o be hoped, came by his end in the way just
narrated; but the chroniclers disagree among themselves, and "El Senor Don
Diego de Haedo, Arcobispo de Palermo y Capitan General del Reyno de Sicilia
por El Rey Felipe nuestro senor," states that Barbarossa kept De Vargas in
confinement for three months and then had him beaten to death. One can only
sincerely hope that the first account is the true one; but Haedo was nearer
to the time of the occurrence, and, as he wrote in the reign of Philip II.,
is more likely to have known the facts. But however this may have been,
there was an end for all time of Spanish domination on the north coast of
Africa, and from this we may date the permanent establishment of those
piratical States in that part of the world.

The star of Kheyr-ed-Din was once more in the ascendant. Not only had he
crushed out the incipient mutiny of Venalcadi and taken his life, but he
had consolidated his power by the taking of the Penon d'Alger. He
celebrated this occasion in the most practical manner possible: a stop was
put to the indiscriminate massacre of the garrison, and five hundred of the
Spaniards were captured alive; it was their dreary fate to pull down
entirely the tower of Pedro Navarro, which they had defended so gallantly
and to utilise the material in making a causeway from the Penon to the
shore. Barbarossa was determined that on no future occasion should his
enemies have the chance of dominating his town of Algiers. He was now a
sovereign in fact and in deed, regarding even so mighty a monarch as
Charles V. with comparative equanimity. Terrible was the wrath of the
latter when the news of the fall of the Penon, the massacre of the
garrison, and the death of his trusty servant De Vargas, was brought to
him. The Sea-wolves seemed to exist but to exasperate him, and this latest
news came just at one of the most prosperous epochs of his career.

The titles of "Carlos Quinto," as recorded by Sandoval, read like the roll
of some mighty drum. Nor were these titles mere vain and empty boastings,
as was so often the case at that time among the minor rulers of the earth.
On February 22nd, 1580, just before the fall of the Penon, he had placed on
his own head the iron crown of Lombardy; his viceroys ruled in Naples and
Sicily, his dukes and feudatories in Florence and Ferrara, in Mantua and in
Milan; there was no more Italy. All these recent acquisitions had been
rendered possible by the defection of Andr