Martin de Vargas, like all Spanish caballeros, was an ardent proselytiser,
and he ordered the two young men to be taken into his own house and
instructed by the chaplain of the garrison. The next day was Easter Day,
and the two young Moors, while the entire garrison were at Mass, signalled
to their co-religionists a prearranged sign indicating that now was the
time to attack. Unfortunately for them, a woman in the employment of De
Vargas saw them, and they were immediately hanged from the battlements in
full view of Barbarossa. That potentate was filled with fury at what he
considered an insult to the Mohammedan religion, and again consulted with
Celebi as to the feasibility of another assault. It was true, he said, that
his messengers had been hanged, but they had made the prearranged signal.
Still, the walls were hardly sufficiently breached, he thought, and his own
men were singularly disheartened by the ill success of their previous
efforts. Did Celebi Rabadan think another attempt desirable?
That person was in a quandary, because he could not gather what it was that
Barbarossa wished him to say. He knew that if he recommended an assault,
and that it proved once again unsuccessful, that the full fury of the
tyrant would fall upon his head; at the same time he was almost equally
afraid to broach the idea which had been prevalent in Algiers for some time
that Martin de Vargas must assuredly be in league with Shaitan, or he could
never have held out in the way that he had done.
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