But who shall find excuse for the
Christian kings, governors, and princes at this epoch? They sought their
prey no less ravenously than did the pirates, and with just about the same
amount of justification: witness the sacking of Rome by Charles V. in 1527,
and the unexampled act of treachery just recorded of Francis of France.
Kheyr-ed-Din had lived all his turbulent life among wars and rumours of
wars: the head of the tiller, the hilt of the scimitar, the butt of the
arquebus, had been in his hand since early youth; bloodshed and strife were
the atmosphere in which he lived and breathed. Desperate adventures by land
and sea had been his ever since he could remember; there was no hazard that
he had not run, no peril which he had not dared. But now even he, the
veteran of far more than one hundred fights, was grave and preoccupied when
he considered the greatness, the imminence of his peril. The "Clerigo
Francese" had put him in possession of the fact that Carlos Quinto was
exerting all his strength for the combat which was to come; and Barbarossa
was far too old a fighter, far too wise a warrior, to underrate by one
soldier or by one galley the forces that the Emperor could put into line
against him; from far and near his foes were gathering for his destruction,
and he did not deceive himself in the least as to what the fate of his
followers and himself would be should the Christian hosts be victorious.
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