tedly was, had not the adamantine
hardness of character which enabled his admiral to risk all on the
hazards of the moment; or possibly the Grand Turk was deficient in that
clearness of strategical instinct which never in any circumstances
foregoes a present advantage for something which may turn out well in a
problematical future. Soliman, sore, sullen, and unapproachable, dwelt
in his palace brooding over the misfortunes which had been his lot since
the death of Ibrahim. Barbarossa, who so recently had lost practically
all that he possessed, and who had reached an age at which most men have
no hopes for the future, was as clear in intellect, as undaunted in
spirit, as if he had been half a century younger: to be even once more
with those by whom he had been defeated and dispossessed was the only
thing now in his mind. The capture of Saleh-Reis and his convoy would be
a triumph of which he could not bear to think. Further, it would add to
the demoralization of the sea forces of the Sultan, which were sadly in
need of some striking success after the defeats which had so recently
been their portion. The Sultan had decided that one hundred and fifty
ships were necessary; his admiral thought otherwise. There was too much
at stake for him to dally at Constantinople; his fiery energy swept all
before it, and in the end he had his way. On June 7th, 1538, he finally
triumphed over the hesitations of the Viziers and put to sea with eighty
sail.

The Sultan, from his kiosk, the windows of which opened on the
Bosphorus, counted the ships.

"Only eighty sail; is that all?" he asked.

The trembling Viziers prostrated themselves before him.

"O our Lord, the Padishah," they cried, "Saleh-Reis comes from
Alexandria with a rich convoy; somewhere lurking is Andrea Doria, the
accursed; it was necessary, O Magnificent, to send succor."

There was a pause, in which the hearts of men beat as do those who know
not but that the next moment may be their last on earth.

The Sultan stared from his window at the retreating ships in a silence
like the silence of the grave. At last he turned:

"So be it," he answered briefly; "but see to it that reinforcements do
not lag upon the road."

If there had been activity in the dockyards before it was as nothing to
the strenuous work that was to be done henceforward.

Before starting on this expedition Kheyr-ed-Din had made an innovation
in the manning of some of the most powerful of his galley