with heartiness into that which the master mind decreed should be their work, and this was none other than the preparation of the galleys for another campaign against the Christian. “What matter, comrades?” said the veteran on one occasion when he was superintending the fitting out of the galleys. “These dogs have gone back from whence they came, and they have left that creature, Muley Hassan, to do their will in Tunis. It is true that there is Mendoza and his thousand Spaniards in the Goletta, but did not Martin de Vargas hold the Peñon here? And where is De Vargas, and in whose hands is the Peñon now? We know from whence the garrisons of Spain draw their supplies, and believe me that there will be hungry men in the Goletta in this coming year. Once we get to sea again, there will be more than enough for every good man who believes in the Prophet, and who has the sense to follow Barbarossa. For every ducat that you have lost see, in the coming year, if you do not gain ten; the Christians are off their guard now, and they think that they have done with me because they have captured Tunis.” He laughed his great, jovial laugh. “By the beard of the Prophet—upon whom be peace!—they have yet to find out the man with whom they have to deal.” It took a master mind to instil heart of grace into men who so recently had had so bad a beating as these; but in the end they began to cheer up, and to recollect how Barbarossa had sooner or later always risen from defeat as strong or stronger than before; also they recalled the fact that he was the chosen of the Padishah, and that that potentate, the representative of the Prophet on earth, would assuredly come to his assistance now that Tunis, which had been taken in his name, had been reft from Barbarossa by the Christians. Gradually hope took the place of despair, and when the corsairs took to the sea in the early part of the following year it was with renewed confidence in both themselves and their leader. CHAPTER XI ROXALANA AND THE MURDER OF IBRAHIM