Not only did the indefatigable corsair get clear away without any suspicion on the part of the admiral, but his first act on gaining the open sea was to capture the Patrona galley sent from Sicily by Don Juan de Vega to say that reinforcements were on the road.  In this ill-fated craft was Buguer, the son of Muley Hassan, King of Tunis, who was sent as prize to Soliman at Constantinople, where the Sultan caused him to be shut up in the “Torre del Mar Negro.”  Here he remained till he died, as a punishment for that he, a Mussulman, had aided the Christians.

Never again was Dragut to be in such sore straits as he was on this occasion at the island of Jerbah, when, by sheer wit and cunning, he escaped from the trap in which he had been held by Doria.  What the emotions of the admiral must have been when he found that once again he had been fooled, it is not difficult to imagine, as by no possible means could the story be hushed up; and, in spite of the annoyance of Christendom generally at the escape of Dragut, no one could help admiring his extraordinary cleverness, or roaring with laughter at the discomfiture of Doria and the viceroys of Naples and Sicily.

Dragut now returned to Constantinople to receive congratulations upon his escape, and to take part in a fresh design of stirring up the Sultan against the Christians.  All who professed this faith were naturally obnoxious to the corsair; but his private and personal hatred was entirely directed against the Knights of Malta, with whom he had been at war all his life.  The present preoccupation of the Sultan was to regain the towns on the coast of Africa which had been taken by the Spaniards; but it was represented to him by Dragut that “until he had smoked out this nest of vipers he could do no good anywhere.”  The Bashaws and the Divan, heavily bribed by the corsair, held the same language, until Soliman heard of nothing from morning till night but the ill deeds of the Knights of Malta.  They were represented to him as corsairs who ruined his commerce and defeated his armadas, who let slip no opportunity of harrying the Moslem wheresoever he was to be found.  In this there was more than a grain of truth, as we shall see when we come to the next chapter, which will be devoted to a sketch of this militant order.  Suffice it to say here that the Knights fought for what they termed “the Religion” (it was in this manner they designated their confederacy), and to harry and enslave the Mussulman, to destroy him as a noxious animal wherever he was to be found, was the reason for which they existed.  It is true that they plundered not for individual gain, but many was the rich prize towed into Malta past St. Elmo and the ominously named “Punta delle Forche” (the “Point of the Gallows,” where all captured pirates were hanged), the proceeds of which went to the enrichment of the Order; to buy themselves the wherewithal to fight with the Mahommedan again.