[Illustration:  A GALLEY OF THE KNIGHTS OF MALTA.]

The procession entered the harbour in three divisions of eight galleys:  and towing behind each division was one of the captured galleys of the Knights.  In memory of his prowess Ali ordered that the shields and bucklers taken from the Maltese galleys, which bore upon them emblazoned the white cross of “the Religion,” should be hung up in the great arched gate of the Marina.  Also there was placed here the image of Saint John the Baptist, taken from the Capitana galley, “all of which remain,” says Haedo, “until this day” (i.e. 1612), except the image of Saint John, which in the reign of Hassan Basha, a Venetian renegado, was taken down and burned at the instance of the Morabutos, “los letrados de los Moros” (the learned among the Moors).  It is an instructive commentary on the fear and respect in which the Knights of Malta were held that such a man as Ali should have considered it a triumph worth the celebrating when he defeated five of their vessels with twenty-four of his own.

The next occurrence in the life of Ali was one of those to which the Sea-wolves were subjected from time to time, and which do not seem to have caused them much trouble or anxiety.  This was a mutiny of the Janissaries in Algiers, who very reasonably objected to being left without their pay.  A mutiny of the Janissaries, however, was somewhat a serious matter, as they were accustomed to the enjoyment of many privileges, and were, as we have said elsewhere, a picked corps who had it in their power even to coerce the Sultan himself upon occasions.

Those of them who were in Algiers demanded “Who was this corsair who dared to keep the picked men of the army of the Grand Turk waiting for their pay, as if they were no better than his slaves?” Such a thing as a mutiny was, in the days of which we speak, a matter for which any prudent corsair had to be prepared.  Ali was in no means discomposed, and, as the crisis had become acute on shore, he went to sea, where he was under no obligation to pay his men, who paid themselves at the expense of their enemies.  He put to sea with twenty galleys, and, shortly after leaving Algiers, he met with a galley from the Levant, from which he received information that a powerful armada was preparing in Constantinople for an expedition against the Christians.  He steered for Coron in the Morea, where he was almost immediately joined by the Ottoman fleet, the commander of which force was overjoyed to find so formidable a reinforcement under so renowned a captain as Ali.

Soliman the Magnificent had died in 1566, and had been succeeded by his son, Selim; this prince, bred in the Seraglio, was weak and licentious, given to that strong drink forbidden by the Prophet to an extent which caused him to be nicknamed by the Spaniards as “el ebrio,” or “el bebedor.”