f gold? What
mariner could offer to the Grand Turk such varied and magnificent
presents?

Upon his arrival Barbarossa asked permission to kiss the threshold of
the palace of the Sultan, which boon being graciously accorded to him,
he made his triumphal entry. Two hundred captives clad in scarlet robes
carried cups of gold and flasks of silver; behind them came thirty
others, each staggering under an enormous purse of sequins; yet another
two hundred brought collars of precious stones or bales of the choicest
goods; and a further two hundred were laden with sacks of small coin.
Certainly if Soliman the Magnificent had lost a Grand Vizier he had
succeeded in finding an admiral!

All through the earlier months of 1538 the dockyards of Constantinople
hummed with a furious activity, for Soliman had decreed that the
maritime campaign of this year was to begin with no less than one
hundred and fifty ships. His admiral, however, did not agree with this
decision; to the Viziers he raged and stormed. "Listen," he said, "O men
of the land who understand naught of the happenings of the sea. By this
time Saleh-Reis must have quitted Alexandria convoying to the Bosphorus
twenty sail filled with the richest merchandise; should he fall in with
the accursed Genoese, Doria, where then will be Saleh-Reis and his
galleys and his convoy? I will tell you: the ships in Genoa, the galleys
burned, Saleh-Reis and all his mariners chained to the rowers' bench."

The Viziers trembled as men did when Barbarossa stormed and turned upon
them those terrible eyes which knew neither fear nor pity. "We be but
men," they answered, "and our lord the Sultan has so ordained it."

"I have forty galleys," replied the corsair; "you have forty more. With
these I will take the sea; but, mark you," he continued, softening
somewhat, "you do right to fear the displeasure of the Sultan, and I
also have no wish to encounter it; but vessels raised and equipped in a
hurry will be of small use to me. In the name of Allah the compassionate
and his holy Prophet give me my eighty galleys and let me go."

In Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa sound strategical instinct went hand in hand
with the desperate valor of the corsair. To dally in the Golden Horn
while so rich a prey was at sea to be picked up by his Christian foes
was altogether opposed to his instincts: never to throw away a chance in
the game of life had ever been his guiding principle.

Soliman, great man as he undoub