On that stage, which was the blue waters of the tideless sea, we shall,
from this time forward, watch the fortunes of those two great sea-captains,
Andrea Doria and Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa. With them the ebb and flow of
conquest and defeat alternated. Great as was the one, it cannot be said
that he was greater than the other; but when the supreme arbitrament was
within the grasp of both, as it was at the naval battle of Prevesa, neither
the Christian admiral nor the Moslem corsair would reach out his hand and
grasp the nettle of his fate. Hesitation at this moment, when, in the
fulness of time, the rivals stood face to face with arms in their hands,
was the last thing that would have been expected of such dauntless
warriors, such born leaders of men! and the battle of Prevesa presents a
psychological problem of the most baffling and perplexing description. We
are, however, anticipating events which will fall into their proper
sequence as we proceed.
Kheyr-ed-Din, now firmly established in Algiers, devoted his energies to
the undoing of his Christian foes by the systematic plunder of their
merchant-vessels. At this period he, personally, seems to have remained
ashore, and sent his young and aspiring captains to sea to increase his
wealth by plunder, his consequence by the hordes of slaves which they swept
into the awful bagnios of Algiers; and Sandoval, that quaint and delightful
historian, is moved to indignation and complains with much acrimony of "las
malas obras que este corsario hizo a la Christiandad" (the evil deeds done
to Christianity by this corsair).
Pages:
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123