intellectual outlook on all that was passing, both inside and outside of the Gulf of Arta, in this September of 1538, we see Kheyr-ed-Din at his best.  Ever a fighter, he knew when to give battle and when to refrain, when to sweep headlong upon the foe, but also when to hold back and to baffle by waiting till the psychological moment should arrive.  Around him Sinan-Reis, Mourad-Reis, and half a hundred others of their kidney were clamouring; they hurled insults at his head, they heaped opprobrium on “the corsair,” they practically incited their troops to mutiny in their mad appeals to be led against the foe.

But “the corsair” kept his head, and kept his temper, and saved the Ottoman fleet for his master from his great rival, Doria.  That noble Genoese seaman was for once in his life “letting I dare not wait upon I would”; he would not order the attack for which his men were waiting, and no provocation, apparently, could tempt Barbarossa to play Antony to the Octavius of Doria; the Christian admiral was tempting Providence at that advanced season of the year in keeping the sea on an hostile coast on which at any time he might be driven by a tempest.  His old and experienced antagonist was well aware that the winds and the waves might save him the trouble of destroying the fleet of the enemy; an equinoctial gale would do that far more effectually than could he.  If Doria had an uneasy consciousness that he might at any time see the shore littered with oarless galleys and dismasted nefs, while the sea was filled with drowning men, the same vision had been vouchsafed to his imperturbable adversary.  Had it been left to the entire initiative of Barbarossa, his Fabian tactics would assuredly have prevailed in the end; but as it was he was surrounded by a clamouring host of men, soldiers by trade, who, understanding nothing of the happenings of the sea, merely derided as cowardice any postponement of what they regarded as the inevitable battle.  The admiral of the Sultan held out as long as it was possible, but at last, owing to a new factor in the case, was forced, against his better judgment, to offer the battle which it was in his power to have withheld.

CHAPTER XIII

THE BATTLE OF PREVESA

  How Alessandro Condalmiero fought the Galleon of Venice—­“The
  King of the Sea is dead.”

There is something almost pathetic in the spectacle of a really great leader badgered and importuned by lesser men to adopt a course which he, with a superior insight, knows to be unsound.  In the matter of the landing Barbarossa had demonstrated that it was he whose knowledge of war was superior to those who were so ready to thrust upon him their opinions; this, however, did not content them, and they now desired to close with the foe waiting for them outside.  If ever a commander was justified in waiting on events it was Barbarossa at this juncture; the business of