There was one thing, however, that Kheyr-ed-Din was not; he was no bragger or boaster, and, whatever may have been his mental reservations in his interview with the Sultan, that which he stated he would do, that he did.  And now the time had come when the grim old Sea-wolf had done with intrigue and the unaccustomed atmosphere of a Court and went back to his native element, the sea.

Soliman, it must be said to his credit, was no man to deal in half-measures, and when once he had given his trust he gave it whole-heartedly, generously.  In consequence he gave Barbarossa eighty galleys, eight hundred Janissaries, eight thousand Turkish soldiers, and eight hundred thousand ducats for expenses (some three hundred thousand pounds sterling of our money).  All the necessary preparations were carried out under the orders of Barbarossa, who was given a roving commission to do what seemed best to him for the advancement of the glory of his master and the discomfiture of his Christian foes.  The commission which he now received was practically that which had been given by Charles V. to Doria, the most flattering with which any man can be entrusted, as in his hands were left issues of peace and war usually only vested in the sovereign.

All through the early summer of 1534 the dockyards and the arsenals of Constantinople hummed with the note of preparation; Ibrahim had returned from Aleppo and threw himself, heart and soul, into these activities, which meant the sailing of the Ottoman fleet under the command of “that veritable man of the sea,” Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa.  Stilled were the murmurs of the year before; the corsair, invested with plenary powers by the Sultan himself, was now in a position to make his authority felt; added to this, the more sensible of the malcontents had been won round by the Grand Vizier to the view that as, so far, the Ottoman navy had been conspicuously unsuccessful at sea, it was just as well to make use of the most capable Moslem seaman upon whom they could lay their hands.  As to his moral character, that they could afford to discount, and as to the question of his faithfulness or the reverse, it was pointed out with irresistible logic by Ibrahim, that never before had the Sea-wolf had such glorious opportunities of plunder as now, when he could count ten ships for every one that had followed in his wake before.

It was in July 1534 that the Ottoman fleet left Constantinople, and Kheyr-ed-Din began operations by a descent upon Reggio, which he sacked.  On August 1st he arrived at the Pharos of Messina, where he burnt some Christian ships and captured their crews; then he worked north from Reggio to Naples, ravaging the coast and depopulating the whole littoral, burning villages, destroying ships, enslaving people.  In this expedition he is said to have captured eleven thousand Christian slaves.  There is perhaps nothing more amazing in the whole history of this epoch than the number of the slaves