behind them pointing seawards was loaded.  He succeeded, with the assistance of others, in slewing it round and discharged it at close quarters into the packed masses of the enemy.  This caused a frightful demoralisation to set in; the corsairs rallied and soon swept all before them.  The massacre turned from the one side to the other, and it is said that no less than three thousand of the unfortunate townspeople were slain.  Barbarossa only called off his men when they were wearied out by the slaughter.

Kheyr-ed-Din now graciously accepted the submission of the townsfolk; that is to say, such of them as were left, and took charge of the entire kingdom as governor for the Sultan of Turkey.  He sent out ambassadors to the neighbouring Arab and Berber chieftains of the hinterland, repaired fortifications, appointed magistrates—­all ostensibly in the name of that phantom prince whom the Tunisians were destined never to see, and who never returned to his native country.

King of Algiers, de facto King of Tunis, Admiralissimo to Soliman the Magnificent, his name a portent in Christendom, his fame reaching from Spartel to Tunis, and from the shores of France to the foothills of the Atlas, Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa was at the height of his power.  Never before had a corsair risen to such eminence, never again was there destined to be so magnificent a sea-robber.  Thus it was that the year 1535 opened gloomily for all those Powers whose coasts were washed by the tideless sea.  Italy, torn and bleeding, her strong men slain, her fairest matrons and maids carried off into the most odious captivity, was lamenting the terrible fate to which she had been exposed by the raids of the pirate admiral.  In Catalonia, in Genoa, in Venice, along what is now known as the Riviera, men trembled and women wept; for who could say that it might not be upon them that the next thunderbolt might fall?  In Venice taxation was raised to the breaking strain to provide galleys wherewith to combat the foe, while the Genoese fortified their coasts and poured out money like water upon arms, armaments, and ammunition.  Says Sandoval: 

“Desde el Estrecho de Mecina hasta el de Gibraltar ninguno de la parte de Europa pudiera tomer comida ni sueno seguro de lo que viviera en las riberas del mar.” (From the Straits of Messina to those of Gibraltar none living in Europe on the shores of the sea were able to eat in peace or to sleep with any sense of security.)

The Emperor Charles V. was roused to action, stung by the intolerable humiliation of the position into which he had been placed by a mere corsair.