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.
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