but to embark stores, guns, and
ammunition and to sail quietly away, and this was what happened. Once again
Dragut faded away beyond the skyline, "leaving Andrea Doria with the dog to
hold," in the quaint language of the chronicler of these events, Don Luys
de Marmol Caravajal.

Not only did the indefatigable corsair get clear away without any suspicion
on the part of the admiral, but his first act on gaining the open sea was
to capture the _Patrona_ galley sent from Sicily by Don Juan de Vega to say
that reinforcements were on the road. In this ill-fated craft was Buguer,
the son of Muley Hassan, King of Tunis, who was sent as prize to Soliman at
Constantinople, where the Sultan caused him to be shut up in the "Torre del
Mar Negro." Here he remained till he died, as a punishment for that he, a
Mussulman, had aided the Christians.

Never again was Dragut to be in such sore straits as he was on this
occasion at the island of Jerbah, when, by sheer wit and cunning, he
escaped from the trap in which he had been held by Doria. What the emotions
of the admiral must have been when he found that once again he had been
fooled, it is not difficult to imagine, as by no possible means could the
story be hushed up; and, in spite of the annoyance of Christendom generally
at the escape of Dragut, no one could help admiring his extraordinary
cleverness, or roaring with laughter at the discomfiture of Doria and the
viceroys of Naples and Sicily.

Dragut now returned to Constantinople to receive congratulations upon his
escape, and to take part in a fresh design of stirring up the Sultan
against the Christians. All who professed this faith were naturally
obnoxious to the corsair; but his private and personal hatred was entirely
directed against the Knights of Malta, with whom he had been at war all his
life. The present preoccupation of the Sultan was to regain the towns on
the coast of Africa which had been taken by the Spaniards; but it was
represented to him by Dragut that "until he had smoked out this nest of
vipers he could do no good anywhere." The Bashaws and the Divan, heavily
bribed by the corsair, held the same language, until Soliman heard of
nothing from morning till night but the ill deeds of the Knights of Malta.
They were represented to him as corsairs who ruined his commerce and
defeated his armadas, who let slip no opportunity of harrying the Moslem
wheresoever he was to be found. In this there was more than a grain o