Ceremonial was the order of the day.  Soliman the Magnificent was too wise a man not to know what was being said in his capital that day; it was his part to accustom the minds of men to the fact that he, Soliman, had chosen Barbarossa to command his fleet, and that there could be no looking back.  The decree had been signed, the invitation had been sent, the man had arrived, there could be no possible retreat from the situation.  The anchors splashed into the placid waters close to the shore, and the ships were soon so surrounded by boats as to be almost unapproachable; then came official persons from the Sultan with greetings to the famous seaman; also came Bashas and officers ("con carga de guerra,” says Sandoval), to offer a welcome and to stare in undisguised curiosity at the man chosen by their sovereign to make head against the famous Andrea Doria.  This preliminary courtesy completed, there came the next act in the drama, which consisted in the immemorial custom of the East in the offering of gifts from Barbarossa to the Sultan, from the vassal to his suzerain.  The Janissaries, splendid in scarlet and gold, tall above the ordinary stature of man, bristling with weapons inlaid in gold and silver, cleared the common vulgar from the streets approaching the palace of the Sultan; they formed the spearhead of the procession clearing a way for the King of Algiers, who, mounted on a splendid bay stallion, the gift of the Sultan on his arrival, headed the captives who bore the gifts.  Of these the exact number is not stated, but the procession was headed by two hundred women and girls, each of whom carried in her hand a gift of gold or silver; one hundred camels were loaded with silks and golden ornaments, and other “curious riches” ("con otras mil cosas de que hizo ostentacion"), says Sandoval.  There were also lions and other animals, brocades and rich garments.

All of this reads no doubt somewhat too like the tales in the “Arabian Nights”; but we have to remember that, if you have led a long and eminently successful life as a robber, you have necessarily accumulated a store of riches.  In the case of Barbarossa he had begun in extreme youth, and was now an old man; he had been quite in the wholesale way as a thief, and now desired to pay a good price for that which he coveted, namely, the post of Admiralissimo to the Grand Turk.  It may be objected that he had already been offered and had already accepted the post; this is quite true, but there were certain conventions to be fulfilled on the side of the recipient of the bounty of the Sultan quite understood on both sides, although no word had passed on the subject.  In those days the man who desired the favour of an Eastern potentate never dreamed of approaching him empty-handed, and the more liberal that he was in the matter of gifts the greater was the favour with which he was regarded.  Therefore the principle acted upon by Kheyr-ed-Din on this occasion was both wise and politic; that is to say, he placed certain of his riches in a perfectly sound investment, certain to yield him an admirable percentage, not only in added personal prestige, but also in the placing under his command of such a force as he had never before commanded, with unlimited opportunities of preying on the detested Christian on a far larger scale than it had ever been his good fortune to do before.