rea Doria, who is my
personal enemy and my rival in glory: should I succeed in defeating him
your Majesty will possess the empire of the sea. Be then persuaded,
great Prince, by me, and believe that he who is master of the sea will
very shortly become master on land."

It is somewhat difficult to fathom the reasons which induced Barbarossa to
treat Soliman to his sanctimonious diatribe concerning the King of Tunis;
coming, as it did, from a pirate, it was merely ludicrous, and could not
for one instant have deceived the remarkably shrewd person to whom it was
addressed. The corsair stated the facts correctly, but the reasons which
led to an Eastern autocrat disposing of his family in this manner were so
obvious at the time that, if Soliman felt any emotion at all concerning the
event, it was probably one of admiration! Regarded from the practical,
apart from the sentimental side, what the proposition amounted to was that
Barbarossa should attack a king with whom the Grand Turk had no sort of
quarrel, and that, once his territory had been reft from him, that it
should be handed over to the ruler of Constantinople for the greater glory
of the Sublime Porte. What mental reservations there were on the part of
the corsair we are not told, but had Soliman known him better he would have
been aware that never had Barbarossa pulled any chestnuts from the fire of
life which were not intended for his own eating; and that it was extremely
unlikely, at his time of life, that he was now going to alter the habits of
his long and strenuous career.

There was one thing, however, that Kheyr-ed-Din was not; he was no bragger
or boaster, and, whatever may have been his mental reservations in his
interview with the Sultan, that which he stated he would do, that he did.
And now the time had come when the grim old Sea-wolf had done with intrigue
and the unaccustomed atmosphere of a Court and went back to his native
element, the sea.

Soliman, it must be said to his credit, was no man to deal in
half-measures, and when once he had given his trust he gave it
whole-heartedly, generously. In consequence he gave Barbarossa eighty
galleys, eight hundred Janissaries, eight thousand Turkish soldiers, and
eight hundred thousand ducats for expenses (some three hundred thousand
pounds sterling of our money). All the necessary preparations were carried
out under the orders of Barbarossa, who was given a roving commission to do
what seemed best