struck on the head with another weapon; he reeled and fell.  The fight was over, and one of the Barbarossas bit the dust.  Garzia de Tineo leaped upon the fallen man and cut off his head.  It is recorded that Garzia de Tineo was wounded in the finger by Uruj in the course of the combat, and that for the rest of his life he proudly exhibited the scar as a sign that it was none other than he who had killed the famous corsair.

Uruj Barbarossa was undoubtedly a remarkable man.  At a time when the Mediterranean swarmed with warriors none was more feared, none was more redoubtable than he.  By sheer valour and tenacity he had fought his way to the front, and the son of the obscure renegado of Mitylene died a king.  It is true that his sovereignty was precarious, that it was maintained at the edge of the sword; none the less, in that welter of anarchy in which he lived he had forced himself to the summit, and, pirate, sea-wolf, and robber as he was, we cannot withhold from him a meed of the most hearty admiration.

CHAPTER V

KHEYR-ED-DIN BARBAROSSA

Uruj had arrogated to himself the title of King of Tlemcen, but with his death this shadowy sovereignty came to an end, and the Spaniards seized upon the province.  This, however, did not avail them much, as the Sultan of Fez sent against them an innumerable army, and they in their turn were dispossessed.  It was in the year 1518 that Uruj fell beneath the pike of Garzia de Tineo, and now the first place in the piratical hierarchy was taken by Kheyr-ed-Din.  In this man the genius of the statesman lay hidden beneath the outward semblance of the bold and ruthless pirate; ever foremost in the fight, strong to endure, swift to smite, he had by now long passed his novitiate, had established an empire over the minds of men which was to endure until the end of his unusually prolonged life.  With a brain of ice and a heart of fire, he looked out, serene and calm, upon the turbulent times in which he lived, a monstrous egotist desiring nothing but his own advancement, all his faculties bent upon securing more wealth and yet more power.

He played a lone hand, for he brooked even less than did his truculent brother any approach to an equality with himself among the men who followed in his train.  Absolute supremacy was his in the life which he lived, but none knew better than he upon what an unstable basis his power rested.  He now called himself the King of Algiers, but still that lean, sun-dried garrison held with desperate tenacity to the tower of the redoubtable Navarro, and any moment a fresh Spanish relieving force might be upon him and chase him forth even as Uruj had been chased from Tlemcen.  He saw that he must consolidate his power, must for the present, at any rate, have some force at his back which would provide that material and moral backing which was essential to his schemes.  Once before he had successfully approached the Grand Turk, the Padishah, the head of the Mohammedan religion, and from him he had received that which he had asked; on this former occasion, however, he had not been in the same position as he now occupied.