als of heaven open wide to
receive the man who had lost his life testifying to the fact that there was
but one God, and that Mahomet was the Prophet of God?

True in substance and in fact is that which was said by the Frere Pierre
d'An that "it is indisputable that the sea is the Theatre of the storms and
the place in the world most capable of all sorts of violence and tragic
adventure." Those who "coveted the goods of others straying on the sea,"
called by the reverend brother "the implacable, corsairs of Barbary," were
to make life intolerable on that element for centuries to come, and if the
Crescent did not supersede the banner of the Cross in the blue waters of
the Mediterranean Sea, it remained as a portent and a dread symbol of human
misery and unutterable suffering.

CHAPTER II

THE COMING OF THE CORSAIRS

The rise and progress of the Moslem corsairs of the Mediterranean is a most
curious and interesting historical fact. The causes which led to results so
deplorable to commerce, civilisation, and Christianity are set forth in
this chapter in order that some idea may be formed of the state of affairs
in that region at the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the
sixteenth centuries, and also that the reflex action of the great triumph
of the Christian armies in Spain may be more fully understood.

The maritime Christian States of the Mediterranean at this epoch were at
the height of their power and prosperity, but were faced by the might of
the Ottoman Empire, against which they waged perpetual warfare. Bitter and
unceasing was the strife prosecuted by the Cross against the Crescent, and
by the Crescent against the Cross; and riding, like eagles on the storm
came the corsairs in their swift galleys ready to strike down the luckless
argosy of the merchantman wheresoever she was to be met. But this was not
all, as the shore as well as the sea yielded up to them its tribute in the
shape of slaves and booty, and Christian mothers trembling in the
insecurity of their homes would hush their wailing children with the terror
of the names of Barbarossa, of Dragut, or of Ali Basha.

Popes and emperors, kings and princes, found themselves compelled to form
leagues against these Sea-wolves who devoured the substance of their
subjects, and great expeditions were fitted out to fight with and destroy
the corsairs. Had Christendom been united no doubt the object would have
been attained; but, as will be seen at