With Dragut leading, these fresh
unwounded men swept forward over the burning beam; irresistible as some
mighty river in spate, these disciplined ruffians, headed by this master
spirit, burst through the ill-organised resistance opposed to them, and
slew and slew and slew.
Behind them, alert and wary, came the supports, asking no quarter and
giving none, cutting up the wounded, trampling under foot friend and foe
alike who fell in the weltering shambles which marked the onward path of
their leader and the advanced party. Very soon the broken hosts of the
"Africans" cried piteously for mercy; the fight was over, and Dragut-Reis,
wounded, breathless, but victorious, stood master of the strongest place of
arms in all the continent of Africa. It is true that treachery had given
him his opportunity, but once that was obtained the rest he had done for
himself: the stealthy advance by sea, the midnight march to the exact spot
on the walls where he was awaited by Ibrahim Amburac, the marshalling of
his five hundred for the conflict, and the actual conduct of the fight
itself, were all to the credit of this apt pupil of the great Kheyr-ed-Din
Barbarossa, As warriors his followers were worthy of their leader: defeated
the corsairs frequently were, but, in the combats in which they engaged,
they were frequently, as we have seen in the course of this story, largely
dependent upon auxiliaries in whom no trust could be placed; and at
Prevesa, at the siege of Malta, and later on at the battle of Lepanto, the
spot on which they fought, were it on the land or on the sea, was ever the
one which formed the nucleus of resistance.
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