Both materially and psychologically this man somewhat bewildered the despot: and his _alter ego_, the Grand Vizier, happening to be away on a mission to Aleppo, Soliman had no one with whom to confer in a strictly confidential manner; for, after the manner of autocrats, he had but few familiars, in fact it may be said none at all save the statesman mentioned. His reception of the corsair lacked, however, nothing in cordiality. He inquired after the incidents of the voyage, interested himself graciously in all that he was told concerning Africa and the conflicting claims of Christian and Moslem in that region, and was generally courteous to his distinguished visitor. He placed at his disposal a palace and attendants on a scale commensurate with the state of a reigning sovereign, and sent his most distinguished generals to confer with Kheyr-ed-Din. The latter, for the first time in his life, was thoroughly out of his element. His had been the life of the seaman and the soldier to begin with, and of later years that of a rude and unquestioned despot on a savage coast, surrounded by myrmidons to whom his voice had been as the voice of a god. Never had it been his lot before to dwell within the limits of such a comparative civilisation as that which obtained in Constantinople at this date; never before had it been necessary for him to restrain that naturally fiery and impetuous temper of his and to speak all men fairly. The strain must have been great, the effort enormous, and he knew, as he was bound to know, that his coming had unloosed jealousies and heart-searchings innumerable, with which he could not deal in the usual drastic fashion common to him. The winter was coming on, which was, as we have before remarked, very much of a close season both for the pirate and the honest merchant seaman. In consequence there was not very much chance against the foes of Soliman for the present. When that opportunity offered he promised himself that the courtiers and the soldiers of the Grand Turk would very soon discover that the fame of Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa was no empty matter, and that there existed no seaman in all the Ottoman dominions with whom they could compare the “African pirate,” as he had reason to believe that he was scornfully called behind his back.