re run into the crevices between the rocks,
or even buried in the sand, and the pirates steal inland to one of the
villages they know so well, and the loss of which they will never
cease to mourn. They have still friends a-many in Spain, who are
willing enough to help them against the oppressor and to hide them
when surprised. The sleeping Spaniards are roused and then grimly
silenced by the points of swords; their wives and daughters are borne
away on the shoulders of the invaders; everything valuable is cleared;
and the rovers are soon sailing merrily into the roads at Algiers,
laden with spoil and captives, and often with some of the persecuted
remnant of their race, who thankfully rejoin their kinsmen in the new
country. To wreak such vengeance on the Spaniard added a real zest to
life.

[Illustration: CARAVEL OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.

(_Jurien de la Graviere._)]

With all their skill and speed, their knowledge of the coasts, and the
help of their compatriots ashore, there was still the risk of capture.
Sometimes their brigantines "caught a Tartar" when they expected an
easy victim, and then the Moors found the tables turned, and had to
grace their captors' triumph, and for years, perhaps for ever, to sit
on the banks of a Venetian or Genoese galley, heavily chained, pulling
the infidel's oar even in the chase of the true believers, and gazing
to satiety upon the weals which the lash kept raw on the bare back of
the man in front. But the risk added a zest to the Corsair's life, and
the captive could often look forward to the hope of recapture, or
sometimes of ransom by his friends. The career of the pirate, with all
its chances, was a prosperous one. The adventurers grew rich, and
their strong places on the Barbary coast became populous and well
garrisoned; and, by the time the Spaniards began to awake to the
danger of letting such troublesome neighbours alone, the evil was past
a cure. For twenty years the exiled Moors had enjoyed immunity, while
the big Spanish galleys were obstinately held in port, contemptuous of
so small a foe. At last Don Pedro Navarro was despatched by Cardinal
Ximenes to bring the pirates to book. He had little difficulty in
taking possession of Oran and Buj[=e]ya; and Algiers was so
imperfectly fortified, that he imposed his own terms. He made the
Algerines vow to renounce piracy; and, to see that they kept their
word, he built and garrisoned a strong fort, the "Penon de Alger,"[2]
to