These were on so considerable a scale at
this time that he had to devote to them far more space than he considered
consonant with the dignity of history.
But if all were going on well on the coast of Africa for the Crescent, such
was far from being the case in the northern waters of the Mediterranean;
for Andrea Doria, serving His Most Catholic Majesty at sea, had defeated
the Turks at Patras and again in the Dardanelles, which unpleasant fact
caused no little annoyance to Soliman the Magnificent. On land the Sultan
was sweeping all before him; at sea this pestilent Genoese was dragging
into servitude all the best mariners who sailed beneath the banner of the
Prophet. There was wrath and there was fear at Constantinople, and the
captains of the galleys which sailed from the Golden Horn felt that their
heads and their bodies might at any moment part company--the Grand Turk was
in an ill humour, which might at any moment call for the appeasement of
sacrifice; so it was that men trembled.
It was at this time, in 1533, that Soliman bethought himself of
Kheyr-ed-Din. There was no better seaman, there was no fiercer fighter,
there was no man whose name was so renowned throughout the length and
breadth of the Mediterranean, than was that of the corsair king who was
vassal to the Sublime Porte. Soliman was confronted with a new, and, to
him, an almost mysterious thing, for the onward conquering step of the
Moslem hosts was being checked by that sea-power so little understanded of
the Turk, and the imperious will of the Sultan seemed powerless to prevent
the disasters conjured from the deep.
Pages:
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124