CHAPTER IV

THE DEATH OF URUJ BARBAROSSA

The events recorded in the last chapter bring us down to the end of the year 1515, and while every endeavour has been made to present affairs in chronological sequence, it must be remembered that the dates of piratical expeditions are often impossible to obtain:  the wrath of the chroniclers at the nefarious deeds of the corsairs greatly exceeding their desire for a meticulous accuracy in the matter of the exact time of their occurrence.  Uruj, as has been seen, had by his headstrong folly once again placed his brother and himself in a decidedly awkward situation.  By the losses which he had incurred in his second ill-advised attempt on Bougie he had so weakened the piratical confederation that the countenance of some potentate had again become necessary for their continued existence, and the Sultan of Tunis had now repudiated all connection with these ingrates.

But, if craft and subtlety were not to be found in Uruj there was one who never failed to exhibit these qualities when they became necessary, and Kheyr-ed-Din once more came to the front.  The Russian peasantry have a saying that “God is high and the Czar is far away.”  In the sixteenth century the Grand Turk was in every sense “far away” from the struggling corsairs on the littoral of Northern Africa, and was a sovereign of such great and mysterious might that any man with a less fine instinct into the psychology of the times in which he lived than Kheyr-ed-Din would have hesitated long and anxiously before addressing him directly; would probably in the end not have done so at all.  But desperate diseases require desperate remedies, and the politic corsair well knew that even the moral support of such an one as the Sultan of Constantinople was worth more than even material aid from a Sultan of Tunis.

Consequently, greatly daring, he sent an embassy to the Sublime Porte with one of his most trusted captains at its head to lay the homage of the corsairs at the feet of Selim I. Very naturally these ambassadors did not go empty-handed, but took with them rich presents and numerous slaves.  Selim was much pleased at the attention, coming as it did from such a distance—­we have to remember that the coast of North Africa was an immense journey from Constantinople in those days—­and the insight of Kheyr-ed-Din was triumphantly vindicated.  Not only did the Sultan send a gracious reply in return, but—­what was far more to the purpose—­he sent a reinforcement of fourteen vessels to the corsairs bidding them to go on and prosper in their efforts to spread the true faith among the Christian heretics.