It is here that we shall take leave of Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, as although he was yet to live another eight years before he died in his bed at Constantinople in July, 1548, there are no further happenings of any great importance in his career.

“Valorous, yet prudent, furious in attack, far-seeing in preparation, he ranks as the first sea-captain of his time;"[1] as the story of his life has unfolded itself in these pages we have seen what manner of man it was who terrified Europe, who made for himself a reputation which stands out clear and distinct among all the great men of which this century was so prolific.  One of the surest methods of estimating a strenuous man of action is to seek for the names of those by whom he was surrounded:  the men selected by him to assist in the carrying out of the work of his life; thus in reading of Napoleon Bonaparte we interest ourselves in his marshals, in reading of Nelson we note the captains by whom he was supported.  In the case of Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, a great man of action if one ever lived, we find no trace of devoted adherents on that high plane of command we have indicated in the cases cited above.  That he had devoted followers enough is absolutely certain, but of high officers we very seldom find a trace, and these he treated with contumely and offence on many occasions; witness the treatment meted out to Hassan and to Venalcadi.  There is practically no trace of his domestic life to be found, we cannot discover that he possessed any intimate friend.  There is none other in all history to whom he can be satisfactorily compared; there are few who in their generation have wielded such enormous powers, who have climbed so high from the sheer unassisted force of their own intellect and their own character.

[Footnote 1:  Stanley Lane Poole.]

Physical strength such as is vouchsafed to one man in a million, a constitution nothing could impair, endurance incomparable, were his bodily attributes:  an intellect cold, clear, and penetrating was his, joined to an imperturbability of temperament which enabled him to accept with a cheerful philosophy blows by which weaker men were absolutely prostrated; his outlook on life was not dimmed by any affections, and pity was a sensation which to him was entirely alien.  In this record of his deeds the reader has been spared all mention of the atrocious tortures he was in the habit of inflicting on his victims for any or no provocation, and many of them are as incomprehensible as they are sickening.  That in which he was supreme was his craft as a seaman in an age when real seamen were rare; on land he was frequently defeated, at sea there seems to be no record of such an occurrence.  To sum up, he appears to us in the light of history as a body, a brain, and an intellect, without any trace of a heart.  His path through life was one unending trail of blood and fire, moistened by the tears of his countless victims, followed by the curses of those whom he despoiled.  Yet, in spite of this, it is impossible not to admire the man who, by his own superhuman energy, ever swept all obstacles from his path, and caused the whole of the civilised world to quail at the name of Barbarossa.