had been destroyed, and he himself was now a fugitive,
unable any further to trouble the peace of Christendom or the dignity of
the Emperor by whom he had been so soundly chastised. In consequence the
Caesar departed well pleased with himself and with those who had been acting
under his orders, to whom he distributed orders and titles, as a memento of
the occasion upon which they had finally broken up the power of those by
whom his peace had so long been troubled.

One of the difficulties in dealing with the career of Kheyr-ed-Din
Barbarossa is that, in times when he was unsuccessful, or when, as on the
present occasion, he had received a severe setback, it is next to
impossible to find out what he was doing or where exactly he was preparing
for his next coup. In this case, in particular, the old-time historians
were thanking God that the Emperor had rid the world of a particularly
pestilent knave, and ceased to trouble themselves much about him until he
forced himself once more upon their notice. Had Charles at this time
recognised the greatness of the man whom he had just so signally defeated
he might have changed the course of history. Had he, instead of sailing
back to Europe, content with that which he had accomplished in Tunis,
pushed his attack home on Algiers, he might have made himself master of the
whole of Northern Africa, as, in the disorganised state in which the
corsairs now found themselves, they could certainly have offered no
effective resistance. 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