who had hitherto been
engaged time to breathe and recover themselves, Dragut waited while the
noise of the strife died down, and nought was heard but the roar of the
flames and the crash of the burning buildings.

The leader turned to his followers, among whom dwelt an ominous silence.
"Dost remember Prevesa," he cried, "when Andrea Doria and the best of the
Christian warriors fled before you like sheep before a dog: are these
miserable townsmen to stay your onward march?"

There remained for an appreciable period after he had spoken a tense
silence; the red light from the burning houses shone on the lean faces
alight with the fierce fire of fanaticism, with an inextinguishable lust of
slaughter. There came an answering frenetic roar, "Lead! Lead! Dragut!
Dragut! Dragut!" It was enough: the corsair had tried the temper of the
steel, he had now but to use the edge. There was an ordered movement on the
part of the pirates: a fresh hundred men, who had hitherto taken no part in
the combat, now pressed to the front and formed the advance, those who had
been before engaged now forming the supports; that which had been the shaft
of the spear now forming its head. 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 whi