of his life
has unfolded itself in these pages we have seen what manner of man it was
who terrified Europe, who made for himself a reputation which stands out
clear and distinct among all the great men of which this century was so
prolific. One of the surest methods of estimating a strenuous man of action
is to seek for the names of those by whom he was surrounded: the men
selected by him to assist in the carrying out of the work of his life; thus
in reading of Napoleon Bonaparte we interest ourselves in his marshals, in
reading of Nelson we note the captains by whom he was supported. In the
case of Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, a great man of action if one ever lived,
we find no trace of devoted adherents on that high plane of command we have
indicated in the cases cited above. That he had devoted followers enough is
absolutely certain, but of high officers we very seldom find a trace, and
these he treated with contumely and offence on many occasions; witness the
treatment meted out to Hassan and to Venalcadi. There is practically no
trace of his domestic life to be found, we cannot discover that he
possessed any intimate friend. There is none other in all history to whom
he can be satisfactorily compared; there are few who in their generation
have wielded such enormous powers, who have climbed so high from the sheer
unassisted force of their own intellect and their own character.

[Footnote 1: Stanley Lane Poole.]

Physical strength such as is vouchsafed to one man in a million, a
constitution nothing could impair, endurance incomparable, were his bodily
attributes: an intellect cold, clear, and penetrating was his, joined to an
imperturbability of temperament which enabled him to accept with a cheerful
philosophy blows by which weaker men were absolutely prostrated; his
outlook on life was not dimmed by any affections, and pity was a sensation
which to him was entirely alien. In this record of his deeds the reader has
been spared all mention of the atrocious tortures he was in the habit of
inflicting on his victims for any or no provocation, and many of them are
as incomprehensible as they are sickening. That in which he was supreme was
his craft as a seaman in an age when real seamen were rare; on land he was
frequently defeated, at sea there seems to be no record of such an
occurrence. To sum up, he appears to us in the light of history as a body,
a brain, and an intellect, without any trace of a heart. His path through