With some six thousand men and sixteen galleots Urūj set forth by sea and land to the rescue of Algiers. First he surprised Shershēl, a strong position fifteen leagues to the west of Algiers, which had been occupied by Moors from Granada, and was now commanded by a bold Turkish Corsair, Kara Hasan, who, emulating his old comrade's success with the people of Jījil, had induced the Shershēl rovers to accept him as their leader. Urūj had no liking for two Kings of Brentford, and took off Black Hasan's head as a friendly precaution, before exposing himself to the perils of another contest with the Spaniards. Soon he was at Algiers, hospitably lodged and entertained, he and all his men, Turks and Jījilis alike, by Sheykh Salim and the people of the town. There, at the distance of a crossbow-shot, stood the fortress he had come to reduce, and thither he sent a message offering a safe conduct to the garrison if they would surrender. The Spanish captain made reply that "neither threats nor proffered curtesies availed aught with men of his kidney," and told him to remember Bujēya. Upon which Urūj, more to please his unsuspicious hosts than with much prospect of success, battered the Peñon for twenty days with his light field-pieces, without making any sensible breach in the defences. Meanwhile, the Arabs and Moors who had called him to their aid were becoming aware of their mistake. Instead of getting rid of their old enemy the Spaniard, they had imported a second, worse than the first, and Urūj soon showed them who was to be master. He and his Turks treated the ancient Moorish families, who had welcomed them within their gates, with an insolence that was hard to be borne by descendants of the Abencerrages and other noble houses of Granada. Salim, the Arab Sheykh, was the first to feel the despot's power: he was murdered in his bath--it was said by the Corsair himself. In their alarm, the Algerines secretly made common cause with the soldiers of the Peñon, and a general rising was planned; but one day at Friday prayers Barbarossa let the crowded congregation know that their designs were not unsuspected. Shutting the gates, the Turks bound their entertainers with the turbans off their heads, and the immediate decapitation of the ringleaders at the mosque door quelled the spirit of revolt. Nor was a great Armada, sent by Cardinal Ximenes, and commanded by Don Diego de Vera, more successful than the Algerine rebellion. Seven thousand Spaniards were utterly routed by the Turks and Arabs; and to complete the discomfiture of the Christians a violent tempest drove their ships ashore, insomuch that this mighty expedition was all but annihilate.