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.
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