d,
and the destruction of the Spanish, Italian, and Provencal bastions by
the Turkish mines and the consequent exposure of the exhausted
garrison rendered the defence more and more perilous. The Ottoman army
too was suffering severely, from disease, as well as from the deadly
weapons of the Knights, and in the hope of sparing his men Suleym[=a]n
offered the garrison life and liberty if they would surrender the
city. At first they proudly rejected the offer, but within a
fortnight, finding their ammunition exhausted and their numbers sadly
thinned, on December 21st they begged the Sultan to repeat his
conditions, and, with an honourable clemency, Suleym[=a]n let them all
depart unmolested in his own ships to such ports in Europe as seemed
best to them.[22]

The fall of Rhodes removed the last obstacle to the complete
domination of the Ottoman fleet in the eastern basin of the
Mediterranean. Henceforward no Christian ship was safe in those waters
unless by the pleasure of the Sultan. The old maritime Republics were
for the time reduced to impotence, and no power existed to challenge
the Ottoman supremacy in the Aegean, Ionian, and Adriatic Seas.

Almost at the same time the brothers Barbarossa had effected a similar
triumph in the west. The capture of Algiers and the firm establishment
of various strong garrisons on the Barbary coast had given the Turkish
Corsairs the command of the western basin of the Mediterranean.
Suleym[=a]n the Magnificent saw the necessity of combination; he knew
that Kheyr-ed-d[=i]n could teach the Stambol navigators and
ship-builders much that they ought to learn; his Grand Vez[=i]r
Ibrah[=i]m strenuously urged a closer relation between the Turkish
powers of the east and west; and Kheyr-ed-d[=i]n received the Imperial
command to present himself at Constantinople.

FOOTNOTES:

[13] See S. Lane-Poole, _The Story of Turkey_, 135.

[14] See _The Story of Turkey_, 136.

[15] _History of the Maritime Wars of the Turks_, 20.

[16] H[=a]jji Khal[=i]fa, 21.

[17] Jurien de la Graviere, _Doria et Barberousse_, Pt. I., ch. xv.

[18] See the _Story of Turkey_, 158-163.

[19] See S. Lane-Poole, _The Art of the Saracens_, 239, &c.

[20] _Doria et Barberousse_, Pt. II., ch. vii.

[21] _Ibid._, Pt. II., ch. vii., p. 106 ff.

[22] See the _Story of Turkey_, 170; and the illustrations, pp. 137,
147, 171, 175, 177.

VII.

DORIA AND BARBAROSSA.

1533.

Kheyr-ed-d[=i]n was in no hurr