It was one of the attributes of the Moslem civilisation in Spain, and one of the most enlightened thereof, that religious toleration flourished in its midst.  Jew and Christian were allowed to worship at the altars of their fathers, no man hindering or saying them nay; one rule, and one alone, had to be preserved:  none must blaspheme against Mahomet, the Prophet of God, as he was considered to be by the Moslems.  The penalty for infraction of this rule was death; otherwise, complete liberty of conscience was accorded.

We have spoken of the two weapons held by the leaders of the Sea-wolves.  The first, as we have, said, was cupidity; the second was fanaticism, the deadly religious hatred engendered, not only by the wholesale expropriation of the Moslem population, but also by the persecution to which the Moriscoes—­as those Moslems were known who remained in Spain—­were subjected by their Christian masters.  It requires little imagination to see how these two weapons of avarice and intolerance could be made to serve the purpose of those dominant spirits who rose to the summit of the piratical hierarchy.  Not only did they dazzle the imaginations of those who followed in their train by promises of wealth uncounted, but they added to this the specious argument that, in slaying and robbing the Christian wheresoever he was to be found, the faithful Moslem was performing the service of God and the act most grateful to his holy Prophet.

Could any rule of life be at the same time more simple and more attractive to the beggared Mohammedan cast on the sterile shores of Northern Africa to starve?

With the main stream of history, to which we have before referred, we have no concern in this book.  He who would embark thereon must sail a powerful vessel which must carry many guns.  Also for the conduct of this vessel many qualities are necessary:  a commanding intellect, acute perceptions, indefatigable industry, complete leisure, are among those things necessary to the pilot.  These must be supplemented by a genius for research, a knowledge of ancient and modern languages, and an unerring faculty for separating the few precious grains of wheat from those mountains of chaff which he will have to sift with the utmost care.  There are, however, subsidiary rivulets which feed the onward flow of events, and of such is the story of the Sea-wolves of the Mediterranean.  On these the adventurous mariner can sail his little cockboat, discreetly retiring before he becomes involved and engulfed in the main stream.  That he cannot altogether avoid it is shown by the fact that the men who are here chronicled took part in events of first-class importance in the age in which they lived.  Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa fought the battle of Prevesa against his lifelong antagonist, Andrea Doria.  Dragut was killed at the siege of Malta, at the moment almost of the fall of the castle of St. Elmo; had he lived it is more than probable that Jean Parisot de la Valette and his heroic garrison would have been defeated instead of being victorious.  Ali Basha was the one Moslem commander who increased his reputation at the battle of Lepanto, because, as was usual in all maritime conflicts of the time, the corsairs, who had the habit of the sea, were more than a match for soldiers embarked to fight on an unfamiliar element.