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.
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