The orders for the fleet were precise. They were to attack Tunis, take this kingdom from the Turks, and place on the throne Muley Hamet, son of the former Moorish King Muley Hacem, under the protection and dependence of Spain, and to see quietly if it would be well to dismantle the town completely, throwing down the fortifications, a policy to which the King inclined. CHAPTER V When in 1534 the Turkish pirate Barbarossa, by treason and treachery, overcame the kingdom of Tunis, and made himself King of those Barbary Moors, he dethroned the legitimate lord Muley Hacem, who wrote to the Emperor Charles V from Arabia, where he had taken refuge, asking for help against the Turk, and it was then that the Emperor undertook the glorious expedition against Tunis, which formed one of the most brilliant pages of his history. Muley Hacem was restored to his throne, Barbarossa and the Turks expelled ignominiously from Tunis, and the fort of Goletta, the key of the kingdom, remained in the power of Spain as a guarantee against Turks and Berbers, who, whether they were friends or adversaries, were equally barbarians and enemies of the name of Christian. This Muley Hacem had two sons, Muley Hamida and Muley Hamet; the elder one, Hamida, was jealous because his father made a favourite of the younger son, leaving him the crown, so he took up arms, chased him from the throne and barbarously tore out his eyes. The second son, Muley Hamet, fled in terror to Palermo, and placed himself under the protection of the King of Spain, and Hamida, triumphant, refused to pay the tribute arranged between his father and Charles V, and craved the protection of Selim II, rendering him homage. This brought his punishment, because Aluch Ali, who was then Viceroy of Algiers, invaded the kingdom with his Turks in the name of Selim, and, on the pretext of protecting it, subjected it with an iron hand to his tyranny of petty king and the rapines of a renegade pirate. Such was the state of Tunis when D. John of Austria received his brother's commands to conquer it and place Muley Hamet, still a fugitive at Palermo, on the throne, under the same conditions that the Emperor Charles V enforced when he had reinstated the father, Muley Hacem.