But before proceeding to the assistance of the Algerines Uruj had a personal matter to which to attend, and he wished to combine pleasure with serious business.  One of his old companions had seceded from his command and had established himself at Shershell, where he lived the life of an independent corsair within easy striking distance of the Balearic Islands and the coast of Spain, his following composed of a horde of those broken men of whom mention has been made.  Shershell was an unfortified town, and surrendered unconditionally upon the arrival of Uruj and his army.  Kara-Hassan, for such was the name of this independent corsair, came out to greet his old-time chief; he was met with violent reproaches, and the altercation ended by Uruj having him beheaded on the spot.  It was ill to quarrel with the Barbarossas.

Freed from this rival, the Mitylene corsair had now uncontested supremacy on the coast, a supremacy none was likely to contest in the future, as he brooked no opposition, and had come to consider that independent piracy in the Mediterranean was in some sort an infringement of the rights of himself and his brother.  One of the most salient peculiarities of the corsairs at this time was the apparent recklessness with which they assailed others who were participants in their nefarious business.  Self-interest and policy would seem, to the observer in the present day, to have dictated quite a different course of action; but we shall see, when we come to deal with the life-history of Kheyr-ed-Din, that this infinitely wiser and more intellectual man apparently allowed himself to be swayed by gusts of passion, in which he savagely maltreated those with whom he was associated, and from whom dangerous hostility was certainly to be feared if they escaped with their lives.  At this distance of time it is impossible to gauge the motives by which men such as these were actuated, more particularly in the case of Kheyr-ed-Din, whose character was a blend of the deepest subtlety and calculated ferocity.

Having settled with Kara-Hassan, Uruj continued his march along the coast.  Arrived at Algiers, he opened in form a siege of Navarro’s Tower; but, being unable to make any impression on its defences, he abandoned the siege after twenty days’ fruitless fighting, during which he lost a number of men in his assaults.  Baffled and furious, he turned on the Berber chieftain, the luckless Selim Eutemi, and caused him to be assassinated, regarding him as being responsible for the failure.  The Spanish chroniclers relate, with some wealth of detail, how Uruj personally fell upon Selim Eutemi, when that chieftain was in his bath, and strangled him with his own hands.  However this may have been, the Spanish records of the deeds of the corsairs cannot well be taken au pied de la lettre; there is no doubt that Selim was murdered, and from that time the Berbers recognised that he who had come to help was now remaining to plunder.  Uruj now established himself in the