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.
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