Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/78

 with a considerable sum of money, to pay the Turkish garrisons in the Morea, he sailed from Constantinople, and having passed the Dardanelles, he mustered his crew, and declared his intentions of renouncing allegiance to the Porte. He told them that, if they would stand by him, he would lead them to the western waters of the Mediterranean, where prizes of all nations might be captured in abundance, where there were no knights of Rhodes to contend against, and where they would be completely out of the power of the sultan. A project so much in unison with the predilections of the rude crew, was received with enthusiastic acclamations of assent. Aroudje then steered for his native island of Mitylene, where he landed, and gave a large sum of money to his mother and sisters; and being joined by his brother, who, becoming a Mohammedan, assumed the name of Hayraddin, he weighed anchor, and turned his prow to the westward. Arriving off the island of Elba, he fell in with two portly argosies under papal colors. Piracy in these western seas having previously been carried on in the Morisco row-boats only, the Christians were not alarmed, but believing Aroudje to be an honest trader, permitted him to run alongside, as he seemed to wish to communicate some information. They were quickly undeceived. Boarding the nearest one, he immediately took possession of her, and then dressing his men in the clothes of the captured crew, he bore down upon her unsuspecting consort. She was captured also, with scarcely a blow; and Aroudje found himself in possession of two ships, each much larger than his own, with cargoes of great value, and some hundreds of prisoners. The fame of this bold action resounded from the southern shores of Europe to the opposite coast of Africa. Such captives as were ransomed, when describing the appearance of Aroudje, did not fail to recount the ferocious aspect of his hug red beard, so unusual an appendage to a native of the south, and thus he obtained the name of Barbarossa (Redbeard), so long the terror of the Mediterranean. Taking his prizes to Tunis, one of the small states that had once been part of the great Saracen Empire in Barbary, Aroudje was well received by the king, who allowed him to use the island and fort of Goleta as a naval depot, on condition of paying a certain percentage on all prizes. Adding daily to his wealth and fleet, the daring sea-rover had no lack of followers. Turkish and Moorish adventurers eagerly enrolled themselves under his fortunate banner.

The precarious position of the petty Barbary states, threatened by the Berbers and Bedouins of the interior on the land-side, and menaced by the Spanards on the sea-board, was highly favorable to the ambitious aspirations of the potter's son. The district of Jijil being attacked by famine, he seized the corn-ships of Sicily, and distributed the grain freely and without price among the starving inhabitants, who gratefully proclaimed him their king; and in a few years his army equaled in magnitude his still increasing fleet. The fort built by the Spaniards on the island off Algiers was a great annoyance to Eutemi, the Moorish king of that little state. Unwisely, he applied to Barbarossa for aid to evict the Spaniard, and eagerly was the request granted. With 5000