But to the Emperor these rovers of the sea presented
themselves merely in the light of robbers. Robbers, it is true, on a
somewhat large scale, but still not persons of sufficient importance to
detain him from the infinitely more pressing affairs which awaited him on
the opposite shores of the Mediterranean Sea.
In addition to the fifteen galleys which Kheyr-ed-Din picked up at Bona he
had in reserve at Algiers some fifty others. Escaping the attention of Adan
Centurion and John Doria, and the infinitely more formidable squadron of
Andrea, he headed once more for Algiers, and for a time seems to have
remained quiet, no doubt recuperating from the fatigues, disappointments,
and physical hardships which he had so recently undergone. He was
apparently undisturbed during the winter by his Christian enemies, and was
in consequence able to think out his future plans of campaign and to
collect and put heart into his scattered followers, who, in ones and twos,
were gradually, such of them as were left, finding their way back to the
headquarters of piracy and its indomitable chieftain.
That cool calculator of the chances of life knew that this must be so; the
power of the corsairs generally had received the worst blow it had ever
encountered since the dispossessed Moriscoes had taken to the sea for a
living; those of them who remained alive were without ships--that is to
say, without their only means of making a livelihood--and that they should
gravitate towards Algiers and its master was as nearly a certainty as
anything human could be.
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