On the morrow a
battle was fought which, as Kheyr-ed-Din anticipated, ended in the complete
rout of the Moslems. Everywhere the Corsair King was in the forefront of
the battle, and it is said that he disposed of fifty thousand men on this
occasion; but this is probably an exaggeration, and in any case the bulk of
his forces consisted of those African levies which, in a pitched battle
against European troops, were practically useless owing to their want of
discipline and cohesion. Very soon the hosts of the Emperor had prevailed,
and the Arabs and Berbers had fled back into the wilderness from whence
they had come and whither it was useless to pursue. Barbarossa, at the head
of such of his corsairs and Turks as were left--a number estimated at some
three to four thousand--burst through all opposition and also escaped,
travelling so rapidly that pursuit was abandoned almost at once. And then
the event happened which the Moslem leader had foreseen: some of the
Christian captives managed to get free from their shackles within the city
and released others; they overpowered those left to guard them, and threw
open the gates to the soldiery of the Emperor.
Then occurred one of those awful horrors of which this time was so
prolific: before Charles or his generals could prevent them the soldiery
had swept into the town and commenced to slay, to plunder, and to ravish,
without distinction of age, sex, or nationality.
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