ANDREA DORIA, PRINCE OF ONEGLEA, ADMIRAL TO CHARLES V.
Barbarossa summoned to his palace his kinsman and trusted adherent Celebi Rabadan, and they mutually decided that there was nothing they could do save take up arms against this most insolent and uncompromising warrior. In the meanwhile they would try what craft would do; and accordingly two young Moors were introduced into the Peñon, under the pretext that they had seen the error of their ways and were anxious to embrace the Christian religion. Martin de Vargas, like all Spanish caballeros, was an ardent proselytiser, and he ordered the two young men to be taken into his own house and instructed by the chaplain of the garrison. The next day was Easter Day, and the two young Moors, while the entire garrison were at Mass, signalled to their co-religionists a prearranged sign indicating that now was the time to attack. Unfortunately for them, a woman in the employment of De Vargas saw them, and they were immediately hanged from the battlements in full view of Barbarossa. That potentate was filled with fury at what he considered an insult to the Mohammedan religion, and again consulted with Celebi as to the feasibility of another assault. It was true, he said, that his messengers had been hanged, but they had made the prearranged signal. Still, the walls were hardly sufficiently breached, he thought, and his own men were singularly disheartened by the ill success of their previous efforts. Did Celebi Rabadan think another attempt desirable?
That person was in a quandary, because he could not gather what it was that Barbarossa wished him to say. He knew that if he recommended an assault, and that it proved once again unsuccessful, that the full fury of the tyrant would fall upon his head; at the same time he was almost equally afraid to broach the idea which had been prevalent in Algiers for some time that Martin de Vargas must assuredly be in league with Shaitan, or he could never have held out in the way that he had done. In consequence he temporised and hesitated, while Barbarossa pulled at his famous red beard and regarded him with scowling brows.
The situation was saved for Celebi Rabadan by an accident. There swam off to the ship a traitor from the Spanish garrison, and this man informed them that his whilom comrades were positively at their last gasp, ammunition all but exhausted, and the food-supply barely sufficient to last another two days.
“To such an end come those who deny the Prophet of God,” exclaimed Barbarossa, and gave orders that this news be communicated to all his men, who were to prepare for the final assault on the morrow. He further offered a reward for the capture of Martin de Vargas alive.
On May 16th, 1530, the corsairs once again advanced to the assault. By this time the walls had been battered until a practicable breach had been formed, and over this swarmed thirteen hundred of the starkest fighters of the Mediterranean, In the breach, bareheaded, his armour hacked and dinted, stood the undaunted chieftain of the Spaniards: over his head floated that proud banner which had never cast its shadow on a worthier knight of Spain. The garrison, worn to a shadow by their hardships and their hunger, most of them wounded, and all of them sore spent, were in no case to resist this, the most formidable attack to which they had been subjected. It was all over in a very short time, and a dreadful massacre ensued.
Martin de Vargas, though sorely wounded, was taken alive and conducted to the presence of Barbarossa. Wounded, shaken, bruised, his fortress in the hands of his enemy, the dying shrieks of his murdered garrison still ringing in his ears, the amazing spirit of the man was still utterly unsubdued. “It is to the treason of a ruffian that you owe your triumph,” he said to his captor, “and not to your valour: had I received the smallest relief I could still have repulsed and kept you at bay. You have my maimed and mutilated body in your possession, and I hope that you are satisfied. But my body is accustomed to pain, and I therefore defy you and your dastardly cruelty.”
To do Barbarossa justice he admired the undaunted spirit of his prisoner, and he replied:
“Fear nothing, De Vargas, I will do all in my power to ease your hurts if you will do that which I ask of you.”
De Vargas replied: