Page:Daring deeds of famous pirates; true stories of the stirring adventures, bravery and resource of pirates, filibusters & buccaneers (1917).djvu/51

 would stink in the nostrils of any Christian, be he under the domination of Elizabeth or Charles This word was "renegade," which, of course, is derived from the Latin nego, I deny. "Renegade," or, as the Elizabethan sailors often used it, "renegado" signifies an apostate from the faith—a deserter or turncoat. But it was applied in those days almost exclusively to the Christian who had so far betrayed his religion as to become a Moslem. In the fifteenth century a certain Balkan renegade was exiled from Constantinople by the Grand Turk. From there he proceeded to the south-west, took up his habitation in the island of Lesbos in the Ægean Sea, married a Christian widow and became the father of two sons, named respectively Uruj and Kheyr-ed-din. The renegade, being a seaman, it was but natural that the two sons should be brought up to the same avocation.

Having regard to the ancestry of these two men, and bearing in mind that Lesbos had long been notorious for its piratical inhabitants, the reader will in no wise be surprised to learn that these two sons resolved to become pirates too. They were presently to reach a state of notoriety which time can never expunge from the pages of historical criminals. For the present let us devote our attention to the elder brother, Uruj. We have little space to deal with the events of his full life, but this brief sketch may suffice. The connection of these two brothers with the banished Moors is that of organisers and leaders of a potential force of pirates. Uruj, having heard of the successes which the Moorish galleys were now attaining, of the wonderful prizes which they had carried off from the face of the sea, felt the impulse of ambition and responded to the call of the wild. So we come to the year 1504, and we find him in the Mediterranean longing for a suitable base whence he could