e 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.

The Sultan Soliman was not called "the Magnificent" without just cause; his
life was splendid in its social prodigality, as it was in war and in
statesmanship; yet even he was somewhat astonished at the amazing richness
of the gifts which were laid at his feet by a man whom he knew to be, in
spite of the kingly title which he had assumed, merely a rover of the sea.
Therefore, in spite of himself, he was impressed. To him, it is true, in
his splendour and magnificence, the intrinsic value of that which was
brought to him by Barbarossa mattered but little; but the fact that the
corsair was in a position to do so opened the eyes of the Sultan to the
manner of man with whom he had to deal. Hitherto he had but known of him by
hearsay, as the one Moslem seaman who was likely to be capable of making a
stand against the terrible Doria, who had now become the plague of the
Sultan's existence. He now knew that the man who disposed of such
incredible riches must be, no matter what his moral character, a man who
stood a head and shoulders over any commander in the Ottoman fleet sailing
out of the Golden Horn.

Both materially and psychologically this man somewhat bewildered the
despot: and his _alter ego_, the Grand Vizier, happening to be away on a
mission to Aleppo, Soliman had no one with whom to confer in a strictly
confidential manner; for, after the manner of autocrats, he had but few
familiars, in fact it may be said none at all save the statesman mentioned.
His reception of the corsair lacked, however, nothing in cordiality. He
inquired after the inc