estruction of the infidel, neither
gave nor accepted quarter.

We have said that the real interest in the lives of the corsairs arose from
the fact that it was personal ascendancy, and that alone, which counted in
the piratical hierarchy. Against Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa plots arose again
and again, only to be defeated by the address of the man against whom they
were directed.

It was one of the cruellest of ages, and rough cruelty was the principal
means adopted to ensure success; sheer terror was the weapon of the leader.
Thus when one Hassan, a subordinate of Kheyr-ed-Din, failed to take a
Spanish ship because she made too stout a resistance, his chief caused him
to be soundly flogged and then thrown into prison. Such methods naturally
raised up hosts of enemies in the wake of the piratical commanders, ready
at any time to do them a mortal injury, and it is little short of
miraculous that they should throughout a long period of years have been
able not only to maintain, but to increase, their supremacy over the wild
spirits of which their following was composed. It was, however, the golden
age of autocracy, when men surrendered their judgment to some great leader,
content to follow where he led, to endorse his policy at the cost of their
lives.

It is the autocrat who is made by the circumstances of his life who
ultimately becomes supreme. The leaders among the corsairs were tried by
every test of prosperity and of adverse fortune; they emerged from the ruck
in the first instance because it was in them to display a more desperate
valour than did their contemporaries, and it was only when they emerged
triumphant from this, the first test, that they could begin to impose their
will upon others. It was then that their real trials began, as the
undisciplined are ever prone to suspicion, much given to murmuring against
a leader who is not perpetually successful.

As a rule, however, there were but few to criticise, as the office of
critic was one fraught with far too much danger to be alluring. In
maintaining their authority the leaders stopped at nothing, and the heads
of the recalcitrant were apt to part with amazing suddenness from their
bodies if they repined overmuch. The Moslem leader was, it is true, merely
_primus inter pares_, and was distinguished by no outward symbol of the
power which he possessed; but life and death lay in his hands, and life was
cheap indeed.

We have spoken hitherto of the leaders, but