number of them joining together to man a small craft which was known as a brigantine.  As has been said in a previous chapter, this word must not be understood in the light of the terminology of the modern seaman:  the brigantines of the Moslem corsairs were really large rowing boats, carrying fourteen to twenty-six oars, and made as seaworthy as the small size of such craft would allow.  Should the venture of the crew of a brigantine prove successful, then the reis, or captain, might blossom out into the command of a galley, in which his oars would be manned by his slaves; but, in the first instance, he would man his brigantine with a crew of Moslem desperadoes working on the share system and dividing anything that they could pick up; in this manner most of those corsairs who became famous commenced their careers, and rose as we have seen from the thwart of a brigantine to the unstable eminence of a throne in Algiers, Tunis, or Tlemcen.

This life which they led made of them what they were, namely desperate swordsmen, efficient men at arms, incomparably skilful in the management of the craft in which they put to sea; but it did nothing else for them in the way of education; in consequence he who would rise to the top, who aspired to be a leader amongst them and not to remain a mere swash-buckling swordsman all his life, was bound to acquire that dominance necessary for control of the wild spirits of the age.  Nor was this ascendancy by any means easy to obtain, as the rank and file led lives of incredible bitterness, almost inconceivable to modern ideas.  What they suffered they alone knew, but it was compounded of hunger, thirst, heat, cold, sickness unrelieved by care or tending, wounds which festered for lack of medicaments, death which ever stared them in the face, and last, and worst of all, the risk of capture by some Christian foe, by whom they would be chained to the rowers’ bench and taste of a bitterness absolutely unimaginable.  As a set-off to this the man who aspired to lead must offer to his followers at least a record of success in small things; also he had to be something of an enthusiast, something of an orator, some one subtly persuasive.  Against all the disagreeables of the strenuous life of the corsair he had to hold before the dazzled eyes of Selim, Ali, or Mahomet the promise of fat captures of the merchant vessels of the foe; when they had but to slit a few throats and to return with their brigantines laden to the gunwale with desirable plunder.  Again he had to hearten them for possible encounters with Spaniards, with the terrible Doria, or worst of all with the dreaded Knights of St. John themselves; to point out that to die in conflict with the infidel was a sure passport to heaven and its houris, and to invoke great names, such as that of Barbarossa to show to what dizzy heights the fighting Moslem could climb.  In such an age and among such men as these it was no mean feat to become a leader by whom men swore and to whom they yielded a ready obedience.