ey had ever been soldiers; the habit of the sea was not
theirs, and they found that, time after time, such sea-enterprises as they
did undertake were shattered by the genius of Doria, or broken into
fragments by the reckless, calculating assaults of the knights. And so it
came about that there was but little heart in the navy of the Padishah, and
those who served therein had but slight confidence in those by whom they
were led. To use a metaphor from the cricket-field, it was time "to stop
the rot" by sending in a really strong player. He was not to be found
within the confines of orthodox Islam, and must be imported from outside.

The man had been found; could he be forced on an unwilling and discontented
populace? Who, it was asked in Constantinople, was this man who had been
called in to command the ships of the Ottomans at sea? They answered their
own question, and said that he was a lawless man, a corsair: were there not
good seamen and valiant men-at-arms like the Bashas Zay and Himeral, who
should be preferred before him; this man who had come from the ends of the
earth, and of whom nobody knew anything good? Again, could he be trusted?
Something of the history of the Barbarossas had penetrated to the capital
of Turkey, and it was known that scrupulous adherence to their engagements
had not always characterised the brothers: who should say that he might not
carry off the galleys of the Grand Turk on some marauding expedition
designed for his own aggrandisement? There was yet more to be urged against
him: not only was he infamous in character, but he was no true Mussulman,
for had not his father been a mere renegado, and--worst of all--had not his
mother been a Christian woman?

It was thus that the talk ran in that blazing autumn in Constantinople.
Naturally there were plenty of persons who carried reports to Kheyr-ed-Din,
and that astute individual soon made up his mind as to the most
advantageous course for him to pursue. With the full concurrence of the
Sultan, he left Constantinople and journeyed to Aleppo to see Ibrahim. The
latter was both cunning and tenacious. Removed from the capital, the tide
of gossip and discontent only reached him at second-hand; but he was not to
be deterred by popular clamour even had he been in the midst of it. None
knew better than he who and what was Barbarossa; in fact, it may be
confidently asserted that none in Constantinople had anything like the same
knowledge of this man an