fe-long
competitor at sea, the famous Genoese Admiral, Andrea Doria. Dragut Reis
was killed at the siege of Malta in 1565, and Ali Basha was the only Moslem
commander who increased his reputation at the battle of Lepanto in 1571,
when Don John of Austria shattered the power of the Moslem at sea for the
time being.

Although the "renegado" was very much in evidence in the vessels of the
Moslem corsairs, still of course the bulk of the fighting men, by which the
galleys were manned, were Mohammedans, the descendants of the warriors who
had swept through Northern Africa like a living flame in the early days of
the Mohammedan conquest.

Cut adrift from the homes which had been theirs for over seven
centuries--as we shall see in the next chapter--there was nothing left for
the erstwhile dwellers in Andalusia but to gain their living by the strong
hand. The harvest of the sea was the one which they garnered--a harvest of
the goods of their mortal enemies strung out in lines of hapless
merchant-vessels throughout the length and breadth of the tideless sea.

It booted not that the great Powers of Europe sent expedition after
expedition against them; these they fought to the death with varying
fortune, ready, when the storm had passed over their heads, to start once
more on the only career which promised them the chance of acquiring riches.
Their whole history is a study of warfare, waged as a rule on the petty
scale, but rising at times, as in the cases already mentioned, into events
of first-class historical importance.

The deeds of the buccaneers of the next century in the Spanish Main sink
into comparative insignificance when compared with what was accomplished by
such a man as Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, who was known, and rightly known, by
his contemporaries, and for many generations of Moslem seamen yet to come,
as "the King of the Sea." The capture of Panama by Sir Henry Morgan in
January 1671 was possibly as remarkable a feat of arms as was ever
accomplished, but it cannot rank in its importance to civilised mankind on
the same plane as those memorable battles in the Mediterranean of which
mention has been made as having been fought by the Moslem corsairs.

Fighting for their own hand, the booty reaped by these men was incredible
in its richness. Sea-power was theirs, and they took the fullest advantage
of this fact, fearing none save the great community of the Knights of Saint
John of Jerusalem, which, vowed to the d