, the
elder, soon became the reis, or captain, of a galleot, and finding his
operations hampered in the Archipelago by the predominance of the
Sultan's fleet, he determined to seek a wider and less interrupted
field for his depredations. Rumours had reached the Levant of the
successes of the Moorish pirates; prodigious tales were abroad as to
great argosies, laden with the treasures of the New World, passing and
repassing the narrow seas between Europe and Africa, and seeming to
invite capture; and it was not long (1504) before Captain Ur[=u]j
found himself cruising with two galleots off the Barbary coast, and
spying out the land in search of a good harbour and a safe refuge from
pursuit.

[Illustration: TUNIS IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

(_Sphere des deux Mondes, 1555._)]

The port of Tunis offered all that a Corsair could wish. The Goletta
in those days was but slightly fortified, and the principal building,
besides the castle, was the custom-house, where the wealth of many
nations was taxed by the Sultan of the House of Hafs. The very sight
of such an institution was stimulating to a pirate. Ur[=u]j paid his
court to the King of Tunis, and speedily came to an understanding
with him on the subject of royalties on stolen goods. The ports of
Tunis were made free to the Corsair, and the king would protect him
from pursuit, for the consideration of a fixed share--a fifth--of the
booty. The policy of the enlightened rulers of Tunis evidently no
longer suited their latest representative.

The base of operations thus secured, Ur[=u]j did not keep his new ally
long waiting for a proof of his prowess. One day he lay off the island
of Elba, when two galleys-royal, belonging to his Holiness Pope Julius
II., richly laden with goods from Genoa, and bound for Civita Vecchia,
hove in sight. They were rowing in an easy, leisurely manner, little
dreaming of Turkish Corsairs, for none such had ever been seen in
those waters, nor anything bigger than a Moorish brigantine, of which
the Papal marines were prepared to give a good account. So the two
galleys paddled on, some ten leagues asunder, and Ur[=u]j Reis marked
his prey down. It was no light adventure for a galleot of eighteen
banks of oars to board a royal galley of perhaps twice her size, and
with no one could tell how many armed men inside her. The Turkish crew
remonstrated at such foolhardiness, and begged their captain to look
for a foe of their own size: but for reply Ur[=u