Page:Daring deeds of famous pirates; true stories of the stirring adventures, bravery and resource of pirates, filibusters & buccaneers (1917).djvu/65

 Just as on an earlier occasion already narrated, the Christian expedition made the mistake of not pressing home their victory and so settling matters with the pirates for good and all. Algiers had been drained so thoroughly of men that it was really too weak to resist an attack. But no; the Christians left that alone, although they took Bona. About the middle of August Charles re-embarked his men and, satisfied with the thrashing he had given these pirates, returned home. But Barbarossa proceeded to Algiers, where he got together a number of galleys and waited till his former followers—or as many as had survived battle and the African desert—returned to him. If Moslem piracy had been severely crushed, it was not unable to revive, and, before long, Barbarossa with his veterans was afloat again, looting ships at sea, and carrying off more prisoners to Algiers. For this piracy was like a highly infectious disease. You might think for a time that it was stamped out, that the world had been cleansed of it, but in a short time it would be manifest that the evil was as prevalent as ever.

Once more he was summoned to visit Soliman the Magnificent; once more the arch-corsair sped to Constantinople to receive instructions to deal with the conquering Christians. Andrea Doria was at sea, burning Turkish ships, and only this Sultan of Algiers could deal with him. So away Barbarossa went in his customary fashion, raiding the Adriatic towns, sweeping the islands of the Archipelago, and soon he returned to Constantinople with 18,000 slaves, to say nothing of material prizes. Money was obtained as easily as human lives, and the world marvelled that this corsair admiral, this scourge of the sea, this enemy of the Christian race, should, after a crushing defeat, be able to go about his dastardly work,