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.
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