at corsair did not add to his
reputation in this eventful campaign he still displayed an aptitude in
realising the situation which, it is safe to say, was shown by none of
those under his command.

Prevesa illustrates for us more than any other action the difficulties with
which the path of the partisan leader in these days must always have been
filled; and how it was that personal ascendancy was the only force to which
such a leader had to trust Sheer dominance of the minds, the wills, and the
bodies of others had placed Kheyr-ed-Din where he was; all his life he had
commanded undisciplined pirates, and yet now, when he was the properly
accredited officer of a mighty monarch, when he might have expected far
more discipline and subordination than had ever been his lot in the past,
he was met with a contumaciousness which he was unable to quell, and was
forced into taking steps which, in his own unequalled knowledge of war, he
knew to be doomed to disaster.

Around him the Reis, or captains of the Moslem galleys, clamorously
demanded that he should take precautions against a land-attack. It was true
that the raid which had been made by Grimani had been easily repulsed, but
in present circumstances there was no question of a mere raid, as, should
the Christian admiral so decide, he could land twenty thousand men. Sinan
Reis, an old Osmanli warrior, furious with jealousy that the chief command
should be in the hands of a corsair, sustained his opinion in a manner
which augured ill for the hearty co-operation of all the Turkish forces.
Sinan was just one of those blindly valiant fighters from whom the politic
Ibrahim had desired to deliver his master when he had urged the appointment
of Kheyr-ed-Din: brave as a lion, keen as the edge of his own good
scimitar, fanatical, as became a Hodja who had visited the Holy Places,
Sinan was a type of the Turkish sea-officer: devoid of strategical instinct
and tactical training, his one idea was a headlong attack, then victory or
the houris of Paradise. It will be seen that Barbarossa had not only Doria
and the Christian fleet and army against which to contend on this occasion.

The peril conjured up by Sinan Reis on this occasion was not altogether an
imaginary one: the idea of a disembarkation had, in point of fact, been
seriously discussed that very morning by Andrea Doria and his council of
war, at which Hernando de Gonzaga, Generalissimo of the troops embarked,
had advised a land