rated such an abuse is one of
those mysteries which can never be explained; and if subsequent centuries
displayed a greater refinement of manners, a more apt appreciation of all
that is softer and kindlier in the human relationships of nation towards
nation and of people towards people, they have not perhaps so much to plume
themselves upon as had their rude forefathers of the sixteenth century,
who, seeing the evil and feeling the effects thereof, did their best to
extirpate those by whom this evil was caused.

The question may be asked, how can it be that the lives and actions of such
men as these are worth chronicling? It is because, not only that they
modified profoundly the course of history in the age in which they lived,
but also because that, hidden deep down, somewhere, in these men stained by
a thousand crimes, ruthless, lustful, bloodthirsty, cruel as the grave, was
the germ of true greatness, some dim spark of the divine fire of genius.
Contending against principalities and powers, they held their own; in the
welter of anarchy in which they lived they proved that there existed no
finer fighting men, which alone give them some claim to consideration; but
that which is most interesting to watch is the absolute domination obtained
by the leaders over their followers. There is no other record of pirates
who commanded on so large a scale; there is none which shows men such as
these bargaining on equal terms with the great ones of the earth.

CHAPTER I

THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS

There is, in the deeds of men of action, an interest which is never aroused
by those persons of brains and capacity by whom the world is really ruled.
The statesman in his cabinet is the god within the machine; it is he who
directs the acts of nations, it is he who moves the fleets and armies as if
they were pieces on the chess-board; to him, as a rule, is the man of
action subordinate, obeying his behests. Rule and governance are his, power
both in the abstract and the concrete. Seldom in the history of the world
do we come across the men who are at one and the same time statesmen and
soldiers, who, taking their destiny in their own hands, work it out to the
appointed end thereof. But, as we stray in the by-paths of history, we meet
with some who, in their day, have influenced not only the age in which they
lived themselves, but also the destinies of generations yet unborn. It
would seem incredible that mere pirates, such as t