The Sultan had decided
that one hundred and fifty ships were necessary; his admiral thought
otherwise. There was too much at stake for him to dally at Constantinople;
his fiery energy swept all before it, and in the end he had his way. On
June 7th, 1538, he finally triumphed over the hesitations of the Viziers
and put to sea with eighty sail.
The Sultan, from his kiosk, the windows of which opened on the Bosphorus,
counted the ships.
"Only eighty sail; is that all?" he asked.
The trembling Viziers prostrated themselves before him.
"O our Lord, the Padishah," they cried, "Saleh-Reis comes from Alexandria
with a rich convoy; somewhere lurking is Andrea Doria, the accursed; it was
necessary, O Magnificent, to send succour."
There was a pause, in which the hearts of men beat as do those who know not
but that the next moment may be their last on earth.
The Sultan stared from his window at the retreating ships in a silence like
the silence of the grave. At last he turned:
"So be it," he answered briefly; "but see to it that reinforcements do not
lag upon the road."
If there had been activity in the dockyards before it was as nothing to the
strenuous work that was to be done henceforward.
Before starting on this expedition Kheyr-ed-Din had made an innovation in
the manning of some of the most powerful of his galleys, which was of the
utmost importance, and which was to add enormously to the success of his
future maritime enterprises.
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