it seem
+to matter that Venetian and Catalan, Genoese and Frenchman, Andalusian and
+the dwellers in the Archipelago, were all banded together in league against
+this common foe? Did not the redoubtable Andrea range the seas in vain, and
+were not all the efforts of the Knights of Saint John futile, when the son
+of the renegado from Mitylene and his Christian wife put forth from the
+Golden Horn? What was the magic of this man, it was asked despairingly,
+that none seemed able to prevail against him? Had it not been currently
+reported that Carlos Quinto, the great Emperor, had driven him forth from
+Tunis a hunted fugitive, broken and penniless, with never a galley left,
+without one ducat in his pocket? Was he so different, then, from all the
+rest of mankind that his followers would stick to him in evil report as
+well as in the height of his prosperity? Men swore and women crossed
+themselves at the mention of his name.
+
+"Terrible as an army with banners," indeed, was Kheyr-ed-Din in this
+eventful summer: things had gone badly with the crescent flag, the Padishah
+was unapproachable in his palace, brooding perchance on that "might have
+been" had he not sold his honour and the life of his only friend to gratify
+the malice of a she-devil; those in attendance on the Sultan trembled, for
+the humour of the despot was black indeed.
+
+But "the veritable man of the sea" was in some sort to console him for that
+which he had lost; as never in his own history--and there was none else
+with which it could be compared--had the Corsair King made so fruitful a
+raid. He ravaged the coasts of the Adriatic and the islands of the
+Archipelago, sweeping in slaves by the thousand, and by the end of the year
+he had collected eighteen thousand in the arsenal at Stamboul. Great was
+the jubilation in Constantinople when the Admiralissimo himself returned
+from his last expedition against the infidel; stilled were the voices which
+hinted disaffection--who among them all could bring back four hundred
+thousand pieces of gold? What mariner could offer to the Grand Turk such
+varied and magnificent presents?
+
+Upon his arrival Barbarossa asked permission to kiss the threshold of the
+palace of the Sultan, which boon being graciously accorded to him, he made
+his triumphal entry. Two hundred captives clad in scarlet robes carried
+cups of gold and flasks of silver behind them came thirty others, each
+staggering under an enormous purse of sequins; yet another two hundred
+brought collars of precious stones or bales of the choicest goods; and a
+further two hundred were laden with sacks of small coin. Certainly if
+Soliman the Magnificent had lost a Grand Vizier he had succeeded in finding
+an admiral!
+
+All through the earlier months of 1538 the dockyards of Constantinople
+hummed with a furious activity, for Soliman had decreed that the maritime
+campaign of this year was to begin with no less than one hundred and fifty
+ships. His admiral, however, did not agree with this decision; to the
+Viziers he raged and stormed. "Listen," he said, "O men of the land who
+understand naught of the happenings of the sea. By this time Saleh-Reis
+must have quitted Alexandria convoying to the Bosphorus twenty sail filled
+with the richest merchandise; should he fall in with the accursed Genoese,
+Doria, where then will be Saleh-Reis and his galleys and his convoy? I will
+tell you: the ships in Genoa, the galleys burned, Saleh-Reis and all his
+mariners chained to the rowers' bench."
+
+The Viziers trembled, as men did when Barbarossa stormed and turned upon
+them those terrible eyes which knew neither fear nor pity. "We be but men,"
+they answered, "and our lord the Sultan has so ordained it."
+
+"I have forty galleys," replied the corsair; "you have forty more. With
+these I will take the sea; but, mark you," he continued, softening
+somewhat, "you do right to fear the displeasure of the Sultan, and I also
+have no wish to encounter it; but vessels raised and equipped in a hurry
+will be of small use to me. In the name of Allah the compassionate and his
+holy Prophet give me my eighty galleys and let me go."
+
+In Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa sound strategical instinct went hand in hand
+with the desperate valour of the corsair. To dally in the Golden Horn while
+so rich a prey was at sea to be picked up by his Christian foes was
+altogether opposed to his instincts: never to throw away a chance in the
+game of life had ever been his guiding principle.
+
+Soliman, great man as he undoubtedly was, had not the adamantine hardness
+of character which enabled his admiral to risk all on the hazards of the
+moment; or possibly the Grand Turk was deficient in that clearness of
+strategical instinct which never in any circumstances forgoes a present
+advantage for something which may turn out well in a problematical future.
+Soliman, sore, sullen, and unapproachable, dwelt in his palace brooding
+over the misfortunes which had been his lot since the death of Ibrahim.
+Barbarossa, who so recently had lost practically all that he possessed, and
+who had reached an age at which most men have no hopes for the future, was
+as clear in intellect, as undaunted in spirit, as if he had been half a
+century younger: to be even once more with those by whom he had been
+defeated and dispossessed was the only thing now in his mind. The capture
+of Saleh-Reis and his convoy would be a triumph of which he could not bear
+to think. Further, it would add to the demoralisation of the sea forces of
+the Sultan, which were sadly in need of some striking success after the
+defeats which had so recently been their portion. The Sultan had decided
+that one hundred and fifty ships were necessary; his admiral thought
+otherwise. There was too much at stake for him to dally at Constantinople;
+his fiery energy swept all before it, and in the end he had his way. On
+June 7th, 1538, he finally triumphed over the hesitations of the Viziers
+and put to sea with eighty sail.
+
+The Sultan, from his kiosk, the windows of which opened on the Bosphorus,
+counted the ships.
+
+"Only eighty sail; is that all?" he asked.
+
+The trembling Viziers prostrated themselves before him.
+
+"O our Lord, the Padishah," they cried, "Saleh-Reis comes from Alexandria
+with a rich convoy; somewhere lurking is Andrea Doria, the accursed; it was
+necessary, O Magnificent, to send succour."
+
+There was a pause, in which the hearts of men beat as do those who know not
+but that the next moment may be their last on earth.
+
+The Sultan stared from his window at the retreating ships in a silence like
+the silence of the grave. At last he turned:
+
+"So be it," he answered briefly; "but see to it that reinforcements do not
+lag upon the road."
+
+If there had been activity in the dockyards before it was as nothing to the
+strenuous work that was to be done henceforward.
+
+Before starting on this expedition Kheyr-ed-Din had made an innovation in
+the manning of some of the most powerful of his galleys, which was of the
+utmost importance, and which was to add enormously to the success of his
+future maritime enterprises. The custom had always been that the Ottoman
+galleys had been rowed by Christians, captured and enslaved; of course the
+converse was true in the galleys of their foes. There were, for the size of
+the vessels, an enormous number of men carried in the galleys of the
+sixteenth century, and an average craft of this description would have on
+board some four hundred men; of these, however, the proportion would be two
+hundred and fifty slaves to one hundred and fifty fighting men. That which
+Kheyr-ed-Din now insisted upon was that a certain proportion of his most
+powerful units should be rowed by Moslem fighting men, so that on the day
+of battle the oarsmen could join in the fray instead of remaining chained
+to their benches, as was the custom with the slaves. It is, however, an
+extraordinary testimony to the influence which the corsair had attained in
+Constantinople that he had been able to effect this change in the
+composition of some of his crews; it must have been done with the active
+co-operation of the Sultan, as no authority less potent than that of the
+sovereign himself could have induced free men to undertake the terrible
+toil of rower in a galley. This was reserved for the unfortunate slave on
+either side owing to the intolerable hardship of the life, and results, in
+the pace at which a galley proceeded through the water, were usually
+obtained by an unsparing use of the lash on the naked bodies of the rowers.
+
+This human material was used up in the most prodigal manner possible, as
+those in command had not the inducement of treating the rowers well, from
+that economic standpoint which causes a man to so use his beast of burden
+as to get the best work from him. In the galley, when a slave could row no
+more he was flung overboard and another was put in his place.
+
+The admiral, however, even when backed by the Padishah, could not man a
+large fleet of galleys with Moslem rowers, and, as there was a shortage in
+the matter of propelling power, his first business was to collect slaves,
+and for this purpose he visited the islands of the Archipelago. The lot of
+the unhappy inhabitants of these was indeed a hard one. They were nearer to
+the seat of the Moslem power than any other Christians; they were in those
+days totally unable to resist an attack in force, and in consequence were
+swept off in their thousands.
+
+Seven islands cover the entrance to the Gulf of Volo. The nearest to the
+coast is Skiathos, which is also the most important; it was defended by a
+castle built upon a rock. This castle was attacked by Barbarossa, who
+bombarded it for six days, carried it by assault, and massacred the
+garrison. He spared the lives of the inhabitants of the island, and by this
+means secured three thousand four hundred rowers for his galleys. He had to
+provide motor-power for the reinforcements which he expected. In July he
+was reinforced from Constantinople by ninety galleys, while from Egypt came
+Saleh-Reis, who had succeeded in avoiding the terrible Doria, with twenty
+more; the fleet was thus complete.
+
+Barbarossa ravaged Skios, Andros, and other islands, putting them under
+contribution, and in this manner raised some eight thousand ducats; from a
+pen of guinea-fowl to a king's ransom, nothing escaped the maw of this most
+rapacious of corsairs. Candia and some other islands yielded up some small
+spoil, but the sufferings of such insignificant folk as the wretched
+islanders were soon lost to the sight of the Christian world in the
+magnitude of the events which were now impending.
+
+Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, Corsair, Admiral, and King, the scourge of the
+Mediterranean, and Andrea Doria, Prince of Oneglia, Admiral of the modern
+Caesar, Charles V., Emperor and King, were at last to meet face to face.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+THE PREVESA CAMPAIGN; THE GATHERING OF THE FLEETS
+
+Some thirty-five miles to the south-eastward of Cape Bianco (the
+southernmost point of the island of Corfu) lies Prevesa, at the entrance of
+the Gulf of Arta, or, as it was known in classic times, the Ambracian Gulf.
+In these seas, in the year 31 B.C., was fought one of the most memorable
+battles of antiquity, for it was here that Octavius, afterward Augustus
+Caesar, defeated the forces of Antony and Cleopatra. There have been many
+controversies of late years as to whom the original idea of breaking the
+line in naval combats is due: anyhow, it can claim a respectable antiquity,
+as it was practised at the battle of Actium by Octavius, who by a skilful
+manoeuvre caused Antony to lengthen his line, which he then cut through and
+attacked the ships of Cleopatra, which were in support: this was too much
+for the lady, who fled with her sixty ships, followed by Antony, to his
+eternal disgrace. The remainder of his fleet fought bravely for a time, but
+was eventually defeated, the land army also surrendering to Octavius. The
+date of the actual battle of Actium was September 2nd, 31 B.C.: it was in
+September 1538 that the battle of Prevesa between Andrea Doria and
+Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa took place, and the conditions of the battle were
+almost exactly similar.
+
+To this very place came, 1569 years later, the Christian and the Moslem,
+the Crescent and the Cross, each under its most renowned leader, each side
+burning with an inextinguishable hate. It was one of the peculiarities of
+this warfare that into it entered so much actual personal feeling, each
+side hating the other for the love of God in the most poisonous fashion.
+Save and except the battle of Lepanto in 1571 (with which we shall deal
+later in the story of Ali Basha, or Occhiali as he was called by his
+Christian opponents) the contest at Prevesa was far the most important ever
+fought by those strange oar-propelled vessels known as galleys. It was
+memorable in many ways, but particularly so for the ages of the men in
+chief command. Andrea Doria was at this time seventy years of age; in fact,
+Guglielmotti gives the date of his birth as 1466, thus making him two years
+older. That amazing veteran Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, who died in his bed at
+Constantinople on July 4th, 1546, at the age of ninety, must have been
+eighty-two. Vicenzo Capello was sixty-eight, as the epitaph on his tomb at
+Venice in the church of Santa Maria Formosa says that he was seventy-two in
+the year of his death, 1542.
+
+Once again Christendom was nerving itself for a supreme effort against the
+corsairs, and, during the time that Barbarossa was raiding and ravaging
+among the islands of the Archipelago, the Christian fleet was gradually
+assembling. At first it numbered some 150 galleys, 81 Venetian, 36
+Pontifical, and 30 Spanish; Charles V. sent, at the last moment, 50 ships
+on which were embarked 10,000 troops. The force totalled altogether 59,000
+to 60,000 men, 195 ships, and 2,594 cannons. This was no doubt a most
+formidable armada, but the policy of those by whom it was composed was not
+all directed to the same end. While Charles desired, above all things, to
+exterminate the corsairs for good and all, which was, in the circumstances,
+the only sound view of the matter, the Venetians were for fighting
+defensive actions to maintain their supremacy in the Ionian Islands, and
+were disposed to let the future take care of itself. There was not, in
+consequence, that absolute unanimity among the various commanders of the
+expedition as was necessary for its complete success.
+
+The concentration of the Christian fleet took place at Corfu. The Venetians
+arrived first, with Vincenzo Capello in command; Marco Grimani brought
+thither the Papal contingent; they anchored and waited, but Andrea Doria
+did not appear. Days lengthened into weeks, and Grimani and Capelli chafed
+and fumed; provisions were running low and the dignity of Venice and of the
+Pope were flouted by this strange remissness on the part of the Admiral of
+the Emperor. At last, furious with impatience, Grimani made a raid into the
+Gulf of Arta, which was defended at the entrance by the fortress of
+Prevesa. The only result of this ill-timed attack was that two Papal
+captains and a number of soldiers were killed. Grimani then returned to
+Corfu, to find Capello irritated to the last extent by the non-appearance
+of Doria.
+
+At last, on September 5th, the Imperial fleet hove in sight. It was
+composed of forty-nine galleys, but these were supplemented by a great
+number of sailing ships; the sailing craft, however, did not arrive till
+September 22nd. These vessels were gradually making way among the Spaniards
+since the discovery of the new world.
+
+At this time the Venetians possessed fourteen nefs. Doria had augmented
+these by twenty-two of his own, and the total number of thirty-six was
+commanded by Franco Doria, a nephew of the admiral. The Venetian nefs were
+commanded by Alessandro Condalmiero, captain of the _Galleon of Venice_.
+This was the most formidable fighting vessel in the Mediterranean; she was
+reckoned an excellent sailor, she was by far the most heavily armed sailing
+ship then afloat; in fact, in the opinion of contemporary seamen, she was
+"an invincible fortress."
+
+Doria, Grimani, and Capello had now nearly 200 ships carrying nearly 60,000
+men. Such a force, in all ages, has been considered great. William the
+Conqueror conquered Britain with a less number; it is almost half the total
+of the personnel of the British fleet in the present day which has to
+defend a country with 40,000,000 inhabitants, and all this force had been
+raised, armed, and equipped to combat with a Moslem corsair.
+
+Barbarossa had succeeded in assembling 122 ships. He was accompanied by all
+the most famous corsairs of the day, among whom was Dragut, who fell at the
+siege of Malta, and of whom we shall have more to say in due time. Far and
+wide ranged the swift galleys of the Ottoman fleet, for the plan of the
+commander of the Moslems was to locate and destroy his enemies in detail if
+possible. At last news came to him that Grimani's ships had been sighted in
+the Gulf of Arta. Not one moment did he lose; he would fall upon the Papal
+contingent with his whole force and destroy it utterly. Such, at least, was
+his plan when he sailed for Prevesa; but, notwithstanding his haste, he was
+too late. Happily for himself, Grimani had returned to Corfu before the
+arrival of his enemy.
+
+At this juncture Barbarossa hesitated; had he not done so, and had he
+followed Grimani to Corfu, he might have destroyed both him and Vincenzo
+Capello in detail before the arrival of Doria. The Prevesa campaign is a
+curious study of hesitation on both sides, and the idea naturally occurs
+were not the corsair and the Christian commanders-in-chief too old for the
+work on which they were engaged? Men of over seventy are not impetuous, but
+grave and deliberate as a rule; but there is no rule without its
+exceptions, and Doria and Barbarossa were not as other leaders. Up to the
+present their dash and initiative had been unimpaired. There was no
+question that Barbarossa not only made a mistake in hesitating, but that by
+it he lost the game. Instead of striking at once he did what he had never
+done before in the whole of his career, which was to send to Constantinople
+for instructions. Some of his galleys had captured a fishing-boat off
+Corfu, the crew of which had seen Doria's fleet. The Moslem leader sent the
+fishermen themselves to report to Soliman exactly what they had seen, and
+to ask for and bring back instructions from that potentate. What Barbarossa
+had discovered was that the odds were very much against him; so much, in
+fact, that he would have to act on the defensive. In consequence, he
+steered for Prevesa and entered the Gulf of Arta, which is approached by a
+long narrow strait, dominated by the castle of Prevesa. Once inside he
+anchored his galleys in such a position that they could fire direct out to
+sea, thus overwhelming with their fire any vessel attempting to enter.
+
+Barbarossa now occupied the same position as did Octavius in his combat
+with Antony. The role of the latter general was now taken by Doria. Antony,
+like Doria, had heavy ships which could not advance to the attack owing to
+their too great draught. Octavius, with his light-draught ships, could both
+attack and retreat into safety if overmatched.
+
+On September 22nd Doria, having collected all his ships, gave orders to
+fill up with wood, water, and fresh provisions. On the 25th, to the sound
+of the trumpet, the Commander-in-Chief, with his fleet of two hundred sail,
+weighed anchor and sped before the wind rapidly southwards. Grimani
+commanded the advance-guard, Doria was in the centre, Vincenzo Capello,
+with his Venetians, brought up the rear. Formed in two columns, the nefs
+followed the galleys; the _Galleon of Venice_, commanded by Condalmiero, a
+squadron in herself, preceded them.
+
+[Illustration: GALEASSE UNDER SAIL.]
+
+From the anchorage at Corfu to the entrance of the Gulf of Arta is about
+fifty-eight miles, and, traversing this distance during the hours of
+daylight, the fleet anchored, as night fell, under Cape Prevesa. The
+Galleon which acted as what we should now call the guide of the fleet,
+anchored in sixteen feet of water, which was barely sufficient to keep her
+afloat.
+
+The Gulf of Arta, in which, as we have said, the fleet of the Moslems were
+now anchored, presents very curious physical peculiarities: it is
+twenty-two miles in length from east to west, and fifteen miles in breadth
+from north to south. This sheet of water is formed into an immense bay by
+the configuration of the land, and its depth, in places, is from one
+hundred and thirty to two hundred feet. Inside it all the navies in the
+world might ride at anchor, were it not for the fact that the entrance is
+closed by a bar upon which the depth varies from six and a half to thirteen
+feet. With his light-draught ships Barbarossa occupied the interior
+position, while the heavy ships of Doria must in any event remain outside.
+A strong sea-breeze was blowing on shore; all night the nefs and the
+galleys were nearly rolling their gunwales under. In these packed and
+crowded vessels the misery and discomfort of their crews may be imagined.
+On the morning of the 26th, however, the west wind dropped, and a light
+wind sprang up from the northward.
+
+The position at this time was one of surpassing interest. Here at long last
+the two most renowned sea-captains of the time were face to face. Each was
+aware that his antagonist was worthy of his steel, also that great issues,
+political and national, hung upon this conflict; which was no mere affair
+of outposts, but a struggle to the death as to whether the Crescent or the
+Cross was in time to come to be supreme in the tideless sea. And yet--such
+is the irony of fate--this battle proved indecisive, and it was not until
+thirty years later, at the battle of Lepanto, that this momentous question
+was set at rest for a time.
+
+Would Doria, greatly daring, go in and risk all in attacking a fortified
+position; or would Barbarossa make a sally and fight it out to the death on
+the element on which he was so supremely at home?
+
+But Doria had no mind to attack a fleet anchored under the guns of a
+fortress; Barbarossa would not risk all in an encounter with a foe
+possessed of great numerical superiority without orders from
+Constantinople. On Doria's side nothing but a disembarkation and a
+land-attack would offer a fair security for success, Kheyr-ed-Din, who
+held, as we have said, the interior position, was well aware of this fact,
+and in this supreme moment of his career was not disposed to give away any
+advantage. The situation occupied by Kheyr-ed-Din at the battle of Prevesa
+was, in a sense, different from any which he had held before, as he was in
+this case hampered by his sense of responsibility as Admiralissimo to the
+Grand Turk. What happened on the distant shores of Africa mattered but
+little to that monarch, and he had been content to allow his admiral an
+entirely free hand; here in Europe, on the shores of Greece, so close
+relatively to his own capital city, it was a very different matter, and
+Soliman was kept in touch with the happenings of his fleet as far as was
+possible in those days. But if the great corsair did not add to his
+reputation in this eventful campaign he still displayed an aptitude in
+realising the situation which, it is safe to say, was shown by none of
+those under his command.
+
+Prevesa illustrates for us more than any other action the difficulties with
+which the path of the partisan leader in these days must always have been
+filled; and how it was that personal ascendancy was the only force to which
+such a leader had to trust Sheer dominance of the minds, the wills, and the
+bodies of others had placed Kheyr-ed-Din where he was; all his life he had
+commanded undisciplined pirates, and yet now, when he was the properly
+accredited officer of a mighty monarch, when he might have expected far
+more discipline and subordination than had ever been his lot in the past,
+he was met with a contumaciousness which he was unable to quell, and was
+forced into taking steps which, in his own unequalled knowledge of war, he
+knew to be doomed to disaster.
+
+Around him the Reis, or captains of the Moslem galleys, clamorously
+demanded that he should take precautions against a land-attack. It was true
+that the raid which had been made by Grimani had been easily repulsed, but
+in present circumstances there was no question of a mere raid, as, should
+the Christian admiral so decide, he could land twenty thousand men. Sinan
+Reis, an old Osmanli warrior, furious with jealousy that the chief command
+should be in the hands of a corsair, sustained his opinion in a manner
+which augured ill for the hearty co-operation of all the Turkish forces.
+Sinan was just one of those blindly valiant fighters from whom the politic
+Ibrahim had desired to deliver his master when he had urged the appointment
+of Kheyr-ed-Din: brave as a lion, keen as the edge of his own good
+scimitar, fanatical, as became a Hodja who had visited the Holy Places,
+Sinan was a type of the Turkish sea-officer: devoid of strategical instinct
+and tactical training, his one idea was a headlong attack, then victory or
+the houris of Paradise. It will be seen that Barbarossa had not only Doria
+and the Christian fleet and army against which to contend on this occasion.
+
+The peril conjured up by Sinan Reis on this occasion was not altogether an
+imaginary one: the idea of a disembarkation had, in point of fact, been
+seriously discussed that very morning by Andrea Doria and his council of
+war, at which Hernando de Gonzaga, Generalissimo of the troops embarked,
+had advised a landing. His argument, embodied in a long and technical
+harangue, may be reduced to the following:
+
+  If we cannot go straight at the enemy and force our way through the
+  entrance under his cannon why should we not reduce the fortress of
+  Prevesa by a siege? Once masters of this height, we could close the
+  strait by sinking in it vessels laden with stones, and we then have the
+  Ottoman fleet at our mercy.
+
+But Doria the sailor was not to be led by Gonzaga the soldier. He said:
+
+  The advice seems sound, but in reality it would prove most dangerous if
+  followed. Barbarossa must have landed some of his men, the cavalry which
+  defeated Grimani's raid will no doubt come again from the interior, if
+  necessary. If we deprive our ships of their soldiers we expose ourselves
+  to a sea-fight under most disadvantageous conditions. But most,
+  important of all is the fact that time presses; the season is far
+  advanced; at any time the fleet may be driven off these shores by a
+  storm, in which case what would become of the troops left on shore?
+  Again, if it comes on to blow a tempest from the westward we may lose
+  not only our troops, but our ships, in fact the whole expedition.
+
+At the battle of Actium, Octavius occupied the shore upon which Hernando
+Gonzaga wished to land and assault; but notwithstanding this fact Octavius
+did not attempt the passage of the gulf but waited for his enemy outside.
+Doria was therefore all the more justified in not sacrificing ships and men
+in attempting to force an entrance now that this same shore was in the
+hands of the enemy. He was asked, he said, to thrust his head into the
+mouth of the wolf, and this he was determined not to do.
+
+In the meanwhile Barbarossa was using much the same language to his
+captains as was Doria.
+
+"My brothers," said he, "you wish to transport cannon and raise redoubts on
+this uncovered shore because you think that the Christians will disembark
+and seize it: if you attempt this I tell you that the guns of the enemy
+will annoy you terribly., Not only this, supposing that Doria, profiting by
+the moment that our vessels are empty of troops, should attack in force, we
+cannot with five thousand men repulse twenty thousand. The fort of Prevesa
+will defend itself quite sufficiently well with its own garrison; our
+business is to think of the fleet and not to weaken in any way our means of
+attack and defence, If the infidels force, or attempt to force, an entry
+into the port, they will be most likely merely losing time and ammunition
+in cannonading us. You know that it is principally in this that these
+accursed dogs do trust, whereas we, O men of Islam, will place our
+confidence in God, in Mahomet his Prophet, in the strength of our right
+arms, in the keenness of our scimitars; we will carry them by boarding,
+therefore we must keep our crews on board,"
+
+But Barbarossa had not that absolute domination of the forces under his
+command which should be the prescriptive right of any leader. Sinan-Reis,
+the implacable be-turbaned old Osmanli, held him in bitter scorn. "Your
+advice may be good," he retorted, "but we think our plan the better."
+
+The admiral suggested a reconnaissance of the site, which was merely a ruse
+to gain time. This was carried out under his own supervision, and confirmed
+him in the idea that disembarkation was folly; but Sinan-Reis and the
+Janissaries held obstinately to their opinion, while the "Joldaks," or
+Turkish soldiers in the galleys, grumbled among themselves that
+Kheyr-ed-Din must indeed be full of vanity to reject the counsels of one
+like Sinan-Reis.
+
+Both commanders-in-chief, Christian and Moslem, seem on this occasion to
+have taken an absolutely correct view of the problem as it was presented;
+but whereas Andrea Doria was a real commander-in-chief, Barbarossa was
+forced to consider and to defer to the opinions of men whom he knew to be
+in the wrong.
+
+It was against his better judgment that Kheyr-ed-Din at last yielded; the
+men were backing up their officers, a spirit of disaffection was abroad in
+the armada: such a thing as this a wise chief must gauge at its true value,
+and stop before it goes too far. The Osmanli were murmuring against "the
+corsair"; it was time to let them see whether they or their war-worn leader
+possessed the greater wisdom.
+
+According to Moslem chroniclers the valour of Kheyr-ed-Din was only
+equalled by his piety; consequently he murmured a prayer into that famous
+beard of his, which was now so much nearer to white than red, and gave
+orders that the cannon shall be immediately disembarked. "Let the will of
+God and of His Prophet be accomplished; that which is written is that which
+will take place," exclaimed this pious man as he watched the preparations
+being carried out under the supervision of Mourad-Reis.
+
+That which "took place" was precisely and exactly what the Commander-in-
+Chief had predicted from the first: no sooner had Mourad-Reis landed upon
+the exposed beach, and attempted to open a trench, than he was met by a
+furious and concentrated fire from the galleys and nefs of the Christian
+fleet. To entrench themselves was impossible in the circumstances, as they
+had been told by the Admiral before they started on this harebrained
+adventure. There could be only one result, which was that, after a cruel
+and perfectly useless slaughter, the soldiers of Mourad-Reis had to retreat
+before the hail of shot poured upon them, and to return ignominiously to
+their vessels.
+
+It is not on record what Kheyr-ed-Din said to Sinan, Mourad, and those
+other tacticians who had recommended the landing; which perhaps is a pity.
+
+Doria then made a tentative movement against the strait by a detachment of
+galleys; Barbarossa told off an equal number to oppose them, and they
+mutually cannonaded and skirmished during the day. There was much noise and
+excitement, but practically no advantage was gained by either side, as
+Doria's men could not risk passing the guns of the fort, nor could those of
+Barbarossa the chance of being cannonaded by the heavy vessels lying in
+wait-for them outside. And so the day closed down with no success on either
+side, but with a decisive demonstration to the Moslems that, if they
+desired victory, to their admiral had better be left the organisation by
+which it was to be obtained.
+
+Whether Doria really desired a pitched battle can never be known; that
+which is certain is that, during the whole time the fleets were in touch,
+all his dispositions make it appear there was nothing of which he was so
+much afraid. And yet it was the opportunity of his life; he had superiority
+in numbers, he had valiant and experienced leaders, and sixty thousand men
+thirsting for battle, under his command. Also he had his opportunity,
+which, had he seized upon, must have ended in victory, did those who were
+under his orders only fight as he had every reason to believe that they
+would. As it was, he threw away the gift of fortune, and left to the
+Osmanli the practical dominance of the Mediterranean Sea until that great
+day in 1571 when Don John of Austria, the natural son of Charles V., proved
+to the world at Lepanto that the Turk was not invincible upon the waters.
+
+It is true that Doria was awkwardly situated; Kheyr-ed-Din held the
+interior position, and that leader was a great believer in the adage that
+"if Brag is a good dog, Holdfast is a better." He was well aware of his
+numerical inferiority, and in consequence refused to listen to the frenzied
+appeals of the excited Moslems to be led against the Christian dogs. It may
+seem a contradiction in terms to speak of the moral courage of a pirate;
+but if ever that quality were displayed to its fullest extent it was
+exhibited by Barbarossa in the Prevesa campaign. In his intellectual
+outlook on all that was passing, both inside and outside of the Gulf of
+Arta, in this September of 1538, we see Kheyr-ed-Din at his best. Ever a
+fighter, he knew when to give battle and when to refrain, when to sweep
+headlong upon the foe, but also when to hold back and to baffle by waiting
+till the psychological moment should arrive. Around him Sinan-Reis,
+Mourad-Reis, and half a hundred others of their kidney were clamouring;
+they hurled insults at his head, they heaped opprobrium on "the corsair,"
+they practically incited their troops to mutiny in their mad appeals to be
+led against the foe.
+
+But "the corsair" kept his head, and kept his temper, and saved the Ottoman
+fleet for his master from his great rival, Doria. That noble Genoese seaman
+was for once in his life "letting I dare not wait upon I would"; he would
+not order the attack for which his men were waiting, and no provocation,
+apparently, could tempt Barbarossa to play Antony to the Octavius of Doria;
+the Christian admiral was tempting Providence at that advanced season of
+the year in keeping the sea on an hostile coast on which at any time he
+might be driven by a tempest. His old and experienced antagonist was well
+aware that the winds and the waves might save him the trouble of destroying
+the fleet of the enemy; an equinoctial gale would do that far more
+effectually than could he. If Doria had an uneasy consciousness that he
+might at any time see the shore littered with oarless galleys and dismasted
+nefs, while the sea was filled with drowning men, the same vision had been
+vouchsafed to his imperturbable adversary. Had it been left to the entire
+initiative of Barbarossa, his Fabian tactics would assuredly have prevailed
+in the end; but as it was he was surrounded by a clamouring host of men,
+soldiers by trade, who, understanding nothing of the happenings of the sea,
+merely derided as cowardice any postponement of what they regarded as the
+inevitable battle. The admiral of the Sultan held out as long as it was
+possible, but at last, owing to a new factor in the case, was forced,
+against his better judgment, to offer the battle which it was in his power
+to have withheld.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+THE BATTLE OF PREVESA
+
+  How Alessandro Condalmiero fought the _Galleon of Venice_--"The
+  King of the Sea is dead."
+
+There is something almost pathetic in the spectacle of a really great
+leader badgered and importuned by lesser men to adopt a course which he,
+with a superior insight, knows to be unsound. In the matter of the landing
+Barbarossa had demonstrated that it was he whose knowledge of war was
+superior to those who were so ready to thrust upon him their opinions;
+this, however, did not content them, and they now desired to close with the
+foe waiting for them outside. If ever a commander was justified in waiting
+on events it was Barbarossa at this juncture; the business of a
+commander-in-chief is to ensure victory, and if he sees, as did the Moslem
+admiral on this occasion, that more is to be gained by delay than by
+fighting, then he is justified in refusing battle: particularly is this the
+case when the enemy is in greatly superior force blockading on an open and
+dangerous coast at an inclement season of the year. Every day that Doria
+was kept at sea added to his difficulties, as fresh water and provisions
+would be running short, and the energies of the human engines by which his
+galleys were propelled would be weakened; naked men chained to a bench were
+suffering from the blazing heat of the days, the cold and drenching dews of
+the nights. All these things had the veteran seaman weighed in his mind,
+they all inclined him to wait still longer in that secure anchorage where
+he could not be touched by his foe.
+
+There was one counsellor, however, whom even Kheyr-ed-Din could not resist,
+and who had hitherto kept silence; this was the eunuch Monuc, legal
+counsellor to Soliman, who had accompanied the armada. He now brought the
+weight of his influence to bear upon the side of Sinan-Reis and his
+colleagues.
+
+"Are you going," he asked the admiral, "to allow the infidels to escape
+without a battle? Soliman can find plenty of wood to build new fleets,
+plenty of captains to command them; he will pardon you if this fleet is
+destroyed: that which he will never pardon is that you should allow Doria
+to escape without fighting. You have brave men in plenty; why not lead them
+to the attack?"
+
+The patience of the veteran gave way at last; none who knew Barbarossa had
+ever seen him shrink from fighting--to this his whole career bore witness.
+He had delayed the issue from the soundest of strategical reasons, which
+those under his command were too stupid and too prejudiced to understand:
+what cared they for reason in their blind valour?--they wished only to do
+or die heedless of the fact that their lives might be spent in vain. Truly
+it was no thanks to the subordinates of Kheyr-ed-Din that this campaign did
+not end in disaster to the arms of the Ottoman Porte. Such backing as the
+admiral had came from among his own men, the corsairs whose lives had been
+spent at sea, but their opinions were but dust in the balance once the
+all-powerful Monuc ranged himself on the side of the malcontents.
+
+"Let us then fight," said the admiral to Saleh-Reis, "or this fine talker
+who is neither man nor woman will accuse us before the Grand Turk and we
+shall all probably be hanged."
+
+The Christian fleet during the night of September 26-7th had made some
+thirty miles to the southward; just before daybreak the wind freshened and
+drew right ahead; Doria approached the island of Santa Maura and anchored
+under the small islet of Sessola.
+
+Barbarossa had now decided to leave his anchorage, but the veteran seaman
+did not disguise from himself the risks which he ran: a greater sea captain
+than he once said "only numbers can annihilate," and it was at annihilation
+that both the Moslem and the Christian aimed: in this case, however, he
+knew that he could but hope for a hard-won victory, and only that if Allah
+and his Prophet were unusually favourable to his cause. He assembled his
+captains, many of whom had served with him during long periods of his
+career, and directed them to form line: he said, "I have but one order to
+give, follow my movements attentively and regulate your own accordingly."
+
+With fustas, brigantines, galleots, and galleys, the Ottoman fleet amounted
+in all to one hundred and forty sail. With shouts of joy the soldiers
+hailed the command to weigh the anchors, and in a very short time all were
+slowly moving seaward.
+
+The die was cast: Doria from his anchorage at Sessola saw the sea white
+with the sails of the enemy, the blue water churning to foam beneath the
+strokes of his oars; the Ottoman fleet was issuing from the Gulf of Arta
+manoeuvring with precision and deploying into a single line abreast; which
+line being slightly concave, either from accident or design, resembled the
+form of a crescent. In advance came six great fustas commanded by Dragut;
+the left wing hugged the shore as closely as possible; the Ottoman
+commander-in-chief intended to commence operations on the first principles
+of strategy by flinging his whole force on a portion of that of the enemy.
+
+Andrea Doria remained undecided: he was on a lee shore, and that shore was
+the coast of the enemy; although his foes were advancing to the attack it
+seemed as if he had no mind to fight: whether he had or had not he
+displayed a most remarkable sluggishness, hesitating for three hours before
+getting up his anchors; these he only weighed at last under pressure from
+the bellicose Patriarch of Aquilea, Vincenzo Capello, and the Papal
+captain, Antonio Grimani. Doria had counted on the support of the _Galleon
+of Venice_ and the nefs; but the galleon was becalmed four miles from the
+land and ten miles from Sessola, where Doria was at the beginning of the
+action.
+
+Condalmiero sent a light skiff from the _Galleon of Venice_ to the
+commander-in-chief demanding orders and help from the galleys.
+
+"Begin the fight," answered the admiral, "you will be succoured."
+
+The position of Condalmiero was that of a modern battleship which is
+disabled and surrounded by foes in full possession of their motive power;
+the great galleon floated inert upon the waters while the galleys could
+fight or fly as they wished. The captain of the galleon, however, had no
+alternative save to surrender or fight; but there was no hesitation on his
+part, for a more gallant officer never trod the decks of a warship of the
+proud Republic to which he belonged.
+
+The Moslem galleys were now close upon him, although as yet out of
+gun-shot; around him they wheeled and circled like a flight of great
+sea-birds, their ferocious crews shouting their war-cries calling upon
+Allah and the Prophet to give them the victory for which they craved; many
+a brave Venetian who heard for the first time the name of Barbarossa
+shouted in battle must have braced himself for the coming conflict, knowing
+all that was imported by that terrible name. The sun shone in a cloudless
+sky, the galleon lay becalmed in the middle of furious and ravening foes,
+the succour promised by Doria was ten miles away; they saw no movement
+which indicated help, and the odds against them were heavy indeed. But all
+the nervousness was not on one side, for the _Galleon of Venice_ was
+something new in the naval warfare of the time; she carried engines of
+destruction in the shape of great guns which the corsairs could by no means
+equal. Of this they were well aware, and the attack was delayed while the
+oarsmen in the galleys rested on their oars out of range to allow them
+breathing time before the supreme moment arrived. But the hounds were only
+held in leash; there came a signal which was answered by a concentrated
+yell of fury and of hate; then from right ahead, right astern, on the port
+side and the starboard, the galleys were launched to the attack. But all on
+board the great Venetian vessel was as still as that death which awaited so
+many of the combatants in this supreme struggle.
+
+Condalmiero had caused the crew of the galleon to lie down upon her decks,
+and stood himself, a gallant solitary figure in his shining armour, a mark
+for the hail of shot so soon to be discharged. It came, and with it the
+mast of the galleon bearing the Lion Standard of St. Mark crashed over the
+side into the water; renewed yells of triumph came from the Moslems, but
+still that ominous silence reigned on board the galleon. Untouched,
+unharmed, the Osmanlis came on firing as rapidly as possible until they
+were absolutely within arquebuss range. Closer they came and closer; then
+the sides of the galleon burst into sheeted flame, and the guns levelled at
+point-blank range tore through the attacking host. Condalmiero was throwing
+away no chances; he had directed his gunners to allow their balls to
+ricochet before striking rather than to throw them away by allowing them to
+fly over the heads of the enemy.
+
+The first broadside did terrible execution; a ball one hundred and twenty
+pounds in weight, fired by the chief bombardier, Francisco d'Arba in
+person, burst in the prow of a galley so effectually that all her people
+flew aft to the poop to prevent the water rushing in; but the vessel was
+practically split in twain, and sank in a few moments. All around were dead
+and dying men, disabled galleys, floating wreckage; the _Galleon of Venice_
+had taken a terrible toll of the Osmanli; the order to retreat out of range
+was given, and never was order obeyed with greater alacrity.
+
+With accuracy and precision the galleon played upon such vessels as
+remained within range, doing great execution. But she was now to be
+subjected to an even severer test than the first headlong attack. She had
+demonstrated to the Moslem leaders that here was no vessel to be carried by
+mere reckless valour; a disciplined and ordered offensive was the only plan
+which promised success; the Osmanli must use their brain as well as their
+courage if that tattered flag, rescued from the water, and nailed to the
+stump of the mast of the galleon, was ever to be torn down. There was
+something daunting in the very aspect of the solid bulk of the huge
+Venetian, something weird in the manner in which her crew never showed,
+save only the steadfast figure of her captain immovable as a statue of
+bronze, where he stood on her shot-torn poop.
+
+This Homeric conflict was a triumph of discipline and gunnery on the part
+of the Venetians; alert, accurate, and cool, the gunners of the galleon
+threw away none of their ammunition: inspired by the heroic spirit of their
+captain, great was the honour which they did on this stricken field to the
+noble traditions of their forbears and the service to which they belonged.
+
+The first attack had been most brilliantly repulsed, but this was only
+preliminary to a conflict which was to last all through the day; the Moslem
+galleys withdrew out of gunshot and re-formed; then a squadron of twenty
+advanced, delivered their fire, and retired; their place was then taken by
+a second squadron, which went through the same performance, and then came
+on a third. In this manner the attack, which began one hour after noon, and
+which was continued until sunset, was conducted. The galleon had thirteen
+men killed, and forty wounded; no doubt the slaughter would have been much
+greater had it not been for the enormous thickness of her sides and for the
+fact that the guns carried by the galleys were necessarily light.
+Notwithstanding, the galleon suffered terribly, she was a mass of wreckage;
+twice fire had broken out on board of her, she was cumbered by fallen
+masts, battered almost out of recognition, but still Condalmiero and her
+gallant crew fought on imperturbably with no thought of surrender. Covered
+with blood, wounded in the face and the right leg by flying splinters, her
+captain preserved his magnificent coolness, and his decimated crew
+responded nobly to his call. At eventide the fire from the galleon was
+almost as deadly as it had been at the first onslaught, and many galleys of
+the Turks were only saved from sinking by the activity and bravery of their
+carpenters, who, slung over their sides in "boatswains' chairs," drove home
+huge plugs of wood with their mallets into the shot-holes made by the
+Venetian guns.
+
+At the hour when the sun dipped below the horizon all the Turkish fleet
+seemed assembled to assault the colossus which so long had resisted their
+attack; there was a pause in the combat, and the firing died down.
+Condalmiero and his men braced themselves for the assault which they felt
+to be inevitable: for now the darkness was swiftly coming, in which they
+could no longer see to shoot, and under cover of which their numerous foes
+could assail them by boarding in comparative safety. Now the moment had
+come for the last act in this terrible drama of the sea. They had held
+their own at long odds throughout the whole of a hot September day, and as
+the level beams of the setting sun shone on their shattered ship they were
+prepared to die, fighting to the last man for the honour of Venice and the
+glory of St. Mark.
+
+Stiff and worn, wearied almost to the breaking strain, there was no man on
+board who even dreamt of surrender; all the guns were charged to the muzzle
+with bullets and broken stone, the artillerists match in hand stood grimly
+awaiting the order to fire, straining their eyes and their ears in the
+gathering darkness; in a few minutes at most they knew that the fate of the
+_Galleon of Venice_ must be decided.
+
+On board his galley, decorated for this occasion with scarlet banners,
+Barbarossa himself directed the assaulting line. Never before when the
+battle was joined had the gallant corsair been known to draw back; and yet
+on this occasion he not only hesitated but actually hauled off. The
+Venetians saw to their amazement that the expected attack was not to be
+pushed home; for Barbarossa and his captains fell upon some lesser vessels:
+the _Galleon of Venice_ was victorious.
+
+Meanwhile Doria was displaying his mastery of tactics when it was hard
+fighting that was wanted; he pretended that he wished to draw the Ottoman
+fleet into the high seas in order that he might destroy their galleys by
+means of the broadsides of his nefs; consequently he executed useless
+parade movements when he should by all the rules of warfare have closed
+with his enemy who was in distinctly inferior force; as he had a fair wind
+there is only one conclusion to be drawn, and that is that he did not want
+to fight.
+
+His manoeuvres certainly mystified the Turks, who viewed his tactics with
+mistrust, thinking them the outset of some deeply laid scheme; it never
+entered into their calculations for one moment that the great Andrea Doria,
+the terror of the Mediterranean sea, and the victor in scores of desperate
+engagements, was anxious to avoid a fight.
+
+Grimani and Capello, docile to the orders of their admiral, followed him
+full of uneasiness and distrust; they were fighting men of the most fiery
+description; to them the issue seemed of the simplest: there was the enemy
+in inferior force to themselves, they had the weather gauge, why delay the
+attack?
+
+"For much less than this," says Admiral Jurien de la Graviere, "the English
+shot Admiral Byng in 1756." The conduct of Doria on this occasion has
+certainly never been explained; the two other leaders went on board and
+remonstrated with their commander-in-chief; they were neither of them men
+who could be treated as negligible quantities on the field of battle; both
+belonged to that brilliant Venetian nobility so renowned in commerce and in
+war. Marco Grimani was in command of the Papal galleys, in itself a mark of
+the highest esteem and confidence from a potentate second to none in his
+influence in the civilised world. To Vincenzo Capello, Henry the Seventh of
+England confided his royal person and the command of his fleet when he
+crossed the Channel to encounter Richard the Second at Bosworth field. Five
+times had he filled the office of Providiteur in Venice, twice had he been
+commander-in-chief of her fleet, he was in perpetuity Procureur of St.
+Mark, to him Venice owed her naval discipline. He wore on this day the
+mantle of crimson silk with which the Republic invested her generals.
+Bitter was the rage in his heart, and bitterly must he have spoken to
+Doria, who, in spite of all remonstrances, continued his futile
+manoeuvrings.
+
+There was glory won on this day, but it was gained neither by Andrea Doria
+nor Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa. The _Galleon of Venice_ with Alessandro
+Condalmiero and his gallant crew had shown to all a splendid example of
+disciplined valour unexcelled in sixteenth-century annals.
+
+Barbarossa had captured a Venetian galley, a Papal galley, and five Spanish
+nefs, but he had recoiled from the assault on Condalmiero when the prize
+was actually within his grasp. For the rest it was a day of manoeuvring and
+tactics; tactics when sixty thousand men had been embarked on board two
+hundred ships for a specific and definite object on the side of the
+Christians and under the command of their most celebrated admiral; and yet
+the balance of advantage was actually gained by the inferior force. No
+subsequent glories can ever wipe this stain from the scutcheon of Doria, or
+can excuse the fact that at the most supreme moment of his career he failed
+to fight the battle that he was in honour, in conscience, and in duty bound
+to deliver. Next day the wind came fair for Corfu, and Doria, his ships
+untouched, unscathed, unharmed, put his helm up and sailed away followed by
+his fleet.
+
+Sandoval records the fact that Barbarossa, roaring with laughter the while,
+was accustomed to say that Doria had even put out his lanterns in order
+that no one might see whither he had fled. This was an allusion to the
+fact--or supposition--that Doria extinguished on that night the great poop
+lantern carried by him as admiral.
+
+When Soliman the Magnificent heard of the result of this battle he caused
+the town of Yamboli, where he was at the time, to be illuminated, and in
+the excess of his joy he added one hundred thousand aspres to the revenues
+of the conqueror; there were processions to the Grand Mosque, and all Islam
+rejoiced and sang the praises of the invincible admiral who had humbled to
+the dust the pride of the Christian and caused the dreaded Doria to fly
+from before the fleet of the Sultan.
+
+This, the most historical, if not the greatest feat in the life of
+Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, was for him a triumph indeed; with a vastly
+inferior force he had driven from the field of battle his "rival in glory,"
+as he himself had denominated Andrea Doria, and he had accomplished this
+feat notwithstanding the almost mutinous condition of his own forces. In
+spite of this it is with Condalmiero and with him alone that the glory of
+this day must rest; alone, absolutely unsupported as we have seen, he
+fought one of those fights which bring the heart into the mouth when we
+read of them; the stern pride of the Venetian noble, who despised as
+canaille the pirate hosts by whom he was assailed, had its counterpart in
+the sturdy valour of Chief Bombardier Francisco d'Arba and the other
+nameless heroes of which that good company was composed; to them we render
+that homage which so justly is their due.
+
+The whole campaign of Prevesa, as we have said, is a curious study in
+hesitation, in dilatoriness, in absolute lack of initiative and virility on
+the part of the two chief actors in the drama: that Doria should fly from
+the field of battle in an untouched ship is only one degree less incredible
+than that Barbarossa should have relinquished his attack on the _Galleon of
+Venice_. It would almost seem as if on this occasion each of the great
+rivals was hypnotised by the presence of the other; all their lives they
+had been seeking honour and riches on the sea, they knew, of course, that
+all men in both the world of Islam and that of Christendom looked upon them
+in the light of the special champions of the opposing sects, that the eyes
+of the entire world were fastened on this meeting of theirs in the classic
+waters of the Ambracian Gulf. In consequence neither man was at his best;
+indeed, we might go further than this, and say that on this occasion both
+lamentably failed. There is no fault to be found with the strategic
+preliminaries to the final conflict, each admiral acting with prudence and
+wisdom in the situation in which he found himself placed. That the
+perfectly correct idea of not giving battle to a superior force when he
+held so strong an interior position was given up by Barbarossa, was, as we
+have seen, not his fault; and when he issued from his anchorage, in
+deference to a sentiment among those under his command which he could no
+longer resist, his dispositions seem to have been made with his usual
+skill. Where he failed, however, was where, from all his previous history,
+we should least have expected failure, in his abandonment of the attack on
+the _Galleon of Venice_; this, of course, was inexcusable, and can only be
+set down to failure of nerve at the supreme moment. The ship had been
+battered by artillery all day long, a huge percentage of her company were
+dead and wounded, and the remainder worn out with fatigue. On the Moslem
+side we have seen that there were squadrons of galleys able to relieve one
+another with no interference from Doria, who was persisting in his futile
+manoeuvring miles away. Had the galleon been boarded, as she might and
+should have been, at nightfall, nothing could have saved Condalmiero and
+his crew: so strenuous, however, had been their resistance, that the
+Turkish seamen feared the issue; in consequence the battle between them and
+the Venetians was a drawn one, with all the honours on the Christian side.
+
+It is here that we shall take leave of Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, as although
+he was yet to live another eight years before he died in his bed at
+Constantinople in July, 1548, there are no further happenings of any great
+importance in his career.
+
+"Valorous, yet prudent, furious in attack, far-seeing in preparation, he
+ranks as the first sea-captain of his time;"[1] as the story of his life
+has unfolded itself in these pages we have seen what manner of man it was
+who terrified Europe, who made for himself a reputation which stands out
+clear and distinct among all the great men of which this century was so
+prolific. One of the surest methods of estimating a strenuous man of action
+is to seek for the names of those by whom he was surrounded: the men
+selected by him to assist in the carrying out of the work of his life; thus
+in reading of Napoleon Bonaparte we interest ourselves in his marshals, in
+reading of Nelson we note the captains by whom he was supported. In the
+case of Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, a great man of action if one ever lived,
+we find no trace of devoted adherents on that high plane of command we have
+indicated in the cases cited above. That he had devoted followers enough is
+absolutely certain, but of high officers we very seldom find a trace, and
+these he treated with contumely and offence on many occasions; witness the
+treatment meted out to Hassan and to Venalcadi. There is practically no
+trace of his domestic life to be found, we cannot discover that he
+possessed any intimate friend. There is none other in all history to whom
+he can be satisfactorily compared; there are few who in their generation
+have wielded such enormous powers, who have climbed so high from the sheer
+unassisted force of their own intellect and their own character.
+
+[Footnote 1: Stanley Lane Poole.]
+
+Physical strength such as is vouchsafed to one man in a million, a
+constitution nothing could impair, endurance incomparable, were his bodily
+attributes: an intellect cold, clear, and penetrating was his, joined to an
+imperturbability of temperament which enabled him to accept with a cheerful
+philosophy blows by which weaker men were absolutely prostrated; his
+outlook on life was not dimmed by any affections, and pity was a sensation
+which to him was entirely alien. In this record of his deeds the reader has
+been spared all mention of the atrocious tortures he was in the habit of
+inflicting on his victims for any or no provocation, and many of them are
+as incomprehensible as they are sickening. That in which he was supreme was
+his craft as a seaman in an age when real seamen were rare; on land he was
+frequently defeated, at sea there seems to be no record of such an
+occurrence. To sum up, he appears to us in the light of history as a body,
+a brain, and an intellect, without any trace of a heart. His path through
+life was one unending trail of blood and fire, moistened by the tears of
+his countless victims, followed by the curses of those whom he despoiled.
+Yet, in spite of this, it is impossible not to admire the man who, by his
+own superhuman energy, ever swept all obstacles from his path, and caused
+the whole of the civilised world to quail at the name of Barbarossa.
+
+He died peacefully in his bed at Constantinople in July, 1546, to the grief
+of the world of Islam and the inexpressible joy of Christendom. "The king
+of the sea is dead," expressed in three Arabic words, gives the numerical
+value 953, the year of the Hegira in which he died.
+
+For many years after his death no Turkish ship ever left the Golden Horn
+without her crew repeating a prayer and firing a salute over the tomb of
+Beshiktsah, where lie the bones of the first and greatest of Turkish
+admirals, the corsair who was at one and the same time admiral, pirate, and
+king.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+THE NAVY OF OARS. THE GALLEY, THE GALEASSE, AND THE NEF
+
+In the sixteenth century the vessel of war in the Mediterranean was
+essentially that oar-propelled craft known to us as the galley. As time
+went on she was gradually superseded by the sailing man-of-war which was
+able to carry that heavy ordnance which the light scantling of the galley
+did not permit of her mounting; but for the use of the corsairs who lived
+by means of raids and surprise attacks, whose business it was to lie perdu
+on the trade routes, the mobility of the galley was of prime importance,
+and they could not afford to trust to the wind alone as a motive power. The
+galley was analogous to the steam vessel in that it was independent of the
+wind to a large extent: human bone and muscle supplied the part of engines,
+and those who fought upon the sea caused themselves to be moved over the
+face of the waters by the exertions of their enemies. It is true that upon
+one occasion, as we have seen, Kheyred-Din Barbarossa did possess a fleet
+of galleys the rowers of which were all Moslems, which crew upon battle
+being joined dropped their oars, seized their weapons and assisted in the
+conquest of the foe. But this was an isolated instance, as it was almost
+impossible at any time and in any circumstances to procure free men ready
+to undertake a life of such intolerable suffering as that of a rower on
+board a galley; in consequence these men were almost invariably slaves, or
+else in later times condemned felons whose judges had sent them to work out
+their sentences upon the rowers' bench. The great characteristic of the
+galley was her mobility, and in a comparative degree her speed, as for a
+short burst, when her crew of rowers were fresh, their trained muscles were
+capable of tremendous exertion; for any length of time, however, it is
+obvious that her speed must have declined as the rowers became exhausted.
+She was long, narrow, of extremely low freeboard, and slight depth of hold;
+a galley of 125 feet between perpendiculars would perhaps be 180 feet over
+all taking in the poop and the prow. A galley of this length would only
+have a beam of 19 feet and a depth of hold of 7 feet 6 inches. The sailing
+ship of contemporary times would for the same length have had a beam of
+about 40 feet and an extremely high freeboard; she was in consequence
+necessarily slow and incapable of sailing on a wind.
+
+So distinct at this time was the line drawn between the sailing vessel and
+the galley that the actual terminology used was entirely different; that is
+to say, the names of such things as masts, sails, rudder, tiller, stern,
+stempost, cutwater, etc., were not the same words; the sailor who used
+sails could not understand his brother mariner who used oars, and _vice
+versa_.
+
+[Illustration: GALLEY UNDER OARS.]
+
+What was necessary of course in the galley was many oars and many hands to
+use them; the vessel was most skilfully constructed for this purpose so as
+to get the fullest power from her human engines; the result was that men
+were crowded on board of her to such an extent that there was scarcely room
+to breathe, such a craft as the one of which the dimensions have been given
+having on board some four hundred men.
+
+Barras de la Penne, a French officer who in 1713 first went on board a
+galley, thus describes what he saw:
+
+  "Those who see a galley for the first time are astonished to see so many
+  persons; there are an infinite number of villages in Europe which do not
+  contain an equal number of inhabitants; however, this is not the
+  principal cause of one's surprise, but that so many men can be assembled
+  in so small a space. It is truth that many of them have not room to
+  sleep at full length, for they put seven men on one bench; that is to
+  say, on a space about ten feet long and four broad; at the bows one sees
+  some thirty sailors who have for their lodging the floor space of the
+  rambades (this is the platform at the prow of the galley) which consists
+  of a rectangular space ten feet long by eight in width. The captain and
+  officers who live on the poop are scarcely better lodged, and one is
+  tempted to compare their grandeur with that of Diogenes in his tub.
+
+  "When the unpitying Libyan Sea surprises these galleys upon the Roman
+  coasts, when the Norther lashes to foam the Gulf of Lyons, when the
+  humid east wind of Syria is driving them off shore, everything combines
+  to make life on board a modern galley a hell of misery and discomfort.
+  The creaking of the blocks and cordage, the loud cries of the
+  sailors, the horrible maledictions of the galley slaves, the groaning of
+  the timbers, mingled with the clank of chains and the bellowings of the
+  tempest, produce sentiments of affright in the most intrepid breasts.
+  The rain, the hail, the lightning, habitual accompaniments of these
+  terrific storms, the waves which dash over the vessel, all add to the
+  horror of the situation, and although devotion is not as a rule very
+  strongly marked on board a galley, you will hear these folk praying to
+  God, and others making vows to the Saints; these would do much better
+  not to forget God and his Saints when the danger is past.
+
+  "Calm itself has also its inconveniences, as the evil smells which arise
+  from the galley are then so strong that one cannot get away from them in
+  spite of the tobacco with which one is obliged to plug one's nostrils
+  from morning till night."
+
+The gallant officer here goes into further details concerning the vermin on
+board which it will be as well to spare the reader.
+
+Jean Marteille de Bergeraq, who died at Culenbourg in 1777, was condemned
+to serve on board the galleys in 1707 "in his quality of Protestant"; he
+must indeed have been a man of iron constitution as he lived to the age of
+ninety-five. This is his description of the life of a _forcat_:
+
+  "They are chained six to a bench; the benches are four feet wide covered
+  with sacking stuffed with wool over which are thrown sheepskins which
+  reach to the floor. The officer who is master of the galley slaves
+  remains aft with the captain to receive his orders; there are two under
+  officers, one amidships and one at the prow; all of these are armed with
+  whips, with which they flog the absolutely naked bodies of the
+  slaves. When the captain gives the order to row, the officer gives the
+  signal with a silver whistle which hangs on a cord round his neck; the
+  signal is repeated by the under officers and very soon all the fifty
+  oars strike the water as one. Imagine six men chained to a bench as
+  naked as they were born, one foot on the stretcher the other raised and
+  placed on the bench in front of them, holding in their hands an oar of
+  enormous weight, stretching their bodies towards the after part of the
+  galley with arms extended to push the loom of the oar clear of the backs
+  of those in front of them who are in the same attitude. They plunge the
+  blades of the oars into the water and throw themselves back, falling on
+  to the seat which bends beneath their weight. Sometimes the galley
+  slaves row thus ten, twelve, even twenty hours at a stretch, without the
+  slightest relapse or rest, and on these occasions the officer will go
+  round putting into the mouths of the wretched rowers pieces of bread
+  soaked in wine to prevent them from fainting. Then the captain will call
+  upon the officers to redouble their blows, and if one of the slaves
+  falls fainting upon his oar, which is a common occurrence, he is flogged
+  until he appears to be dead and is then flung overboard without
+  ceremony."
+
+The Italian captain, Pantero Pantera, of the _Santa Lucia_ galley, in his
+work on "L'Armata Navale" published in 1614, gives it as his opinion that
+although soldiers and sailors could be obtained for service in the galleys
+if good pay were given, still no money could tempt any free man to
+adventure himself as a rower for any length of time owing to the
+intolerable sufferings which the "gallerian" was called upon to endure. As,
+however, in the opinion of the captain it was most necessary that the
+galleys should be manned, he thought that all judges should in future send
+criminals aboard; those who had committed murder as "lifers," those who had
+committed lesser crimes _pro rata_. Those who by the nobility of their
+birth or their physical incompetence were unable to handle the oar should
+be called upon to pay for substitutes to act for them; these were called
+"Buone-Voglie."
+
+There was not much difference after all between the methods used by the
+seventeenth-century Italian to those actually in force in England at a much
+later date when the Press Gang swept the honest and the dishonest into its
+net in its midnight raids.
+
+"The galley slaves," observes Pantera, "cherish repose and sincerely wish
+to avoid fatigue; in order to incite them to do their duty it is necessary
+to use the whip as well as the whistle; by using it with severity the
+officers will find that they are better obeyed, and it will in consequence
+be good for the service, for fear of the whip is the principal cause of
+good behaviour among the gallerians." Further on he observes that it is
+well not to flog them too severely and without reason, "for this irritates
+the gallerians, as I have frequently observed: this may cause them to
+despair and to wish for death as the only sure way out of their troubles."
+The excellent Pantera a little later on even says that he cannot agree that
+the attempt to cure a sick gallerian "is all nonsense, as is maintained by
+some persons," as sick men are a source of danger on board. He apparently
+was not prepared to throw them overboard alive, but urges that the best way
+to avoid such pestilences among them as killed forty thousand Venetians at
+the port of Zara in 1570 is to embark sound and good victuals.
+
+It is interesting to have a contemporary view of the correct treatment of
+the galley slave from those who had to do with him. In the case of the
+corsairs and their adversaries the gallerians were as a rule prisoners of
+war, but as time went on and wars became less frequent than they were
+throughout the sixteenth century, another source of supply was tapped by
+sending to the galleys the criminals of any country which desired to fill
+up the rowers' benches. In consequence there was always one thing which was
+feared above all others on board a galley, and that was a rising of the
+slaves.
+
+If they were not your enemies officially, they were a set of desperate
+criminals ripe for any mischief should they get loose, and chained,
+starved, beaten, frozen with the cold, baked by the summer heats, tortured,
+murdered, they had nothing earthly for which to hope except escape. If in
+the heat of battle there should occur a rising of the slaves, then their
+masters knew that victory would declare itself surely on the side of the
+enemy. Therefore that they should be securely chained was the first and
+most important thing to which the boatswain of a galley and his mates had
+to see. If by a bold stroke they once freed themselves from their shackles
+it was a fight to the death for those who erstwhile had been in command, as
+the gallerians, outnumbering them and caring nought for their lives in
+comparison to their liberties, were far the most formidable foes that they
+could be called upon to encounter. When men are so treated that their daily
+life is one long martyrdom they become the most dangerous force in
+existence, and on the occasions which sometimes happened that the slaves
+got the upper hand, there were none left of the fighting men of the galley
+to tell the tale of their discomfiture.
+
+In time of battle the gallerians were of course equally exposed to death
+and wounds from the projectiles of the enemy as were the orthodox fighting
+men; but to them came no rejoicing at the sound of victory; rather they
+prayed for the defeat of their masters, as it frequently happened that
+those against whom they were arrayed were their own countrymen and friends
+by whom they hoped for release. Thus at Lepanto, the Christian slaves,
+seeing the right wing of the Turkish fleet thrown into disorder by the
+galleys of the Allies, broke out into furious mutiny, succeeded in
+shattering their fetters and chains, attacked their masters the Turks in
+the rear with incredible energy with any weapons upon which they could lay
+their hands, and thus contributed in no small measure to the ultimate
+triumph of the Christian arms.
+
+The Captain Pantero Pantera and Barras de la Peine have written
+exhaustively on the galley, her crew, her armament, her manner of
+provisioning, her masts, sails, rigging, etc., and Admiral Jurien de la
+Graviere has given a most painstaking exposition concerning the
+technicalities of these craft. But to enter into too much detail would be
+to weary the reader unnecessarily, who, it is apprehended, merely desires
+that a general idea should be given of the way in which these vessels were
+handled and fought.
+
+It would appear that during the whole time that oar-propelled vessels were
+used as warships their form did not differ to any material extent, as
+certain limitations of size were obviously imposed on them by the mere fact
+that they had to be moved by so finite and feeble a force as human muscles,
+hearts, and lungs. No cruelty, however ghastly, could extract from the
+gallerians more than a certain amount of work, and the Captain Pantero
+Pantera, as we have seen, even advocates that a certain minimum of
+consideration should be shown to them in order that better work might be
+obtained. It was probable, however, that in the case of the Christian
+slaves captured by the corsairs even this minimum was to seek, as the
+numbers swept off by them were so enormous that they could be used up and
+replaced without inconveniencing these rovers of the sea, to whom
+compassion for suffering was absolutely unknown.
+
+The Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, or the Knights of Malta as they were
+also called, used the galley in their unceasing warfare with the Moslem.
+The General of the Galleys was a Grand Cross of the Order; the captains
+were knights, and the second officer, or first lieutenant, was known as the
+Patron. The crew of a galley of the knights had twenty-six rowing benches
+and carried two hundred and eighty rowers and two hundred and eighty
+combatants; the armament consisted of one bow cannon which discharged a
+forty-eight pound ball, four other small guns, eight pounders, and fourteen
+others which discharged stones.
+
+"The Religion," as the Knights were in the habit of describing themselves,
+had certain definite stations assigned to each knight, seaman, or officer
+during action. It is to be imagined, however, that these were merely for
+the preliminary stages of the fight, as it was seldom that time allowed for
+more than one discharge, or at the most two, of the artillery, before the
+opposing galleys met in a hand-to-hand conflict which must have immediately
+become an indiscriminate melee.
+
+The manner in which the galley should engage is thus contained in an answer
+to a question of Don John of Austria, the victor of Lepanto. He wrote to
+Garcia de Toledo, fourth Marquis of Villafranca, and General of the Galleys
+of Sicily, to ask his opinion as to what distance it was most efficacious
+to open fire in a naval action. Toledo replied that "one cannot fire more
+than twice before the galleys close. I should therefore recommend that the
+arquebussiers should hold their fire until they are so close to the enemy
+that his blood will leap into the face of him who discharges his piece.
+have always heard it said, and this by captains who are well skilled in the
+art of war, that the last discharge of the cannon should be coincident with
+the noise made by the breaking of the spurs carried in the prows of the
+galleys; in fact that the two noises should be as one; some propose to fire
+before the enemy does: this is by no means my advice."
+
+Artillery, it will be seen from this, played a comparatively unimportant
+part in the combats between galley and galley; that in these craft men
+still relied on the strength of their right arm and the edge of their
+swords; there was still a certain contempt for villainous saltpetre, which
+was looked upon as a somewhat cowardly substance, preventing the warrior
+from settling his disputes in the good old fashion of his forbears. In any
+case, when you practically had to push the muzzle of your gun against your
+enemy's body in order to hit him, it was not a weapon upon which much
+reliance was to be placed.
+
+There were, in addition to the galley, the nef and the galeasse; the former
+of these was a sailing vessel pure and simple like those remarkable
+caravels in which Columbus discovered America.
+
+What these caravels were exactly like it was the good fortune of the writer
+to see in the year 1893. This was the date of the great exhibition of
+Chicago, and the American Government were most anxious to have, and to
+exhibit if possible, an exact replica of these historic craft. They
+accordingly communicated with the Spanish Government and inquired if by any
+chance they possessed the plans and specifications of the caravels of
+Columbus? Search was made in the archives of Cadiz Dockyard and these
+priceless documents were discovered. From them the ships were built in
+every respect the same as the wonderful originals and then towed across the
+Atlantic by the United States cruiser _Lancaster_. On their way they were
+brought to Gibraltar, where the writer's ship was then stationed, and were
+anchored inside the New Mole. The _Santa Maria_, the flagship of Columbus,
+was a three-masted vessel with a very high "forecastle" and "sterncastle"
+and very deep in the waist; she had three masts, the foremast carrying one
+square sail, the mainmast having both mainsail and main-topsail, the mizzen
+was rigged with a lateen sail, on the mainsail was painted the Maltese and
+on the foresail the Papal cross, and on deck she carried a brick-built
+cooking galley. A most beautiful model of this vessel is to be seen in the
+Science and Art Department of the South Kensington Museum.
+
+The nef in its later manifestations became a much more seaworthy vessel
+than this, with four masts, the two foremost ones square-rigged and
+carrying courses and topsails, the two after ones carrying lateen sails;
+the latter from their small size and their proximity to one another could
+not have had much effect on the sailing qualities of the ship. The nefs in
+the fleet of Don John of Austria in 1571 were rigged in this fashion and
+comprised vessels of eight hundred, nine hundred, and even one thousand
+tons, while a contemporary English vessel, the _Great Harry_ or _Henri
+Grace a Dieu_, was as much as fifteen hundred tons, and carried no less
+than one hundred and eighty-four pieces of ordnance. It was from the nef
+and the galeasse that the sailing man-of-war arrived by the process of
+evolution. The galley in the first instance was the vessel of men who
+fought hand to hand, the men in whom personal strength and desperate valour
+were blended, who desired nothing so much as to come to close grips with
+their enemy. Such rude engines of war as the pierriers, or short cannons
+which discharged some forty or fifty pounds of broken stone upon the enemy,
+were first mounted in the galley; these were followed by improved artillery
+as time went on. But although the galleys eventually carried quite big
+guns, as instanced by the forty-eight pounder in the galleys of the Knights
+of St. John, still it soon became apparent that the limit was reached by
+guns of this weight; the galley was essentially a light vessel and was not
+built to withstand those rude shocks caused by firing heavy charges of
+powder.
+
+The galeasse was the connecting link between the navy of oars and the navy
+of sails. The navy of oars was in its generation apt for warlike purposes;
+but it was in its essence a force analogous to the light cavalry of the
+land; useful for a raid, a sudden dash, but without that great strength and
+solidity which came in later years to the building of the sailing line of
+battleship.
+
+The galeasse was really a magnified galley, one which used both sails and
+oars, on board of which the rowers were under cover; she was built with a
+forecastle and a sterncastle which were elevated some six feet above the
+benches of the rowers, and her very long and immensely heavy oars were of
+course proportionate to the size of the vessel. The description of a
+galeasse of nearly one thousand tons burden is set forth as follows by
+Jurien de la Graviere:
+
+  "Her draught of water was about 18 feet 6 inches, she was propelled by
+  52 oars, 48 feet in length, each oar being worked by 9 men. Her crew
+  consisted of 452 rowers, 350 soldiers, 60 marines, 12 steersmen, 40
+  ordinary seamen, 86 cannoneers, 12 petty officers, 4 boatswains' mates,
+  3 pilots, 2 sub-pilots, 4 counsellors, 2 surgeons, 4 writers, 2
+  sergeants, 2 carpenters, 2 caulkers, 2 coopers, 2 bakers, 10 servants, a
+  captain, a lieutenant, a purser. In all some thousand men, or about the
+  same number as the crew of a three-decker of a later date."
+
+The fleet of the "Holy League" at the battle of Lepanto had in it six
+galeasses from the arsenal of Venice; and whereas an average galley carried
+110 soldiers and 222 galley slaves, the crews of these galeasses comprised
+270 soldiers, 130 sailors, and 300 galley slaves.
+
+The speed of the galley was calculated by the French engineer Forfait to be
+in the most favourable circumstances, that is to say in a flat calm, but
+four and a half knots for the first hour, and two and a quarter to one and
+a half miles per hour for subsequent hours; the exhaustion of the rowers
+consequent on their arduous toil would not admit of a greater speed than
+this. The studies of Forfait were made when the invasion of England by
+rowing boats was a topic of burning interest. It is evident from this that
+long voyages, trusting to the oar alone, could not be undertaken; but as we
+have seen, the galley was also provided with motive power in the shape of
+two masts carrying the lateen sail, which may be still seen in so many
+Mediterranean craft.
+
+That the galley was no vessel in which to embark in bad weather is
+instanced for us by the disasters which befell a Spanish fleet of these
+craft in 1567 under the Grand Commander of Castile, Don Luiz de Requesens.
+A revolt of the Moors in Granada had caused Philip the Second to wish to
+withdraw a certain number of Spanish troops from Italy. Requesens was sent
+to Genoa with twenty-four galleys to embark a detachment of an army corps
+then stationed in Piedmont. Each galley embarked one hundred and fifty
+soldiers; they then got under way and reached the island of Hyeres, where
+they anchored, the weather being too bad to proceed. At the end of their
+eighth day in port a number of vessels were seen flying to the eastward
+before the wind; it was a squadron of Genoese.
+
+Requesens, who was no seaman, was furious. Here were the Genoese at sea,
+and he wasting his time in harbour; if they could keep the sea why could
+not he, he demanded? He instantly ordered the anchors to be weighed. The
+commander of the Tuscan galleys, of which there were ten in the fleet,
+immediately went on board the galley in which Requesens was embarked and
+represented that the wind was foul and that should they leave their
+anchorage they could make no headway once they got clear of the land. But
+Requesens was obstinate: "if others can go on their way it is shameful that
+I should not proceed on mine," he protested. Alfonso d'Aragona argued with
+him in vain, representing that his master, the Duke of Tuscany, would hold
+the Grand Commander responsible for damage to his galleys. It was all in
+vain, as the Grand Commander was too arrogant and stupid to listen to
+advice from anybody. The fleet put to sea and struggled out a mile from the
+land; when they got thus far Requesens discovered his mistake and regretted
+that he had not taken the advice of the mariners; but it was now too late,
+they had drifted to leeward of their anchorage and could not get back
+again.
+
+One galley, a new vessel, ran into another which was an old one, and sank
+her on the spot, carrying all her luckless crew to the bottom. The
+remaining vessels scattered far and wide; Alfonso d'Aragona found refuge in
+the Bay of Alghieri, two more of his galleys reached an anchorage in the
+Isle of St. Pierre, another sheltered in the Gulf of Oristano; three
+galleys were shipwrecked on the coast in this neighbourhood and lost many
+of their men; yet another, called the _Florence_, was twice nearly wrecked
+on the coast of Barbary, and eventually reached the Bay of Cagliari. A
+Genoese captain found himself as far afield as the Island of Pantellaria,
+two galleys were never heard of again, and the Grand Commander himself
+anchored eventually in the Bay of Palamos on the Spanish coast. Of the
+twenty-four galleys which left their anchorage twelve were lost and the
+twelve which remained were practically valueless until large sums had been
+spent in repairs.
+
+It is small wonder in the light of these events that the seamen who ranged
+the Mediterranean in vessels propelled by oars regarded the winter as a
+close season and laid up their galleys in harbour. They were seaworthy
+enough for ordinary weather, but could not withstand such a tempest as the
+one in which Requesens put to sea. The whole story is only a further proof
+of the folly of putting supreme command of a sea-going venture in the hands
+of a man totally ignorant of the hazards he was called upon to encounter.
+In the sixteenth and even in the seventeenth centuries this was done
+perpetually, and if no disaster occurred it was because no bad weather was
+encountered.
+
+[Illustration: Brigantin donnant chasse a une Felouque, et prest a la
+ border. BRIGANTINE CHASING FELUCCA.]
+
+As time went on the sailing ship became larger and larger and was able to
+mount more and more powerful ordnance; this had the effect of discounting
+the value of the galley as a fighting ship; in consequence she became
+practically obsolete, for the line of battle, after the combat at Lepanto.
+In spite of this she was to linger on for many long years to come as the
+weapon of the corsairs who had established themselves on the coast of
+Africa. The "long ship" was still to be the cause of many an awful sea
+tragedy, whether the actors therein were the pirates who hailed from the
+Barbary coast or their most capable imitators the notorious rovers of
+Sallee.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+DRAGUT-REIS
+
+  How he became Lieutenant to Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa--His capture by
+  Jannetin Doria--His four years as a galley slave--His ransom by his old
+  chief.
+
+In character, in capability, in strategic insight, in tactical ability, not
+one of the predecessors or the successors of Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa can be
+compared to him; he was the greatest and most outstanding figure of all
+those corsairs of whose deeds we hear so much during the sixteenth century,
+the man above all others who was feared and hated by his contemporaries in
+Christendom. He lived, as we have said, for another eight years after the
+battle of Prevesa, but his great age prevented him from pursuing a very
+active career. There were, however, other and younger men, trained in the
+terrible school of hardship in which his life had been passed, who proved
+themselves to be his very worthy successors, even if they did not display
+the same genius in war and statecraft. The conditions of this period are
+somewhat remarkable when we come to consider them; Europe, which had been
+sunk in a rude and uncultured barbarism during the middle ages, was
+emerging under the influence of the Renaissance into a somewhat higher and
+nobler conception of life. It is true that the awakening was slow, that
+morally the plane on which the peoples stood was far from being an elevated
+one, that altruism was far from being the note of the lives lived by the
+rulers of the so-called civilised nations. For all this they had emerged
+from that cimmerian darkness in which they had lived so long, and the dawn
+of better things, of more stable government, of some elementary recognition
+of the rights of those governed, was beginning to show above the murky
+horizon.
+
+But if the sun of European progress was slowly and painfully struggling
+through the clouds, the light which had shone brightly for over seven
+centuries of Moslem advance was certainly and surely dying. Beneath the
+mail-clad heel of the Christian warrior the torch of learning which had
+burned so brightly in Cordova and Granada had been extinguished and ground
+into the dust, and the descendants of the alumni of those universities were
+seeking their bread in the Mediterranean Sea in the guise of bloodthirsty
+and desperate pirates.
+
+There were no longer among the Moors of Andalusia learned philosophers,
+expert mathematicians, wise astronomers, and practical agriculturists;
+there was among them but one art, one science, one means of gaining a
+livelihood--the practice of war--and their very existence depended on the
+spoils which could be reft from the hereditary enemy. The corsair who grew
+to man's estate, brought up in Algiers, Tunis, Tenes, Jerba, or any other
+of the lurking places in which the sea-wolves congregated, had as a rule no
+chance but to follow the sea, to exist as his father had existed before
+him; he must fight or starve, and in a fighting age no youngster was likely
+to be backward in taking to the life of wild excitement led by his elders.
+Unless following in the train of one of the leaders, such as Barbarossa,
+the Moslems were apt to take to the sea in a private capacity; a certain
+number of them joining together to man a small craft which was known as a
+brigantine. As has been said in a previous chapter, this word must not be
+understood in the light of the terminology of the modern seaman: the
+brigantines of the Moslem corsairs were really large rowing boats, carrying
+fourteen to twenty-six oars, and made as seaworthy as the small size of
+such craft would allow. Should the venture of the crew of a brigantine
+prove successful, then the reis, or captain, might blossom out into the
+command of a galley, in which his oars would be manned by his slaves; but,
+in the first instance, he would man his brigantine with a crew of Moslem
+desperadoes working on the share system and dividing anything that they
+could pick up; in this manner most of those corsairs who became famous
+commenced their careers, and rose as we have seen from the thwart of a
+brigantine to the unstable eminence of a throne in Algiers, Tunis, or
+Tlemcen.
+
+This life which they led made of them what they were, namely desperate
+swordsmen, efficient men at arms, incomparably skilful in the management of
+the craft in which they put to sea; but it did nothing else for them in the
+way of education; in consequence he who would rise to the top, who aspired
+to be a leader amongst them and not to remain a mere swash-buckling
+swordsman all his life, was bound to acquire that dominance necessary for
+control of the wild spirits of the age. Nor was this ascendancy by any
+means easy to obtain, as the rank and file led lives of incredible
+bitterness, almost inconceivable to modern ideas. What they suffered they
+alone knew, but it was compounded of hunger, thirst, heat, cold, sickness
+unrelieved by care or tending, wounds which festered for lack of
+medicaments, death which ever stared them in the face, and last, and worst
+of all, the risk of capture by some Christian foe, by whom they would be
+chained to the rowers' bench and taste of a bitterness absolutely
+unimaginable. As a set-off to this the man who aspired to lead must offer
+to his followers at least a record of success in small things; also he had
+to be something of an enthusiast, something of an orator, some one subtly
+persuasive. Against all the disagreeables of the strenuous life of the
+corsair he had to hold before the dazzled eyes of Selim, Ali, or Mahomet
+the promise of fat captures of the merchant vessels of the foe; when they
+had but to slit a few throats and to return with their brigantines laden to
+the gunwale with desirable plunder. Again he had to hearten them for
+possible encounters with Spaniards, with the terrible Doria, or worst of
+all with the dreaded Knights of St. John themselves; to point out that to
+die in conflict with the infidel was a sure passport to heaven and its
+houris, and to invoke great names, such as that of Barbarossa to show to
+what dizzy heights the fighting Moslem could climb. In such an age and
+among such men as these it was no mean feat to become a leader by whom men
+swore and to whom they yielded a ready obedience.
+
+Fashioned by the hammer of misfortune on the anvil of racial expropriation,
+such leaders arose among the Moslems, men of iron, before whom all who
+worshipped at the altars of Islam bowed the knee. These men, whose fame
+extended throughout all the length and breadth of the Mediterranean, taught
+to European rulers something of the value of that great force which is
+known to us under the modern name of "Sea Power."
+
+Next in importance to Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa himself and in many ways his
+very worthy successor, was Dragut Reis. We have it on the authority of
+Messire Pierre de Bourdeille, the Seigneur de Brantome, that Dragut was
+born at a small village in Asia Minor called Charabulac, opposite to the
+island of Rhodes, and that his parents were Mahommedans. Being born within
+sight and sound of the sea, the youthful Dragut naturally graduated in the
+school of the brigantine and completed his education on board of a galley.
+His training was that which makes the best of fighting seamen, as from
+contemporary records he appears to have passed all his life actively
+engaged on board ship. At a very early age he entered the service of a
+master gunner who served on board the galleys of the Grand Turk. Under his
+auspices the youngster became an expert pilot in his own home waters, and
+likewise a most excellent gunner. Dragut was evidently a youth of ability
+and determination, as almost before he reached man's estate he had
+succeeded in buying a share in a cruising brigantine where his venture
+prospered so exceedingly that he was soon able to become sole proprietor of
+a galeasse. Here again fortune favoured the enterprising young man; his
+name began to be known as a formidable corsair in the Levant, where he was
+remarkable for his knowledge of that portion of the Mediterranean.
+
+To better his condition he offered his services to Barbarossa at Algiers,
+who accepted this new subordinate with joy, delighted to have so valiant
+and capable a man under his orders.
+
+"During some years," says J. Morgan in his _Compleat History of Algiers_,
+1728, "he was by that basha intrusted in the direction of sundry momentous
+expeditions; in which he acquitted himself much to the satisfaction of his
+principal: as having never once been unsuccessful." When we remember the
+treatment meted out by Barbarossa to some of his unsuccessful lieutenants,
+Dragut must be esteemed a very fortunate man. His master, we are told,
+advanced him to all the military offices of the State--it would be
+interesting to know what these were in a purely piratical confederation
+ruled by a pirate! In the end Dragut was appointed to be kayia, or
+lieutenant, and given entire command of twelve galleys.
+
+  "From thenceforward this redoubtable corsair passed not one summer
+  without ravaging the coasts of Naples and Sicily; nor durst any
+  Christian vessel attempt to pass between Spain and Italy; for if they
+  offered it he infallibly snapped them up, and when he missed his prey at
+  sea, he made himself amends by making descents along the coasts
+  plundering villages and towns and dragging away multitudes of
+  inhabitants into captivity."
+
+That "no vessel durst pass from Spain to Italy" is no doubt a picturesque
+form of exaggeration on the part of the historian; at the same time, when
+Dragut was at the height of his activities there is no doubt that any one
+passing through those seas ran a great risk of capture; so much so in fact
+that at this period, from 1538, the date of the battle of Prevesa, until
+Lepanto in 1571, all maritime commerce in the Mediterranean was greatly
+circumscribed. At the beginning of this epoch, which saw the rise of the
+Moslem corsairs, these robbers perforce confined themselves more to the
+North African coast than was the case later on. The pioneers of the
+piratical movement, after the fatal date 1492, which saw the wholesale
+expulsion of the Moors from Spain, were comparatively speaking inexpert
+practitioners in the art and mystery of piracy; they had not the habit of
+the sea, and in consequence confined their depredations to the
+neighbourhood of their own selected ports in Africa, which dominated that
+sea lane running east and west through the Mediterranean, which then, as
+now, was one of the greatest highways of commerce of the world. Gradually,
+as we have seen, under the able guidance of the two Barbarossas, but
+particularly that of the second and greater of the two, piracy became a
+commonplace in the north, as well as in the south, of the tideless sea; the
+corsairs, as time went on, even devoting more time and attention to the
+coast of Italy and the islands of the archipelago than they did to the
+recognised trade routes. These latter had become by 1540 similar to an
+estate which has been shot over too frequently; birds had become both wild
+and scarce, it was hardly worth while to go over the ground, except now and
+again on the chance of picking up a straggler. Towns and islands, on the
+other hand, even if they did not yield much in the way of actual plunder,
+were always good cover to beat for slaves, which had a certain value in the
+markets of Algiers and Tunis. Another circumstance which had led to the now
+frequent raids on the littoral of the European countries was the
+countenance and support accorded to the corsairs by the Grand Turk: so
+admirably did they fit into the scheme of his ambitions, that by the time
+Dragut arrived at a commanding position they were, so to speak, officially
+recognised as a fighting asset of the Sublime Porte; and, as we have seen,
+the Sultan did not hesitate to lend his picked troops, the Janissaries, to
+the corsairs when engaged in their ordinary piratical business. To the
+Grand Turk the corsairs were Moslems who were prepared to fight on his
+side, and who, taking it all in all, really cost him hardly anything; in
+fact, at this date, owing to the magnificent gifts made to the Sultan by
+Kheyr-ed-Din, the Padishah must have made something out of his association
+with the sea-wolves.
+
+By the year 1540 Dragut had distinctly "arrived"; that is to say, he had
+succeeded in making himself so dreaded that Charles V. ordered Andrea Doria
+to seek him out and destroy him at any cost. The Christian admiral was "to
+endeavour by all possible means to purge the sea of so insufferable a
+nuisance."
+
+Andrea got ready a fleet, which he entrusted, together with the care and
+management of this affair, to his nephew Jannetin Doria. This was the
+nephew who, in the disastrous attack by Charles on Hassan Aga at Algiers in
+the following year, was so nearly lost in the storm which destroyed the
+fleet of the emperor; and of whom Andrea Doria is reported to have said,
+"It was decreed that Jannetin should be reduced to such an extremity
+purposely to convince the world that it was not impossible for Andrea Doria
+to shed a tear." Certainly from what we know of the celebrated Genoese
+admiral it is hard to imagine him in a tearful mood. Jannetin Doria put to
+sea, and, after a long hunt, found the object of his quest at Andior on the
+coast of Corsica; Dragut was at anchor in the road of Goialatta, under a
+castle situated between Cabri and Liazzo. The corsair knew nothing of his
+enemies being at sea, and was in consequence keeping no particular
+look-out. Although we are not told the composition of the fleet of Jannetin
+Doria, it must have been a large one, as Dragut had under his orders
+thirteen galleys, and was unable to withstand the attack to which he was
+subject. He was also assailed from the shore, as well as the sea, as the
+castle under which he was at anchor opened fire upon him as soon as it was
+discovered by its garrison that the new arrivals were Christians. The fire
+was too hot for the corsair to withstand, and, to add to his
+embarrassments, the beach soon became lined by hundreds of the fierce
+Corsi, awaiting the inevitable end when they should be able to fall upon
+the defeated Moslems and wipe them from off the face of the earth; it was a
+warfare in which there was no mercy, and if the pirates were to fall into
+the hands of the islanders they knew well that they would be exterminated.
+
+In all his venturesome life things had never gone so badly with Dragut as
+upon this occasion. On the one side, should he and his men land they would
+be massacred; on the other hand, his road to the open sea was barred by an
+immensely superior force. Recognising the logic of circumstances, and
+seeing no way of escape, the white flag was hung out by the Moslem leader.
+The only terms, however, which he could obtain were immediate surrender or
+instant death. It must have been a moment of anguish to the man who
+hitherto had always ridden on the crest of the wave of success and
+achievement to be thus trapped like a rat; and to have the added bitterness
+of the thought that had he exercised seamanlike care and precaution in
+keeping a good look-out he might have escaped. As it was, he was allowed no
+time for reflection, but had to decide on the instant: he did the only
+thing possible in the circumstances, which was to haul down his flag and to
+become the thrall of his lifelong foes.
+
+The principal captives were made to pass before young Doria. When Dragut
+beheld him he cried out in a fury: "What! Am I a slave to that effeminate
+Caramite?" for Doria was but a beardless youth. These opprobrious epithets
+being interpreted to the young nobleman, "highly incensed he flew at
+Dragut, tore out his beard and moustaches, and buffeted him most
+outrageously: nay his passion was so great it is said that had he not been
+prevented, he certainly would have sheathed his sword in the bowels of that
+assuming prisoner."
+
+For four long years Dragut rowed in Doria's galley. No distinctions were
+made in those days, and knight or noble, companion or grand master, basha
+or boy, was, if caught, condemned to the rowers' bench to slave at the oar
+beneath the boatswain's lash, perchance alongside some degraded criminal,
+filthy and swarming with vermin. While Dragut was employed as a galley
+slave there came on board the craft in which he rowed Monsieur Parisot,
+Grand Master of the Knights of Malta. This high officer, recognising his
+old enemy, called out to him in Spanish:
+
+"Hola, Senor Dragut, usanza de guerra" ("The usage of war, Senor Dragut").
+
+To which the undaunted corsair merely replied with a laugh:
+
+"Y mudanza de fortuna" ("And a change of luck").
+
+The Grand Master, who had known the chain and lash himself, smiled and
+passed on--there was no pity in those days.
+
+But Dragut was not destined to end his life as a galley slave, for, when
+indeed hope must have died within him, after more than four years of this
+veritable hell upon earth, there sailed one day into the harbour of Genoa
+the great Kheyr-ed-Din himself. The Admiralissimo of the Grand Turk, full
+of years, honours, and booty, was on his last cruise, and one of the last
+acts of his active life was the rescue of Dragut, the man who had served
+him so well, and for whom he had so high a regard as a resourceful mariner,
+from the degrading servitude into which he had fallen. The Spanish
+historian, Marmol, recounts that the sum of three thousand ducats was paid
+by Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa for the redemption of Dragut. As this history
+was published in 1573, we must conclude that the author who wrote of these
+events so soon after they had happened is correct; at the same time,
+Barbarossa was in command of one hundred galleys of the Grand Turk, and it
+was never his custom to pay for anything which he could take by force.
+However this may have been, and the point is not one of very great
+importance, the Genoese Senate was terrified lest their territory should be
+ravaged; they wrote accordingly to their Grand Admiral, requesting that
+Dragut might be released and sent on board of the galley of the admiral
+basha. This was immediately done, and the man who for four years had tugged
+at the Christian oar was once again in a position to make war on those who
+had been for that period his masters.
+
+Not only had he tugged at the Christian oar, but also he had tasted of the
+Christian whip--and of very little else, as the food of the rower was as
+scanty as it was disgusting; in consequence, if he had been an implacable
+foe to Christendom before this event, he was not likely to have become less
+so while toiling in the Genoese galley.
+
+The practical retirement of Barbarossa from that sphere of activity in
+which his life had been passed now left Dragut-Reis the most feared and the
+most formidable of all the Moslem corsairs in the Mediterranean. From the
+time of his release by Barbarossa until the day of his death at the siege
+of Malta in 1565, he followed the example shown him by that prince among
+pirates with so much assiduity as to render him only second to Kheyr-ed-Din
+in the detestation in which he was held. Says Morgan: "The ill-treatment he
+had met with during his four years' captivity was no small addition to the
+Innate Rapaciousness of his Disposition."
+
+In the year 1546, Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa died, and to replace him the
+Sultan Soliman ordered all the mariners in his dominions to acknowledge
+Dragut-Reis as their admiral, and to obey him in the same manner as they
+had obeyed his predecessor. From this date he was the foremost corsair in
+the Mediterranean, and the feats which were performed by him showed that
+the Padishah had not erred in his selection.
+
+The ambition of Dragut increased with his power, and he determined,
+following the example of the Barbarossas, to seize and hold some strong
+place of arms possessed of a commodious port in which he might be the
+supreme ruler. Accordingly, in the depth of winter in the year 1548, at a
+time which was, as we have pointed out, a close season for piratical
+enterprises, and during which attack from the sea was not expected, he
+collected all the corsairs whom he could gather, and fell upon the
+Spaniards on the coast of Tunis, at Susa, at Sfax, and at Monastir. These
+places had been taken from the corsairs in the previous summer by Andrea
+Doria; they formed a sort of regular battle-ground when the combatants were
+in want of something to do, and were held alternately by the King of Tunis,
+the Spaniards, and the corsairs.
+
+Dragut was well aware that as soon as the spring arrived he would be
+attacked; he also knew that the attack would come in sufficient force to
+drive him out, as none of these towns was really strong or easily defended;
+in consequence he concentrated his attention on the town of "Africa,"
+otherwise known as Mehedia, and in the Roman histories as Adrumentum.
+
+This great city lay some leagues to the east of Tunis on a tongue of land
+projecting into the sea; its fortifications were regular, its walls of
+great thickness, height, and solidity, and were strengthened by many towers
+and bulwarks; the guns were large, numerous, and in good condition. At the
+back of the town, on an eminence, stood a large fortress, the citadel of
+the place; the harbour was large and secure, with an inner basin forming a
+port for galleys; the entrance to this was closed by a strong chain. The
+sea washed the walls of the city; indeed, it was entirely surrounded,
+except where by a narrow neck of land it joined the shore.
+
+The inhabitants, natives of the place, had shaken off the yoke of the King
+of Tunis, and had formed themselves into a kind of independent republic.
+They admitted neither Turk nor Christian within their walls, trusting
+neither party, and fearing from them the fate which befell Susa, Sfax, and
+Monastir.
+
+"Africa" was the goal of the desires of Dragut-Reis: once in possession of
+this, by far the strongest city on the littoral of Northern Africa, he
+thought that he might abide secure against the attacks of Charles and of
+Andrea Doria. He had seen the enormous expedition of 1541 against Algiers
+come to naught on account of the wholesale wrecking of the fleet in which
+it had sailed by a tempest of unexampled violence. But he was too
+level-headed a man to think that a miracle like this would be likely to
+come to pass a second time for his own special behoof, and preferred to act
+the part of the strong man armed who keepeth his goods in peace. He had,
+however, first to gain over the inhabitants of "Africa" to his views, and
+they proved anything but anxious to listen to his blandishments. The more
+he tried to ingratiate himself the less inclined did these people seem to
+listen.
+
+"My ambition," said the silver-tongued corsair, "is to become a citizen of
+your great and beautiful city. If you will admit me to its privileges it
+shall be my business to render you the richest people in the whole
+Mediterranean, and your city the most dreaded place in the world."
+
+The "Africans," however, were obdurate; they knew a pirate when they saw
+him quite as well as any one else, and they were quite aware that, should
+they open their gates to Dragut, sooner or later they would have to stand a
+siege from the Christian forces, which was a thing they by no means
+desired.
+
+But Dragut was not yet at the end of his resources; he was rich, and he
+spent money freely in order to gain over to his side those men of
+importance by whom such a question as this was bound to be decided. By rich
+presents and other blandishments he succeeded in securing the friendship of
+one Ibrahim Amburac, who was not only a leader among the inhabitants, but
+also governor of one of the towers by which the city was surrounded.
+Through him he approached the Council by which the town was ruled, only to
+receive a very decided negative: the Council observed the outward forms of
+politeness to this formidable person who was speaking them so fair: in
+reality, they hated and feared the corsairs only one degree less than they
+did Andrea Doria and his Christians. To admit the one was to bring upon
+themselves the vengeance of the other; therefore if they could keep them
+both out they intended so to do. The ill-omened courtesy of the corsair
+filled their hearts with apprehension, and they viewed his immediate
+departure, after the refusal of the council had been conveyed to him, with
+undisguised relief. Had they but known their man a little better, their
+uneasiness would have been far greater than their joy at his temporary
+absence. Those things desired by Dragut which he could not obtain by fair
+means he usually seized by the strong hand; and when he left so hurriedly,
+and at the same time so unostentatiously, he had already entered into a
+plot with Ibrahim Amburac. This leader, furious at the rebuff which he had
+received at the hands of his fellow councillors on the subject of the
+admittance of Dragut to the citizenship of "Africa," was now ready to
+deliver that city into the hands of the corsairs by treachery.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+DRAGUT-REIS
+
+  How the corsairs captured the town of "Africa"; of its recapture by
+  Andrea Doria and its eventual total destruction by Charles V.
+
+Dragut had made it a practice never to appear in the harbour of "Africa" in
+any great force, as he had no desire to frighten the birds whom he desired
+to snare; on the occasion of which we are now speaking he had but two
+galleys, and their departure from the outer harbour passed almost
+unnoticed, as the ruck of the population were accustomed to visits from the
+corsairs, who came to fill up with provisions and fresh water. Swiftly as
+hawks his vessels swept along the coast collecting the garrisons of Susa,
+Sfax, and Monastir to aid him in his latest design; they were all picked
+men and singularly apt for the stern business which their leader destined
+them to undertake. In this manner he soon collected five hundred of the
+stoutest and most reckless fighters who sailed out of the ports of Northern
+Africa, and, when it became noised abroad among them what the service was
+for which they were required, there was universal joy and eagerness. True
+the adventure was a formidable one: to capture "Africa" was no light task,
+even for such men as these under so renowned a leader; there was further
+the difficulty that the persons against whom they went up to fight were no
+Christians but Moslems like themselves. But against this was the
+declaration of Dragut, who represented to his following that there was
+really no choice in the matter; that to these stiffnecked and singularly
+ungrateful people he had offered the protection of the corsairs, that they
+had refused in the most contumelious manner, and in consequence there was
+nothing for it but the strong hand. They--that is to say the corsairs--knew
+right well that some strong place of arms in which to shelter themselves
+and their vessels was an absolute necessity for their continued existence,
+as at any moment Doria or the Knights of Malta might be on their track in
+superior force, and then what was their fate likely to be if they had no
+harbour under their lee in which to shelter? Further it was hinted that
+"Africa" would provide very nice pickings in the way of loot, and when this
+came to be generally understood the promptings of the Mahommedan conscience
+yielded easily to the sophistries with which it was lulled.
+
+The council of the town of "Africa" troubled themselves but little more
+concerning Dragut, his ships, and his corsairs; he had departed, and as the
+days wore on and no further tidings of him came to hand, these simple folk
+thanked God that they were rid of a knave and went about their usual
+avocations as unconcernedly as if no sea-wolves lurked under the shadowed
+headlands of that continent in which their homes were situated. They were a
+people essentially of the land; although they dwelt on the confines of the
+ocean the ways and habits of those who earned a precarious living on the
+waters were a sealed book to them, and with the "Africans" it was a case of
+"out of sight out of mind" so far as the corsairs were concerned. But that
+black-hearted traitor Ibrahim Amburac and the few others who had been
+gained over by the gold of Dragut watched and waited for the attack which
+they knew to be impending.
+
+The inhabitants of the doomed city never saw their assailants until they
+were actually upon them, so well had the surprise attack been planned by
+the leader of the corsairs. He had collected five hundred men, and this was
+but a small number with which to assail so strong a place; but Dragut knew
+exactly what he was doing and the effect likely to be produced by the
+introduction of this number of highly trained men-at-arms among a
+population which, although brave and warlike, lacked the elements of
+organisation for the defence of their city.
+
+So it was that, all preparations being completed, he stood along the coast
+anchoring out of sight of his objective, but close enough to reach it by
+midnight after darkness had fallen. He had every confidence in himself, an
+absolute trust in the hardbitten fighters whom he was about to lead;
+success or failure now rested in the hands of traitors within the city.
+
+"Faith unfaithful kept them falsely true," for when Dragut and his
+followers arrived at a certain rendezvous outside the walls which had been
+agreed upon previously, there they found Ibrahim Amburac and his men ready
+to assist them in scaling this obstacle. It will be remembered that Ibrahim
+Amburac was personally in charge of one of the towers with which the walls
+were guarded, and thus his task of aiding those who came from without was a
+singularly easy one. But even at midnight the passage of five hundred men
+could not remain long undiscovered as they clambered in over the walls.
+Soon an alarm was raised and the "Africans" rushed to arms and hurried to
+the quarter from which danger threatened. The townsmen were well armed and
+brave, also they were numerous; but it was the old story of the break-up of
+undisciplined valour by highly organised attack.
+
+In the choking heat of the African night townsmen and corsairs wrestled in
+deadly conflict hand to hand and foot to foot; but these untrained landsmen
+stood but a poor chance against the picked fighting men of the Moslem
+galleys who had been inured to bloodshed from their earliest youth and
+trained by such a master in the art of war as Dragut. That warrior, his
+great curved scimitar red to the hilt, the blood dripping from a gash in
+his cheek, his clothing torn and in disarray, followed by a gigantic negro
+bearing a flaming torch, was ever in the thickest of the fray. Behind him
+his lieutenants Othman and Selim strove to emulate his prowess, while all
+around surged his devoted band of fanatics.
+
+"Allah! Allah!" and "Dragut! Dragut!" pealed the war-cry of the corsairs;
+foot by foot and yard by yard that spearhead of dauntless dare-devils
+pressed onwards into the packed masses of the "Africans," who, fighting
+stubbornly, nevertheless were borne back by the fury of the terrible
+onslaught. Torch-bearers among the pirates leaped into houses and set them
+ablaze, the flames volleyed and crackled, the dense smoke rolled upwards to
+the stainless sky, the night was a hell of blood and fire.
+
+There was a sharp order repeated and passed on, the corsairs drew back, and
+the "Africans" shouted that the triumph was theirs; but they little knew
+Dragut, the sea-hawk who poised to strike anew. A blazing beam dropped
+across the street, the townsfolk shouted in insult and derision; but the
+joy which they had experienced at seeing their adversaries recoil was but a
+short and fleeting emotion. Giving himself and those who had hitherto been
+engaged time to breathe and recover themselves, Dragut waited while the
+noise of the strife died down, and nought was heard but the roar of the
+flames and the crash of the burning buildings.
+
+The leader turned to his followers, among whom dwelt an ominous silence.
+"Dost remember Prevesa," he cried, "when Andrea Doria and the best of the
+Christian warriors fled before you like sheep before a dog: are these
+miserable townsmen to stay your onward march?"
+
+There remained for an appreciable period after he had spoken a tense
+silence; the red light from the burning houses shone on the lean faces
+alight with the fierce fire of fanaticism, with an inextinguishable lust of
+slaughter. There came an answering frenetic roar, "Lead! Lead! Dragut!
+Dragut! Dragut!" It was enough: the corsair had tried the temper of the
+steel, he had now but to use the edge. There was an ordered movement on the
+part of the pirates: a fresh hundred men, who had hitherto taken no part in
+the combat, now pressed to the front and formed the advance, those who had
+been before engaged now forming the supports; that which had been the shaft
+of the spear now forming its head. With Dragut leading, these fresh
+unwounded men swept forward over the burning beam; irresistible as some
+mighty river in spate, these disciplined ruffians, headed by this master
+spirit, burst through the ill-organised resistance opposed to them, and
+slew and slew and slew.
+
+Behind them, alert and wary, came the supports, asking no quarter and
+giving none, cutting up the wounded, trampling under foot friend and foe
+alike who fell in the weltering shambles which marked the onward path of
+their leader and the advanced party. Very soon the broken hosts of the
+"Africans" cried piteously for mercy; the fight was over, and Dragut-Reis,
+wounded, breathless, but victorious, stood master of the strongest place of
+arms in all the continent of Africa. It is true that treachery had given
+him his opportunity, but once that was obtained the rest he had done for
+himself: the stealthy advance by sea, the midnight march to the exact spot
+on the walls where he was awaited by Ibrahim Amburac, the marshalling of
+his five hundred for the conflict, and the actual conduct of the fight
+itself, were all to the credit of this apt pupil of the great Kheyr-ed-Din
+Barbarossa, As warriors his followers were worthy of their leader: defeated
+the corsairs frequently were, but, in the combats in which they engaged,
+they were frequently, as we have seen in the course of this story, largely
+dependent upon auxiliaries in whom no trust could be placed; and at
+Prevesa, at the siege of Malta, and later on at the battle of Lepanto, the
+spot on which they fought, were it on the land or on the sea, was ever the
+one which formed the nucleus of resistance. It was not only that fighting
+was their particular trade; that, of course, might be said also of any man
+who trailed a pike or carried an arquebus and marched in the ranks of
+Spain, France, Genoa, or Venice. In the case of the sea-wolves it was the
+perpetual practice in the art of war, as it was then understood, that
+caused them to be the men that they were. Much of their fighting could
+hardly be dignified by such a name, as in their everlasting raids on
+villages and undefended places they seldom lost many of their number: when,
+however, it came to the real thing, as it did on the occasion we have just
+recounted, the long years of training told, and opposition had to be strong
+indeed if it were not to be beaten down by such a leader as Dragut, by such
+men as his picked five hundred.
+
+What passed between Dragut and the council of "Africa," who in so
+unqualified a manner had refused that warrior as a citizen, is not on
+record; all that we know is that the Moslem leader dispensed with their
+services, and did not invite his new fellow-townsmen to share with him the
+burden of government. There was hurry in the administration of the corsair
+states, as the form of rule which they adopted was apt to irk the rulers in
+Christendom. In this particular instance Dragut, having expelled the
+Spaniards from the coast towns, knew that a reckoning with the Emperor and
+his militant admiral, Andrea Doria, was but a matter of time, and, in all
+probability, of a very short time.
+
+Promptly, hurriedly, but efficiently, the corsair organised his new
+possession: such laws as he decreed did not err on the side of tenderness
+towards a people so ungrateful as to have refused his protection in the
+first instance, and who had only accepted the gift at the point of the
+sword. His nephew Aisa, a man young in years but a past-graduate in the
+school of his terrible uncle, was left in charge, while Dragut himself
+sailed once more with his fleet, for, as it is put by the Spanish historian
+Marmol, "truly the sea was his element."
+
+Once again had a Moslem corsair bid defiance to that ruler whom Sandoval
+and Marmol in their histories greet by the name of the "Modern Caesar." It
+was told to Charles that Susa, Sfax, and Monastir had fallen, that "Africa"
+was in the hands of the corsairs; "was he never to be free from these
+pestilent knaves," he demanded of his trembling courtiers? Hot-foot came
+the couriers from Charles to Andrea Doria, with orders to take Dragut dead
+or alive, but alive for choice; and up and down the tideless sea in the
+summer of 1549 did the great Genoese seaman range in search of the bold
+corsair. Doria was getting a very old man now, but his eye was undimmed,
+his strength yet tireless, his vigilance and zeal in the service of his
+master unabated.
+
+Dead or alive, great was the reward offered for the capture of Dragut, but
+the veteran admiral required no stimulus of this sort to urge him to put
+forth his utmost endeavours, to strain every nerve and sinew in the chase.
+All his life he had been fighting the corsairs, mostly with conspicuous
+success; but what Andrea could never forget--and what his enemies never
+allowed him to forget even had he been so inclined--was the fact that, at
+the supreme crisis of his valiant life, when he met with Kheyr-ed-Din
+Barbarossa at the battle of Prevesa, he had come off so badly that his
+under officers of the Papal and Venetian fleets had made representations,
+on their return to their respective headquarters, which had detracted from
+his fame, and lowered him in the estimation of Europe. Further than this,
+he knew that Barbarossa had laughed at and made game of him among his wild
+followers: this to the aristocrat, the Prince of Oneglia, the admiral who
+treated on almost equal terms with such men as the Pope, Charles of Spain,
+and Francis of France, was an insult hard to be borne; the next corsair
+with whom he should meet should not escape so easily as had Kheyr-ed-Din,
+that the admiral had sworn.
+
+Personal pique and vanity, racial detestation, and religious fanaticism
+were in his case all allied together to spur him on in the chase of this
+the last of the Emperor's foes; but, search as he might, during that summer
+Doria could never get on to the track of Dragut. The corsairs, as we have
+just remarked, were fine fighters on occasion when it was necessary for the
+purposes of loot, or of escape from those who, like Doria, interfered with
+their particular method of gaining a livelihood; but, on the other hand,
+they were no fools, they did not covet hard knocks and the possibility of
+defeat from such a one as the admiral of the Emperor, when by the exercise
+of a little ingenuity they could keep out of his way. Dragut was not going
+to fight a general action at sea merely to please Doria; in this summer his
+luck stood to him, and he never came across this man, who, with a sombre
+hatred in his heart, was seeking him high and low. If the corsair were bold
+as a lion when occasion offered, he was no less as slippery as an eel when
+he desired to escape; to face twenty-two royal galleys with Doria in
+command was no part of his programme. An occasion might arise when he would
+be forced to action; should this happen Dragut had not forgotten his four
+years in the galley of Jannetin Doria, the nephew of the admiral, and next
+time he intended to fight to win. Just at present the Christian admiral was
+in too great strength for him to do aught but keep out of his way, and much
+to Andrea's annoyance this was what he succeeded in doing.
+
+Doria got information that Dragut was at Monastir, information that was
+perfectly correct; but by this time the corsair knew that not only had he
+raised all Christendom, but that the admiral was on his track. In
+consequence, he slipped out of Monastir, "for," as it is pithily put by
+Marmol, "our corsair cared not to be shut up in so defenceless a port; he
+had good heels and loved sea-room."
+
+Dragut did not fear for his new possession, "Africa," as he knew that Doria
+had not sufficient force to attack so formidable a place; therefore,
+leaving it to its destiny and the valour and conduct of his nephew Aisa, on
+whom he knew that he could rely, "he went," according to the chronicler,
+"on his old trade making Horrid Devastations on the coast of Spain and its
+islands."
+
+While Dragut was pursuing his "Horrid Devastations," Doria was not idle,
+but was ranging the northern coast of Africa in his fruitless search; in
+the course of this he landed at Cape Bona, on which was the castle of
+Calibia, held by the corsairs; these men, who were a portion of Dragut's
+following, made a most valiant defence; they were, however, few in number,
+and when their captain was killed by the ball from an arquebus they
+surrendered. Encouraged by this success, the Christian fleet then stood
+along the coast to inspect "Africa." Sailing quite close to the shore they
+came within range of the guns of the garrison, who, under the direction of
+Aisa, were very much on the alert. As the admiral's galley at the head of
+the line passed the walls of the town, she was received with a hot fire,
+and one large cannonball struck the stern of Doria's ship, doing
+considerable structural damage, and killing five of his men. This
+occurrence took place in broad daylight in full view of all the garrison,
+who signalled their delight at the discomfiture of their foes by the noise
+of cymbals and atambours, and by wild and ferocious yells. Doria, who was
+in no position to land and make reprisals, fell into the greatest paroxysm
+of fury, and we are told that "he swore the destruction of that detested
+city."
+
+The season being now advanced, Doria returned home, where he found orders
+awaiting him from Charles that preparation was to be made for the capture
+of "Africa". While the admiral was in harbour, Dragut, finding the seas
+open to him once more, returned from his "Horrid Devastations," and
+employed his time profitably in throwing provisions and men into the city,
+which he knew would be beleagured in the following year.
+
+During the ensuing winter Doria, in conjunction with the viceroys of Naples
+and Sicily, prepared the expedition which was to accomplish not only the
+capture of "Africa," but what was, in his opinion, equally important, the
+destruction of Dragut-Reis, Early in the spring of 1550, all was in
+readiness, and the armada of Charles sailed from Palermo to Trapani, where
+it met with the forces of Don Juan de Vega, Viceroy of Sicily, those of Don
+Garcia de Toledo, the son of the Viceroy of Naples, and likewise the
+Maltese squadron. The galleys, accompanied by a fleet of transports, set
+sail early in June, and on the 20th of that month landed an army a little
+to the east of Mehedia or "Africa".
+
+It must be remembered that the inhabitants of Mehedia were by no means
+enamoured of Dragut-Reis and his piratical followers: King Stork had
+succeeded to King Log, the part of the former monarch being taken by that
+singularly capable and ferocious person, Aisa, whose rule was far from
+being to the liking of the richer and more respectable portion of the
+townsfolk.
+
+When, therefore, Andrea Doria and his captains laid siege to the city, they
+murmured against its defence, desiring ardently to enter into some sort of
+treaty with the besiegers; they had had enough of war, they said, and
+wished to end their days in peace if possible.
+
+Aisa Reis, however, would hear no word of surrender, telling those who
+murmured against the defence that "if he heard a word more of these plots
+he would infallibly sacrifice every mother's son amongst them, and then lay
+the town in ashes." Having already had a taste of the quality of this
+redoubtable corsair, and feeling perfectly certain that should the occasion
+arise he would be as good as his word, there was no more disaffection among
+the inhabitants, who had to put up with their native place being made a
+cockpit for Doria and Dragut to fight out their quarrel. It is permissible
+to sympathise very sincerely with these unfortunates, who, having been
+betrayed in the first instance, were compelled to stand a siege in the
+second.
+
+Aisa had a picked force of his uncle's men, some seventeen hundred foot and
+six hundred horse, all seasoned and formidable veterans, inured to warfare
+by land and sea. On these of course he could rely to the death. The common
+folk of the town were inclined to make common cause with the corsairs in
+resistance to their hereditary enemy the Christians; but the magistrates
+and members of the council, the grave and reverend signiors, held so
+conspicuously aloof that Aisa was constrained into forcing them to aid in
+the defence when he had time to attend to the matter. As Dragut was not
+actually present at the siege it falls outside the scope of this chronicle;
+he was without the walls when the besiegers arrived, but all that he could
+do, that he did. With a body of his own men reinforced by a rabble rout of
+Berber tribesmen, he harassed the Christian army; they were, however, in
+far too great numbers for him to make any impression, and after several
+desperate skirmishes he recognised that the day was lost, and re-embarking
+in his galleys sailed away. The town after a desperate and prolonged
+resistance was at last taken by storm; and Doria captured Aisa, a Turkish
+alcaid, and ten thousand prisoners of the baser sort. Of these, however,
+there was scarce one who owed allegiance to Dragut; the warriors of this
+chief neither gave nor accepted quarter, as they feared the wrath of the
+terrible corsair even more than death itself.
+
+Don Juan de Vega put his son Don Alvaro in command of the city and set out
+in search of Dragut with twenty galleys, but the sea leaves no traces by
+which a fugitive can be tracked, and his search proved as fruitless as had
+been that of Doria in the previous year. The rage and the disappointment of
+the admiral were beyond all bounds; what to him was the value of the
+capture of Aisa, of the Turkish alcaid, of the ten thousand of the baser
+sort; nay, what to him was the value of "Africa" itself when once again
+like a mocking spirit Dragut had glided beyond the sea horizon to
+devastate, to plunder, and to slay once more, the scourge and the menace of
+Christendom.
+
+It will be interesting to record briefly the fate of this city which we
+have seen taken and retaken. Don Alvaro de Vega remained as governor till
+the end of July, 1551, when his place was taken by Don Sancho de Leyva; at
+which time there took place one of those curious military mutinies so
+characteristic of the sixteenth century. The soldiers, unpaid for months,
+possibly for years, mutinied, expelled the governor and other officers,
+even the sergeants, from the city, and placed themselves under the
+direction of a stout soldier called Antonio de Aponte, to whom they gave
+the title of "Electo Mayor."
+
+Don Sancho repaired to Brussels to report matters to the Emperor, and
+during his absence a circumstance which is also singularly characteristic
+of this faithless epoch took place, for the Prior of Capua, then general of
+the French galleys, entered into negotiations with the mutineers for the
+surrender of the city to the French King.
+
+Bluff Antonio de Aponte would have none of this treachery; he held the city
+for the Emperor Charles and only wanted his pay. Eventually a mutiny within
+a mutiny was fomented from without, and with the mutineers divided the
+Emperor regained possession of the city; some of the mutineers were hanged,
+and Aponte, who had been captured by the Turks, died at Constantinople.
+
+The Emperor offered "Africa" to the Knights of Malta with a yearly
+allowance of twenty-four thousand ducats; the Knights refused, much to the
+chagrin of Charles, who gave orders for its complete destruction. This was
+accomplished by blowing up with gunpowder the walls, towers, and
+fortifications which Al-Mehedi, after whom the city had been named, "had
+erected with such art and strength, and had his mind so fixed upon that
+work that he used to say, 'If I thought building these fortifications with
+iron and brass would render them more durable, I would certainly do it.'"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+DRAGUT-REIS
+
+  How Dragut was blockaded in the Island of Jerbah--How he left Andrea
+  Dona "with the dog to hold"--His return to Constantinople, and how he
+  sailed from thence with a great expedition against the Knights of Malta.
+
+Charles V. had "smoked out the fox," but his admiral in so doing had not
+succeeded in capturing that remarkably wily animal; for Dragut was not only
+still at liberty, but was burning for revenge on those by whom he had been
+dispossessed. He had lost "his city," as he called "Africa"; he had lost
+two thousand five hundred men--among them some of the fiercest and most
+experienced of his corsairs; he had lost ten thousand slaves, representing
+a large sum of money, and much wealth besides. The corsair, however, was
+not one of those who merely sit down and repine; for him strenuous and
+continued action was the law of his being, and he at once repaired to
+Constantinople. Here he was well known as an adroit and skilful seaman and
+a most determined enemy of the Christians, and, in consequence, was not
+only certain of a welcome, but of substantial help as well, if he could but
+win over the Grand Turk to take the same view of his grievances as he did
+himself. In reality, the corsairs, as we have seen, played the game of the
+Padishah, as a rule, at no expense to that potentate; when they were in
+trouble he was therefore by no means indisposed to render them assistance.
+
+Dragut, like all the sea-wolves, was fond of money, fonder still of what
+money could buy; he now hankered after revenge as the sweetest morsel that
+his hoarded ducats could procure for him. That the Sultan was well disposed
+to him he had every reason to think; none the less did he spend royally
+among the venal favourites of the Court in order that nothing might be left
+undone to inflame the ardour of Soliman against those whom he considered to
+be his hereditary foes.
+
+With such skill and address did the corsair manage his suit that he
+prevailed upon the Sultan to address a letter to Charles demanding the
+immediate return of the towns of Susa, Sfax, Monastir, and "Africa." This,
+of course, meant war; as Charles immediately replied that these places were
+dependencies of the King of Tunis, and that that ruler was under his
+special protection; further that they were his by right of conquest;
+finally that the matter was no concern whatever of the Sultan of
+Constantinople. The stern and imperious Christian Emperor was in no mood to
+brook interference, the more so that he discerned plainly that though the
+demand was that of Soliman, the mover in the affair was none other than
+Dragut. He therefore by way of a rider to his answer to the Sultan informed
+that monarch that these places which he had taken on the coast of Africa
+had been reft by him "from one Dragut, a corsair odious to both God and
+man"; that without in any way departing from the treaty which he had made
+with Soliman "he intended to pursue this pirate whithersoever he might go."
+
+Whether or no this denunciation of Dragut had any influence on the Sultan
+it is impossible to say; he was in the habit of employing the corsairs, and
+apparently cared nothing about their piratical reputation, so long as their
+depredations were confined to Christian vessels. Shortly after the receipt
+of the answer of Charles, however, the Sultan conferred upon Dragut the
+title of Sandjak or governor of the island of Santa Maura, thus
+constituting him a Turkish official.
+
+Once again was Andrea Doria ordered to put to sea to fight against neither
+small nor great save Dragut alone; he was to take him dead or alive, but
+alive for choice, in order that he might be made to answer at the bar of
+Christian justice for all the atrocities committed by him both by land and
+sea. The corsair had returned in the meanwhile to Jerbah, an island on the
+east coast of Tunis much affected by the sea-wolves, and which in
+contemporary histories is known as Jerbah, as Los Gelues (by the Spanish
+writers), as Gelves, and various other names which greatly confuse its
+identity.
+
+Doria put to sea with twenty-two royal galleys before Dragut was aware of
+the fact. The Genoese admiral heard that his prey was at Jerbah; he
+repaired thither without losing a moment, found that he had been correctly
+informed, and anchored at the mouth of the harbour, at a place known as La
+Bocca de Cantara. Dragut was completely hemmed in, Doria was in such
+strength that he could not, reckless as he was, attempt to force the
+passage. But as the hour came the spirit of the corsair rose to answer the
+challenge: it was one thing to get Dragut-Reis into a trap, it was quite
+another to keep him there. Accordingly, he assembled all his troops,
+dragged cannon to the mouth of the harbour, and opened so brisk a foe on
+the Christian ships as to compel them to haul out of range. These tactics
+left Doria unaffected; there was but one way out of the harbour, and he
+felt quite convinced that when Dragut had had enough of starvation he would
+either surrender or else fight a hopeless action. The admiral surveyed his
+anchored fleet with a contented mind; his enemy had been delivered into his
+hand, he had nothing to do now but wait for that final triumph of appearing
+before his master the Emperor with the famous corsair as his prisoner. He
+saw a great fort rising before his very eyes at the mouth of the harbour,
+and merely smiled serenely; he sent off to Sicily and Naples for
+reinforcements in order that when the psychological moment should arise he
+might crush the corsair stronghold so thoroughly that it should never rise
+again. In the despatches which he sent he said "the fox is trapped"--"which
+news rejoiced all parts of Christendom, and most powerful succours came
+daily flocking to the seaports from every quarter; so eager were the
+sufferers to revenge themselves on this so much dreaded corsair."
+
+The history of what now happened is given by Don Luys de Marmol Caravajal
+in his "Descripcion general de Affrica," which was printed in Granada, "en
+casa de Rene Rabat impresor de libros ano de 1573," or only some twenty
+years or so after these occurrences; it is set forth in his chapter
+entitled "Como Andrea Doria fue en buscar de these occurrences; it is set
+forth in his chapter Dragut Arraez." We have also the authority of that
+eminent historian, M. L'Abbe de Vertot.
+
+Captain Juan Vasquez Coronado journeyed to Naples carrying with him letters
+from Andrea Doria to Don Pedro de Toledo, requesting that the Viceroy would
+send him all the galleys in Naples, carrying as many soldiers as possible,
+pointing out that he had Dragut in a trap, from which he could not possibly
+escape, but that this time he wished to make security doubly secure.
+Letters to the same purport were also sent to Don Juan de Vega, the Viceroy
+of Sicily, and to Marco Centurion at the admiral's own city of Genoa. Doria
+was leaving nothing to chance this time. Meanwhile, great earthworks had
+been thrown up at the Bocca de Cantara at the entrance of the harbour by
+Dragut, and any ship which approached within range was most furiously
+bombarded. This served to amuse Andrea Doria, who, confident that the jaws
+of the trap had closed, kept a sharp look-out for vessels issuing from the
+harbour, but otherwise concerned himself not at all about the
+entrenchments. Was not Naples humming with the note of preparation? Would
+not the Genoese come in their thousands to the summons of their renowned
+chieftain? Could not the Viceroy of Sicily be trusted to work his best to
+gain the favour of his Imperial master?
+
+"Time and I are two" was the favourite expression of King Philip II. of
+Spain; the same idea might have crossed the mind of Doria on this memorable
+occasion. He had only to wait; the longer he waited the more secure he
+would be of success, the more certain would he be of the complete undoing
+of his enemy. But even yet the admiral did not know the man to whom he was
+opposed; in all the years in which he had done battle against Dragut, he
+had never gauged the limitless resource and calculated audacity of this
+lineal successor of Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa. While the admiral had been
+sending his despatches, and idly watching that which he considered to be
+the futile construction of earthworks on the shore at the Bocca de Cantara,
+his enemy was preparing for him that surprise which was shortly afterwards
+to make of him the laughing-stock of the whole of Europe. Dragut was in a
+trap, and he was quite aware of the fact; by way of the Bocca de Cantara
+escape was impossible, and neither a tame surrender nor complete
+annihilation was by any means to the taste of the pirate leader. Had Doria
+gone in and attacked at once, the fate of the corsair had been sealed; the
+policy of delay adopted by the Christian admiral was his salvation.
+
+A man less able, less determined, than Dragut, might well have despaired;
+but he brought to bear on the problem with which he was confronted all the
+subtlety of his nature, all the resourcefulness of the born seaman that he
+was. His mind had been made up from the very beginning: the earthworks at
+the Bocca de Cantara, the movements of troops, the furious cannonading, had
+all been nothing but a blind to hide the real design which he had in view.
+In addition to his fighting men he had at his command some two thousand
+islanders, stout Mohammedans to a man, ready and willing to assist him in
+his design of cheating the Christians of their prey. Day and night, with
+ceaseless silent toil, had garrison and islanders been at work on the
+scheme which the leader had devised. From the head of the harbour Dragut
+had caused a road to be made right across the island to the sea on the
+opposite side: on this road he caused planks to be laid, bolted to sleepers
+and then thickly greased. The vessels of the day were of course
+comparatively speaking light, and capable of being manhandled, supposing
+that you had sufficient hands. At dead of night Dragut assembled his
+forces, and before morning every galley, galeasse, and brigantine had been
+dragged across the island and launched in the sea on the opposite side.
+There was then nothing left to do but to embark stores, guns, and
+ammunition and to sail quietly away, and this was what happened. Once again
+Dragut faded away beyond the skyline, "leaving Andrea Doria with the dog to
+hold," in the quaint language of the chronicler of these events, Don Luys
+de Marmol Caravajal.
+
+Not only did the indefatigable corsair get clear away without any suspicion
+on the part of the admiral, but his first act on gaining the open sea was
+to capture the _Patrona_ galley sent from Sicily by Don Juan de Vega to say
+that reinforcements were on the road. In this ill-fated craft was Buguer,
+the son of Muley Hassan, King of Tunis, who was sent as prize to Soliman at
+Constantinople, where the Sultan caused him to be shut up in the "Torre del
+Mar Negro." Here he remained till he died, as a punishment for that he, a
+Mussulman, had aided the Christians.
+
+Never again was Dragut to be in such sore straits as he was on this
+occasion at the island of Jerbah, when, by sheer wit and cunning, he
+escaped from the trap in which he had been held by Doria. What the emotions
+of the admiral must have been when he found that once again he had been
+fooled, it is not difficult to imagine, as by no possible means could the
+story be hushed up; and, in spite of the annoyance of Christendom generally
+at the escape of Dragut, no one could help admiring his extraordinary
+cleverness, or roaring with laughter at the discomfiture of Doria and the
+viceroys of Naples and Sicily.
+
+Dragut now returned to Constantinople to receive congratulations upon his
+escape, and to take part in a fresh design of stirring up the Sultan
+against the Christians. All who professed this faith were naturally
+obnoxious to the corsair; but his private and personal hatred was entirely
+directed against the Knights of Malta, with whom he had been at war all his
+life. The present preoccupation of the Sultan was to regain the towns on
+the coast of Africa which had been taken by the Spaniards; but it was
+represented to him by Dragut that "until he had smoked out this nest of
+vipers he could do no good anywhere." The Bashaws and the Divan, heavily
+bribed by the corsair, held the same language, until Soliman heard of
+nothing from morning till night but the ill deeds of the Knights of Malta.
+They were represented to him as corsairs who ruined his commerce and
+defeated his armadas, who let slip no opportunity of harrying the Moslem
+wheresoever he was to be found. In this there was more than a grain of
+truth, as we shall see when we come to the next chapter, which will be
+devoted to a sketch of this militant order. Suffice it to say here that the
+Knights fought for what they termed "the Religion" (it was in this manner
+they designated their confederacy), and to harry and enslave the Mussulman,
+to destroy him as a noxious animal wherever he was to be found, was the
+reason for which they existed. It is true that they plundered not for
+individual gain, but many was the rich prize towed into Malta past St. Elmo
+and the ominously named "Punta delle Forche" (the "Point of the Gallows,"
+where all captured pirates were hanged), the proceeds of which went to the
+enrichment of the Order; to buy themselves the wherewithal to fight with
+the Mahommedan again.
+
+The abuse of the Knights fell upon sympathetic ears; in his early days
+Soliman the Magnificent had expelled the Knights from Rhodes; since then
+Charles V. had given them the islands of Malta and Gozo, and the town of
+Tripoli in Barbary as their abiding place; from Malta they had never ceased
+their warfare against the corsairs, and incidentally against the Sultan and
+his subjects. Therefore, in this year 1551, Soliman ordained that an
+expedition should be prepared with the object of crushing once and for all
+these troublers of the peace of Islam. The preparations were on so large a
+scale that very soon it became noised abroad in Europe that something
+really serious was in the wind: in Constantinople, however, men kept their
+own counsel; it was ill talking of the affairs of the Padishah, and,
+further than that, beyond Dragut and the proposed leaders of the
+expedition, the Sultan took no one into his confidence. Charles V., well
+served as he was by his spies, was as much in the dark as to the
+destination of this new armada as were humbler folk; in it he recognised
+the hand of Dragut again, and Doria had standing orders to catch that
+mischievous person if he could. At present, however, there was no chance of
+so desirable a thing happening, as Dragut was superintending the fitting
+out of the new expedition at Constantinople.
+
+Anxious and suspicious of the designs of the Turks, Charles ordered a
+concentration of his fleet at Messina.
+
+The Grand Master of the Knights of Malta at this time was a Spaniard, one
+Juan d'Omedes; he was, says de Vertot, "un Grand Maitre Espagnol," meaning
+by this that he was completely under the domination of the Emperor and
+ready at any time to place the galleys of "the Religion" under the orders
+of that monarch. The Knights, like every one else, had watched with anxiety
+the preparation of this great expedition in Constantinople, and when the
+Grand Master proposed to send the galleys of the Order to join forces with
+Doria at Messina, there was great dissatisfaction at the Council Board.
+That which it behoved them to do, the members informed the Grand Master,
+was not to help a great potentate like Charles, but to make provision for
+their own security by attending to their fortifications, which were in
+anything but a satisfactory condition. D'Omedes maintained that this
+expedition was destined to serve with the King of France against the
+Emperor, and that Malta was not the objective. He accordingly sent away the
+galleys of "the Religion" under the Chevalier "Iron-Foot," the General of
+the Galleys, to join the fleet which had its rendezvous at Messina. Hardly
+had he done so when news came from the Levant that the fleet of the Grand
+Turk was at sea heading for Sicily. The fleet was composed of one hundred
+and twelve royal galleys, two great galeasses, and a host of brigantines
+and transport vessels. Sinan-Reis was in command with twelve thousand
+Janissaries, numerous pioneers and engineers, and all the necessary
+appliances for a siege.
+
+The embarkation of so large a number of Janissaries was the measure of the
+serious purpose of the expedition, as the Sultan did not readily part with
+the men of this _corps d'elite_ unless he was in person taking the command.
+It may be as well to explain here exactly what the Janissaries were, and it
+cannot be better done than by an extract from the famous historian
+Prescott:
+
+  "The most remarkable of the Turkish institutions, the one which may be
+  said to have formed the keystone of the system, was that relating to the
+  Christian population of the Empire. Once in five years a general
+  conscription was made by means of which all the children of Christian
+  parents who had reached the age of seven and gave promise of excellence
+  in mind or body were taken from their homes and brought to the capital.
+  They were then removed to different quarters and placed in seminaries
+  where they might receive such instruction as would fit them for the
+  duties of life. Those giving greatest promise of strength and endurance
+  were sent to places prepared for them in Asia Minor. Here they were
+  subjected to a severe training, to abstinence, to privations of every
+  kind, and to the strict discipline which should fit them for the
+  profession of a soldier. From this body was formed the famous corps of
+  the Janissaries.... Their whole life may be said to have been passed in
+  war or in preparation for it. Forbidden to marry, they had no families
+  to engage their affections, which, as with the monks and friars of
+  Christian countries, were concentrated in their own order, whose
+  prosperity was inseparably connected with that of the State. Proud of
+  the privileges which distinguished them from the rest of the army, they
+  seemed desirous to prove their title to them by their thorough
+  discipline and by their promptness to execute the most dangerous and
+  difficult services. Clad in their flowing robes, so little suited to
+  war, armed with the arquebus and the scimitar--in their hands more than
+  a match for the pike or sword of the European--with the heron's plume
+  waving above their head, their dense array might ever be seen bearing
+  down in the thickest of the fight; and more than once when the fate of
+  the Empire trembled in the balance it was this invincible corps which
+  turned the scale, and by their intrepid conduct decided the fortune of
+  the day. Gathering fresh reputation with age, so long as their
+  discipline remained unimpaired they were a match for the best soldiers
+  in Europe. But in time this admirable organisation experienced a change.
+  One Sultan allowed them to marry; another to bring their sons into the
+  corps; a third opened the ranks to Turks as well as Christians; until,
+  forfeiting their peculiar character, the Janissaries became confounded
+  with the militia of the Empire. These changes occurred in the time of
+  Philip the Second."
+
+But to resume: just before the sailing of the galleys of "the Religion"
+from Malta there had arrived in that island from France the famous
+Chevalier, the Commandeur de Villegagnon. This great noble told the Grand
+Master to his face that he was neglecting his duty, that the expedition of
+the Grand Turk was bound for Malta and Tripoli: further, that he was
+charged by Anne de Montmorency, Constable and First Minister of France, to
+advise the Grand Master that this armament was directed against "the
+Religion." The interview between the Grand Master and de Villegagnon took
+place at a chapter of the Grand Crosses of the Order; when the Commandeur
+had finished speaking, he was coldly thanked by D'Omedes, who then bowed
+him out. Turning to the Knights Grand Cross he said with a sneer, "Either
+this Frenchman is the dupe of the Constable or he wishes to make us his."
+He then proceeded to give at length the reasons why Soliman would not
+direct so huge an expedition against "the Religion." Many of the Knights
+dissented vehemently from his conclusions, but D'Omedes refused to listen
+to their arguments. Even advices which arrived on July 13th, representing
+that the armada was moving southwards devastating the Italian ports, did
+not move him from his obstinate pre-occupation; till on July 16th the
+arrival of the Ottoman fleet put an end to all speculation.
+
+The armada which had sailed from Constantinople was under the command of
+Sinan Basha: but he had explicit orders that he was to take no important
+step without first consulting Dragut, who was nominally his lieutenant. It
+was well for the Knights that on this occasion the corsair was not in
+supreme command; had this been the case the islands must have been taken,
+as no preparations had been made to repulse an attack in force, and Juan
+D'Omedes was a Grand Master who excited little enthusiasm either among the
+Knights or the inhabitants. The choice of Sinan was not one which did great
+credit to the penetration of the Sultan. Let us explain. We are all of us
+conscious at one time or another of a desire to express some fact in the
+fewest possible words; to place the transaction or the circumstance which
+we wish to describe in the searchlight of truth in so undeniable a fashion
+that the illumination consequent upon this mental effort of our own shall
+throw up our meaning in immediate relief on the intelligences of those whom
+we address. This attribute is possessed by but few even among great
+writers--indeed, some historic sayings which have come down to us have not
+emanated from the writing fraternity at all, but from soldiers, sailors,
+statesmen, and other busy men of affairs. The quality which distinguishes a
+man of action above all others is fearlessness of responsibility; the
+possession of sufficient greatness of soul and of moral fibre to seize upon
+an opportunity and to make the most thereof when an occasion arises which
+has not been foreseen by those in authority over him. But far more often in
+the history of the world has it happened that brave and capable leaders
+have failed for the lack of the indefinable quality that separated their
+sterling merits from that absolute and real supremacy which marks the
+first-class man.
+
+How then is it possible to differentiate, to describe where and in what
+manner this luck occurs?
+
+Fortunately, this has been done for us in seven words by Seignelay, the
+Minister of Marine to Louis Quatorze in 1692. Speaking of Admiral de
+Tourville, who defeated the English and Dutch at the Battle of Beachy Head,
+July 10th, 1690, Seignelay says of him that he was "poltron de tete mais
+pas de coeur." The judgment was just: de Tourville, as recklessly gallant
+as any French noble of them all, failed to live up to his responsibilities
+two years later at the Battle of La Hogue. Mahan says: "The caution in his
+pursuit of the Allies after Beachy Head, though so different in appearance,
+came from the same trait which impelled him two years later to lead his
+fleet to almost certain destruction at La Hogue because he had the King's
+order in his pocket. He was brave enough to do anything, but not strong
+enough to bear the heaviest burdens."
+
+We see the application of this truth in the period which we are
+considering; particularly is it borne in upon us in the case of the leaders
+of the Ottoman Turks. Serving as they did a despot of unlimited powers,
+failure in the success of his arms was apt to lead to the immediate and
+violent death of the man in command. If, therefore, precise instructions
+were issued, they were, as a rule, carried out to the letter; as in case of
+defeat an effort could be made to shift responsibility on to the shoulders
+of the Padishah. Failure owing to initiative was certain of prompt
+retribution; success complete and absolute would be the only justification
+for a departure from orders.
+
+Far otherwise was it with the Sea-wolves, who were a law to themselves and
+to themselves alone. Should they care "to place it on the hazard of a die
+to win or lose it all," there was none to say them nay, there was no
+punishment save that of defeat. This it was that so often conduced to their
+success. Despots as were such men as Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa and Dragut,
+they were none the less dependent on the goodwill of their followers. If,
+therefore, they decided on a desperate enterprise, they appealed to the
+fighting instincts, the cupidity, and the fanaticism of these men. Should
+they succeed in gaining their good will for the attempt which they
+meditated, then all was well with them, and behind them was no grim
+sinister figure whose word was death and whose breath was destruction.
+
+Freed from all the trammels which bound the ordinary warrior of the day in
+which they lived, they were able, as we have seen, to go far; for the man
+in whom supreme ability is united to absolute unscrupulousness is the most
+dangerous foe of the human race. The despotism of the leaders among the
+sea-wolves was not theirs by right divine, as men considered it to be in
+the case of the Padishah; none the less in its practical application it was
+but little inferior to that wielded by the Sultan. For reasons of policy,
+the Sea-wolves allied themselves to the Grand Turk; for reasons of policy
+that monarch employed them and entrusted them with the conduct of important
+affairs. The bargain was really a good one on both sides; as to the
+sea-wolves was extended the aegis of one of the mightiest empires of the
+earth; while to the Sultan came "veritable men of the sea," hardened in
+conflict, as fearless of responsibility as of aught else; capable in a
+sense that hardly any man could be capable who had grown up in the
+atmosphere of the court at Constantinople. To Kheyr-ed-Din the Sultan had
+extended his fullest confidence; he had been rewarded by seeing the
+renowned Doria forsake the field of battle at Prevesa, and by the perpetual
+slights and insults put upon his Christian foes by that great corsair. To
+Dragut he had now turned, and, as we have said, when Sinan Basha sailed
+from the Golden Horn he had orders to attempt nothing important without the
+advice of the corsair. It is impossible to say why the command-in-chief had
+not been entrusted to him, as the Sultan had the precedent of Kheyr-ed-Din
+upon which to go. It can only be conjectured that Soliman, having
+discovered how unpopular that appointment had been amongst his high
+officers, did not care to risk the experiment the second time; and in
+consequence employed Sinan. To this officer the aphorism of Seignelay
+applies in its fullest force. He was as brave a man as ever drew a sword in
+the service of his master; he was, however, a hesitating and incompetent
+leader, with one eye ever fixed on that distant palace on the shores of the
+Golden Horn in which dwelt the arbiter of his destiny and of all those who
+sailed beneath the banner of the Crescent.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+THE KNIGHTS OF ST. JOHN
+
+  The Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem, afterwards known as the Knights
+  of Rhodes, and eventually as the Knights of Malta--A brief sketch of the
+  Order, including the relation of how Gozon de Dieu-Donne, subsequently
+  Grand Master, slew the great Serpent of Rhodes; also some account of
+  Jean Parisot de la Valette, forty-eighth Grand Master, who commanded at
+  the Siege of Malta, in which the arms of Soliman the Magnificent were
+  defeated after a siege lasting one hundred and thirteen days.
+
+Amongst all those principalities and powers against which Dragut contended
+during the whole of his strenuous existence, there was no one among them
+which he held in so much detestation as the famous Knights of Saint John,
+known in the sixteenth century as the Knights of Malta. This militant
+religious organisation had its origin in Jerusalem in peculiar and
+interesting circumstances. After the death of Mahomet, his followers,
+burning with zeal, put forward the tenets of their religion by means of
+fire and sword; during the years which followed the Hegira, 622 A.D., the
+arms of the Moslems were everywhere successful, and amongst other places
+conquered by them was Palestine. So great was the renown acquired by the
+Emperor Charlemagne that his fame passed even into Asia, and Eginard states
+that the Caliph Haroun Raschid permitted the French nation to maintain a
+house in Jerusalem for the reception of pilgrims visiting the holy places,
+and that, further, the Prince permitted the Patriarch of Jerusalem to send
+to the Christian Emperor, on his behalf, the keys of the Holy Sepulchre and
+those of the Church of Calvary, together with a standard which was the sign
+of the power and authority delegated by the Moslem ruler to his mighty
+contemporary. In the middle of the eleventh century Italian merchants
+coming from Amalfi, who had experienced the hard lot of the Christian
+pilgrims in reaching the Holy City, secured from the Caliph Moustafa-Billah
+a concession of land, on which they built a chapel known as St. Mary of the
+Latins, to distinguish it from the Greek church already established at
+Jerusalem, and also constructed a hospice in which to receive the pilgrims,
+whether in sickness or in health, known as the Hospice of St. John.
+
+In 1093 the untiring efforts of Peter the Hermit, with the support of Pope
+Urbain II., brought about the first Crusade, and in 1099 we first hear of
+Gerard, the founder of the Order of St. John. Gerard was a French monk who,
+seeing the good work done by the Hospice of St. John, had attached himself
+to it, and had at this time been working in the cause of charity, and
+devoting himself to the pilgrims for many years.
+
+Godfrey de Bouillon, having defeated the Saracens outside the walls of
+Jerusalem, entered that city and visited the Hospice of St. John; he there
+found many of the Crusaders who had been wounded during the siege, and who
+had been carried thither after the taking of the place: all of these men
+were loud in their praises of the loving kindness with which they had been
+received and tended.
+
+Great was the honour and reverence in which these simple monks were held
+ever after by the Crusaders; for was it not common talk that these holy men
+had themselves subsisted on the coarsest and most repulsive fare in order
+that the food in the hospice should be both pure and abundant? Fired by
+this fine example of Christian charity, several noble gentlemen who had
+been tended in the hospice gave up the idea of returning to their own
+countries, and consecrated themselves to the Hospice of St. John, and to
+the service of the pilgrims, the poor, and the sick. Among these was
+Raimond Dupuy.
+
+The great Prince Godfrey de Bouillon fully approved of the steps taken by
+these gentlemen, and for his own part contributed to the upkeep of the
+hospice the seigneurie of Montbirre, with all its dependencies, which
+formed a part of his domain in Brabant. His example was widely copied by
+the Christian princes and great nobles among the Crusaders, who enriched
+the hospice with many lands and seigneuries, both in Palestine and in
+Europe. All these lands and properties were placed unreservedly in the
+hands of the saintly Gerard to do with as he would for the advancement of
+his work. In 1118 Gerard died in extreme old age; "he died in the arms of
+the brothers, almost without sickness, falling, as it may be said, like a
+fruit ripe for eternity."
+
+The choice of the Hospitallers as his successor was Raimond Dupuy, a
+nobleman of illustrious descent from the Province of Dauphiny, and it is he
+who first held rule under the title of Grand Master. In all charity and
+loving kindness the life of Gerard had been passed, the brethren of St.
+John occupying themselves merely in tending the sick, in helping the poor
+and the pilgrims; but Raimond Dupuy was a soldier of the Cross, and he laid
+before the Order a scheme by which, from among the members thereof, a
+military corps should be formed, vowed to a perpetual crusade against the
+Infidel. This, in full conclave, was carried by acclamation, and the most
+remarkable body of religious warriors that the world has ever seen then
+came existence.
+
+This pact against the Infidel was in the first instance directed against
+the barbarians who swarmed around the Holy City, and the Hospitallers, who
+nearly all had been knights and soldiers of Godfrey de Bouillon, joyfully
+took up their arms again to employ them in the defence of this locality
+which they cherished, and in defence of the pilgrims who were robbed,
+murdered, and maltreated in all the surrounding country. In becoming
+warriors once more, they vowed to turn their arms against the Infidel, and
+against him alone; to neither make nor meddle with arms in their hands in
+any dispute between men of their own faith. The composition of the Order as
+it was arranged by Raimond Dupuy caused it to consist of three classes. In
+the first were placed men of high birth and rank who, having been bred to
+arms, were capable of taking command. In the second came priests and
+chaplains, who, besides the ordinary duties attached to their religious
+profession, were obliged, each in his turn, to accompany the fighting men
+in their wars. Those who were neither of noble houses nor belonging to the
+ecclesiastical profession were known as "serving brothers": they were
+employed indifferently in following the knights into battle or in tending
+the sick in the hospital, and were distinguished by a coat-of-arms of a
+different colour from that worn by the knights.
+
+As the Order prospered amazingly, and as to it repaired numbers of the
+young noblesse from all parts of Europe to enrol themselves under its
+banner, it was accordingly divided into seven "Languages"; those of
+Provence, Auvergne, France, Italy, Arragon, Germany, and England. To the
+Language of Arragon was in later years allotted those of Castile and of
+Portugal. The dress consisted of a black robe, with a mantle of the same
+colour, the whole being called _manteau a bec_, having upon the left side
+thereof a white cross in cloth, with light points. The eight-pointed cross,
+or the Maltese Cross, as it came to be known in subsequent centuries, will
+be seen upon the armour, engraven on the breastplate, of all the pictures
+of the Grand Masters.
+
+In the year 1259 the Pope, Alexander IV., finding that men of noble birth
+objected to be habited as were the "serving brothers," ordained that the
+knights on a campaign should wear a "sopraveste" of scarlet embroidered
+with the cross in white; further, that should any knight abandon the ranks,
+and fly from the battle, he should be deprived of his order and his habit.
+The form of government was purely aristocratic, all authority being vested
+in the Council, of which the Grand Master was the chief, the case of an
+equal division of opinion being provided for by giving to the Grand Master
+the casting vote. There were in the Order certain aged knights who were
+called "Preceptors," who, under authority delegated to them by the Council,
+administered the estates and funds accruing, and also paid for the hire of
+such soldiers or "seculars" whom the Knights took into their service.
+
+Incidentally, it may be mentioned that the establishment of the Knights of
+St. John led to the foundation of the famous Order of the Knights Templars.
+In 1118 Hugues de Payens, Geoffrey de St. Aldemar, and seven other French
+noblemen, whose hearts were touched by the sufferings which the pilgrims
+underwent in their journey to Jerusalem, formed themselves into a society
+with the object of the protection of these inoffensive persons on their
+transit from the coast inland. Hugues de Payens, received in audience by
+Pope Honore II., was sent by the Pontiff to the Peers of the Council, then
+assembled at Troyes in Champagne; the Council approving of so charitable an
+enterprise, the Order was formed, and Bernard, known as "Saint" Bernard,
+drew up the code of regulations by which it was to be governed. The
+movement spread, and many princes and nobles returned to the Holy Land in
+the train of de Payens and his companions.
+
+So famous did the Order of St. John become, that in 1133 Alfonzo, King of
+Navarre and Arragon, who called himself Emperor of Spain, carried his zeal
+so far as to bequeath to the knights his kingdoms of Navarre and Arragon:
+this, however, was naturally and hotly contested in these places, and
+Raimond Dupuy, who attended a Council to regulate the matter, was content
+to compromise on certain lands and benefits being allocated to those whom
+he represented.
+
+On August 15th, 1310, the knights, under the Grand Master, Fulke de
+Villaret, conquered the Island of Rhodes and established themselves there,
+and from this time onward, while they held the island, were known as the
+Knights of Rhodes. No sooner were the knights firmly established in Rhodes
+and the fortifications placed in a proper state of repair, than a tower was
+built on the highest point of the island, of great height, from which a
+view could be obtained of the sea and the surrounding islands, and from
+which information could be signalled as to the movements of any vessels
+which were observed. It was then decided to fortify the small island of Cos
+or Lango in the vicinity, as it contained an excellent harbour; a fortress,
+planned by the Grand Master himself, was erected on the island, a knight
+was left in command, and we are told that under the successors of de
+Villaret--himself twenty-fourth Grand Master--the island, which was very
+fertile, flourished exceedingly, producing much fruit and some most
+excellent wine.
+
+There was reigning in Bithynia, at the time when the knights seized upon
+Rhodes, that Ottoman whose name has come down to us when we speak of the
+Ottoman Empire; it is a somewhat strange coincidence that the Christian
+warriors, sworn foes of the Mussulman, should have so established
+themselves just when the tide of the Mohammedan conquest was about to rise
+and sweep away Byzantium; that they should arrive upon the scene just as
+the curtain was about to rise on the tragedy which, in its onward march,
+was to make of the church of St. Sophia a mosque for the worship of the
+Ottoman Turks.
+
+Ottoman--the descendant of one Soliman, the chief of a nomadic tribe of
+Tartars who had been chased from the Empire of Persia in the year 1214--was
+not only a soldier and a conqueror, but also a great and beneficent ruler
+in those regions in which he held sway. Approached by those of his
+co-religionists who had been driven out of Rhodes by the Knights, Ottoman
+embarked an army and attacked the place, assuring himself of an easy
+conquest. In spite, however, of the fortifications having been hastily
+constructed, his troops were defeated with great loss, and he was obliged
+to raise the siege. In this manner did the indomitable champions of
+Christendom begin that long and bloodthirsty war between the Cross and the
+Crescent in the Mediterranean which was to endure for nearly another five
+centuries.
+
+[Illustration: GOZON DE DIEU-DONNE SLAYING THE GREAT SERPENT OF RHODES.]
+
+In the long, chequered, and glorious history of the Knights there are many
+strange and semi-miraculous deeds recounted of them in the wars and
+adventures in which they took so prominent a part; the following, which is
+gravely set out by the historians of the time, may be left to the judgment
+of the reader. In 1324 Fulke de Villaret was succeeded in the Grand
+Mastership by Helion de Villeneuve, a knight of exemplary piety and a
+strict disciplinarian. Under his rule the Order regained those habits of
+severe simplicity from which they had been allowed to lapse by his
+predecessor. In 1329 Rhodes was greatly agitated by the fact that a
+crocodile or serpent--as it is indifferently described--had taken up its
+abode in the marshes at the foot of Mount St. Etienne, some two miles from
+the town. This ferocious creature devoured sheep and cattle; also several
+of the inhabitants had lost their lives by approaching the neighbourhood in
+which it dwelt. Several attacks were made upon it, but, as there were no
+firearms, all the missiles projected against it rebounded harmlessly from
+the scales with which it was covered. So dangerous had it become, that the
+Grand Master thought it his duty to forbid any of the knights to attempt
+its destruction; an order which was obeyed with a right good will. There
+was, however, a knight of the Language of Provence called Gozon de
+Dieu-Donne, who secretly determined that he would slay the serpent, and he
+accordingly made it his occupation to observe as closely as possible the
+habits of the monster. Having satisfied himself on certain points, he then
+returned to his chateau of Gozon in the province of Languedoc. The point
+which Gozon had wished to determine was in what portion of its body was the
+serpent vulnerable; and he had convinced himself that the belly of the
+creature was unprotected by scales. He accordingly modelled in wood as
+exact a representation of the serpent as he could accomplish, colouring it
+the same as the original; the belly of the model was constructed of
+leather. He then trained some large and ferocious hounds, at a certain
+signal, to dash in under the model and fix their teeth in its leathern
+underpart. For months did the ingenious knight persevere with the training
+of his dogs, himself on horseback in full armour cheering them to the
+assault. At last he considered them to be perfect in their parts, and,
+taking two servants and the hounds with him, returned to Rhodes. Avoiding
+everybody, he caused his arms to be carried to a small church in the
+neighbourhood of Mount St. Etienne by his servants. The knight went into
+the church, where he passed some time in prayer, recommending his soul to
+God in the enterprise which he was about to undertake.
+
+He then donned his armour and mounted his horse, ordering his servants, if
+he were killed, to return to France but if he succeeded in killing the
+serpent to come at once to him, or to aid him if he were wounded. He then
+rode off in the direction of the marsh accompanied by his hounds. No sooner
+did the serpent hear the ring of bit and stirrup-iron, the trampling of the
+charger and the baying of the hounds, than it issued forth with wide-open
+slavering jaws and terrible burning eyes to slay and to devour. Gozon,
+recommending his soul to his Maker, put spurs to his horse and charged. But
+his lance shivered on the hide of the serpent as though it had struck a
+stone wall. His horse, mad with terror at the sight and the foul odour of
+the serpent, plunged so furiously as to unseat him. He fell to the ground,
+uttering as he did so his call to the hounds; had it not been for these
+faithful auxiliaries he would instantly have been slain, but they rushed in
+and, fastening their teeth in the belly of the serpent, caused it to writhe
+and twist in its anguish. Instantly Gozon was upon his feet again, and,
+watching his opportunity, plunged his sword into the exposed vitals of his
+enemy. Mortally wounded, the serpent flung itself high in the air with a
+convulsive effort, and falling backwards pinned the knight to the ground
+beneath its enormous bulk. The servants, who had been the horrified
+spectators of this terrific conflict, now rushed to the assistance of their
+master, and succeeded in freeing him from his unpleasant predicament.
+Gozon, they thought, was dead, but upon dashing some water in his face he
+opened his eyes, to behold the pleasing spectacle of his monstrous enemy
+lying by his side a corpse.
+
+Naturally elated, he returned to Rhodes, where he became on the instant the
+popular hero; for who could say or do enough for the man who had slain the
+serpent. He was conducted in triumph to the palace of the Grand Master by
+his fellow knights, but here a remarkably unpleasant surprise was in store
+for him. Very austerely did Helion de Villeneuve regard the triumphant
+warrior, and stern and uncompromising was the voice in which he asked him
+how he had dared to contravene the express order of his Grand Master by
+going forth to combat with the serpent? Calling a Council immediately the
+implacable de Villeneuve, in spite of all entreaties, deprived Gozon de
+Dieu-Donne of the habit of a knight. "What," said this just and severe
+disciplinarian, "is the death of this monster, what indeed do the deaths of
+the islanders matter, compared with the maintenance of the discipline of
+this Order of which I am the unworthy chief?"
+
+But Helion de Villeneuve was of too wise and kindly a nature to make his
+decree absolute, and having thus vindicated his authority he shortly
+afterwards released Gozon and made him happy by his praises and more
+material benefits.
+
+The Abbe de Vertot tells us that the learned Bochart argues that the
+Phoenicians gave to this island the name of Gefirath-Rod (from whence the
+name "Rhodes"), or the Isle of the Serpents, and that when the Romans were
+at war with the Carthaginians Attilius Regulus slew a monster in the island
+of Rhodes the skin of which measured one hundred feet. Thevenot, in his
+Travels published in 1637, states that he saw the head of Gozon's serpent
+still attached to one of the gates of the town of Rhodes, and that it was
+as large as the head of a horse.
+
+Upon the death of Helion de Villeneuve in 1346, a Chapter of the Order was
+held as usual to elect his successor. When it came to the turn of the
+Commander Gozon de Dieu-Donne to speak, he said:
+
+  "In entering this conclave I made a solemn vow not to propose any knight
+  whom I did not consider to be most worthy of this exalted office, and
+  animated by the best intentions for the glory and well-being of the
+  Order. After considering carefully the state of the Christian world, of
+  the wars which we are perpetually obliged to wage against the infidel,
+  the firmness and vigour necessary for the maintenance of discipline, I
+  declare that I find no person so capable of governing our 'Religion' as
+  myself."
+
+He then proceeded to speak in a purely impersonal tone of the magnificent
+services which he had rendered, not forgetting the famous episode of the
+serpent, and drew their attention to the fact that the late Grand Master
+had constituted him, Gozon, his principal lieutenant. He ended: "You have
+already tried my government, you know well that which you may hope to
+expect. I believe that in all justice I shall receive your suffrages."
+
+Naturally the assemblage was stupefied at hearing a man thus recommend
+himself; on reflection, however, they decided that he had spoken no less
+than the truth, and Gozon de Dieu-Donne, "the hero of the serpent," became
+twenty-sixth Grand Master of the Order. He died in 1353, when he was
+succeeded by Pierre de Cornillan, and upon his tomb were graven these
+words:
+
+  "Cy Gist le Vainqueur du Dragon."
+
+In the years 1480 and 1485 under the Grand Master Pierre D'Aubusson, Rhodes
+withstood two great sieges from the Turks. The first of these is described
+at length by the knight Merri Dupuis "temoin oculaire" who sets down: "Je,
+Mary Dupuis gros et rude de sens et de entendement je veuille parler et
+desscrire au plus bref que je pourray et au plus pres de la verite selon
+que je pen voir a lueil." The description of that of 1485 is written by
+another eye-witness, the Commandeur de Bourbon, to whom "ma semble bon et
+condecent a raison declairer premierement les causes qui out incite mon
+poure et petit entendement a faire cest petit oeuvre."
+
+But we have no space to follow these gallant Knights, and it must suffice
+to say that on both occasions, after incredible exertions and terrible
+slaughter on both sides, the attacks of the Turks were eventually repulsed.
+
+It was reserved for Soliman the Magnificent to finally vanquish the Knights
+and to expel them from Rhodes; from July 1522 until January 1523 the
+Knights under the heroic Villiers de L'Isle Adam maintained an all unequal
+struggle against the vast hosts of the Crescent, which were perpetually
+reinforced. At last, on January 1st, 1523, the Knights, by virtue of a
+treaty with Soliman, which was honourably observed on both sides, evacuated
+the island in which they had been established for nearly two hundred and
+twenty years.
+
+By favour of Charles V. the Knights on October 26th, 1530, took charge of
+the islands of Malta and Gozo, and established themselves therein; still
+under the Grand Mastership of L'Isle Adam, whose sword and helmet are still
+religiously kept in a small church in Vittoriosa, just at the back of the
+Admiral Superintendent's house in the present dockyard.
+
+The knights fortified the islands and there abode, until in 1565 the
+Ottoman returned once more to the attack.
+
+It may be said that heroism is a relative term, that it has many uses and
+applications all equally truthful. On the side of mere physical courage
+almost every man who took part in that memorable siege of Malta in the year
+1565 may have been said to have earned the title of hero. No man's foot
+went back; no man's courage quailed; no man's face blanched when called
+upon to face perils so appalling that they meant an almost inevitable and
+speedy death; this was true or Christian and Moslem alike. The death-roll
+on either side was so tremendous as to prove this contention up to the
+hilt. From May 18th to September 8th, 1565--that is to say, in one hundred
+and thirteen days--thirty thousand Moslems and eight thousand Christians
+perished--an average of some three hundred and thirty-six persons per day.
+In that blazing torrid heat the sufferings of those who survived from day
+to day must have been accentuated beyond bearing by the myriads of unburied
+corpses by which they lived surrounded; and that the contending forces were
+not swept away by pestilence is an extraordinary marvel.
+
+[Illustration: CARRACK IN WHICH THE KNIGHTS ARRIVED AT MALTA, 1530.]
+
+In many, nay, in most campaigns, personal feeling enters but little into
+the contest. Nationality strikes against nationality, army against army, or
+navy against navy; but no burning hatred of his adversary animates the
+breast of the combatant on either side; it may even be said that frequently
+some pity for the vanquished is felt, when all is over, by the side which
+has conquered. At Malta the element of actual personal individual hatred
+was the mainspring by which the combatants on both sides were moved; each
+regarded the other as an infidel, the slaying of whom was the sacrifice
+most acceptable to the God they worshipped. "Infidel" was the term which
+each hurled at the other; to destroy the infidel, root and branch, was the
+act imposed upon those whose faith was the one only passport to a blessed
+eternity, and those who fell in the strife, whether Christian or Moslem,
+felt assured that for them the gates of heaven stood wide open. Great as
+were those others who perished, faithful to the death as were those noble
+knights who died to a man in the culminating agony of St. Elmo, adroit,
+resourceful, master of himself and others as was the famous Dragut, there
+is one name and one alone that shines like a beacon light upon a hill-top
+when we think of the siege of Malta. Jean Parisot de la Valette, whose name
+is enshrined for ever in that noble city which crowns Mount Sceberass at
+the present day, was the forty-eighth Grand Master of the Noble Order of
+the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem the charter for which, contained in
+the original Bull of Pope Paschal II., dated 1113 (in which the Holy Father
+took the Order under his special protection), may be seen to this day in
+the armoury of the palace at Valetta. At the time when the supreme honour
+was conferred upon him, in the year 1557, he had passed through every grade
+of the Order: as soldier, captain, general, Counsellor, Grand Cross: in all
+of them displaying a valour, a piety, a self-abnegation beyond all praise,
+A man of somewhat austere manner, he exacted from others that which he gave
+himself--a whole-hearted devotion to the Order to which he had consecrated
+his life. Fearing no man in the Council Chamber, even as he feared no foe
+in the field, he ever spoke his mind in defence of that which he deemed to
+be right. Proud, with the dignity becoming a man of his ancient lineage, he
+merged all personal haughtiness in the zeal he felt in upholding the rights
+and privileges of that splendid confederation of knights of the best blood
+in Europe over which he had been called upon to preside at the mature age
+of sixty-three. There is no instance in history of any man more absolutely
+single-minded than La Valette; that in which he believed he cherished with
+an ardour almost incredible in these days, and that the sword of the Lord
+had been confided into his hand for the utter extermination and extirpation
+of the Moslem heresy was the leading feature in his creed. That he had been
+advanced to a dignity but little less than royal in achieving the Grand
+Mastership was but as dust in the balance to him compared with the
+opportunities which it gave him to harry his life-long foes; and he who had
+known so well how to obey throughout all his youth and manhood was now to
+prove, in the most emphatic manner, that he had learned how to command. In
+all those terrible hundred and thirteen days during which the siege lasted
+there was none to be compared to him. As occasion occurred this man's soul
+rose higher and ever higher; beseeching, imploring, commanding, by sheer
+force of example did he point out the way to the weaker spirits by whom he
+was surrounded.
+
+To speak of weaker spirits in connection with the siege of Malta seems
+almost an insult; these gallant knights and soldiers were only so in
+comparison with their leader. Twice during the siege of St, Elmo did the
+garrison send to La Valette and represent that the place was no longer
+tenable; but Garcia de Toledo, Viceroy of Sicily for Philip of Spain, was
+writing specious letters instead of sending reinforcements, and every
+moment gained was of importance. Coldly did La Valette remind the Knights
+of their vows to the Order, and when renewed assurances came that it was
+only a matter of a few hours before they should be overwhelmed he replied
+that others could be found to take their places, that he, as Grand Master,
+would come in person to show them how to die. A passion of remorse overcame
+these noble gentlemen, who, thus nerved by the indomitable spirit of their
+chief, died to the last man in the tumbled ruins of that charnel-house
+which had once been a fortress.
+
+La Valette was ready to die; there was no man in all that garrison so
+ready. With pike and sword this veteran of seventy-one years of age was
+ever at the post of the greatest danger, repelling the assaults of
+Janissaries and corsairs, fighting with the spirit of the youngest among
+the Knights in the breaches rent in the walls of Il Borgo. In vain did his
+comrades try to prevent him from this perpetual exposure; in vain did they
+point out that the value of his life outnumbered that of an army. He was
+very gentle with these remonstrances, but quite firm. There were plenty as
+good as he to take his place should he fall, he insisted; till that time
+came it was his duty to inspire all by his example, to show to the simplest
+soldier that he was cared for by his Grand Master.
+
+As things went from bad to worse, when Il Borgo became in little better
+case than had St. Elmo before it, La Valette never hesitated, never looked
+back, never ceased to hope that the sluggard Garcia de Toledo might send
+relief; and, if he did not, then would they all perish with arms in their
+hands, as had their brethren across that narrow strip of water who had held
+St. Elmo to the last man. What man or woman can read without something of a
+lump coming in their throat of those noble words of the Grand Master in the
+last few days of the siege when all had utterly abandoned hope?
+
+Grimed, emaciated, covered with sweat and blood and dust, did La Valette
+move from post to post exhorting and encouraging his soldiers. So few had
+the gallant company of the Knights become that command was necessarily
+delegated to the under-officers; yet who among them did not find fresh
+courage and renewed strength when that great noble, the head of the Order,
+stood by their sides and spoke thus to them as man to man?--
+
+  "My brothers, we are all servants of Jesus Christ; and I feel assured
+  that if I and all these in command should fall you will still fight on
+  for the honour of the Order and the love of our Holy Church."
+
+We have to think of what it all meant, we have dimly to try and realise the
+burden which was laid upon this man, before we come to a right conception,
+not only of what he endured but the terrible sacrifices he was called upon
+to make. Here was no man of iron lusting for blood and greedy of conquest
+for the sake of the vain applause of men; but one full of human love and
+affection for those among whom he had lived all the days of his life. Upon
+him was laid the charge of upholding the honour of the Order, the majesty
+of the God whom he served. To this end he doomed to certain death those
+brethren of his in St. Elmo, his own familiar friends, reminding them that
+it was their duty so to die, while his heart was breaking with the agony of
+this terrible decision, which no weaker man could have given. When his
+beloved nephew was slain, together with another gallant youth, he smiled
+sadly and said that they had only travelled the road which they all had to
+tread in a few days; that he grieved as much for the one as for the other.
+In speaking of this man, it may truly be said that there is no character in
+history more elevated; there is none which shows us the picture of a more
+perfect, gentle, and valiant knight.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+DRAGUT-REIS
+
+  How Sinan Basha and Dragut raided the islands of Malta and Cozo and
+  captured the town of Tripoli. How the Knights of Malta captured "the
+  puissant galleon" belonging to the Kustir-Aga and the Odalisques of the
+  harem of the Grand Turk. The despair of the ladies and the advice of the
+  Imaum to Soliman the Magnificent. A great armada is fitted out in
+  Constantinople. The preparations for defence on the part of La Valette
+  and the Knights. The expedition sails from Constantinople and lands in
+  Malta.
+
+Great must have been the consternation of the Knights when the armada,
+commanded by Sinan Basha, appeared off their coasts, and bitter must have
+been the reflections of Juan d'Omedes, the Grand Master, who had all along
+contended that so formidable an expedition could not possibly be directed
+against Malta. The inhabitants of that island were, however, not left long
+in doubt, as Sinan, immediately on his arrival, entered the Grand Harbour,
+or "the Great Port," as it was called in those days. Sinan, in his royal
+galley, led the way in, contemptuously assured of an easy victory over so
+insignificant a place of arms. He had his first rude awakening before he
+had traversed some quarter of a mile of the placid waters of the Great
+Port. The harbour, as is well known, though long, is very narrow, and, on
+the starboard hand of the Turkish galleys as they entered, the Commandeur
+de Guimeran, a Spanish Knight, had ambushed three hundred arquebusiers. As
+the galley of Sinan came abreast of the ambush, the Commandeur gave the
+order to fire. The volley at so close a range had a terrible effect,
+especially among the "chiourme," or the slaves who rowed the galley, some
+hundred of whom were placed _hors de combat_. Sinan, in a furious rage,
+ordered an immediate disembarkment; but when his men landed and scaled the
+heights of Mount Sceberras (the elevated land on which the city of Valetta
+now stands) there was no one to be found, the Commandeur and the men who
+had formed the ambush having disappeared. Gazing from the heights at Il
+Borgo, the fortress on the opposite side of the harbour where the Knights
+then dwelt, Sinan demanded of Dragut, "If that," pointing to the fortress,
+"was the place which he had told the Sultan could easily be taken?"
+
+Dragut, whom no peril ever daunted, coolly replied:
+
+"Certainly, no eagle ever built his nest on a rock more easy of access."
+
+A corsair, who had been slave to the Knights, now approached Sinan, and
+told him that he had assisted at the building of the fortress; which, he
+averred, was so strong that if the admiral delayed until he had taken it
+that the winter would be upon them, although it was then only the month of
+July. Sinan, as we have said, was a hesitating commander. He had the
+ever-present fear of the Grand Turk before his eyes, and was not inclined
+for so difficult and dangerous an enterprise as this was represented to be.
+Leaving the fortress in his rear, he marched off to the high land in the
+centre of the island, on which was situated the Citta Notabile, the capital
+of Malta, some seven miles distant from the sea. On their march through the
+island the Turks committed their usual atrocities, murdering the wretched
+inhabitants, firing their dwellings, destroying their crops, and carrying
+off their women. Had the siege of Notabile been pressed, the city must have
+fallen; but Sinan declared to Dragut that the principal object of the
+expedition was the reduction of Tripoli, and, in consequence, he had not
+the time to devote to its reduction. Dragut, furious at this temporising
+policy, urged an immediate assault, and, while the contention was waxing
+sharp between the two leaders, a letter was brought to Sinan which had been
+captured in a Sicilian galley. It was from the "Receiver" of the Order, who
+dwelt at Messina, to the Grand Master, informing him that he had expressly
+sent this ship to inform him that Andrea Doria had just returned from Spain
+and was hastening with a large fleet to attack the Turks. The letter was a
+ruse on the part of the "Receiver," and contained not a particle of truth.
+It was, however, quite enough for Sinan, who immediately called a council
+of war and imparted this alarming news to its members. The council, after
+the invariable fashion of such bodies, decided to take the safest and
+easiest course: the name of the terrible Andrea was one of evil omen to the
+Ottomans, and, as one man, they voted for prosecuting their voyage to
+Tripoli before the Genoese seaman should put in an appearance. In vain was
+the fury of Dragut, who had counted on a full revenge on his ancient
+enemies the Knights. The armada sailed to the adjacent island of Gozo,
+which was thoroughly sacked with every refinement of cruelty. Every house
+on the island was burned, and six thousand of its inhabitants carried off
+to slavery. One incident is deserving of record. In Gozo dwelt a certain
+Sicilian with his wife and two daughters: sooner than that they should fall
+into the hands of the Turks this man stabbed his wife and daughters and
+then threw himself, sword in hand, into the ranks of his enemies, where he
+slew two of them, wounded several others, and was then hacked to pieces.
+The fleet then proceeded to Tripoli, which was taken almost without
+opposition, as it was defended by a mere handful of the Knights and some
+utterly unreliable Calabrian infantry, who had never before seen a shot
+fired: these men very soon mutinied and refused to fight any longer. Dragut
+became the autocrat of Tripoli, as his great predecessor Kheyr-ed-Din
+Barbarossa had been of Algiers: from hence, in the years that were to come
+before his death, he carried on his sleepless and unending warfare with his
+Christian foes, on whom he was destined to inflict another terrible defeat
+when they attacked this stronghold which he had made his own.
+
+Claude de la Sangle dying on August 18th, 1557, Jean Parisot de la Valette
+was chosen Grand Master of the Knights of Malta in his stead on August 21st
+of the same year. He was, as we have said before, in succession, soldier,
+captain, councillor, general, and Grand Cross; he was as wise in council as
+he was terrible in battle; he was as much esteemed by his brethren as he
+was feared by the infidel. Under his governorship "the Religion" regained
+the ancient authority which it had once possessed, especially in some of
+the German Provinces and in the Republic of Venice. So great was the
+influence of La Valette that he succeeded in making the "Languages" (or
+confederations of Knights) of Germany and Venice pay their "responsions,"
+which had been allowed to get into arrear. These "responsions" were a tax
+levied on the "Languages " exclusively for the purpose of combatting the
+infidel, and La Valette brought all the firmness of his high character to
+bear, in order to induce these Knights to do what, he reminded them, was
+their simple and obvious duty. Fired by the highest conception of the
+office he had been called upon to execute, La Valette allowed none of those
+under his command to be slack in their performance of their duties. In him
+dwelt the real old crusading spirit. He saw life with the single eye, for
+that which was paramount was the utter destruction of the infidel. There
+are many men who have a high conception of duty; there are but few who can
+inspire those with whom they are brought in contact. Of these latter was
+Jean Parisot de la Valette; in him the pure flame of religious enthusiasm
+burnt with so clear a light as to act as an illuminant for the paths of
+others. In him dwelt that rare quality of lifting others almost to that
+plane on which he dwelt himself, of making men nobler and better almost in
+spite of themselves. So it was that, when La Valette stooped to remind
+others of his brother Knights that they owed money to the Order, that money
+was paid at once.
+
+Having thus restored order to the finances, the Grand Master turned his
+attention to the state of affairs (as he had received them from his
+predecessor) connected with the territorial possessions of the Knights. For
+long years now the fortress of Tripoli had been in the hands of the
+renowned Dragut, who was the scourge and the terror of the Christians. The
+corsair dwelt in his stronghold in insolent defiance of the Knights, whose
+property it once had been. Years before he had wrested it from them by the
+strong hand: what, then, more necessary in the eyes of such an one as La
+Valette than to expel this audacious pirate? The Grand Master invited the
+co-operation of Juan la Cerda (a Spanish Grandee, Duke of Medina-Celi, and
+Viceroy of Sicily for the King of Spain) in this enterprise. The Viceroy
+joyfully acceded to the request, and informed his master. Philip II.
+approved the project, and sent orders to the Duke of Sesse, Governor of
+Milan, to the Duke of Alcala, Governor of Naples, and to John Andrea Doria,
+General of the Galleys, to join forces and to repair to Sicily, placing
+themselves under the orders of the Duke of Medina-Celi, who was expressly
+charged to take no action save by the advice of the Grand Master. The
+expedition assembled, the Duke took it to Malta, where it wintered, and in
+the spring it sailed and attacked Tripoli.
+
+They found this fortress, however, in a very different state from that
+which they expected. Dragut, says De Vertot, "avoit faire terasser les
+murailles de cette place." Bastions had been constructed, and every
+advantage taken for defence which was permitted by the terrain, or that the
+art of fortification admitted at this epoch. The castle, which was not
+advantageously placed, was, notwithstanding, put in a state of defence by
+an enormous expenditure of money. Great towers, in which were mounted many
+big guns, defended the entrance to the port, which had become the
+headquarters of the vessels owned by Dragut, and also of those corsairs who
+sailed their craft under the crescent flag of the Sultan of Constantinople.
+It was against such a fortress as this that the Duke of Medina-Celi went
+up: we have no space to deal here with the details of this attack, which
+ended in the hopeless and irremediable defeat of the Christian forces. The
+Duke was an incompetent commander; he was opposed to one of the greatest
+leaders of the age--an expert in almost every branch of the science of war,
+in command of a large body of the fiercest fighters of the day, who ever
+feared the wrath of Dragut more than the swords of the enemy.
+
+La Valette, though he mourned over the repulse of the Christian forces from
+Tripoli, did not on that account allow his pursuit of the infidel to grow
+faint; the galleys of "the Religion" were always at sea, and both the
+corsairs and the Ottoman Turks were perpetually losing valuable ships and
+costly merchandise. Under the General of the Galleys, the Commandeur Gozon
+de Melac, and that celebrated chevalier, the Commandeur de Romegas, the sea
+forces of the Knights were everywhere in evidence. Into the hands of the
+Christians fell the Penon de Velez, situated on the northern coast of
+Africa opposite to Malaga--a fortress much frequented by the corsairs; the
+Goletta at Tunis was also taken, and the pirates became so much alarmed
+that they demanded succour from Constantinople. They represented to Soliman
+that, at this rate, the whole of Northern Africa would soon be in the hands
+of the Christians to the total exclusion of the true believer.
+
+Soliman listened to their complaints and promised that soon he would send
+forth an armament which should put an end to the misfortunes from which
+they were suffering. Once again preparations were begun in the arsenals of
+Constantinople, and while these were in progress an event took place which
+had an important bearing on the situation. Just after the taking of the
+Penon de Velez seven galleys of "the Religion," under the command of the
+chevaliers de Giou and De Romegas, which were cruising in the neighbourhood
+of Zante and Cephalonia, fell in with "a puissant galleon" filled with the
+richest merchandise of the East, armed with "twenty great cannons of
+bronze," and a number of smaller guns, under the command of the Reis
+Bairan-Ogli, having on board "excellent officers of artillery," as well as
+two hundred Janissaries for her defence. This great ship was the property
+of Kustir-Aga, the chief Eunuch of the Seraglio of the Sultan, and many of
+the ladies of the harem were interested in a pecuniary sense in the safe
+arrival of this vessel at Constantinople. The galleys of "the Religion"
+attacked, and, after a most obstinate resistance, in which one hundred and
+twenty of the Christians and an even larger number of the Turks were
+killed, the galleon was captured. If there had been an outcry in
+Constantinople before this occurrence it was all as nothing to that which
+now arose. Kustir-Aga and the Odalisques of the Harem prostrated themselves
+at the feet of Soliman the Magnificent, and with streaming eyes,
+dishevelled hair, and frantic gestures, demanded the instant despatch of an
+expedition to utterly exterminate these barbarian corsairs, the Knights of
+Malta, who had thus injured them and lacerated their tenderest
+susceptibilities. The Grand Turk, autocrat as he was, had no peace day or
+night; he was surrounded by wailing women and sullen officials, all of whom
+had lost heavily by the capture of the puissant galleon. The Imaum, or
+preacher in the principal mosque, called upon the Sultan in his discourse
+to fall upon the audacious infidel and smite him hip and thigh. He reminded
+the Padishah that, in the dungeons of the Knights, true believers were
+languishing; that on the rowers' benches of the galleys of "the Religion"
+Moslems were being flogged like dogs. In a furious peroration he concluded:
+"It is only thy invincible sword which can shatter the chains of these
+unfortunates, whose cries are rising to heaven and afflicting the ears of
+the Prophet of God: the son is demanding his father, the wife her husband
+and her children. All, therefore, wait upon thee, upon thy justice, and thy
+power, for vengeance upon their cruel and implacable enemies."
+
+Contrary to all precedent, which enjoins the most perfect silence in the
+mosque, these bold utterances were received with something more than
+murmurs of applause: never in all his long and glorious reign had the great
+and magnificent despot heard so plainly the voice of his people. Apart,
+however, from eunuchs, women, and Mullahs, Soliman had long been importuned
+by Dragut to take the course which was now being urged upon him with so
+much insistence. There was at this time no warrior in all his _entourage_
+for whose opinion the Sultan had the same respect as he had for that of the
+ruler of Tripoli. Dragut had more than a tincture of learning: he was first
+of all an incomparable leader of men and an entirely competent seaman. He
+was also a scientific artillerist, and was learned in the technique of the
+fortification of his time. Added to this he was--albeit by no means so
+cruel as most of his contemporaries--one of those men before whom all
+trembled: as we have seen in the case of the corsairs who defended
+"Africa," "they feared the wrath of Dragut more than death itself."
+
+It was this renowned leader who warned Soliman against the Knights; he
+pointed out that they were far more dangerous now than they had been in
+1523, the year of their expulsion from Rhodes. When established there they
+were, so to speak, surrounded by the Turkish Empire; in Malta, on the
+contrary, they were easily succoured from Sicily, which belonged to Spain,
+another implacable enemy of the Moslem; that Malta lay right on the route
+which all the ships of the Sultan must take on passage from the East to
+Constantinople; and in consequence the Order was a standing and perpetual
+menace to the trade of the Empire. All this was so undeniably true that so
+shrewd a man and so competent a ruler as Soliman could not fail to be
+impressed by the soundness of the reasoning.
+
+Besides all this, he knew quite well that now he could not hold back, had
+it been even against his inclination--which was by no means the case; for
+there had arisen one of those storms of popular opinion--all the more
+formidable because of their infrequency--before which even the most
+hardened of despots must bend. Accordingly the Sultan called a conference
+of his fighting men, which was held on horseback in the open-air. The
+inclination of the Sultan being known, most of the generals, like good
+courtiers, voted for immediate war with the Knights. At this conference was
+present that Ali Basha, or Occhiali, or Uluchali, as he was indifferently
+called, of whom we shall have more to say later on. Upon this occasion he
+was present as the representative of Dragut, and urged, on behalf of his
+master, that the time was not yet ripe for an attack on Malta. First, he
+contended, it was necessary to recapture the Goletta and the Penon de
+Velez, and to defeat the Moors of Tunis, who were feudatories of the
+Spanish king and avowed enemies of the Ottoman Empire. Ali was supported by
+one Mahomet, an old warrior who had grown white in the service of the
+Sultan, who strongly opposed the contemplated campaign on the ground that
+the Knights would in all probability have the full strength of Europe at
+their backs.
+
+Numbers, however, added to the personal inclination of the Sultan, carried
+the day. The die was cast, the memorable expedition was decided upon, and
+all the Sultan's vast Empire soon rang with the note of preparation. The
+Capitan Basha, Piali, was in command of the fleet, and the direction of the
+land forces was confided to Mustafa, an old officer sixty-five years of
+age, a severe disciplinarian, and of a sanguinary and cruel disposition to
+any of his enemies who had the misfortune to fall into his hands.
+
+Once again did Europe lose itself in speculation: against whom, all men
+were asking, was this new expedition to be directed? Spain feared for her
+African possessions, as the Goletta was the key to the kingdom of Tunis,
+while the Penon de Velez was one of the bulwarks of Algeria. In consequence
+Don Garcia de Toledo passed over from Sicily to confer with the Grand
+Master of the Knights. Garcia de Toledo was by no means a favourable
+specimen of the illustrious race from which he sprang, and was a complete
+antithesis to La Valette; he was to prove himself in the terrible days that
+were to come to be sluggish, incompetent, a ruler who could not rule, a
+person for ever letting "I dare not wait upon I would." Just as long as
+Spain considered this new expedition was directed against herself
+considerable activity was shown; when the attack developed and it was seen
+that the objective of the Turks was Malta, the procrastinating Spanish king
+and his incompetent viceroy allowed matters so to drift that, had any other
+man than La Valette been in command at Malta, the fall of that island had
+been inevitable.
+
+We have seen how Juan d'Omedes had dealt with a previous crisis in the
+affairs of the Order; very different was it in the opening months of the
+year 1565. La Valette was well served by his spies in Constantinople, and
+the Grand Master was under no illusions from the very first as to what the
+destination of the army of the Sultan would be. He recognised that against
+the small islands of Malta and Gozo all the strength of the mightiest
+Empire in the world was about to be directed, and with serene confidence
+set about the task of preparation. His first care was to send out "a
+general citation" to those Knights living in their own homes in different
+countries in Europe, commanding them to repair at once to Malta and take
+part in the defence of that Order to which they had vowed to consecrate
+their lives. The agents of the Order in Italy succeeded in raising two
+thousand infantry, and the Viceroy of Sicily sent over two companies of
+Spanish infantry which he had promised. All the galleys of "the Religion"
+were called in from distant service and were set to work importing
+ammunition, stores, provisions, and all requisites for the withstanding of
+a siege. As the galleys passed backwards and forwards to Sicily, in each
+returning vessel came noble gentlemen of every country in Europe, in answer
+to the summons of their Grand Master. They were received with the tenderest
+affection by him and by those others already assembled; never in all its
+long and glorious history had the Order assembled in circumstances more
+grave; never in its history, either in the past or in the future, did it
+quit itself with so supreme a heroism as in those days of 1565 which were
+yet to come. In Malta the orderly bustle of preparation went on
+ceaselessly; the Italian and Spanish troops and the inhabitants of the
+island, for the most part hardy mariners well accustomed to the ceaseless
+_guerre de course_ of the Knights, were formed into companies, officered by
+the members of the Order, and assigned to different posts.
+
+Meanwhile the Grand Master caused copies of the letters which he had
+received from Constantinople to be sent to all the great princes of Europe;
+showing them the straits to which the Order was shortly to be reduced and
+imploring of them to send timely succour. But it was not upon outside aid
+that La Valette counted overmuch; he was preparing to confront the Turks
+with such forces as he had at his own disposal; content, if necessary, to
+leave the issue in the hands of the God in whom he trusted. As the
+chevaliers came flocking to the standard of St. John he received them, we
+are told, "as a kind father receives his beloved children, having provided
+in advance for their food and lodging." He personally entered into the most
+minute details of his charge; he reviewed his infantry, he instructed his
+artillery, he planned sites for hospitals, he sketched out new
+fortifications, and then went among the humblest of his followers and
+wielded the pick and shovel in the burning sun. Everywhere his cheering
+presence was felt, his equable and serene temperament diffused confidence
+and hope.
+
+All things being thus in train he assembled his brethren and addressed them
+in the following terms:
+
+  "A formidable army, composed of audacious barbarians, is descending on
+  this island; these persons, my brothers, are the enemies of Jesus
+  Christ. To-day it is a question of the defence of our faith as to
+  whether the book of the Evangelist is to be superseded by that of the
+  Koran? God on this occasion demands of us our lives, already vowed to
+  His service. Happy will those be who first consummate this sacrifice.
+  But that we may indeed be worthy to render it come, my dear brothers, to
+  the foot of the altar, where we may renew our vows. Let each one rely on
+  the blood of the Saviour of men and in the faithful practice of the
+  sacraments; in them we shall find so generous a contempt for death that
+  we shall indeed be rendered invincible."
+
+The Knights then, headed by the Grand Master, took themselves in procession
+to the church. Here they confessed and received the sacrament. "They went
+out from thence as men who had received a new birth." The Knights, we are
+then told, tenderly embraced one another in all solemnity; vowing to shed
+the last drop of their blood in defence of their religion and its holy
+altars. It was in this lofty frame of mind that the Knights of Malta
+awaited the coming of their hereditary foe. Into the hearts and minds of
+these gallant gentlemen of the best blood in the world the Grand Master had
+instilled some leaven of the greatness by which he himself was inspired.
+When belief is so wholehearted as it was in the case of La Valette; when it
+is allied to a genius for war, and a supreme gift for the inspiration of
+others, then that man and the force which he commands are as near to
+invincibility as it is permitted to fallible human beings to attain. There
+were two things in which the Knights were supremely fortunate on this
+occasion: the first was that they had La Valette as Grand Master, the
+second that Dragut was not in supreme command of the Turks, and that the
+siege had opened before he arrived upon the scene. In this expedition, as
+in previous ones, the Turkish commanders had orders to attempt nothing
+really important without the advice of Dragut. They found themselves
+without him when they arrived and made an initial mistake. With La Valette
+in command there was no room for blundering; the ultimate result of their
+blunder was the defeat which they sustained.
+
+Grand Master, Knight, and noble, soldier, peasant, and mariner, strove
+valiantly with the task of putting the island into a state of defence, and
+when at last the long-expected armada of their foes rose above that distant
+blue horizon in the north all had been done that skill and experience could
+dictate.
+
+It was upon May 18th in the year 1565 that the Turkish fleet arrived at
+Malta. It was composed of one hundred and fifty-nine galleys and vessels
+propelled by oars: on board of these was an army for disembarkation of
+thirty thousand men, composed of Janissaries and Spahis, the very pick and
+flower of the Turkish army. Soliman the Magnificent was leaving as little
+to chance as was possible on this occasion; he well knew the temper of the
+Knights, and that this expedition had before it a task which would try both
+the army and its leaders to the very utmost of their strength. Behind the
+main body of the fleet came a host of vessels, charged with provisions, the
+horses of the Spahis, the siege-train of the artillery, all the innumerable
+appliances and engines of war which were in use at that day. The initial
+mistake on the part of the Turks was in embarking cavalry for a siege; they
+knew, or they should have known, of the extreme smallness of the island
+which they were about to attack, and that they were by no means likely to
+be met with armies in the field owing to the enormous preponderance of
+numbers which they had assured to themselves.
+
+Piali, as we have said, was in command of the fleet, and Mustafa of the
+army; the corsairs did not arrive on the scene till some days afterwards.
+
+The Turks landed some men who encountered the Chevalier La Riviere and some
+Maltese troops, with whom they had some lively skirmishes. Unfortunately,
+in one of these the Chevalier was captured, put to the torture, and
+eventually beheaded for having wilfully misled the Turks. A council of war
+was held by Piali, Mustafa, and their principal officers, to deliberate on
+the best manner of prosecuting the enterprise on which they were engaged.
+The admiral, wishing to conform strictly with the instructions of Soliman,
+voted to delay all initiative until the arrival of the famous corsair.
+Mustafa, however, held a different opinion: the unfortunate Chevalier La
+Riviere had, before his death, informed the Turkish general that large and
+powerful succours were expected daily from Sicily. Secretly disquieted by
+this news, which he had at the time affected to disbelieve, Mustafa now
+urged immediate action. His opinion was that, in the first instance, they
+had better attack the castle of St. Elmo. It was a small and insignificant
+fort which at best would only delay them some five or six days; when this
+had fallen they could proceed to the more serious business of taking Il
+Borgo, the principal fortress on the island in which the Grand Master and
+most of the Knights were established. By the time St. Elmo had been taken
+they might reasonably expect that Dragut and his corsairs would have
+arrived, and, with these seasonable reinforcements, proceed to the really
+formidable portion of their task. In their decisions both admiral and
+general were wrong; to delay attack, once the troops were landed, was a
+counsel of pusillanimity hardly to be expected of Piali, but showing at the
+same time how he dreaded above all else departing one iota from the
+instructions which he had received. To attack the castle of St. Elmo first
+was a military mistake, because it could be--and was during the whole of
+the siege--reinforced from its larger sister Il Borgo.
+
+The discourse of Mustafa prevailed in the council of war, and the siege of
+St. Elmo was decided upon and immediately begun.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+THE SIEGE OF MALTA
+
+  The siege of Malta by the Turks; The capture of the fortress of St.
+  Elmo; The death of Dragut-Reis
+
+[Illustration: JEAN PARISOT DE LA VALETTE, GRAND MASTER OF THE KNIGHTS OF
+MALTA, AT THE SIEGE OF THAT ISLAND BY THE TURKS IN 1565.]
+
+There was an entire disregard of human life among the leaders of the
+Ottoman Turks at this time which is almost incredible; to attain their end
+in war they sacrificed thousands upon thousands of men with an absolutely
+callous indifference. In no chapter of the bloodstained history of their
+Empire was this trait more in evidence than it was at the siege of Malta.
+There was, however, a reason for this, which developed itself more and more
+as the ceaseless assaults on the positions of the Knights went on. From a
+military point of view, all the operations which took place were those of
+the siege of a fortress; as when at length St. Elmo fell the Turks turned
+their attention to the fortress of Il Borgo. The time-honoured method of
+the attack on a fortress, of approaching it by sap and mine, was here
+almost an impossibility, as the island of Malta is composed of solid rock
+through which it was practically impossible to drive trenches. It is true
+that the rock is of an exceptionally soft nature, easily cut through with
+proper tools; but you cannot cut through rock, no matter how soft it may
+be, when your operations are opposed at every step by a brave and vigilant
+enemy. Mustafa and the council of war had, as we have said, decided to
+begin operations by the siege of the fortress of St. Elmo. This place had
+been built from the designs of the Prior of Capua, an officer of the Order,
+and was situated at the extreme end of the promontory of Mount Sceberass,
+which juts out between the Great Port and the harbour of Marsa Muzetto. The
+fort was in a commanding position and dominated the entrance to the two
+principal harbours in the island. It was admirably adapted for repulsing an
+attack from the sea; but, owing to the proximity of other points of land
+upon which artillery could be mounted, was easily capable of attack by such
+an enemy as that by which it was now assailed.
+
+The principal preoccupation of the militant Prior of Capua had been to make
+it formidable on the side facing the sea; perhaps the designer had never
+contemplated the possibility that the day might dawn when it would be
+attacked from the landward side! However this may have been, Mustafa
+decided that it could and should be carried on this, its weakest face, and
+made his preparations accordingly.
+
+As far as it was possible to open trenches this was done, at the most
+prodigal expenditure of the lives of the pioneers. Where the rock proved
+absolutely impossible of manipulation redoubts were constructed of massive
+beams on which thick planks were bolted, the whole covered with wet earth
+which had to be collected with incredible toil from the country at the
+back. Disembarking their siege-guns, and utilising the cattle of the
+islanders for transporting them, the great cannon of the Turks were dragged
+up the slopes of the Mount and got into position; and by the 24th of May
+fire was opened on St. Elmo with ten guns which threw balls weighing eighty
+pounds. Besides these there were two culverins which threw balls of sixty
+pounds, and a huge basilisk, the projectile from which weighed no less than
+one hundred and sixty pounds. A terrible fire was opened against the walls
+of the fort, and so destructive did it immediately become that the Bailli
+of Negropont, the Knight in command, very soon became aware that his trust
+must be in the stout hearts and strong arms of his garrison; as the walls
+by which they were surrounded were hourly crumbling into nothingness.
+
+Regarding the matter from this point of view, he sent at once to the Grand
+Master by the Chevalier La Cerda demanding succour; this officer, "rendered
+eloquent by fear," exaggerated the peril to which the fort was exposed and
+stated that it could not possibly hold out for more than another eight
+days.
+
+"What losses have you had?" demanded the Grand Master.
+
+"Sire," replied La Cerda, "the fort may be compared to a sick man in his
+extremity, in the last stage of weakness, unable to sustain himself except
+by perpetual cordials and remedies."
+
+"Then I myself will be your physician," said the Grand Master with
+contempt, "and I will bring others with me. If that cannot cure you of fear
+it will, at all events, prevent the infidels from seizing upon the fort."
+
+There was no real hope in the mind of La Valette that St. Elmo could be
+saved from the enemy. The place was too weak, and none knew this fact
+better than the man to whom all the defences of the island were as familiar
+as the hilt of his own good sword; but, though he secretly deplored the
+necessity, he felt that if Malta were to be preserved it could only be done
+by delaying until succour should come from outside; every day, nay, every
+hour, was of importance, and he was prepared to sacrifice St. Elmo and the
+lives of its entire garrison to attain his end. He did not, however--to
+continue the simile of La Cerda--prescribe for others a medicine which he
+himself was not prepared to take, and when he said that he would go to the
+fort of St. Elmo it was no mere figure of speech. The council of the
+Knights, however, would not hear of the Grand Master thus sacrificing
+himself; well did these noble gentlemen know that there was none among them
+like unto him, that his name and his influence were worth an army in
+themselves. The outcry was so loud that La Valette had to yield; which he
+did the more readily when he saw the splendid emulation among his brethren
+to cross over to the beleaguered and crumbling fortress which promised
+nothing but the grave to those who should pass within the circle of fire by
+which it was now surrounded. To the Chevaliers Gonzales de Medran and de la
+Motte was conceded the proud privilege for which all the Knights were
+clamouring; and, accompanied by the tears and the prayers of their
+brethren, they passed to that place where, if death were certain, honour at
+least was immortal. Truly the heart warms somewhat to the days of chivalry
+when one reads of what was done at the siege of Malta. The motto of
+_Noblesse oblige_ was no dead letter in the sixteenth century. By this time
+the whole of Europe was awake to the peril of the Order, and, galloping for
+dear life across Europe, came the Knights, anxious and willing to share in
+the danger. For most of these gentlemen Sicily was the goal at which they
+aimed; arrived there they flung themselves into any boat or shallop which
+they could hire, and, heedless of the risk of capture by the Turkish fleet,
+totally ignorant of what was passing in Malta save that the infidel was at
+her gates, they passed across the channel which separates the two islands
+and joined their fellows at Il Borgo.
+
+Greatly heartened by the reinforcements brought to them by de Medran and de
+la Motte, the garrison of St. Elmo made a sortie, surprised the Turks in
+their entrenchments, and, under cover of the guns of the fort, succeeded in
+destroying nearly all the works which the enemy had so painfully built up.
+The Turks, however, when they had recovered from the surprise, were in such
+large numbers as to be able to rally and drive the Christians from the
+vantage points which they had gained; and to oblige them once again to
+retire into the fort. From this time onward there was never a day in which
+the garrison and the besiegers were not hand to hand in the trenches.
+
+Just after the first reinforcements had been thrown into St. Elmo there
+arrived on the scene Ali, the Lieutenant of Dragut. This corsair came from
+Alexandria with six galleys, on board of which were nine hundred men,
+reinforcements for the Turkish army. A few days after this the famous
+Dragut himself appeared, with thirteen galleys and two galleots, on board
+of which were sixteen hundred men.
+
+What must not have been the despairing feelings with which the defenders
+viewed the arrival of this augmentation to the swarming ranks of their
+foes! From afar they noted the vessels and knew, while Philip of Spain and
+Garzia de Toledo still procrastinated, that now was added to the number of
+their enemies the most famous captain who served the autocrat of the
+Eastern world. Very naturally the arrival of Dragut was hailed with
+acclamation by the Turks: every gun in that vast armada spoke in salute,
+every trumpet blared, every drum rolled to welcome the man honoured of the
+Padishah, notorious throughout the whole world of Europe for his implacable
+enmity to the Knights. The first preoccupation of the corsair was to inform
+himself as to the conduct of the operations. These, when disclosed to him,
+by no means met with his approval. This real leader immediately made it
+clear to Piali and Mustafa that which they should have done. In the first
+place they should have made themselves masters of the castle of Gozo, and
+then captured the Citta Notabile. By doing this the supplies to the town
+and fortress of Il Borgo would have been cut off: besides--and more
+important than aught else--they would in this manner have closed the road
+to those succours expected by the Christians. Piali, who had desired from
+the first to undertake nothing without the advice of Dragut, now said that
+the siege of St. Elmo was not so far advanced after all, and, if the Basha
+of Tripoli should so direct, it could be raised at once. To this, however,
+Dragut would by no means consent.
+
+"That would have been well enough," he said, "if the affair had not gone so
+far; but, after the opening of the trenches and several days of attack, it
+is not possible to raise the siege without sullying the honour of the
+Sultan and discouraging the valour of the soldiers."
+
+It cannot be denied that, in acting as he did, the corsair displayed a
+self-restraint and a loyalty to the Sultan hardly to be expected in the
+circumstances. The jealousy which so often obtains among rival commanders
+was singularly in evidence in the forces of the Padishah: Dragut had good
+cause to be dissatisfied with the dispositions which had been made, and
+yet, for the reasons which we have quoted, he allowed them to proceed.
+Before the Basha had left Tripoli he had been engaged in communications
+with Muley Hamid, the then King of Tunis, who was feudatory of Spain.
+Anxious as was the corsair to aid in attacking his implacable enemies, the
+Knights, he could not afford to leave his own flank unguarded in Africa. He
+succeeded, however, in arriving at an understanding with the King of Tunis,
+and, further than this, he had assured himself, by means of his spies, that
+the succours which were to be sent from Sicily by the Spanish King could
+not possibly arrive for another two months. It was the negotiations which
+he was obliged to undertake with Muley Hamid which had caused his late
+arrival. As far as it is possible to judge, it was this circumstance, which
+(added to their own incomparable valour) turned the scale in favour of the
+Knights.
+
+Among all those brave men at Malta, on both sides, in this flaming month of
+June 1565, there were none who excelled the Basha of Tripoli. "No one had
+ever seen a more intrepid general officer," says de Vertot. "He passed
+entire days in the trenches and at the batteries. Among his different
+talents none understood better than did he the direction and conduct of
+artillery, which was his special _metier_. By his orders on June 1st a
+second battery was constructed closer to the fort and parallel to the one
+already in existence, in order that an absolutely continuous fire might be
+maintained. He mounted four guns on the opposite side of Marsa Muzetto
+Harbour on a projecting point of land, from which a further enfilading fire
+smote the doomed fortress on the flank: this point has been known ever
+since as the Point Dragut."
+
+A ravelin in advance of the fortress on the land side was scourged without
+ceasing by the arquebus fire of the Janissaries. One evening, as the return
+fire had slackened and all seemed quiet within this work, some Turkish
+engineers stole forth from the trenches to reconnoitre. Approaching the
+cavalier, all was still as death; the bold sappers pushed on as far as the
+ditch by which the work was surrounded, creeping on hands and knees. They
+let themselves down noiselessly into the ditch, and then, one standing on
+the shoulders of another, peeped in upon their Christian foes. Whether or
+no the sentry had been slain by a stray shot, or whether he too slept, can
+never be known; but the cavalier was unguarded; all within it slept the
+sleep of men utterly exhausted. The sappers crept back to their trenches,
+fetched scaling-ladders, swept like a flood over the rim of the cavalier,
+and put to death every man whom they found. Profiting by their advantage,
+the Turks dashed over the bridge connecting the cavalier with the fort;
+here, however, they were met by Sergeant-Major Guerare and a handful of
+soldiers aroused by him. These men were instantly succoured by the
+Chevaliers de Vercoyran and de Medran, who were immediately followed by the
+Bailli of Negropont and several other Knights. An obstinate hand-to-hand
+combat now ensued; fresh Turks came up to the attack, but were mown down in
+swathes by an enfilading fire from two cannons which the defenders of the
+fort managed to bring to bear upon them. More pioneers arrived from the
+trenches, carrying planks and sacks filled with wool. These men tried to
+effect a permanent lodgment, but the fire was too hot on the Christian
+side, and men fell in hundreds. Nothing daunted, the Turks reared their
+scaling-ladders against the sides of the fortress itself, and attempted to
+scale the walls; but for this the ladders were too short, and the
+assailants were hurled back into the ditch. This attack, in which the
+Turkish arms were rewarded by the capture of the ravelin behind the
+cavalier, is said to have cost them the lives of three thousand men. It
+lasted from daybreak until midday.
+
+On the side of the Christians twenty Knights and one hundred soldiers were
+slain; but worst of all, from their point of view, the ravelin remained in
+the hands of their enemies. The chevalier Abel de Bridiers de la Gardampe
+having received a ball through his body, some of his comrades ran to place
+him under cover. "Count me no longer among the living," said the Knight.
+"You will be better employed in defending the rest of our brethren." He
+then, unassisted, dragged himself to the foot of the altar in the chapel,
+where his dead body was discovered when all was over.
+
+So far communication remained established between St. Elmo and their
+comrades in Il Borgo on the opposite side of the harbour; in consequence
+the wounded were removed and their places taken by one hundred fresh men
+under the Chevalier Vagnon. To the Bailli of Negropont and the Commandeur
+Broglio, La Valette sent a message to return to Il Borgo. These gallant and
+aged veterans, both of whom were wounded, whose faces were scorched by the
+sun and blackened with powder, whose bodies were well-nigh worn out with
+perpetual vigil and hand-to-hand fighting, refused stoutly to quit their
+post, which now was naught but a dreadful shambles filled with corpses
+mangled out of recognition and heads and limbs which had been torn and
+hacked from their bodies.
+
+Dragut now proposed to erect batteries on the same side of the Great Port
+as that on which Il Borgo was situated; on the point now known as Ricasoli,
+but which was then and for centuries afterwards known as the Punta Delle
+Forche (or Point of the Gallows, because it was here that all pirates was
+executed; and their bodies, swinging in chains, were the first objects that
+met the eye on entering the Great Port). In this he was overruled ruled by
+Piali, who declared that he had not sufficient men to spare, and the
+Knights of II Borgo would soon render the battery untenable even if they
+should succeed in erecting it, which the Turkish admiral now considered
+extremely doubtful. The siege of St. Elmo, which Mustafa had said would
+last at the outside for five or six days, had now been in progress for four
+weeks; and, although the fort was in a ruinous condition, nothing seemed
+capable of daunting those invincible warriors by which it was held.
+
+The position in St. Elmo now was that the Turks still held on to the
+ravelin which they had captured; this they had built up to such a height
+that they could look over the parapet of the fortress and shoot down with
+arquebus fire any one whom they could see. Meanwhile the Turkish sappers
+delved night and day in their endeavour to undermine the parapet, which, if
+blown up, would give them free access to the interior of the fort; while
+another party, by use of the yards of galleys and huge planks of wood,
+busied themselves in constructing a bridge to connect the ravelin with the
+parapet. Lamirande, one of the most active of the defenders of the fort,
+viewed these preparations without undue alarm, as he was aware that, by the
+nature of the ground, it would be almost impossible to excavate
+sufficiently under the parapet to place an effective mine. As, however, the
+sapping was causing the parapet to incline outwards, and it was possible
+that it might almost at any moment fall over into the ditch, he caused a
+second parapet to be erected inside the first and artillery to be mounted
+thereon. Having done this he caused a false sortie to be made on the
+following night, and when the Turks rushed to the attack he, accompanied by
+a party of sappers, sallied out into the ditch and burned the bridge which
+had been made. The Turks, returning after their fruitless assault, found
+their bridge destroyed, but with untiring activity set to work and
+constructed it afresh. Dragging cannon to the very edge of the ravelin,
+they, on the very next evening, revenged themselves by also making a false
+attack: they swarmed into the ditch, and, placing their scaling-ladders
+against the walls, pretended that an escalade was to be attempted. The
+garrison, deceived, appeared on the parapet in large numbers, when a
+murderous fire at point-blank range was opened upon them from the ravelin.
+So great was the execution done on this occasion that the garrison lost
+more men than had hitherto been the case in the most determined attacks
+which they had sustained.
+
+It now seemed as if indeed the end had come, that the garrison had done all
+that was in the power of mortal man and nothing was left for them but to
+retire while there was yet time. Accordingly choice was made of the
+chevalier Median to represent the desperate extremities to which they were
+reduced to La Valette. It was well known that for none among the Knights
+had the Grand Master more respect than he had for Medran, one of the
+bravest and most chivalrous of them all. He, at least, could never be
+suspected of cowardice, feebleness, at a desire to desert his post. This
+gallant Knight crossed the harbour on his dolorous errand and was received
+by his chief: to him he represented the state of affairs as it has here
+been set down, assuring him that at best the fort could but hold out for a
+few days longer.
+
+A chapter of the Knights Grand Cross was immediately held and the most part
+of them were of opinion that the time had come to abandon a hopeless
+position. But this decision did not meet with the approval of the Grand
+Master. No one was more sensible than he of the peril to which their
+brethren were exposed; at the same time, he contended, that there were
+occasions on which it was necessary to sacrifice a certain number for the
+good of the whole Order. He had certain information that, if St. Elmo were
+abandoned, the Viceroy of Sicily would hazard nothing for the relief of the
+island; that upon the arrival of succours depended the existence of their
+ancient and honourable confederacy: therefore, at no matter what cost, they
+were bound to hold out as long as possible. So dominant was the personality
+of the Grand Master that, in a short time, he had won over the votes of the
+chapter and Medran was ordered to return to St. Elmo and deliver to the
+garrison a message that the siege must take its course.
+
+Medran accordingly returned and reported to his comrades the result of his
+embassy. Several of the older Knights received the command with due
+submission, but among those who were younger there were murmurings. These
+men deemed the answer to their appeal hard and cruel; they could see no
+object in the loss of their lives, which they well knew would all be
+sacrificed in the next assault. They accordingly, to the number of
+fifty-three, wrote a letter to the Grand Master, demanding permission to
+abandon St. Elmo and retire to Il Borgo. If their request were denied they
+announced their design to sally forth, sword in hand, and perish in the
+ranks of the enemy. The Commandeur de Cornet was the bearer of this letter,
+which was received by the Grand Master with sorrow and indignation. To
+reassure them, he sent three commissioners to inspect the place. This was
+done, and one of them, a Knight of Greek descent named Constantine
+Castriot, reported that the fort could still hold out a while longer. When
+he announced this at St. Elmo the recalcitrant Knights were so furious with
+him that the Baili of Negropont had to sound "the alarm" to prevent a
+disgraceful fracas. The commissioners returned to Il Borgo. After hearing
+their report La Valette wrote a letter to those by whom he had been
+memorialised to the following effect:
+
+  "Return to the convent, my brothers; you will there be in greater
+  security; and on our part we shall feel a greater sense of security in
+  the conservation of so important a place, on which depends the safety of
+  the island and the honour of our Order."
+
+Never were men so taken aback as were the Knights in St. Elmo when they
+received this response; here it was intimated to them that that which they
+refused to do on account of the danger thereof was to be undertaken by
+others. This was no more than a fact, as La Valette was besieged with
+applications from, not only the Knights, but also the simple soldiers of
+the garrison, to be allowed to pass over to St. Elmo and die if necessary
+to the last man. It was, therefore, with prayers and tears that the Knights
+besought the Grand Master to allow them to remain. At first La Valette was
+adamant. He preferred, he said, the rawest militia which was prepared to
+obey his orders, to Knights who knew not their duty. In the end, however,
+he yielded, and in the fortress of St. Elmo, that crushed and ruined
+charnel-house, its defences gaping wide, its every corner exposed night and
+day to a sweeping murderous fire, there remained a host of men sadly torn
+and battered, but animated by such a spirit that nothing the Turks could
+devise made upon it the least impression. These great and gallant gentlemen
+had had their moment of weakness; they had been heartened to the right
+conception of their duty by the noble veteran who was their chief. To him
+had they turned at last, as his obedient children who had had their moment
+of rebellion in a trial as hard as was ever undergone by man. And now, as
+the inevitable end drew near, it was as if they would imitate the Roman
+gladiator with that terrible chorus of his: "Ave Caesar morituri te
+salutant."
+
+All day and every day did the garrison fight, snatching such repose as was
+possible when their pertinacious enemies, worn out by fatigue and the
+terrible heat, could no longer be led to the attack against those whom they
+now firmly believed to be in league with Shaitan himself; "For how else,"
+demanded Janissary and Spahi alike, "could infidels like these make head
+against those chosen of the Prophet like ourselves."
+
+At this time the garrison took into use a device attributed to the Grand
+Master himself. This consisted in hoops of wood which were first thoroughly
+soaked in alcohol and then boiled in oil; they were then tightly bound with
+cotton or wool, also soaked in inflammable liquids mixed with saltpetre and
+gunpowder. Once these fiendish contrivances were set alight nothing availed
+to put them out, and they were feared as was naught else by the Turks
+during the remainder of the time they were in Malta. They were particularly
+deadly against the Turks, and at times two or more soldiers mounting the
+breach would be caught in one of these fiery circles, and the unfortunate
+wretches would be burnt alive. Even the Janissaries refused to advance at
+times when these fireworks were being flung down upon their flowing
+garments.
+
+On June 16th another attack was made on the fortress, and, incredible as it
+may seem, it was repulsed with such awful slaughter that at last the Turks
+would not face the swords of the garrison. Alter this the enemy succeeded
+in drawing so close a cordon round the place that no more succours could
+reach it, and the end was but a matter of time. The day before it came
+Dragut, who, with his usual intrepidity, was standing in the midst of a hot
+fire, was struck on the side of the head by a stone dislodged from a wall
+by a cannon-ball. At the moment when this happened he was holding a council
+of war in the trenches with Piali, a Sanjak, and the principal Turkish
+engineer. The same shot which wounded Dragut killed the Sanjak on the spot.
+Piali caused a cloak to be thrown over the body of the corsair in order
+that his state should not be observed by the soldiers, and as soon as
+possible had him removed to his tent, where he lay unconscious till the
+following day.
+
+The council on which the corsair had been engaged when he received his
+mortal wound had for its object the complete isolation of St. Elmo from Il
+Borgo; his dispositions were completed and his orders given to the engineer
+just before he was struck.
+
+The agony of St. Elmo was drawing to an end; completely hemmed in by the
+latest dispositions of Dragut, the fortress was at its last gasp; a brave
+Maltese swimmer managed to slip through the cordon, swim the harbour, and
+deliver to the Grand Master a letter from the Bailli of Negropont. The
+Grand Master made one last effort to throw succours and reinforcements into
+the place, but these were beaten off with terrible slaughter: nothing now
+remained but to await the inevitable tragedy.
+
+[Illustration: DEATH OF DRAGUT AT THE SIEGE OF MALTA.]
+
+On the night of June 22nd the defenders of St. Elmo, having now lost all
+hope of being supported, made ready for death. Into them La Valette had
+breathed his own heroic spirit, and none among them counselled or dreamed
+of surrender. The Order to which they had given their allegiance now
+demanded of them the last sacrifice which it was in their power to make,
+and this was offered in the manner most fitting to its tenets. These
+exhausted, war-worn, battle-scarred warriors repaired to the chapel, where
+they confessed, and made ready by partaking together of the sacrament,
+"and, having thus surrendered their souls to God, each retired to his post
+to die on the bed of honour with arms in his hand." Those among the Knights
+who were too severely wounded or too ill to stand caused chairs to be
+carried to the breach in which they seated themselves and awaited the
+assault. For four hours did these indomitable men withstand the might of a
+host innumerable: at the conclusion of this period there remained alive but
+sixty of the garrison. Mustafa ceased the assault for a few moments only to
+replace the storming party by fresh troops, and then the end came. Almost
+the last to fall were the Chevalier Lamirande and the veteran Bailli of
+Negropont, and when the crescent banner was planted on the walls there
+remained alive not one of those defenders who had held the fort. Several of
+Dragut's officers ran to his tent and announced the taking of St. Elmo. The
+great captain was in his last extremity and unable to speak, "He, however,
+manifested his joy by several signs, and, raising his eyes to heaven as if
+in thankfulness for its mercies, immediately expired: a captain of rare
+valour and even abundantly more humane than are ordinarily these corsairs."
+
+The Basha Piali, on entering the fort and observing with what miserable
+resources it had so long been held exclaimed, as he looked across the
+harbour to Il Borgo:
+
+"What will not the parent do to us, when so small a son has cost us the
+lives of our bravest soldiers?"
+
+There is no record of what that cruel savage, Mustafa, said on this
+occasion; his deeds, however, spoke eloquently. He caused the bodies of the
+Knights to be decapitated and nailed to wooden crosses, while across their
+corpses were slashed a cross in derision of the religion of his foes. The
+bodies were then cast into the harbour, and were washed up at the foot of
+Il Borgo. Instantly the Grand Master ordered the decapitation of all the
+Turkish prisoners, and their heads were fired from cannon into the camp of
+Mustafa.
+
+With the remainder of the siege, which was yet to last till September 18th,
+we have no concern in this book. It is only necessary to say that the men
+of Il Borgo were worthy to stand in the same category with the defenders of
+St. Elmo, which is equivalent to stating that in them also was discovered
+the last limit of heroism. The Grand Master survived the siege, his
+monument is the noble city of "Valetta" built on Mount Sceberras. The Turks
+abandoned the siege and returned to Constantinople on the arrival of some
+insignificant reinforcements from Sicily. So terrible had been the
+resistance of the Knights that no heart was left in their armada. Of Dragut
+there remains but little to be said: he was perhaps the best educated of
+the corsairs and less cruel than was usually their habit. Although not so
+renowned as his more celebrated master, Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, this is,
+perhaps, because his career was cut short at the siege of Malta at a
+comparatively early age. Although he never attained the rank of
+Admiralissimo to the Grand Turk, that potentate, as we have seen, placed in
+him the greatest confidence, and relied largely on his judgment, especially
+when sea-affairs were in question. Like the Barbarossas before him, he rose
+from nothing to the height to which he eventually attained by sheer force
+of intellect and character. In the stormy times in which his lot was cast
+he never faltered in his onward way, never repined, never looked back,
+sustained as he was by a consciousness of his own capability to rule the
+wild spirits by whom he lived surrounded. So it is that, whatever other
+opinion we may hold of Dragut, we cannot deny that in this captain of the
+Sea-wolves were blended rare qualities, which caused him to shine as a
+capable administrator, a fine seaman, but above all as a supreme leader of
+men. Dragut died with arms in his hands fighting those whom he considered
+to be his bitterest enemies. He did not live to see the repulse of Piali
+and Mustapha, and it is to be presumed that he died assured in his own mind
+that victory would rest with the Moslem host. For such a man as this no
+death could have been more welcome.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+ALI BASHA
+
+  Ali, the Basha of Algiers, succeeds to Dragut--He conquers the Kingdom
+  of Tunis, captures four galleys from the Knights of Malta, joins Piali
+  Basha in his raidings preliminary to the battle of Lepanto--The
+  gathering of the Christian hosts and the arrival of Don John of Austria
+  in the Mediterranean to take command.
+
+"Now I have heard several mariners and captains of the sea, nay, even
+Knights of Malta, debate among themselves this question, as to which was
+the greater and better seaman, Dragut or Occhiali? And some held for one
+and some for the other; those who held for Occhiali declaring that he had
+held greater and more honourable charges than Dragut, because he commanded
+as General and Admiral for the Grand Turk and that _il fit belle action_ at
+the battle of Lepanto." Pierre de Bourdeille, the Seigneur de Brantome,
+from whom we make the above quotation, was himself present at the siege of
+Malta and, besides this, as is well known, gossiped in his own inimitable
+way concerning men and women of his time, from corsairs to courtesans. When
+such contemporary authorities as those mentioned could not agree it is
+quite certain that we of the twentieth century cannot decide on the rival
+claims to distinction between the Bashaw of Tripoli and his follower
+Occhiali, as he was known to the Christians, or Ali Basha, as he was called
+by the Turks. Ali Basha has a title to fame in the fact that he is
+mentioned by Cervantes in his _Don Quijote de la Mancha_ under the name of
+"Uchali" in chapter xxxix., "Donde el cautivo cuenta su vida y sucesos."
+The captive is supposed to have been no less a person than the famous
+Cervantes himself, and he briefly describes how Uchali became "Rey de
+Argel," or King of Algiers.
+
+Ali was a Christian, having been born at a miserable little village in
+Calabria called Licastelli. Nothing whatever is known of his birth and
+parentage, and he does not appear even to have possessed a Christian name,
+although born in a Christian land. He followed from his earliest youth the
+calling of a mariner; "he was from infancy inured to salt water," says
+Joseph Morgan, in his _Compleat History of Algiers_, and he was, as a mere
+boy, captured by Ali Ahamed, Admiral of Algiers, and was chained to the
+starboard-bow oar in the galley of that officer. He was thus very early in
+life "inured" to suffering, and must have possessed a constitution of iron
+to withstand thus, in boyhood, the hardships of the life of a galley-slave,
+which as a rule broke down the endurance of strong men in a very few years.
+Morgan presents us with a description of him at this period which in these
+more squeamish days can certainly not be set down in its entirety: suffice
+it to say that he suffered all his days from what is known as "scald-head,"
+and that personal filthiness was one of his principal characteristics.
+
+For some years Ali remained at the heart-breaking toil of the rower's
+bench: cut off from home, which to him meant nothing, devoid of kinsfolk,
+alone--miserably alone in a world which, so far, had given him naught but
+the chain and the whip--it is not a matter for surprise that he became a
+Mussulman, thus freeing himself from slavery. From the time that he took
+this step his fortunes mended rapidly in that strange medley of savagery
+and bloodshed in which his lot was cast.
+
+Alert, strong, capable, and vigorous, he became in early manhood chief
+boatswain in the galley in which his apprenticeship had been passed--a
+position which enabled him to accumulate a small store of ducats, with
+which he bought a share in a brigantine. Here he soon acquired sufficient
+wealth to become captain and owner of a galley, in which he soon gained the
+reputation of being one of the boldest corsairs on the Barbary coast.
+Having in some sort made a name for himself, his next step was to seek for
+a patron who could make use of his valour, address, and capability for
+command. His choice was soon made, as who in all the Mediterranean, in his
+early days, held such a name as Dragut? He accordingly entered the service
+of the Basha of Tripoli, and, under his command, became well known to the
+officers of the Grand Turk, particularly to the Admiral, Piali Basha, to
+whom he was able to render some important services.
+
+There is no object to be gained in lingering over the earlier years of this
+notable corsair, as we should thus only be repeating what has been said
+about Dragut, whose lieutenant and trusted follower he became. He
+accompanied his master to the siege of Malta, and when Dragut was slain the
+Capitan-Basha, Piali, named him as successor to his chief as Viceroy of
+Tripoli. Ali sailed from Malta to Tripoli, taking with him the remains of
+Dragut, to be buried as that chieftain had directed. When he arrived on the
+Barbary coast he made himself master of the slaves and treasure which had
+been left behind by Dragut; shortly after this he was confirmed in his
+Vice-royalty of Tripoli by the Grand Turk; thenceforward increasing, both
+his wealth and the terror in which his name was held, by continual raids
+upon the Christians, more particularly on the coasts of Sicily, Calabria,
+and Naples. It is curious to observe the sort of spite which all the
+renegadoes seem to have harboured against the countries in which they were
+born.
+
+In March 1568, owing to the fall of Mohammed Basha, the Vice-royalty of
+Algiers became vacant, and, through the good offices of his old friend
+Piali, Ali became Governor. He thus returned to occupy a position of
+literally sovereign power to the city which he had first entered as a
+galley-slave.
+
+That he was no negligent Governor and that he took an entirely intelligent
+view of his functions, is proved by an occurrence which took place in this
+same year in Spain. The Moriscoes in the Kingdom of Granada revolted
+against their Spanish Governor, by whom they were sorely oppressed. They
+sent messages to Ali at Algiers, begging for succour against their
+persecutor. But the Basha would send no expedition; he permitted all and
+sundry to go as volunteers, but gave out publicly that "it more concerned
+him to defend well his own State than to interfere in the affairs of
+others." He even went farther than this, and when a number of Moriscoes,
+who were settled at Algiers, embarked a quantity of arms for transportation
+to the coast of Andalusia, he put an embargo on the vessels and would not
+allow them to sail, saying "he would never suffer the exportation of what
+was so necessary for the defence of his own dominions." At last, after much
+importunity, he consented "that all such as had two of a sort--as muskets,
+swords, or other weapons--might, if they thought fit, send over one of
+them, provided they did it gratis and purely for the cause' sake; but he
+would never allow any of them to strip themselves of their arms for lucre."
+
+Ali, being now firmly established at Algiers, took up arms against the
+neighbouring State of Tunis. For long years now the King of Tunis had been
+protected by the Spaniards--a nation whom the Sea-wolves always held in
+singular abhorrence as the most bigoted of the Christian Powers, and who
+held in thrall many of their co-religionists. Hamid, son of Hassan, who now
+ruled in Tunis, had reduced that unfortunate State to anarchy bordering on
+rebellion, and the whole country, torn by internal feud, was ready to rise
+against him. The Goletta was in the hands of the Spaniards; Carouan, an
+inland town, had set up a king of its own, while the maritime towns passed
+from the domination of the Sea-wolves to that of the Christians, and from
+the Christians back to the Sea-wolves, according to which party happened to
+be the stronger for the time being.
+
+El Maestro Fray Diego de Haedo, "Abad de Fromesta de la Orden del Patriarca
+San Benito" and "natural del Valle de Carranca," whose _Topografia e
+Historia de Argel_ (or Algiers) was printed in Valladolid in the year 1612,
+gives an account of Hamid at this time in which he describes that monarch
+as an "unpopular tyrant who sadly persecuted his vassals and the friends of
+his father; who could by no means suffer his tyrannies and those of his
+ministers, the scum of the earth ("hombres baxos"), to whom he had given
+the principal offices of the kingdom. Accordingly, since the time that Ali
+had become Basha of Algiers, letters had been written to him importuning
+him to come to Tunis that he might possess himself of that city and
+kingdom."
+
+There were three principal conspirators--the Alcaid Bengabara, General of
+the Cavalry, the Alcaid Botaybo, and the Alcaid Alcadaar. Ali, however, was
+too shrewd a man to move until he had satisfied himself by reports from his
+own adherents; he, therefore, awaited the result of investigations made by
+spies from Algiers. At last, in the beginning of the year 1569, when the
+offers from the Alcaids had been three times renewed and the Basha was
+assured that the people in Tunis were sincere in their offer to him of the
+sovereignty of the kingdom--which they begged him to conquer and hold in
+the name of the Ottoman Empire--the ex-galley-slave no longer hesitated. He
+left Algiers in the month of October, leaving that city in charge of one
+Mami Corso, a fellow renegado. Unlike Dragut, who would have gone by sea,
+he set out by land with some five thousand corsairs and renegadoes. On the
+way he was reinforced by some six thousand cavalry of the wild tribes of
+the hinterland, then as ever ready to join in a fray with promise of booty:
+doubly ready in this case, as it was to harass so unpopular a tyrant as
+Hamid. Passing through Constantine and Bona, he continued to march towards
+Tunis, his following augmenting as he proceeded, and adding to his forces
+ten light field-guns. Arriving at Beja, a town which Haedo describes as
+being but two short days' march from Tunis, he came upon a fortress,
+recently erected by Hamid, mounting fourteen brass cannon. Here he halted,
+whereupon Hamid sallied out to give him battle at the head of some three
+thousand troops, horse and foot. The engagement had scarcely begun when the
+three Alcaids, who had been in communication with Ali, deserted with all
+their following. Hamid fled to Tunis, expecting to find shelter there, but
+he was hotly pursued by the corsairs, who followed him up to Al-Burdon,
+where his summer palace was situated. Hamid, finding that his people were
+everywhere in revolt, fled to the Goletta, carrying with him a quantity of
+money, jewels, and portable valuables, and placed himself under the
+protection of the Spanish garrison--not, however, without the loss of the
+major portion of his baggage, plundered from him by certain Moors in the
+course of his flight.
+
+Like Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, Ali was now lord of Algiers and Tunis, and as
+he was, for a corsair, a man of wide views, he treated his new subjects
+with consideration. He made, however, one curious mistake not to have been
+expected from one so politic: he demanded tribute from the tribes of the
+hinterland. In those days, particularly in Northern Africa, men paid
+tribute to an overlord because he was stronger than they; because
+retribution followed swiftly and suddenly upon refusal. To order tribute to
+be paid without being ready to strike was merely to expose the man making
+the demand to derision. Particularly was this the case with the fierce
+land-pirates of the desert, whose habit it was to exact and not to pay
+tribute. To Ali the Sheiks replied that "if he wanted tribute from them he
+must demand it lance in hand in the field, for there and nowhere else were
+they accustomed to pay: that their coin was steel lance-heads and not
+golden aspers." After this, says Morgan, "the Basha thought it well to
+dissemble."
+
+Ali, being in no position to wage war in the desert against these people,
+had to swallow the insult and to turn his attention to regulating the
+internal affairs of his newly acquired kingdom. This he succeeded in doing
+sufficiently by the month of June in the following year to enable him to
+leave Tunis in the hands of one Rabadan, a Sardinian renegado, and to start
+himself for Constantinople. His reason for doing this was the old one of
+attempting to consolidate his power in Northern Africa by appealing to the
+Sultan for help. As long as the Goletta remained in the hands of the
+Spaniards no corsair could feel himself secure in either Tunis or Algiers.
+The object of Ali was to beg from the Grand Turk men and ships to assist
+him to chase the Spaniards out of Africa.
+
+The month of June 1570, in consequence, saw Ali once more at sea in his
+"Admiral galley," steering northwards to the Golden Horn. Carrying with
+them a favourable breeze from the south-east, the galleys spread their huge
+lateen sails, and the straining rowers had rest awhile. The squadron
+consisted of twenty-four galleys. Off Cape Passaro, in Sicily, a small
+vessel was captured which gave information that five galleys of the Knights
+of Malta were at anchor at Licata, a small harbour in the neighbourhood,
+and that they were on the point of sailing for Malta. The decision of Ali
+was taken on the instant: were he to go in and attack them with the
+overwhelming force at his command the crews might escape to the shore; even
+the Knights of Malta could hardly be expected to fight twenty-four galleys
+with five. He was anxious to capture the ships, but above all to capture
+those by whom they were manned: to have the satisfactory revenge of seeing
+the proud Knights stripped naked and chained to the benches of his own
+fleet.
+
+The hot Mediterranean sun poured down out of a cloudless sky as the
+Sea-wolves made their offing; out of sight of land they lay, but right in
+the course which the galleys of the Christians were bound to take. The
+great yards, with their lateen sails, were got down on deck, and, oar in
+hand, the Moslems awaited their prey. Presently the Maltese galleys were
+discovered coming leisurely along, under oars and sails, and then--when it
+was too late--the Knights discovered the snare into which they had fallen.
+There was but scant time for preparation or deliberation, and who shall
+blame four out of the five if they decided to try to escape? for it was
+escape or annihilation.
+
+But there was one which did not fly, "Una galera hizo cara a los Turcos"
+(One single galley turned her bows towards the Turks), says that faithful
+chronicler Haedo. She was named the _Santa Ana_, but the name of her heroic
+commander has not come down to us. Even as Grenfell "at Flores in the
+Azores," stood upon the deck of the little _Revenge_ on that memorable
+August day in 1591, when "he chose to die rather than to dishonour himself,
+his country, and her Majesty's ship," so also did this Knight of Malta bear
+down on the twenty-four that were his foes.
+
+When Don John of Austria, being at the time young and inexperienced in
+warfare on the sea, wrote to the Marquis of Villafranca, General of the
+Galleys of Sicily, requesting advice on the subject of galley attacking
+galley, that officer replied to him, "Never fire your arquebus at the foe
+until you are so close at hand that his blood will leap into your face at
+the discharge." If we bear in mind such an instruction as this it will help
+us to picture that close-packed sanguinary conflict upon which the
+Mediterranean sun looked down on this day. Eight to one, all that could
+find room to get alongside of the _Santa Ana_, fought with the Knight and
+his followers. The issue was, of course, never in doubt for a moment.
+"Muertos y cansados" (Dead and deadbeat), says Haedo, the caballeros and
+soldados of the Christian ship could at length hold out no longer. The
+Sea-wolves were victorious, the proud banner of Saint John was lowered; but
+never in all its history had it been more nobly upheld, and the galley
+_Santa Ana_, commanded by that unknown member of the great Christian
+military hierarchy of the sixteenth century, may well stand in the roll of
+fame alongside of the _Revenge_, the _Vengeur_, and the _Victory_.
+
+The _Capitana_, or "Admiral's galley," of the Knights, being hotly pursued,
+ran ashore with one of her consorts at Licata: the crews landed, but were
+pursued and overtaken. One galley escaped altogether, but four out of the
+five were taken. So notable a victory as this over the Knights caused so
+much rejoicing in the fleet of the Sea-wolves that Ali determined to
+celebrate it by a triumphal return to Algiers instead of proceeding
+directly to Constantinople. Accordingly, the ships' heads were turned south
+once more, and upon July 20th, 1570, the fleet arrived in the African port,
+"on sus galeras todas llenas de muchas banderas"--with galleys gaily
+beflagged.
+
+[Illustration: A GALLEY OF THE KNIGHTS OF MALTA.]
+
+The procession entered the harbour in three divisions of eight galleys: and
+towing behind each division was one of the captured galleys of the Knights.
+In memory of his prowess Ali ordered that the shields and bucklers taken
+from the Maltese galleys, which bore upon them emblazoned the white cross
+of "the Religion," should be hung up in the great arched gate of the
+Marina. Also there was placed here the image of Saint John the Baptist,
+taken from the _Capitana_ galley, "all of which remain," says Haedo, "until
+this day" _(i.e._ 1612), except the image of Saint John, which in the reign
+of Hassan Basha, a Venetian renegado, was taken down and burned at the
+instance of the Morabutos, "los letrados de los Moros" (the learned among
+the Moors). It is an instructive commentary on the fear and respect in
+which the Knights of Malta were held that such a man as Ali should have
+considered it a triumph worth the celebrating when he defeated five of
+their vessels with twenty-four of his own.
+
+The next occurrence in the life of Ali was one of those to which the
+Sea-wolves were subjected from time to time, and which do not seem to have
+caused them much trouble or anxiety. This was a mutiny of the Janissaries
+in Algiers, who very reasonably objected to being left without their pay. A
+mutiny of the Janissaries, however, was somewhat a serious matter, as they
+were accustomed to the enjoyment of many privileges, and were, as we have
+said elsewhere, a picked corps who had it in their power even to coerce the
+Sultan himself upon occasions.
+
+Those of them who were in Algiers demanded "Who was this corsair who dared
+to keep the picked men of the army of the Grand Turk waiting for their pay,
+as if they were no better than his slaves?" Such a thing as a mutiny was,
+in the days of which we speak, a matter for which any prudent corsair had
+to be prepared. Ali was in no means discomposed, and, as the crisis had
+become acute on shore, he went to sea, where he was under no obligation to
+pay his men, who paid themselves at the expense of their enemies. He put to
+sea with twenty galleys, and, shortly after leaving Algiers, he met with a
+galley from the Levant, from which he received information that a powerful
+armada was preparing in Constantinople for an expedition against the
+Christians. He steered for Coron in the Morea, where he was almost
+immediately joined by the Ottoman fleet, the commander of which force was
+overjoyed to find so formidable a reinforcement under so renowned a captain
+as Ali.
+
+Soliman the Magnificent had died in 1566, and had been succeeded by his
+son, Selim; this prince, bred in the Seraglio, was weak and licentious,
+given to that strong drink forbidden by the Prophet to an extent which
+caused him to be nicknamed by the Spaniards as "el ebrio," or "el bebedor."
+
+This was a state of affairs which boded ill for the Turkish Empire, and
+Selim II. had been educated in a very different manner from that which had
+hitherto been the custom. Speaking of this, Gibbon says, "Instead of the
+slothful luxury of the Seraglio, the heirs of royalty were educated in the
+council and the field. From early youth they were entrusted by their
+fathers with the command of provinces and of armies; and this manly
+institution, which was often productive of civil war, must have essentially
+contributed to the discipline and vigour of the monarchy."
+
+Drunkard and weakling as he was, Selim had his ambitions. He wished to
+signalise his reign by some great conquest, such as had added lustre to the
+rule of his father; and in consequence he laid claim to the island of
+Cyprus, then belonging to Venice, The Venetians, having strengthened the
+fortifications of the island and fitted out their navy, sought alliances in
+Europe to curb the pretensions of the Porte. In this they found support,
+instant and generous, from the Pope Pius V. Of this great ecclesiastic
+Prescott says: "He was one of those Pontiffs who seemed to have been called
+forth by the exigencies of the time to uphold the pillars of Catholicism as
+they were yet trembling under the assaults of Luther."
+
+The Pope, Philip II. of Spain, and Venice formed what was known as the
+"Holy League," and, having formed it, immediately began to quarrel among
+themselves as to what its functions were to be. The Venetians wished all
+its efforts to be directed to safeguarding Cyprus, while Philip and his
+viceroys were anxious to attack the Sea-wolves on the coast of Africa in
+their strongholds. After much squabbling, an agreement was come to. The
+principal items of this were, that the Pope should pay one-sixth of the
+expenses, Venice two-sixths, and Spain three-sixths; that each party should
+appoint its own Commander-in-Chief, and that Don John of Austria should be
+in supreme command of the whole forces assembled. The contracting parties
+were to furnish 200 galleys, 100 transports, 50,000 foot, 4,500 horse, and
+the requisite artillery and stores.
+
+While the Christians were negotiating and talking, the Turks were acting.
+It was in May that the Pope caused the treaty to be publicly read in full
+consistory; in April the Turkish fleet had got to sea and committed
+terrible ravages in the Adriatic, laying waste to Venetian territory.
+
+While ships and men were gathering, and while the fleet which it was to be
+his fortune to defeat was pursuing its career in the Mediterranean, Don
+John of Austria left Madrid for the south on June 6th, 1571. When he
+arrived at Barcelona he made a pilgrimage to the Hermitage of Our Lady of
+Montserrat, where his father Charles V. had confessed and received the
+sacrament before he sailed on his voyage to the Barbary coast in his
+expedition against Barbarossa. From Barcelona he sailed with thirty galleys
+to Genoa, where he arrived on the 25th, and was lodged in the palace of
+Andrea Doria. In August he arrived by water at Naples.
+
+By this time all Europe was aflame with excitement: warriors of noble birth
+were flocking to serve under the standard of the brother of the King of
+Spain, who was regarded as the very mirror of chivalry. The following
+description of Don John, at Naples, is from the pen of that great historian
+Prescott:
+
+  "Arrangements had been made in that city for his reception on a more
+  magnificent scale than any he had witnessed on his journey. Granvelle,
+  who had lately been raised to the post of Viceroy, came forth at the
+  head of a long and brilliant procession to welcome his royal guest. The
+  houses which lined the streets were hung with richly tinted tapestries
+  and gaily festooned with flowers. The windows and verandahs were graced
+  with the beauty and fashion of the pleasure-loving capital, and many a
+  dark eye sparkled as it gazed upon the fine form and features of the
+  youthful hero, who at the age of twenty-four had come to Italy to assume
+  the baton of command and lead the crusade against the Moslems. His
+  splendid dress of white velvet and cloth of gold set off his graceful
+  person to advantage. A crimson scarf floated loosely over his breast,
+  and his snow-white plumes drooping from his cap mingled with the yellow
+  curls that fell in profusion over his shoulders. It was a picture which
+  the Italian maiden might love to look on. It was certainly not the
+  picture of the warrior sheathed in the iron panoply of war. But the
+  young Prince, in his general aspect, might be relieved from the charge
+  of effeminacy by his truly chivalrous bearing and the dauntless spirit
+  which beamed from his clear blue eyes. In his own lineaments he seemed
+  to combine all that was comely in the lineaments of his race."
+
+At Naples Don John found a fleet at anchor under the command of Don Alvaro
+de Bazan, first marquis of Santa Cruz, of whom much was to be heard in the
+future in his capacity as Admiral of Castile. Here also he received from
+the hands of Cardinal Granvelle a consecrated banner sent to him by the
+Pope at a solemn ceremony in the church of the Franciscan Convent of Santa
+Chiara. On August 25th he left Naples and proceeded to Messina, where he
+landed under a triumphal arch of colossal dimensions, embossed with rich
+plates of silver and curiously sculptured with emblematical bas-reliefs.
+The royal galley in which the hero embarked was built at Barcelona: she was
+fitted with the greatest luxury, and was remarkable for her strength and
+speed; her stern was profusely decorated with emblems and devices drawn
+from history; no such warship had ever been seen in the world before.
+
+Cayetano Rosell, in his _Historia del combate naval de Lepanto_, says that
+the number of vessels, great and small, in the Christian armada was over
+300, of which 200 were galleys, the ordinary warships of the time. He goes
+on to say:
+
+  "In this spacious harbour [Messina] there were collected the squadrons
+  of the League; the people who managed the oars and sails and the
+  innumerable combatants making an immense number when added together.
+  Since the days of Imperial Rome, never had been seen in these seas so
+  imposing a spectacle, never had there been collected so many ships
+  moving towards a single end dominated by a single will. Never was there
+  a spectacle more gratifying in the eyes of justice, nor of greater
+  incentive to men to fight for the cause of religion."
+
+The Spanish fleet comprised 90 royal galleys, 24 nefs, and 50 fregatas and
+brigantines "los mejores que en tiempo alguno se habrian visto" (the finest
+that ever were seen at any time), as they were described by Don John. The
+Pope sent 12 galleys and 6 fregatas, under the command of Mark Antony
+Colonna. The Pope had also made a grant of the "Crusada" and "Excusada,"
+and other ecclesiastical revenues which he drew from Spain, to the King of
+that country, to meet expenses.
+
+Venice appointed Sebastian Veniero to the command of her fleet, which
+consisted of 106 galleys, 6 galeasses of enormous bulk and clumsy
+construction carrying each 40 guns, 2 nefs, and 20 fregatas. These vessels
+were, however, so miserably manned and equipped that Don John had to send
+on board Spaniards and Genoese to complete their complements. In a
+manuscript of the Bibliotheque du Roi (Number 10088) is an account of the
+battle of Lepanto by Commandeur de Romegas. He gives the number of the
+Turkish fleet at 333 ships, of which 230 were galleys, the rest galeasses
+and smaller craft. The total which he gives for the Christian fleet is 271.
+Ali Basha was in supreme command of the Turkish forces, "a man of an
+intrepid spirit, who had given many proofs of a humane and generous
+mature--qualities more rare among the Turks, perhaps among all nations,
+than mere physical courage." With Ali was the Basha of Algiers, that other
+Ali, the corsair, who since his arrival at Coron had done more than his
+share of the fighting, marauding, and devastating which were the
+preliminaries to the battle of Lepanto. In this historic conflict he was to
+show once again how, on the face of the waters, the Sea-wolves were
+supreme; as it was he and his corsairs, out of the whole of the Moslem
+host, who acquitted themselves with the greatest credit on that day so
+fatal to the arms of the Ottoman Turk.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+LEPANTO
+
+  How Ali Basha fought at the battle of Lepanto: his subsequent
+  career--Conclusion.
+
+Lepanto, the last battle of first-class importance in which the Sea-wolves
+bore a leading part, is memorable in many ways. It is one of the most
+sanguinary which was ever fought, the element of personal hatred between
+the combatants, to which we have alluded more than once, being singularly
+in evidence on this occasion. As we have said, this campaign was brought
+about at the initiative of the Venetians, and an incident which occurred
+not long before the battle exacerbated the feelings with which the Turks
+were regarded by the Christians to the point of madness. The city of
+Famagusta, in Cyprus, had been captured by that Mustafa of whom we heard so
+much at the siege of Malta. The Venetian defenders made an honourable
+capitulation, but when the four principal Venetian captains were brought
+before Mustafa, that general caused three of them to be beheaded on the
+spot; the fourth, a noble and gallant gentleman who had been responsible
+for the magnificent defence of the city entrusted to his charge, he caused
+to be flayed alive in the market-square. He then had the skin stuffed with
+straw, and, with this ghastly trophy nailed to the prow of his galley,
+returned in triumph to Constantinople. Bragadino, the defender of
+Famagusta, did not die in vain; his terrible fate excited such a passion of
+anger in the whole of the armada of Don John that each individual of which
+it was composed felt that the sacrifice of his own life would be but a
+small thing if it only led to the destruction of such fiends as those
+against whom they were arrayed.
+
+[Illustration: DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA.]
+
+Lepanto was a magnificent triumph for the arms of Christendom, and taught a
+much-needed lesson to Europe that the Ottoman Turk was not invincible upon
+the sea; it was not, however, an interesting battle from the point of view
+of the student of war and its combinations. Of all the high officers in
+command on that memorable day there was only one who displayed real
+generalship and a proper appreciation of the tactical necessities of the
+situation; that officer was Ali Basha, the leader of the Sea-wolves. The
+account of the battle is somewhat obscured by the fact that on the side of
+the Moslems the name of the Ottoman Commander-in-Chief was also "Ali"; in
+order to avoid confusion in this narration, we shall allude to the Basha of
+Algiers by the name given to him by the Christians, "Occhiali."
+
+It was on Sunday, October 7th, 1571, that the Christian fleet weighed
+anchor from Cephalonia and stood southwards along the Albanian coast, which
+is here fringed with rocky islets. The right wing was commanded by John
+Andrea Doria, the left wing by the Provediteur Barbarigo, the centre, or
+"battle," as it was called, by Don John in person, who had on the one side
+of him Mark Antony Colonna, the General of the Galleys of the Pope, and on
+the other that fiery veteran Sebastian Veniero, the commander of the
+Venetians. Here also were stationed the Prince of Parma, nephew to Don
+John, Admiral of Savoy; Duke Urbino, Admiral of Genoa; the Admiral of
+Naples, and the Commandeur of Castile. The reserve, under the command of
+the Marquis of Santa Cruz, consisted of thirty-five galleys. Immediately in
+rear of the _Real_, or royal galley of Don John, was that of the Grand
+Commander Requesens. The number of seamen, soldiers, officers, and
+galley-slaves in the fleet amounted to over eighty thousand persons;
+twenty-nine thousand infantry had been embarked, of which number nineteen
+thousand were Spaniards. Opposed to the Christians on this day was a
+Turkish fleet which had on board no less than one hundred and twenty
+thousand men embarked in two hundred and fifty galleys, without counting an
+innumerable host of smaller vessels.
+
+[Illustration: SEBASTIAN VENIERO. Inset, portraits of Don John and Pope
+Pius V. Heroic statue of Don John dominating Christian and Turkish Fleets.
+The breath of the Almighty destroying the Turkish fleet at Lepanto.]
+
+The authorities on whose accounts of the battle this description is based
+are Prescott, the famous historian; P. Daru, a member of the Academie
+Francaise, who wrote an exhaustive _Histoire de Venise_ and Don Cayetano
+Rosell, member of the Spanish Academy, who is responsible for an exposition
+of the subject, known as _Historia del combate naval de Lepanto_. From a
+comparison of the works of these eminent men one fact emerges with great
+clearness, which is that the battle of Lepanto was an indiscriminate melee
+which was decided by some of the most desperate fighting ever recorded, but
+which depended hardly at all upon the tactical abilities of the men in
+chief command. It is true that we are told Don John issued written
+instructions to the commander of each ship, but we are left in the dark as
+to what these instructions were, while at the same time we discover that in
+his line of battle, which in the first instance appears to have been that
+of "single line ahead," the galleys of all nationalities were inextricably
+mixed up; making it thereby impossible for the Papal, Spanish, and Venetian
+commanders to deal, as they should have done, exclusively with their own
+men. On the other hand, Occhiali kept together the squadron of the
+Sea-wolves; he outgeneralled and had all but defeated John Andrea Doria,
+when the end came and he was obliged to retreat.
+
+We are, however, anticipating. Don John passed down his own line in a light
+"fregata" giving a few words of exhortation and advice to each ship under
+his command. If the bastard brother of the King of Spain did not exhibit
+any large measure of ability as a leader on this occasion, he was perhaps
+none the less the right man in the right place, as he had about him so
+winning a way, he was so striking and gallant a figure, that the hearts of
+all under his command went out to him. The seamen and soldiers of the great
+armada greeted him with enthusiastic shouts of delight as he bade them
+remember in whose cause it was that they fought. The last of the
+Knights-errant must have made a brave show as he passed down that line four
+miles in length, the sun shining on his damascened armour, and his yellow
+curls streaming out from beneath his helmet.
+
+Soon after sunrise the Turkish fleet was descried sailing towards the
+Christians, in such apparently overwhelming force that several of the
+Spanish commanders represented to Don John that it would be imprudent to
+risk a battle. To his honour be it recorded that he replied he had come out
+to fight the Turks and that the time for talk was now over. He then hoisted
+all his banners, and the executive signal for the combat to begin was given
+by displaying at his mainmast head the sacred banner blessed by the Pope.
+As this standard floated out upon the breeze there went up a great shout in
+unison from all that were under the command of Don John. The scene of the
+combat was that area of the Ionian Sea which is enclosed on the east by the
+coasts of Albania and Morea and on the west by the islands of Ithaca and
+Cephalonia, Just to the northward, at the entrance to the Gulf of Arta,
+sixteen hundred years before had been fought the battle of Actium between
+Antony and Octavius; the same spot had witnessed, in 1538, the memorable
+battle of Prevesa between Andrea Doria and Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa.
+
+From the point of view of the seaman, who is naturally anxious to discover
+the dispositions of their fleets made by the rival Commanders-in-Chief,
+Lepanto is an almost hopeless puzzle. As far as can be gathered, however,
+it was that the two armadas approached one another in what is known as
+"line ahead," each ship being immediately astern of its next ahead in one
+long continuous line; and that, when they got within striking distance,
+these lines turned so that they formed "line abreast," when each ship,
+having turned at right angles, simultaneously the line advances abreast,
+the ships forming it being broadside to broadside.
+
+When the Turks discovered the allies they were issuing from between the
+islets and the shore. Seeing John Andrea Doria moving to the right, they
+judged that he was executing a turning movement with the object of escaping
+to the northwards, from whence he had come; they were, at the time, unable
+to see the rest of the fleet, which was hidden by the land. With sound
+tactical judgment they accordingly advanced to attack the allies before
+they should have time to issue from the strait. They were, however, too far
+off to accomplish this, and, by the time they arrived within striking
+distance, the Christian fleet had cleared the strait and was ready for
+them, "drawn up for battle," says Monsieur Daru, which is somewhat vague in
+describing the disposition of a fleet. What is certain, however, is that in
+advance of the galleys of Don John were six great galeasses, which were
+armed with guns of immensely superior power to anything which could be
+mounted in galleys. As the Turks advanced to the attack these vessels
+opened fire, and did so much execution that Ali, the Turkish
+Commander-in-Chief, ordered his line to open out and thus avoid their fire.
+Whatever formation the fleet was in at the time--which was, as far as we
+can gather, "line abreast"--this opening-out process, to avoid the
+galeasses, threw it into hopeless confusion. The Turkish right wing, which
+was hugging the coast, and was the first to come into action, passed on in
+an endeavour to turn the left wing of the allies. While this manoeuvre was
+in progress Ali, the Capitan-Basha of the Turks, arrived in his vessel
+opposite to the royal galley of Don John. At the masthead of the galley of
+the Capitan-Bashaw floated the sacred standard of the Ottomans. This, the
+ancient banner of the Caliphs, was covered with texts from the Koran, and
+had upon it the name of Allah emblazoned no less than twenty-eight thousand
+nine hundred times in letters of gold. "It was," says Prescott, "the banner
+of the Sultan, having passed from father to son since the foundation of the
+dynasty, and was never seen in the field unless the Grand Seigneur or his
+lieutenant was there in person." Ali, the Commander-in-Chief, a favourite
+of the Sultan, had been entrusted with this most precious of all the
+possessions of the Padishah, as an incentive to him and all under his
+command to fight their hardest to do honour to the Prophet, and to prevent
+this symbol of their religion from falling into the hands of the Christian.
+Ali, like Don John, was young, and burning to distinguish himself;
+accordingly, as soon as the ships of the two leaders came opposite to each
+other neither regarded any enemy save his rival Commander-in-Chief. Ali
+drove his great galley straight on board of the vessel of Don John, and a
+most obstinate conflict ensued. Veniero and Colonna hastened to the
+assistance of their chief, who was sore beset.
+
+The combat now became general, and, as has been said, was for the most part
+nothing but a melee, in which each ship sought out the nearest of her foes
+and closed with her. For some time the fight went hard with Don John; time
+and again the galley of the Moslem leader was boarded, but on each occasion
+the Spaniards were hurled back upon their own decks. Loredano and Malipier,
+two Venetian captains, fell upon seven Turkish galleys which were hastening
+to reinforce the attack on Don John, and sank one of them. They then fought
+with such fury and resolution with the six that remained that, although
+both captains were killed, it was conceded that they had saved their
+general, entirely altered the complexion of the battle in their
+neighbourhood, and facilitated the capture of the Turkish admiral. The
+determined conduct of the two Venetians allowed the Spanish division to
+close in on the Turkish flagship, which, after an heroic resistance, was
+captured, principally because there were practically none left alive to
+fight. The head of Ali was struck off by a Spanish soldier, the banner of
+the Moslems was replaced by the flag of the Cross, the head of Ali on a
+pike being exhibited in derision above it. The conquerors seem to have seen
+no incongruity in this performance. The lowering of the sacred standard of
+the Capitan-Basha had a disheartening effect upon the Turks; they knew by
+this that their Commander-in-Chief was dead and his ship captured, the
+result being that the resistance of the Ottomans began to weaken. Then
+thirty galleys took to flight from the neighbourhood of the Christian
+flagship; so hotly were they pursued that they ran on shore, the crews
+swimming or wading to the beach and making off inland.
+
+On the right of the Christian line things had not been going so
+propitiously for them. Here Occhiali had managed, by his apparently
+persistent attempts to outflank John Andrea Doria, to decoy that commander
+away from his supports and from the main body of the Christians. This
+tactical manoeuvre of the corsair was successful; having drawn off some
+fifteen of the Christian galleys, he suddenly flung the whole of his
+greatly superior force into the gap and surrounded them. These galleys were
+Spanish, Venetian, and Maltese, and, although they offered a most vigorous
+resistance, they were mostly destroyed or captured. Doria, in spite of all
+his efforts, was on this day both outgeneralled and outfought: the
+Sea-wolves, under their grim leader, manoeuvring for position, obtaining
+it, and then falling like a thunderbolt on the foe. They were all brave men
+at Lepanto on this memorable October day; but few there were like the
+corsair king, in whom a heart of fire was kept in check by a brain of ice,
+who, during the whole combat, never gave away a chance, or failed to swoop
+like an eagle from his eyry when the blunders of his enemy gave him the
+opportunity for which he watched. It was the old story of "the veritable
+man of the sea" pitted against gallant soldiers fighting on an unfamiliar
+element. And yet it was against the best seaman on the Christian side that
+Occhiali pitted himself on this stricken field; and none can deny that with
+him rested such honour as was gained by the Turks on this day, the day
+which broke up for ever the idea of the invincibility of the Ottomans on
+the water. It needs not to say, to those who have read the story of the
+siege of Malta, how the Knights comported themselves in the battle; and yet
+Occhiali captured the _Capitana_, or principal galley of the Order, He was
+towing her out of action, a prize, when the Marquis of Santa Cruz bore down
+upon him with the reserve. By this time the battle was lost; the Moslems
+were in full retreat.
+
+The corsair recognised that he could do no more: sullenly he cast off the
+tow, and, forming up some thirty of his galleys, still in a condition to
+navigate, stood boldly through the centre of where the battle had once
+raged, and escaped. The _Capitana_ of Malta had been taken; and to the
+Sultan did Occhiali present the great standard of Saint John, as an earnest
+of his achievement.
+
+Bernardino de Escalente, in his work _Dialogos del arte militar_, printed
+in Seville in 1583, says that the Captain Ojeda, of the galley _Guzmana_,
+recaptured the _Capitana_ of Malta; and that, in recognition thereof, "the
+Religion" pensioned him for life. Ojeda, it is to be presumed, was under
+the orders of the Marquis of Santa Cruz during the battle.
+
+There remains one incident connected with the battle of Lepanto which must
+be told. In the _Marquesa_ galley, in the division of Doria, was lying in
+his bed sick of a fever a young man twenty-four years of age; a Spaniard of
+Alcala de Henares, "de padres hidalgos y honrados," we are told, although
+these parents were poor. When this young man heard that a battle was
+imminent he rose from his bed and demanded of his captain, Francisco San
+Pedro, that he should be placed in the post of the greatest danger. The
+captain, and others, his friends, counselled him to remain in his bed.
+"Senores," replied the young man, "what would be said of Miguel de
+Cervantes should he take this advice? On every occasion up to this day on
+which his enemies have offered battle to his Majesty I have served like a
+good soldier; and today I intend to do so in spite of this sickness and
+fever." He was given command of twelve soldiers in a shallop, and all day
+was to be seen where the combat raged most fiercely. He received two wounds
+in the chest and another which cost him the loss of his left hand. To those
+to whom he proudly displayed them in after-years he was accustomed to say,
+"wounds in the face or the chest are like stars which guide one through
+honour to the skies." Of him the chronicler says: "He continued the rest of
+his life with honourable memory of this wonderful occurrence, and, although
+he lost the use of his left hand, it added to the glory of his right." How
+glorious was that right hand is known to all readers of _El Ingenioso
+Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha._
+
+The losses at the battle of Lepanto are something so prodigious that
+imagination boggles at them. It is said that the Christians lost five
+thousand men and the Turks no less than thirty thousand. Enormous as these
+numbers are, they represent probably a very conservative estimate of the
+loss. The Turks lost two hundred vessels, and when we recollect the number
+of men embarked on board of the sixteenth-century galleys we can see that
+the numbers are by no means exaggerated, especially as no quarter was given
+on either side. When the Captain Ojeda recaptured the battered wreck which
+had been the _Capitana_ of Malta, we are told that on board of her were
+three hundred dead Turks; if this were the cost of the capture of one
+galley we need not be surprised at the total.
+
+With the results to Europe of this amazing battle we have nothing to do in
+this book. That which it demonstrated, as far as the Sea-wolves were
+concerned, was that they still remained the most competent seamen and
+sea-fighters in the Mediterranean, and that the legend of the invincibility
+of the Ottomans at sea rested on what had been accomplished during a long
+period of years by these insatiable pirates and magnificent warriors.
+
+That which the fighting Pontiff, Pius V., said when he heard of the victory
+is in character with everything which history has told us of this
+remarkable occupant of the chair of Saint Peter. It was short but very much
+to the point, consisting of the one sentence, "Fuit homo misus a Deo cui
+nomen erat Joannes."
+
+In a collection of epitaphs printed in Colonia in 1623 (and edited by one
+Franciscus Swertius) is one in Spanish by an anonymous author on Don John
+of Austria. In this, which takes the form of question and answer, it is
+asked of him "who with so much real glory lies so humbly 'neath this
+stone," what it is that Spain can do for him, what temple or what statue
+can she raise to his honour. To this the hero is made to reply that "My
+temple is found in my works, my statue has been my fame." This is not only
+a pretty conceit, but it is very substantially true when we think of the
+place in history which this man attained.
+
+It remains to speak of the future career of Ali Basha after his experiences
+at Lepanto. He now returned to Constantinople, where he found that the
+bitter complaints of the Janissaries concerning their lack of pay had
+preceded him; this must have been annoying, as by this time so
+insignificant a circumstance had probably escaped his memory. His old
+friend and patron Piali Basha was still in power; the Basha used his
+influence, and the corsair laid at the feet of the Sultan the great
+Standard of Saint John captured by him from the Knights--which was the only
+trophy which came to Constantinople from that disastrous battle; and in
+consequence we are told that "instead of reprimands he was loaded with
+caresses and applauses."
+
+There was in Ali the same dauntless quality of never knowing when he was
+beaten which had distinguished Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa. His exploits at
+Lepanto had secured him the high favour of the Sultan, which he used in a
+manner most grateful to that sovereign by approaching him with a request
+that he might be allowed to fit out another fleet to revenge himself on the
+Christians. The Sultan acceded to his request, and such diligence did he
+use that in June 1572, only eight months after the crushing defeat of the
+Turks, Ali took the sea with two hundred and fifty galleys besides smaller
+vessels. So powerful had he now become that Selim nominated him as his
+Admiralissimo, allowing him also to retain the Bashalic of Algiers. With
+his new fleet he sought out the allies once more, finding them at anchor in
+a port in the Morea. He lay outside the harbour defying them to come out,
+which they refused to do--"but they parted without bloody noses"--is
+Morgan's comment. Haedo attributes this inertia on the part of the allies
+to dissension among their leaders; but, however that may have been, Ali
+gained almost as much favour with the Sultan as if he had defeated them in
+a pitched battle. "But these are the judgments of God and things ordered by
+His divine providence and infinite wisdom," says Haedo. The connection is
+somewhat hard to establish.
+
+In 1573 the Bashalic of Algiers passed into the hands of Arab Ahmed, and in
+this same year Don John of Austria recaptured Tunis from the Turks. Ali,
+with a fleet of two hundred and fifty galleys and forty smaller vessels,
+recaptured it again in a siege lasting forty days, and once more returned
+to Constantinople in triumph with thousands of Spanish captives. He was yet
+to live some years to harass the Christians, against whom he ever displayed
+a most inveterate rancour. In 1576 he set out from Constantinople with
+sixty galleys and ravaged the Calabrian coast, where he had been born. In
+1578, the Janissaries of Algiers having assassinated Arab Ahmed the Basha,
+he was sent to chastise them, which he did with a heavy hand.
+
+Ali was never married, and left no descendants; in the later years of his
+life he built himself a sumptuous palace some five miles from
+Constantinople, and no man in all the realm save the Sultan himself was so
+great a man as the Calabrian renegado, the unknown waif from Southern Italy
+who possessed neither name nor kindred. He was tall and robust in stature,
+but all his life suffered from "scald-head"; for a definition of which
+ailment we may refer the curious to the dictionary. He possessed, for a
+chieftain and a fighting man, the disadvantage of a voice so hoarse as to
+be inaudible at a few paces distant. In default of offspring he maintained
+at his charges five hundred corsairs, whom he called his children. He died
+in the year 1580, and with him what has been called the "Grand Period of
+the Moslem Corsairs" in this book may be said to have come to an end.
+
+By the men whose deeds have been here chronicled the pirate States of
+Northern Africa were established; and, as we have seen, they maintained an
+unceasing warfare against all that was mightiest in Christendom, aided and
+abetted by the Sultans of Constantinople. In the sixteenth century the
+Sea-wolves had this at least to recommend them, that they feared neither
+King nor Kaiser, albeit these great ones of the earth were bent on their
+destruction. Villains as they were, they were none the less men to be
+feared, men in whom dwelt wonderful capabilities of leadership. Such,
+however, was not the case with those by whom they were succeeded; and the
+great and civilised nations of the world tolerated for centuries in their
+midst a race of savage barbarians whose abominable insolence and fiendish
+cruelty were only equalled by their material weakness and military
+impotence. Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli became recognised States, and the
+Great Powers degraded themselves by actually accrediting diplomatic agents
+to the "Courts" of these people.
+
+"The Algerines are robbers, and I am their chief," was the remark made by
+the Dey of Algiers to the English Consul in 1641, and the man spoke the
+plain unvarnished truth. Yet at this time the Algerines had no more than
+sixty-five ships, and no organisation which could have held out for
+twenty-four hours against such attacks as had been successfully resisted on
+many occasions in the previous century.
+
+On April 10th, 1682 (O.S.), "Articles of peace and commerce between the
+most serene and mighty Prince Charles II., by the Grace of God King of
+Great Britain, etc., and the most illustrious (_sic_) Lord, the Bashaw,
+Dey, and Aga, Governor of the famous city of Algiers in Barbary," were
+concluded by "Arthur Herbert, Esquire, Admiral of His Majesty's Fleet." It
+need hardly be said that such a treaty as this was not worth the paper on
+which it was written; that the barbarians by whom it was signed were as
+ignorant as they were unprincipled, and that the only argument which they
+understood at that, or any other time, was that of the right of the
+strongest.
+
+When we of the present day read of the deeds of the corsairs we are filled
+with horror, we fail to understand how such things could have been
+tolerated, we seek for some explanation. When we hear of a "League of
+Christian Princes," and find that all its members could accomplish was to
+turn their arms the one against the other, we are even still more puzzled.
+What was it, then, that lay at the root of this problem? The answer would
+appear to be in the ethical standpoint of the sixteenth century. We are so
+accustomed in the present day to hear of the rights of man that we are apt
+to forget that, in the time of Barbarossa, of Dragut, of Charles V., and
+the Medicean Popes such a thing did not exist, and the only rights
+possessed by the common man were those vouchsafed to him by his sovereign
+lord. We have also to take another factor into consideration, which is that
+what we call "humanity" simply did not exist, the result being that the
+raids of the Sea-wolves were not judged by the great ones of the earth from
+the standpoint of the amount of suffering which they inflicted, but in what
+manner these proceedings affected the wealth and power of the lord of the
+territory which had been despoiled. So differently was society constituted
+in those days that the very victims acquiesced more or less meekly in their
+fate, each one unconsciously voicing that most pathetic saying of the
+Russian peasant that "God is high and the Czar is far away."
+
+The fact of the intolerable lot of the common man in these times helps us
+to understand one thing which otherwise would be an insoluble problem:
+which was, why did Christian soldiers so often become renegadoes and fight
+for the corsairs under the banner of those who were the fiercest and most
+irreconcilable foes of themselves and their kindred? The life of the common
+soldier or sailor did not offer many advantages; it was generally a short
+and anything but a merry one, and the thing by which it was most
+profoundly affected was capture by the corsairs.
+
+When this happened he became either a "gallerian," rowing out his heart on
+the benches of the Moslem galleys, or he festered in some noisome dungeon
+in Algiers, Oran, or Tlemcen. For him, however, there was always one avenue
+of escape open: he had but to acknowledge that Mahomet was the Prophet of
+God and the prison doors would fly open, or the shackles be knocked off the
+chain which bound him to the hell of the rower's bench. Many of the
+Christian captives had really nothing to bind them to the faith of their
+fathers--neither home nor lands, wealth nor kindred, and they were
+doubtless dazzled by the amazing success which accompanied the arms of the
+leaders of the pirates. Is it wonderful, then, that such men in such an age
+should grasp at the chance of freedom and throw in their lot with their
+captors?
+
+It was treachery, it was apostasy, and no amount of sophistry can prove it
+to have been otherwise; but the man who would sit in judgment in the
+present day must try to figure to himself what the life of a galley-slave
+meant--a life so horrible and so terrible that it is impossible, in the
+interest of decency, to set down a tithe of what it really was.
+
+We who in the present day sit in judgment upon the virtues and vices of a
+bygone age can, in the ordered security of our modern civilisation, see
+many things which were hidden from our forefathers, even as in another
+three hundred years our descendants will be able to point the finger of
+scorn at the mistakes which we are now committing. We have seen how it was
+that the pirate States arose; we have seen also how, in future generations,
+they were allowed to abide. We cannot, in common honesty, echo the words
+already quoted of the historian that "these are the judgments of God, and
+things ordered by His divine providence and infinite wisdom," neither can
+we acquit the heirs of the ages for that slackness which prevented them
+from doing their duty; we have, however, to ask ourselves this question,
+that, had it fallen to our own lot to deal with the problem of the
+extermination of the pirates, should we have done better?
+
+One word in conclusion. That which they did has been set down here; the
+record, however, is not complete, as many of their acts of cruelty, lust,
+and oppression are not fitted for publication in the present day. It has
+been said, with truth, that no man is much better or much worse than in the
+age in which he lives; and to hold the scales evenly--if one were tempted
+to shock contemporary opinion by too literal a transcript of all that was
+done by the corsairs--it would also be necessary to cite the reprisals of
+their Christian antagonists. It has seemed better to leave such things
+unchronicled: to present, with as much fidelity as possible, the public
+lives and acts of these troublers of the peace of the sixteenth century.
+Looking back, as we do, over three hundred and fifty years, and judging as
+fairly as is possible, it would seem that there is little which can be said
+in their favour.
+
+But we may at least concede that, no matter how infamous were the
+Barbarossas, Dragut, and Ali, they proved that in them dwelt one rare and
+supreme quality, which, in all the ages, has covered a multitude of sins.
+At a time when every one was a warrior and the whole world was an armed
+camp, men sought great captains in whose following to serve. Among the
+Moslems of Northern Africa, in ordered succession, there rose to the
+surface "veritable men of the sea," in the wake of whose galleys ravened
+the Sea-wolves. When we consider how undisciplined and how stupidly violent
+these pirates were by nature, and how they were welded into a homogeneous
+whole by those of whom we speak, we are forced to the conclusion that
+seldom, in all the ages, have abler captains arisen to take fortune at the
+flood, to dominate the minds and the bodies of a vast host, to prove that
+they were, in deed and in truth, supreme as leaders of men.
+
+
+
+
+AUTHORITIES CONSULTED
+
+Sailing Ships and their Story. E. Keble Chatterton.
+
+Barbary Corsairs: Story of the Nations. Stanley Lane Poole.
+
+Compleat History of the Present Seat of War in Africa between Spaniards
+  and Algerines. 1632. Joseph Morgan.
+
+History of Philip II. William Hickling Prescott.
+
+History of Charles V. Robertson.
+
+Histoire de Barberousse. Richer.
+
+Vie des plus celebres marins. Richer.
+
+Histoire de Barberousse. Sander Rang et Ferdinand Denis.
+
+Doria et Barberousse. Les derniers jours de la Marine aux Rames. Admiral
+  Jurien de la Graviere.
+
+Histoire de Barbarie et ses corsaires. Pierre d'An. Paris, 1637.
+
+Histoire d'Alger. Laugier de Tassy.
+
+Messire Pierre de Bourdeille Seigneur de Brantome. Vie des hommes
+  illustres et grands capitaines etrangers de son temps. 1594.
+
+Histoires de les Chevaliers de Malte. Mons l'Abbe de Vertot. Paris, 17S6.
+
+Histoire de Venise. P. Daru.
+
+Topografia e Historia general de Argel El Senor Don Diego de Haedo.
+
+Reverendissimo Arcobispo de Palermo. Presidente y Capitan-General del
+  Reyno de Sicilia por el Rey Felipe Segundo. Nuestro senor.
+  Valladolid, 1612.
+
+Descripcion general de Africa. Don Luys de Marmol Caravajal. Granada,
+  1573.
+
+Historia de Carlos Quinto. El Maestro Don Fray Prudencio
+  de Sandoval, Obispo de Pampluna. 1612.
+
+El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha. Cervantes.
+
+Arte de Navegar. Martin Cortes.
+
+Dialogos del arte militar. Bernardino de Escalante.
+  Seville, 1583.
+
+Historia del combate naval de Lepanto. Cayetano Rosell.
+
+Epitaphia joco-seria. Francisco Swertius. 1623.
+
+La Guerra dei pirati e la marina Pontifica dal 1500 al 1560.
+  Padre Alberto Guglielmotti.
+
+Storia della sacra religione et illustrissima milizia de San
+  Giovanii Gerosolimitano. Jacopo Bosio.
+
+Lo Assedio di Malta, 18 Maggio-8, Settembre, 1565. Conte
+  Carlo, Sanminiatelli, Zabarella, Colonello.
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF THE KINGS OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, SPAIN, SULTANS OF TURKEY, POPES OF
+ROME, AND GRAND MASTERS OF MALTA, BETWEEN THE DATES 1492-1580, THE PERIOD
+COVERED IN THIS BOOK.
+
+
+ENGLAND
+
+Henry VII., 1485-1509.
+Henry VIII., 1509-47.
+Edward VI., 1547-53.
+Mary, 1553-58.
+Elizabeth, 1558-1603.
+
+
+FRANCE
+
+Charles VIII., 1483-98.
+Louis XII., 1498-1515.
+Francis I., 1515-47.
+Henry II., 1547-59.
+Francis II., 1559-60.
+Charles IX., 1560-74.
+Henry III., 1574-89.
+
+
+SPAIN
+
+Granada, taken by Ferdinand and Isabella, the sovereigns of Aragon and
+Castile ("Los Reyes Catolicos") in 1492. Their daughter, Joanna, married
+Philip, son of the Emperor Maximilian of Germany. Ferdinand died 1516, and
+was succeeded by Charles V., son of Philip and Joanna, as King of Spain, in
+1517. On the death of his grandfather Maximilian, in 1519, Charles was
+elected Emperor of Germany. He resigned all his dignities and retired to
+the monastery of Yuste in 1555, and was succeeded by his son, Philip II.
+Charles died 1558. Philip II., who married as his first wife Mary Tudor, of
+England, reigned from 1555 till 1598.
+
+
+SULTANS OF TURKEY
+
+Bajazet II., 1481-1512; Selim the Cruel, 1512-20; Soliman the Magnificent,
+1520-66; Selim II., known to the Spaniards as "el bebedor" (the
+drunkard), 1566-74; Murad III., 1574-95.
+
+
+POPES OF ROME
+
+Pius III., 1503; Julius II., 1503; Leo X., 1513; Hadrian VI., 1522; Clement
+VII., 1523; Paul III., 1534; Julius III., 1550; Marcellus II., 1555; Paul
+IV., 1555; Pius IV., 1559; Pius V., 1566; Gregory XIII., 1572; Sixtus V.,
+1585.
+
+
+GRAND MASTERS OF THE KNIGHTS OF MALTA
+
+Pierre d'Aubusson, 1476-1503; Emeri d'Amboise, 1503-13; Fabrice Carette,
+1513-21; Villiers de L'Isle Adam, 1521-36; Juan d'Omedes, 1536-53; Claude
+de la Sangle, 1553-57; Jean Parisot de la Valette, 1557-68; Pierre Dumont,
+1568-72; Jean Levesque de la Cassiere, 1572-82.
+
+
+
+
+DISTANCES IN SEA MILES ON THE COAST OF NORTHERN AFRICA
+
+Gibraltar to Oran                                   225'
+Oran to Tenes                                       110'
+Tenes to Shershell                                   41'
+Shershell to Algiers                                 40'
+Algiers to Bona                                     104'
+Bona to Jigelli                                      30'
+Jigelli to Bizerta                                  205'
+Bizerta to Tunis                                     55'
+Tunis to Susa                                       120'
+Susa to Sfax                                         86'
+Sfax to Jerbah, otherwise known as Los Gelues        54'
+Jerbah to Tripoli                                   130'
+Gibraltar to Algiers                                410'
+Algiers to Tunis                                    391'
+Algiers to Tenes                                     91'
+Tunis to Malta                                      232'
+Malta to Tripoli in Barbary                         200'
+Tripoli to Cape Serrano                             350'
+Jerbah to Malta                                     210'
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+Abdahar, 141.
+
+Abu-Abd-Allah-Mahomed, 40.
+
+Actium, battle of, 189, 199, 366.
+
+Adam, Prince Philippe Villiers L'Isle, Grand Master of the Knights of St.
+    John, 42, 124, 299.
+
+Adorno, Antony, 103.
+
+Adriatic, coasts of the, 182.
+
+Adrumentum, 251.
+
+"Africa," town of, position and fortifications, 251,
+  attacked and taken by Dragut, 257-259;
+  besieged by Andrea Doria, 265;
+  captured, 267;
+  mutiny, 268;
+  blown up, 268.
+
+Ahmed, Arab, Basha of Algiers, 375,
+  assassinated, 375.
+
+Albania, coast of, 363, 366.
+
+Al-Burdon, 350.
+
+Alcadaar, Alcaid, 349.
+
+Alcala, Duke of, 311.
+
+Alcala de Henares, 371.
+
+Alcaudite, Count of, his defence of Marzaquivir, 10.
+
+Aldemar, St., Geoffrey de, 291.
+
+Aleppo, 120, 125.
+
+Alexander IV., Pope, 290.
+
+Alexander VI., Pope, 99.
+
+Alexander VII., Pope, initiates the "Alliance of Christian Princes," 38.
+
+Alexandria, 49.
+
+"Alexandria, The Young Moor of," defeated, 177,
+  released, 178.
+
+Alfonso, King of Navarre and Aragon, 291.
+
+Alghieri, Bay of, 235.
+
+Algiers, 2,
+  attacks on, 30, 88;
+  captured, 62, 64;
+  Moorish refugees at, 63;
+  appeal for help, 66;
+  surrenders, 89;
+  mutiny of Janissaries, 355;
+  treaty with King Charles II., 377.
+
+Ali Ahamed, Admiral of Algiers, 345.
+
+Ali, at the siege of Malta, 328.
+
+Ali Basha, or Occhiali or Uluchali, 6, 14, 22,
+  present at the conference held by Soliman, 316;
+  his birthplace, 345;
+  endures the life of a galley-slave, 345;
+  becomes a Mussulman, 346;
+  enters the service of Dragut, 346;
+  at the siege of Malta, 346;
+  appointed Viceroy of Tripoli, 347;
+  Governor of Algiers, 347;
+  view of his duties,347;
+  offered the sovereignty of Tunis, 349;
+  expedition against Hamid, 349;
+  captures Tunis, 350, 375;
+  captures galleys of the Knights, 352-355;
+  at the battle of Lepanto, 363,368-371;
+  his banner, 368;
+  captures the _Capitana_, 370;
+  withdraws and escapes, 371;
+  returns to Constantinople, 373, 375;
+  nominated Admiralissimo, 374;
+  his palace, 375;
+  ailment of "scald-head," 375;
+  death, 376.
+
+Ali Basha, in command of the Turkish forces, 361,
+  at the battle of Lepanto, 367;
+  beheaded, 369.
+
+Ali-Chabelli defeated, 180.
+
+Al-Mehedi, his fortifications of "Africa" blown up, 268.
+
+Amalfi, 287.
+
+Ambracian Gulf, 189.
+
+Amburac, Ibrahim, his plot with Dragut, 253, 256.
+
+Ampasta, Rio de, 83.
+
+An, Rev. Frere Pierre d', on the dangers from the corsairs of
+    Barbary, 20-22, 27.
+
+Andalusia, 4, 15.
+
+Andior, 246.
+
+Andrade, Captain Diego de, 73.
+
+Andros, island of, 187.
+
+Angelo, Michel, 139.
+
+Aponte, Antonio de, "Electo Mayor" of "Africa," 268.
+
+Aragon, Alfonso d', 235.
+
+Aragon, Ferdinand of, acquires Granada, 29,
+  attempts to recover Naples, 99.
+
+Arba, Francisco d', 210, 217.
+
+Archipelago, islands of the, 182,
+  raid on, 187.
+
+Arta, Gulf of, 189, 191, 195, 366.
+
+Aubusson Pierre D', Grand Master of the Knights of St. John, 37,
+    38, 39, 298.
+
+Augustus Caesar, at the battle of Actium, 189, 199.
+
+Austria, Don John of, 23, 230,
+  in command of the forces of the "Holy League," 357;
+  at Barcelona, 357;
+  reception at Naples, 358;
+  dress, 358;
+  appearance, 359, 365;
+  at Messina, 359;
+  his fleet, 364;
+  instructions, 365;
+  at the battle of Lepanto, 366-371;
+  recaptures Tunis, 375
+
+
+Baetio, 141.
+
+Bairan-Ogli, the Reis, in command of the "puissant galleon," 313.
+
+Balearic Islands, 32, 66.
+
+Barbarigo, Provediteur, at the battle of Lepanto, 363.
+
+Barbarossa, Hassan, left in charge of Algiers, 312.
+
+Barbarossa, Khoyr-ed-Din, 6, 14, 17, 22, 108,
+  King of the Sea, 24;
+  his birth, 43;
+  title, 45, 51;
+  joins his brother at the island of Jerba, 50;
+  attacks _The Galley of Naples_, 51-54;
+  his wealth, 56;
+  captures Jigelli, 56-58;
+  his embassy to Soliman, 60, 76;
+  character, 67, 75, 114-116, 127, 219;
+  treatment of Hassan, 85-87;
+  defeated by Venalcadi, 87;
+  his allies, 88;
+  fight against Venalcadi, 88;
+  assisted by Spanish captives, 89;
+  captures Algiers, 89;
+  lays siege to the fortress of Navarro, 92-95;
+  his plunder of the Christians, 108;
+  requested to take the command of the Ottoman fleet, 111;
+  voyage to Constantinople, 112-117;
+  his captures, 113, 133;
+  cruelty, 115, 133, 220;
+  entry into Constantinople, 117;
+  gifts to Soliman, 118;
+  reception, 120;
+  at Aleppo, 125;
+  appointed head of the fleet, 127;
+  his age, 127, 190;
+  appearance, 127;
+  speech to the Sultan, 128-130;
+  raids on the coast of Italy, 133-137;
+  sacks Reggio, 133;
+  captures 11,000 Christian slaves, 133;
+  his attempt to capture Julia Gonzaga, 134-136;
+  enters Tunis 138;
+  massacre of the inhabitants, 141;
+  his fame, 142;
+  appeal for help against the Christian hosts, 146;
+  preparations for defence, 152;
+  joined by the tribesmen, 153;
+  defeated, 158;
+  flight, 159;
+  sufferings of his army, 163;
+  at Bona, 164;
+  embarks, 165;
+  retires to Algiers, 168;
+  return of his men, 169;
+  captures the castle of Minorca, 172;
+  recalled to Constantinople, 173, 178, 182;
+  ravages, 182;
+  number of slaves, 182;
+  sets sail, 185;
+  his innovation in the manning of galleys, 185-187;
+  raid on the islands of the Archipelago, 187;
+  his age, 190;
+  hesitates to fight, 193;
+  anchored in the Gulf of Arta, 194-207;
+  at the battle of Prevesa, 208-216;
+  withdraws from the battle, 213, 2l5, 2l7;
+  his death, 220, 250;
+  ransoms Dragut, 248.
+
+Barbarossa, Uruj, 7, 74,
+  his birth, 43;
+  character, 44;
+  first attempt at piracy, 45;
+  taken prisoner, 46;
+  escapes, 47, 48;
+  presented with a ship, 48;
+  winters at Alexandria, 49;
+  at the island of Jerba, 50;
+  joined by his brother, 50;
+  treaty with the Sultan of Tunis, 51;
+  attackes _The Galley of Naples_, 51-54;
+  wounded, 54;
+  attacks on Bougie, 55, 58;
+  loses an arm, 55;
+  appeal from the Algerines, 66;
+  treatment of Kara-Hassan, 66;
+  besieges Navarre's Tower, 67;
+  slaughters the Berbers, 68-70;
+  defeats Don Diego, 71;
+  marches on Tlemcen, 72;
+  blockaded, 73;
+  killed, 73.
+
+Barbary, coast of, 236.
+
+Barbary, corsairs of, their character, 21.
+
+Barbezieux, his attempt to seize Andrea Doria, 104.
+
+Barcelona, 148, 357.
+
+Bazan, Don Alvaro de, General of the Galleys of Spain, at Barcelona, 149,
+  Admiral of Castile, 359.
+
+Beachy Head, battle of, 283.
+
+Beja, 350.
+
+Bengabara, Alcaid, 349.
+
+Berber tribes, their character, 57,
+  number, 57;
+  conspiracy against Uruj Barbarossa, 68;
+  slaughtered, 69.
+
+Bergerac, Jean Marteille de, on the treatment of slaves on board
+    the galleys, 224.
+
+Bianco, Cape, 189.
+
+Biba, island of, 113.
+
+Bizerta, 2, 40,
+  captured, 41;
+  massacre of, 141.
+
+Boabdil el Chico, yields up Granada, 29.
+
+Bona, 153, 164, 350,
+  Cape, 264.
+
+Bonifacio, Straits of, 113, 136.
+
+Borgo, Il, fortress, siege of, 32, 324, 342.
+
+Bosworth, battle of, 215.
+
+Botaybo, Alcaid, 349.
+
+Bougaroni, Cape, 56.
+
+Bougie, 2, 153,
+  attacks on, 55, 58.
+
+Bouillon, Godfrey de, defeats the Saracens, 287.
+
+Bourdeille, Pierre de, 242, 344.
+
+Bragadino, his defence of Famagusta, 362,
+  killed, 362.
+
+Brigantines, 18, 151, 240.
+
+Broglio, Commandeur, at the siege of Malta, 333.
+
+Byzacena, 40.
+
+Byzantine, Empire, fall of the, 33.
+
+
+Cabri, 246.
+
+Cachidiablo, 88, 90.
+
+Cadiz, 4.
+
+Cadolin, defeated, 100.
+
+Cagliari, Bay of, 152, 236.
+
+Calabria, 345.
+
+Calibia, castle of, surrender, 264.
+
+Canale, Girolame, his victory over the Moslems, 177.
+
+Candia, 187.
+
+Canete, Marquis de, Viceroy and Captain General of Navarre, 147.
+
+Cantara, La Bocca de, 272, 274.
+
+Capello, Vicenzo, his age, 190,
+  in command of the Venetian fleet, 191, 215;
+  at Corfu, 191.
+
+_Capitana_, the, captured, 354, 370,
+  retaken, 371.
+
+Capua, Prior of, his designs for the building of St. Elmo fortress, 325.
+
+Caracosa, Marie, 98.
+
+Caramania, coast of, 35, 37, 45, 48.
+
+Caravajal, Don Luys de Marmol, his "Descripcion general de Affrica," 272.
+
+Caravels, 231.
+
+Carouan, 348.
+
+Castel Rosso, Isle of, 47.
+
+Castile, Isabella of, 29.
+
+Castriot, Constantine, his report on the condition of St. Elmo, 337.
+
+Centurion, Adan, fails to attack Barbarossa, 165.
+
+Cephalonia, 313, 363, 366.
+
+Cervantes, Miguel de, his mention of Ali Basha, 345,
+  at the battle of Lepanto, 371;
+  his wounds, 372.
+
+Charabulac, 242.
+
+Charlemagne, Emperor, his renown, 286.
+
+Charles II., King of England, his treaty with Algiers, 377.
+
+Charles V., Emperor, 14, 79,
+  history of, 43;
+  determines to crush the corsairs, 80;
+  total fleet and army, 81,191;
+  caught in a storm, 82;
+  his wrath on the fall of Navarro, 97;
+  acquisitions, 98;
+  suzerain of Genoa, 101;
+  joined by Andrea Doria, 105;
+  his trust in him, 107;
+  preparations for his attack on Barbarossa, 143;
+  at Barcelona, 148;
+  joined by his allies, 148-150;
+  reviews the armada, 150;
+  embarks in the _Galera Capitana_, 150;
+  attack on the fortress of La Goletta, 156;
+  defeats Barbarossa, 159;
+  letter to the potentates, 163;
+  evacuates Tunis, 166;
+  his mistaken policy, 167;
+  at Corfu, 191;
+  orders the destruction of Dragut, 245, 261;
+  orders the capture of "Africa," 265;
+  denunciation of Dragut, 271;
+  concentrates his fleet at Messina, 278.
+
+"Christian Princes, Alliance of," formed, 38,
+  artillery, 39;
+  seize Naples, 40.
+
+Christian slaves, number of, captured, 133.
+
+Citta Notabile, 308.
+
+Civita Lavinia, 140.
+
+Coeva, Andrea, 98.
+
+Colonna, Camille, taken prisoner, 101.
+
+Colonna, Mark Antony, in command of the Papal fleet, 360, 364.
+
+Colonna, Vespasian, 134.
+
+Columbus, his caravels, 231.
+
+Comares, Marquis de, 80.
+
+Condalmiero, Alessandro, Captain of the _Galleon of Venice_, 192, 194,
+  attacked by the Moslems, 209-213;
+  his victory, 213.
+
+Constantine, 350.
+
+Constantinople, fall of, 33,
+  entry of Barbarossa into, 117.
+
+Cordoba, Don Martin de, his defence of Oran, 10.
+
+Cordoba, Gonsalvo de, the "Great Captain," 39,
+  war against Roverejo, 99;
+  besieges the fortress of Rocca Guillelma, 99.
+
+Cordoba, Mosque at, 64.
+
+Corfu, siege of, 179.
+
+Cornet, Commandeur de, 337.
+
+Cornillan, Pierre de, appointed Grand Master of the Knights of
+    St. John, 298.
+
+Coron, 355.
+
+Coronado, Capt. Juan Vasquez, 273.
+
+Corsairs, Moslem, their iron and rigid discipline, 7.
+  _See_ Moslem
+
+Corsica, coast of, 246.
+
+Corso, Mami, left in charge of Algiers, 349.
+
+Cos, or Lango, island of, fortifications of, 292.
+
+Curtogali, at Bizerta, 40,
+  his depredations, 41;
+  attempt to carry off the Pope, 41, 140;
+  Governor of Rhodes, 42.
+
+Cyprus, island of, 34, 356.
+
+
+Daoud Pasha, Admiral, defeats Grimani, 38.
+
+Dardanelles, 116,
+  fortification of the, 34.
+
+Daru, P., _Histoire de Venise_, 364, 367.
+
+Delizuff, joins forces with Barbarossa, 112,
+  killed, 113.
+
+Diou-Donne, Gozon de, his mode of killing a serpent, 294-296,
+  praises of his services, 297;
+  appointed Grand Master of the Knights of St. John, 298;
+  his death, 298.
+
+Doria Andrea, 6, 22, 108,
+  his birth, 98;
+  parents, 98;
+  sent to Rome, 98;
+  at the court of Urbino, 99;
+  in the service of the King of Aragon, 99;
+  joins Roverejo, 99;
+  takes service with Lodovico Sforza, 100;
+  appointed General of the Galleys, 100;
+  captures the Fort of the Lantern, 100;
+  defeats Cadolin, 100;
+  appointed Captain-General of the Galleys of France, 101;
+  the treatment of Francis I., 102, 104;
+  letter to him, 103;
+  joins Charles V., 105;
+  honours received from Genoa, 105;
+  Admiralissimo of the Navy, 107, 151;
+  defeats the Turks at Patras, 109;
+  at Barcelona, 148;
+  captures Bona, 166;
+  pursuit of Barbarossa, 166;
+  defeats Ali-Chabelli, 180;
+  wounded, 180;
+  appearance, 180;
+  age, 190;
+  his fleet, 192;
+  anchors outside the Gulf of Arta, 194-207;
+  at Sessola, 207;
+  tactics at the battle of Prevesa, 214;
+  sails away, 216;
+  ordered to capture Dragut, 261, 271;
+  his pursuit of him, 262-264;
+  expedition against "Africa," 265;
+  blockades Dragut at Jerbah, 271-275;
+  allows him to escape, 275.
+
+Doria, David, 99.
+
+Doria, Dominique, 98.
+
+Doria, Franco, 192.
+
+Doria, Jannetin, captures Dragut, 245-247.
+
+Doria, John, 165.
+
+Doria, John Andrea, at the battle of Lepanto, 363, 367, 370.
+
+Doria, Philippin, defeats Moncada, 101.
+
+Dragut-Reis, 10, 14, 22,
+  his birth and parents, 242;
+  career, 242;
+  offers his services to Barbarossa, 243;
+  in command of twelve galleys, 243;
+  his destruction ordered, 245, 261;
+  captured by Jannetin Doria, 245-247;
+  employed as a galley slave, 248;
+  ransomed, 248;
+  increase of power, 250;
+  his desire to capture "Africa," 251;
+  plot with Ibrahim Amburac, 253;
+  preparations for the attack, 254-256;
+  wounded, 257;
+  attack on the city, 257-259;
+  pursued by Andrea Doria, 262-264, 271;
+  his "Horrid Devastations," 264;
+  in the siege of "Africa," 265;
+  escapes, 267;
+  at Constantinople, 269, 276;
+  denounced by Charles V., 270;
+  appointed Sandjak, or governor, of the island of Santa Maura, 271;
+  blockaded at Jerban, 271-275;
+  mode of escape, 275;
+  hatred of the Knights of Malta, 276, 286;
+  autocrat of Tripoli, 309;
+  characteristics, 315;
+  at the siege of Malta, 329-339;
+  mortally wounded, 339;
+  death, 341.
+
+Dupuy, Raimond, joins the Hospice of St. John, 288,
+  appointed Grand Master, 289;
+  forms a military corps, 289.
+
+
+Eginard, 286.
+
+Egypt, Soldan of, his treatment of the Knights of Saint John, 34,
+  besieges Rhodes, 36.
+
+Elmo, St., siege of, 6, 301-305, 323-341,
+  appeal of the garrison to abandon the fortress, 335-337;
+  their use of fireworks, 339;
+  fall, 341.
+
+Escalente, Bernardino de, his "Dialogos del arte militar," 371.
+
+Esquemelin, John, his literary labours, 1.
+
+Etienne, St., Mount, 294.
+
+Eutemi, Selim, besieges Algiers, 65,
+  assassinated, 68.
+
+Exmouth, Lord, bombards Algiers,30.
+
+
+Famagusta, captured, 362.
+
+Ferdinand V., King of Spain, joins the "Alliance of Christian Princes," 38,
+  his death, 65.
+
+_Florence_, the, 236.
+
+Floreta, M. de., 144.
+
+Forfait, on the speed of the galley, 234.
+
+Francis I., 14,
+  appoints Andrea Doria Captain of his fleet, 101;
+  attempts to levy a fine, 102;
+  treatment of him, 102;
+  fortifies Savona, 103;
+  letter from Andrea Doria, 103;
+  attempts to take him prisoner, 104;
+  refuses to join in the war against Barbarossa, 144;
+  treachery, 144.
+
+Fundi, 134,
+  sacked by the corsairs, 136.
+
+
+Galeasse, the, 18,
+  description of a, 233.
+
+_Galera Capitana_, 150,
+  number of flags and banners on board, 151.
+
+_Galleon of Venice_, 192, 194, 208,
+  attacked by the Moslems, 209-213;
+  victory, 213.
+
+Galley, 2, 18,
+  sufferings of the rower, 19, 221;
+  innovation in the manning, 185;
+  mobility, 222;
+  length, 222;
+  number of men on board, 223;
+  treatment of the slaves, 223-229, 379;
+  size, 229;
+  mode of opening fire, 230;
+  speed, 234;
+  obsolete, 236.
+
+_Galley of Naples, The_, attacked by the brothers Barbarossa, 51-54.
+
+Gardampe, Chevalier Abel de Bridiers de la, killed at the siege of
+    Malta, 333.
+
+Gelves, 271.
+
+Genoa, 32,
+  arrangement with the Grand Turk, 34;
+  confers honours on Andrea Doria, 105.
+
+Gerard, the founder of the Order of St. John, 287,
+  death, 288.
+
+Gibraltar, Straits of, 15.
+
+Giou, Chevalier de, 313.
+
+Goialatta, 246.
+
+Goletta, La, 348,
+  attack on the fortress, 156;
+  fall, 157;
+  captured, 313.
+
+Gomez, Alvar, left in charge of Bona, 166.
+
+Gonzaga, Hernando de, his advice at the battle of Prevesa, 198.
+
+Gonzaga, Julia, attempt to capture her, 134-136,
+  escape, 136.
+
+Gozo, island of, Knights of St. John at, 277, 299,
+  sacked, 309.
+
+Granada, fall of, 4, 8, 22,
+  expulsion of the Moors from, 8, 29;
+  revolt in, 347.
+
+Grandenico, Count, 178.
+
+Granvelle, Cardinal, 7, 359.
+
+Graviere, Admiral Jurien de la, 17, 54, 127, 214,
+  his description of a Galeasse, 233.
+
+_Great Harry_, 232.
+
+Grimani, Antonio, the Venetian Admiral, defeated at Zonchio, 38.
+
+Grimani, Marco, in command of the Papal contingent, 191, 214,
+  at Corfu, 191;
+  raid on Arta, 191.
+
+Guasto, Marquis de, taken prisoner, 101,
+  his suggestion to Andrea Doria, 104;
+  in command of the army, 156.
+
+Guerare, Sergeant-Major, at the siege of Malta, 332.
+
+Guglielmotti, Alberto, his work "La Guerra dei Pirati," 39, 41, 180.
+
+Guimeran, Commandeur de, success of his ambush, 307.
+
+_Guzmana_, the galley, 371.
+
+
+Hadj-Hossein, his embassy to Selim I., 76-78.
+
+Haedo, Don Fray Diego de, his _History of Algiers_, 96, 348, 353, 374.
+
+Hamid, King of Tunis, character of his rule, 348,
+  conspiracy against, 349;
+  flight, 350.
+
+Hassan Ali, 53,
+  ravages towns and villages, 83;
+  repulsed by Spaniards, 84;
+  flogged and imprisoned, 86;
+  released, 87;
+  attacks Barbarossa, 87.
+
+Hassem, his attack on Oran, 10,
+  retreat, 10.
+
+Henry II., 34.
+
+Henry VII., 215.
+
+Henry VIII., 14.
+
+Herbert, Arthur, concludes a treaty with Algiers, 377.
+
+Himeral, Basha, 114, 125.
+
+Hogue, La, battle of, 283.
+
+Honore II., Pope, 291.
+
+Horusco, Pero Lopez de, 166.
+
+Hunyadi, John, 14.
+
+Hyeres, island of, 234.
+
+
+Ibrahim, Grand Vizier to Soliman, 9,
+  his mission to Aleppo, 120;
+  advice, 123;
+  impressions of Barbarossa, 126;
+  return from Aleppo, 132;
+  his relations with Soliman, 173;
+  murdered, 176.
+
+Innocent VIII., Pope, 98.
+
+Ionian Islands, 179.
+
+Ionian Sea, 49.
+
+Ithaca, island of, 366.
+
+Iviza, 82.
+
+
+Janissaries, their character as soldiers, 8,
+  institution, 279;
+  system of training, 280;
+  mutiny in Algiers, 355.
+
+Jerbale, 2, 50, 153, 251.
+
+Jerusalem, Hospice of St. John at, 287.
+
+Jigelli, 2, 56,
+  siege of, 57.
+
+John of Jerusalem, St., Knights of, 18.
+  _See_ Knights
+
+Judeo, El, 88.
+
+
+Kara-Hassan, takes possession of Shershell, 66,
+  beheaded, 67.
+
+Khorkud, Governor of Caramania, 48.
+
+Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, or Knights of Malta, their bigotry, 18,
+  take refuge at Limasol, 34;
+  characteristics, 35, 36;
+  fortifications of Rhodes, 35;
+  faith, 36;
+  repulse the Turks, 37;
+  expelled from Rhodes, 42, 277;
+  forced to retreat to Malta, 42, 277, 292;
+  their use of galleys, 229;
+  fight for their "Religion," 277;
+  warfare against the corsairs, 277;
+  history of the Order, 286-291;
+  founded at Jerusalem, 287;
+  Grand Masters, 289-298, 301;
+  crusade against the Infidel, 289;
+  composition of the Order, 289;
+  languages, 290;
+  dress, 290;
+  form of government, 291;
+  in the siege of Malta, 300, 324-342;
+  number of deaths, 300;
+  capture fortresses, 312;
+  capture the "puissant galleon," 313;
+  at Licata, 352;
+  their galleys captured by Ali Basha, 352-355.
+
+Knights Templars, foundation of the Order, 291,
+  code of regulations, 291.
+
+Kustir-Aga, chief Eunuch of the Seraglio, 313.
+
+
+Lamirande, Chevalier, at the siege of Malta, 334,
+  killed, 341.
+
+_Lancaster_, the cruiser, 231.
+
+Lanciani, extract from "The Golden Age of the Renaissance," 139.
+
+Lantern, Fort of the, captured, 100.
+
+Lautrec, Marshal de, 104.
+
+Leo X., Pope, 41,
+  attempt on his life, 140;
+  flight to Rome, 141.
+
+Lepanto, battle of, 6, 23, 362-372;
+  number of killed and wounded, 372.
+
+Lerici, 104.
+
+Leyva, Antonio de, 143.
+
+Leyva, Don Sancho de, Governor of "Africa," 267.
+
+Liazzo, 246.
+
+Licastelli, 345.
+
+Licata, 352.
+
+Limasol, 34.
+
+Loredano, Jacques, 34.
+
+Loredano, Captain, at the battle of Lepanto, 369.
+
+Los Gelues, 112, 271.
+
+Louis XII., 100,
+  joins the "Alliance of Christian Princes," 38.
+
+
+Magliana, Castle of, 140.
+
+Mahan, Rear-Admiral, his books on "Sea Power," 14.
+
+Mahomedi, banished from Constantinople, 43,
+  his sons, 43.
+
+Mahomet, result of his death, 286.
+
+Mahomet II., Caliph, captures Constantinople, 33,
+  fortifies the Dardanelles, 34;
+  defeated Rhodes, 38;
+  death, 38.
+
+Majorca, 172.
+
+Malipier, Captain, at the battle of Lepanto, 369.
+
+Malta, siege of, 6, 22, 299-305, 324-342,
+  number of deaths, 300;
+  position, 315;
+  expedition against, 316;
+  preparations for the siege, 318-321.
+
+Malta, Knights of.
+  _see_ Knights
+
+_Marquesa_, the galley, 371.
+
+Marsa Muzetto harbour, 325, 331.
+
+Marsaquivir, attack on, 10.
+
+Maura, Santa, island of, 207, 271.
+
+Mecca, 4.
+
+Medina-Celi, Juan la Cerda, Duke of, expedition against Tripoli, 311.
+
+Medran, Chevalier Gonzales de, at the siege of St. Elmo, 327, 332, 335.
+
+Mehedia, 251.
+
+Melac, Commandeur Gozon de, 312.
+
+Mendoza, Bernard de, in command of La Goletta, 166.
+
+Mendoza, Don Luis Hurtado de, 143.
+
+Messina, 180, 278, 359.
+
+Minorca, 172.
+
+Mitylene, island of, 43.
+
+Monastir, 2, 250.
+
+Moncada, Don Hugo de, Viceroy of Sicily, 80,
+  escapes to Iviza, 82;
+  defeated and slain, 101.
+
+Mondejar, Marquis de, 143.
+
+Monferrato, Monastery of Nuestra Senora de, pilgrimages to, 150, 357.
+
+Monte Cristo island, 113.
+
+Montmorency, Anne de, 281.
+
+Monuc, the eunuch, 206.
+
+Moors, their characteristics, 4,
+  expulsion from Granada, 8, 29;
+  their condition in Algiers, 63.
+
+Morea, the, 355, 366.
+
+Morgan, Sir Henry, his capture of Panama, 24.
+
+Morgan, J., his _Compleat History of Algiers_, 243, 250, 345.
+
+Moriscoes, their persecutions, 5,
+  revolt in Granada, 347.
+
+Mosca, Lodovico del, 39.
+
+Moslem corsairs, their cupidity, 3,
+  driven out of Spain, 4, 29;
+  characteristics, 4, 67, 241;
+  fanaticism, 5, 17;
+  supremacy on the sea, 8;
+  frequent defeats, 10;
+  tyranny, 11;
+  ships, 18;
+  booty, 24;
+  cruel methods, 24, 32;
+  retrogression, 239;
+  mode of commencing their careers, 240;
+  conquer Palestine, 286;
+  at the siege of Malta, 300;
+  number of deaths, 300.
+
+Motte, Chevalier de la, at the siege of St. Elmo, 327.
+
+Mourad-Reis, 201.
+
+Moustafa-Billah, Caliph, 287.
+
+Muley Hamid, negotiations with, 330.
+
+Muley Hassan, King of Tunis, 130, 137,
+  restored to his kingdom, 161;
+  terms of his vassalage, 162.
+
+Mustafa, in command of the land forces against Malta, 316, 322,
+  captures Famagusta, 362.
+
+
+Naples, seized, 40,
+  invasion of, 90;
+  reception of Don John of Austria at, 358.
+
+Navarro, Count Pedro de, seizes the town of Bougie, 55,
+  captures Algiers, 62, 64;
+  his Tower, 64.
+
+Navarro's Tower, siege of, 65, 67, 91-95,
+  captured, 95;
+  pulled down, 97.
+
+Nef, the, 18, 232.
+
+Negropont, Bailli of, at the siege of Malta, 326, 332, 333,
+  killed, 341.
+
+Nunez, Martin, his embassy to the Pope, 163.
+
+
+Occhiali.
+  _See_ Ali Basha.
+
+Ojeda, Captain, rescues the _Capitana_ at the battle of Lepanto, 371.
+
+Omedes, Juan d', Grand Master of the Knights of St. John, 278,
+  warned of the approach of the corsairs, 281;
+  refuses to take alarm, 281, 306.
+
+Oneglia, 98.
+
+Oran, 2, 73,
+  attack on, 10.
+
+Oristano, Gulf of, 236.
+
+Osmanli, their warlike achievements on land, 15.
+
+Ottoman, 292,
+  his siege of Rhodes, 293.
+
+_Our Lady of the Conception_, 45.
+
+
+Palamos, Bay of, 236.
+
+Palermo, 265.
+
+Palestine, conquered by Moslems, 286.
+
+Palma, 172.
+
+Panama, capture of, 24.
+
+Pantellaria, island of, 236.
+
+Pantera, Captain Pantero, "L' Armata Navale," 225.
+
+Parma, Prince of, at the battle of Lepanto, 364.
+
+Paschal II., Pope, 301.
+
+Passaro, Cape, 352.
+
+Patras, Turks defeated at, 109.
+
+_Patrona_ galley, capture of, 275.
+
+Paul III., his scheme of defence for Rome, 139.
+
+Paxo, island of, 180.
+
+Payens, Hugues de, founds the Order of the Knights Templars, 291.
+
+Pedro, Francisco San, 371.
+
+Penne, Barras de la, on the treatment of men on board the galleys, 223.
+
+Peter the Hermit, 287.
+
+Philip II., King of Spain, 274, 311,
+  forms the "Holy League," 357;
+  his fleet, 360.
+
+Piali, Admiral, 10,
+  in command of the fleet against Malta, 316, 322.
+
+Pierre, St., Isle of, 235.
+
+Pius V., Pope, 356, 373,
+  forms the "Holy League," 357.
+
+Portugal, Don Juan, King of, his armada at Barcelona, 148.
+
+Portugal, Prince Luis of, at Barcelona, 148, 150.
+
+Prescott, William Hickling, 4,
+  his description of the Janissaries, 279;
+  of Don John of Austria, 358;
+  of the battle of Lepanto, 364, 368.
+
+Press-gang, methods of the, 226.
+
+Prevesa, battle of, 6, 22, 108, 189, 190, 194-218, 366.
+
+Punta delle Forche, 277, 333.
+
+
+Rabadan, Celebi, 92, 112.
+
+Rabadan, left in charge of Tunis, 351.
+
+Raschid, 130, 137.
+
+Raschid, Caliph Haroun, 287.
+
+Ravenstein, Count Philip of, 39.
+
+_Real_, the, 364.
+
+Reggio, 32,
+  sack of, 133.
+
+Reis, Aisa-, left in charge of "Africa," 261, 264,
+  his defence, 266;
+  captured, 267.
+
+Reis, Dragut-,
+  _See_ Dragut
+
+Requesens, Don Luiz de, disaster to his fleet, 234.
+
+_Revenge_, the, 354.
+
+Rhodes, island of, 242,
+  seized by the Knights of St. John, 35, 292;
+  besieged, 36, 293;
+  serpent at, 294-296;
+  derivation of the name, 297.
+
+Ribera, Don Perisan de, 80.
+
+Ricasoli, 333.
+
+Richard II, 215.
+
+Rio, Juan del, taken captive, 71.
+
+Riviere, Chevalier La, 322.
+
+Robeira, Captain, repulses the corsairs, 84.
+
+Rocca Guillelma, fortress of, besieged, 99.
+
+Rodas, Capitan de, 111.
+
+Roderick the Goth, conquered by the Osmanli, 15, 29.
+
+Rome, fortifications of, 139.
+
+Romegas, Commandeur de, 312, 313,
+  his account of the battle of Lepanto, 360.
+
+Rosell, Don Cayetano, his _Historia del combate naval de
+    Lepanto_, 359, 364.
+
+Roverejo, Juan, war with Cordoba, 99.
+
+Roxalana, Sultana, her influence over Soliman, 174,
+  characteristics, 174;
+  jealousy, 174;
+  murders Ibrahim, 176.
+
+
+Salaerrez, 88.
+
+Saleh-Reis, 187.
+
+Salerno, Gulf of, 101.
+
+Sallee, the rovers, 237.
+
+Sandoval, El Maestro Don Fray Prudencio de, his history of
+    Charles V., 43, 70, 71, 108, 142, 144, 150, 155.
+
+Sangle, Claude de la, his death, 309.
+
+Sangullo, Antonio de, 139.
+
+_Santa Ana_, bravery of the, 353.
+
+Santa Cruz, Marquis of, at the battle of Lepanto, 364,
+  rescues the _Capitana_, 371.
+
+_Santa Maria_, the flagship of Columbus, 231.
+
+Sardinia, 136.
+
+Satalie, Gulf of, 47.
+
+Savona, fortification of, 103.
+
+Sceberass, Mount, 301, 307, 325, 342.
+
+Scutari, 38.
+
+Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean,
+  take refuge in Northern Africa, 1;
+  their deeds of terror, 2;
+  cupidity, 3;
+  fanaticism, 5, 17;
+  autocratic rule, 7, 25;
+  equality, 7;
+  aptitude for the sea, 8;
+  defeats, 10;
+  nefarious doings, 15;
+  characteristics of their leaders, 16, 25, 284, 376;
+  ships, 18;
+  character of the men, 26;
+  leagues against, 29;
+  relations with the Turks, 33.
+
+Seignelay, his criticism of Admiral de Tourville, 283.
+
+Selim I., Sultan of Turkey.
+  _See_ Soliman
+
+Selim II., Sultan of Turkey, 356,
+  his character, 356;
+  lays claim to the island of Cyprus, 356.
+
+Serpent, method of killing, 294-296.
+
+Sesse, Duke of, 311.
+
+Sessola, islet of, 207.
+
+Sfax, 2, 250.
+
+Sforza, Lodovico, Duke of Milan, 100.
+
+Shershell, 2, 66.
+
+Shott-el-Jerid, 153.
+
+Sinan-Reis, in command of La Goletta fortress, 156,
+  at the battle of Prevesa, 197;
+  in command of the Janissaries, 279, 281;
+  character as a leader, 285, 307;
+  his expedition against Malta, 306;
+  sacks the island of Gozo, 309;
+  captures Tripoli, 309.
+
+Skiathos, 187.
+
+Skios island, 187.
+
+Slaves, on board galleys, their treatment, 223-229,
+  mutiny at Lepanto, 228.
+
+Smyrna, Basha of, 48.
+
+Soliman the Magnificent, Sultan of Turkey, 9, 14, 109,
+  expels the Knights of St. John from Rhodes, 42, 277, 299;
+  embassy from Barbarossa, 60, 76;
+  sends reinforcements, 61;
+  recalls his ships, 61;
+  his conquest of the Mamelukes, 77;
+  invites the cooperation of Barbarossa, 110;
+  appoints him commander of his fleet, 111, 117, 127;
+  receives gifts from him, 118;
+  his reception of him, 120;
+  relations with Ibrahim, 173;
+  under the influence of Roxalana, 174;
+  declares war against Venice, 179;
+  defeated, 179;
+  preparations for campaigns, 183, 277, 316;
+  his demands from Charles V., 270;
+  loss of his "puissant galleon," 313;
+  lamentations of his people, 314;
+  holds a conference, 316;
+  expedition against Malta, 316;
+  his death, 356.
+
+Spaniards, under Moorish rule, 30,
+  expedition against the Barbarossas, 62;
+  repulse Hassan, 84;
+  captives, assist in the capture of Algiers, 89;
+  restored to liberty, 89.
+
+Spartivento, Cape, 136.
+
+Spezzia, Gulf of, 104.
+
+Susa, 2, 250.
+
+Swertius, Franciscus, his collection of epitaphs, 373.
+
+
+Tabas, 88.
+
+Taranto, 32.
+
+Tarik, 15, 29.
+
+Tenes, 2,
+  fall of, 72.
+
+Thevenot, his Travels, 297.
+
+Tiber, the, 139.
+
+Tineo, Garzia de, kills Uruj Barbarossa, 73.
+
+Tlemcen, 2.
+
+Tlemcen, Sultan of, his flight to Fez, 72.
+
+Toledo, Don Garcia de, 230;
+  in the expedition against Dragut, 265;
+  his character as a ruler, 317.
+
+Toledo, Don Pedro de, 273.
+
+Tours, Viscomte de, sent to Genoa, 102.
+
+Tourville, Admiral de, criticism on, 283.
+
+Traparni, 265.
+
+Tripoli, 2, 153,
+  defence of, 10;
+  capture, 309;
+  fortifications, 311;
+  expedition against, 311.
+
+Trivulce, Theodore, 104.
+
+Tunis, 2,
+  captured by the corsairs, 137, 375;
+  massacre in, 141, 159;
+  fortifications repaired, 146;
+  rebellion in, 348;
+  appeal to Ali Basha, 349;
+  flight of Hamid, 350.
+
+Tunis, Sultan of, his treaties with the Barbarossas, 51, 61,
+  repudiates treaty, 59.
+
+Turks, their character as soldiers, 8, 124,
+  relations with the Sea-wolves, 33;
+  attack on Rhodes, 37;
+  defeated at Patras, 109.
+
+Tuscany, Duke of, 235.
+
+
+Urbain II., Pope, 287.
+
+Urbino, Duke of, 99,
+  at the battle of Lepanto, 364.
+
+
+Vagnor, Chevalier, 333.
+
+Valentia, ravaged by corsairs, 83.
+
+Valetta, position of, 307, 342.
+
+Valette, Jean Parisot de la, Grand Master of the Knights of
+  St. John, 6, 248;
+  his characteristics, 301, 309;
+  creed, 302;
+  personal example in the siege of Malta, 302-305;
+  his high conception of duty, 310;
+  expedition against Tripoli, 311;
+  repulsed, 312;
+  summons help, 318;
+  preparations for the siege, 318-321;
+  address to his brethren, 319;
+  at the siege of Malta, 324-328;
+  reinforcements, 328.
+
+Vargas, Martin de, in command of the fortress of Navarro, 91,
+  besieged, 91-95;
+  wounded and taken prisoner, 95;
+  beheaded, 96.
+
+Vasto, Marquis de, 143.
+
+Vega, Don Alvaro, in command of "Africa," 267.
+
+Vega, Don Juan de, Viceroy of Sicily, 273,
+  in the expedition against Dragut, 265.
+
+Velez, Penon de, captured, 312.
+
+Venalcadi, 73,
+  escapes, 86;
+  attacks Barbarossa, 87;
+  fight, 88;
+  beheaded, 88.
+
+_Vengeur_, the, 354.
+
+Venice, 32,
+  treaty of commerce concluded, 34;
+  relations with Soliman, 179;
+  war declared, 179;
+  "Holy League" formed, 357.
+
+Veniero, Sebastian in command of the Venetian fleet, 360, 364.
+
+Vera, Don Diego de, sent to capture Algiers, 70,
+  defeated, 71.
+
+Vercoyran, Chevalier de, at the siege of Malta, 332.
+
+Vertot, M. L'Abbe de, 273, 297, 311.
+
+_Victory_, the, 354.
+
+Villaret, Fulke de, Grand Master of the Knights of St. John, 35,
+  seizes Rhodes, 35, 292.
+
+Villegagnon, Commandeur de, his interview with the Grand Master, 281.
+
+Villeneuve, Helion de, Grand Master of the Knights of St. John, 293,
+  character of his rule, 293;
+  death, 297.
+
+Vittoriosa, 299.
+
+Volo, Gulf of, 187.
+
+
+Ximenes, Fray Francisco, Cardinal Bishop of Toledo, 70.
+
+
+Yamboli, 216.
+
+Yonis Bey, sent to Venice, 178.
+
+
+Zante, island of, 114, 313.
+
+Zara, port of, 227.
+
+Zay, Basha, 114, 125.
+
+Zonchio, battle of, 38.
+
+
+
+
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+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean
+by E. Hamilton Currey
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