"RED-BEARD"
Born of my reading and thinking about Mediterranean pirates, through my dreams went a pageant of cruel corsairs and pitiable captives. There was the corsair chief Uruj Barbarossa, who, hearing on his native island of Lesbos of the rich galleons that passed through the Mediterranean, entered the Sea in 1504 with a fleet of robber galleys and made an alliance with the ruler of Tunis whereby that port became the center for his thieving. This Barbarossa, or Red-Beard, was a pirate of the heroic order. On one of his first voyages out of Tunis he fell in with two galleys belonging to Pope Julius II, bearing rich merchandise from Genoa. These galleys were far bigger than his two galleots, yet Red-Beard attacked so fiercely that he overcame the foremost galley. As the second galley came up without having seen the outcome of the battle, he arrayed his sailors in the clothes of the Christian captives and, taking the second galley by surprise, captured her too. His victories made Europe tremble. Emperor Charles V of Spain in 1516 sent ten thousand veterans to Barbary to end Red-Beard's career. Barbarossa's army of fifteen hundred men was surprised by the Spaniards in crossing a river. Having crossed, he turned back on hearing the cries of his men and died fighting gallantly in their midst.
Next through my fancy passed Kheyr-ed-din, Red-Beard's brother. Having slain Red-Beard, the Spaniards could have driven the corsairs out of Africa, but instead of waging further war, the army returned to Spain. Kheyr-ed-din then assumed command of the sea rovers, and with a fleet of one hundred and fifty galleys and brigantines engaged an Allied Christian fleet of one hundred and forty-six galleons under Admiral Andrea Doria. The battle amounted only to a skirmish, for Andrea Doria, although his vessels were manned by sixty thousand men—forces far greater than that of the infidels—retired when the Moslems had captured seven of his galleys.