A weaker man would have been daunted by his surroundings, by the manifestly
unfriendly atmosphere in which he lived, and by the dread that perhaps,
after all, Soliman might go back upon his word. There were no lack of
counsellors, he knew very well, who would advise the Sultan to his undoing,
if that monarch gave them the opportunity; and, as time passed, so his
anxiety grew. Soliman also could not have felt particularly comfortable at
this juncture, with a sullen spirit possessing his men "con carga de
guerra," bitterly resenting the step which he had taken, and the
appointment which he had made. For the present, however, he made no sign,
treating Kheyr-ed-Din with distinguished courtesy, but making no reference
to the future. Soliman was revolving the problem in his acute mind,
doubtless weighing the unpopularity of the step which he had taken against
the services likely to be rendered to him by his strange guest. And thus
several weeks passed at Constantinople, probably amongst the most trying of
all those in the unusually prolonged life of Kheyr-ed-Din.
CHAPTER VIII
THE RAID ON THE COAST OF ITALY; JULIA GONZAGA
The Grand Turk had spoken, the appointment had been made, Barbarossa had
arrived; but though autocrats can cause their mandate to be obeyed, they
cannot constrain the inward workings of the minds of men. In spite of the
awe in which Soliman the Magnificent was held, there were murmurs of
discontent in the capital of Islam.
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