Every day that Doria
was kept at sea added to his difficulties, as fresh water and provisions
would be running short, and the energies of the human engines by which his
galleys were propelled would be weakened; naked men chained to a bench were
suffering from the blazing heat of the days, the cold and drenching dews of
the nights. All these things had the veteran seaman weighed in his mind,
they all inclined him to wait still longer in that secure anchorage where
he could not be touched by his foe.
There was one counsellor, however, whom even Kheyr-ed-Din could not resist,
and who had hitherto kept silence; this was the eunuch Monuc, legal
counsellor to Soliman, who had accompanied the armada. He now brought the
weight of his influence to bear upon the side of Sinan-Reis and his
colleagues.
"Are you going," he asked the admiral, "to allow the infidels to escape
without a battle? Soliman can find plenty of wood to build new fleets,
plenty of captains to command them; he will pardon you if this fleet is
destroyed: that which he will never pardon is that you should allow Doria
to escape without fighting. You have brave men in plenty; why not lead them
to the attack?"
The patience of the veteran gave way at last; none who knew Barbarossa had
ever seen him shrink from fighting--to this his whole career bore witness.
He had delayed the issue from the soundest of strategical reasons, which
those under his command were too stupid and too prejudiced to understand:
what cared they for reason in their blind valour?--they wished only to do
or die heedless of the fact that their lives might be spent in vain.
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