Part 17 (2/2)

On the night of June 22nd the defenders of St. Elmo, having now lost all hope of being supported, made ready for death. Into them La Valette had breathed his own heroic spirit, and none among them counselled or dreamed of surrender. The Order to which they had given their allegiance now demanded of them the last sacrifice which it was in their power to make, and this was offered in the manner most fitting to its tenets. These exhausted, war-worn, battle-scarred warriors repaired to the chapel, where they confessed, and made ready by partaking together of the sacrament, ”and, having thus surrendered their souls to G.o.d, each retired to his post to die on the bed of honour with arms in his hand.” Those among the Knights who were too severely wounded or too ill to stand caused chairs to be carried to the breach in which they seated themselves and awaited the a.s.sault. For four hours did these indomitable men withstand the might of a host innumerable: at the conclusion of this period there remained alive but sixty of the garrison. Mustafa ceased the a.s.sault for a few moments only to replace the storming party by fresh troops, and then the end came. Almost the last to fall were the Chevalier Lamirande and the veteran Bailli of Negropont, and when the crescent banner was planted on the walls there remained alive not one of those defenders who had held the fort. Several of Dragut's officers ran to his tent and announced the taking of St. Elmo. The great captain was in his last extremity and unable to speak, ”He, however, manifested his joy by several signs, and, raising his eyes to heaven as if in thankfulness for its mercies, immediately expired: a captain of rare valour and even abundantly more humane than are ordinarily these corsairs.”

The Basha Piali, on entering the fort and observing with what miserable resources it had so long been held exclaimed, as he looked across the harbour to Il Borgo:

”What will not the parent do to us, when so small a son has cost us the lives of our bravest soldiers?”

There is no record of what that cruel savage, Mustafa, said on this occasion; his deeds, however, spoke eloquently. He caused the bodies of the Knights to be decapitated and nailed to wooden crosses, while across their corpses were slashed a cross in derision of the religion of his foes. The bodies were then cast into the harbour, and were washed up at the foot of Il Borgo. Instantly the Grand Master ordered the decapitation of all the Turkish prisoners, and their heads were fired from cannon into the camp of Mustafa.

With the remainder of the siege, which was yet to last till September 18th, we have no concern in this book. It is only necessary to say that the men of Il Borgo were worthy to stand in the same category with the defenders of St. Elmo, which is equivalent to stating that in them also was discovered the last limit of heroism. The Grand Master survived the siege, his monument is the n.o.ble city of ”Valetta” built on Mount Sceberras. The Turks abandoned the siege and returned to Constantinople on the arrival of some insignificant reinforcements from Sicily. So terrible had been the resistance of the Knights that no heart was left in their armada. Of Dragut there remains but little to be said: he was perhaps the best educated of the corsairs and less cruel than was usually their habit. Although not so renowned as his more celebrated master, Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, this is, perhaps, because his career was cut short at the siege of Malta at a comparatively early age. Although he never attained the rank of Admiralissimo to the Grand Turk, that potentate, as we have seen, placed in him the greatest confidence, and relied largely on his judgment, especially when sea-affairs were in question. Like the Barbarossas before him, he rose from nothing to the height to which he eventually attained by sheer force of intellect and character. In the stormy times in which his lot was cast he never faltered in his onward way, never repined, never looked back, sustained as he was by a consciousness of his own capability to rule the wild spirits by whom he lived surrounded. So it is that, whatever other opinion we may hold of Dragut, we cannot deny that in this captain of the Sea-wolves were blended rare qualities, which caused him to s.h.i.+ne as a capable administrator, a fine seaman, but above all as a supreme leader of men. Dragut died with arms in his hands fighting those whom he considered to be his bitterest enemies. He did not live to see the repulse of Piali and Mustapha, and it is to be presumed that he died a.s.sured in his own mind that victory would rest with the Moslem host. For such a man as this no death could have been more welcome.

CHAPTER XXI

ALI BASHA

Ali, the Basha of Algiers, succeeds to Dragut--He conquers the Kingdom of Tunis, captures four galleys from the Knights of Malta, joins Piali Basha in his raidings preliminary to the battle of Lepanto--The gathering of the Christian hosts and the arrival of Don John of Austria in the Mediterranean to take command.

”Now I have heard several mariners and captains of the sea, nay, even Knights of Malta, debate among themselves this question, as to which was the greater and better seaman, Dragut or Occhiali? And some held for one and some for the other; those who held for Occhiali declaring that he had held greater and more honourable charges than Dragut, because he commanded as General and Admiral for the Grand Turk and that _il fit belle action_ at the battle of Lepanto.” Pierre de Bourdeille, the Seigneur de Brantome, from whom we make the above quotation, was himself present at the siege of Malta and, besides this, as is well known, gossiped in his own inimitable way concerning men and women of his time, from corsairs to courtesans. When such contemporary authorities as those mentioned could not agree it is quite certain that we of the twentieth century cannot decide on the rival claims to distinction between the Bashaw of Tripoli and his follower Occhiali, as he was known to the Christians, or Ali Basha, as he was called by the Turks. Ali Basha has a t.i.tle to fame in the fact that he is mentioned by Cervantes in his _Don Quijote de la Mancha_ under the name of ”Uchali” in chapter x.x.xix., ”Donde el cautivo cuenta su vida y sucesos.”

The captive is supposed to have been no less a person than the famous Cervantes himself, and he briefly describes how Uchali became ”Rey de Argel,” or King of Algiers.

Ali was a Christian, having been born at a miserable little village in Calabria called Licastelli. Nothing whatever is known of his birth and parentage, and he does not appear even to have possessed a Christian name, although born in a Christian land. He followed from his earliest youth the calling of a mariner; ”he was from infancy inured to salt water,” says Joseph Morgan, in his _Compleat History of Algiers_, and he was, as a mere boy, captured by Ali Ahamed, Admiral of Algiers, and was chained to the starboard-bow oar in the galley of that officer. He was thus very early in life ”inured” to suffering, and must have possessed a const.i.tution of iron to withstand thus, in boyhood, the hards.h.i.+ps of the life of a galley-slave, which as a rule broke down the endurance of strong men in a very few years.

Morgan presents us with a description of him at this period which in these more squeamish days can certainly not be set down in its entirety: suffice it to say that he suffered all his days from what is known as ”scald-head,”

and that personal filthiness was one of his princ.i.p.al characteristics.

For some years Ali remained at the heart-breaking toil of the rower's bench: cut off from home, which to him meant nothing, devoid of kinsfolk, alone--miserably alone in a world which, so far, had given him naught but the chain and the whip--it is not a matter for surprise that he became a Mussulman, thus freeing himself from slavery. From the time that he took this step his fortunes mended rapidly in that strange medley of savagery and bloodshed in which his lot was cast.

Alert, strong, capable, and vigorous, he became in early manhood chief boatswain in the galley in which his apprentices.h.i.+p had been pa.s.sed--a position which enabled him to acc.u.mulate a small store of ducats, with which he bought a share in a brigantine. Here he soon acquired sufficient wealth to become captain and owner of a galley, in which he soon gained the reputation of being one of the boldest corsairs on the Barbary coast.

Having in some sort made a name for himself, his next step was to seek for a patron who could make use of his valour, address, and capability for command. His choice was soon made, as who in all the Mediterranean, in his early days, held such a name as Dragut? He accordingly entered the service of the Basha of Tripoli, and, under his command, became well known to the officers of the Grand Turk, particularly to the Admiral, Piali Basha, to whom he was able to render some important services.

There is no object to be gained in lingering over the earlier years of this notable corsair, as we should thus only be repeating what has been said about Dragut, whose lieutenant and trusted follower he became. He accompanied his master to the siege of Malta, and when Dragut was slain the Capitan-Basha, Piali, named him as successor to his chief as Viceroy of Tripoli. Ali sailed from Malta to Tripoli, taking with him the remains of Dragut, to be buried as that chieftain had directed. When he arrived on the Barbary coast he made himself master of the slaves and treasure which had been left behind by Dragut; shortly after this he was confirmed in his Vice-royalty of Tripoli by the Grand Turk; thenceforward increasing, both his wealth and the terror in which his name was held, by continual raids upon the Christians, more particularly on the coasts of Sicily, Calabria, and Naples. It is curious to observe the sort of spite which all the renegadoes seem to have harboured against the countries in which they were born.

In March 1568, owing to the fall of Mohammed Basha, the Vice-royalty of Algiers became vacant, and, through the good offices of his old friend Piali, Ali became Governor. He thus returned to occupy a position of literally sovereign power to the city which he had first entered as a galley-slave.

That he was no negligent Governor and that he took an entirely intelligent view of his functions, is proved by an occurrence which took place in this same year in Spain. The Moriscoes in the Kingdom of Granada revolted against their Spanish Governor, by whom they were sorely oppressed. They sent messages to Ali at Algiers, begging for succour against their persecutor. But the Basha would send no expedition; he permitted all and sundry to go as volunteers, but gave out publicly that ”it more concerned him to defend well his own State than to interfere in the affairs of others.” He even went farther than this, and when a number of Moriscoes, who were settled at Algiers, embarked a quant.i.ty of arms for transportation to the coast of Andalusia, he put an embargo on the vessels and would not allow them to sail, saying ”he would never suffer the exportation of what was so necessary for the defence of his own dominions.” At last, after much importunity, he consented ”that all such as had two of a sort--as muskets, swords, or other weapons--might, if they thought fit, send over one of them, provided they did it gratis and purely for the cause' sake; but he would never allow any of them to strip themselves of their arms for lucre.”

Ali, being now firmly established at Algiers, took up arms against the neighbouring State of Tunis. For long years now the King of Tunis had been protected by the Spaniards--a nation whom the Sea-wolves always held in singular abhorrence as the most bigoted of the Christian Powers, and who held in thrall many of their co-religionists. Hamid, son of Ha.s.san, who now ruled in Tunis, had reduced that unfortunate State to anarchy bordering on rebellion, and the whole country, torn by internal feud, was ready to rise against him. The Goletta was in the hands of the Spaniards; Carouan, an inland town, had set up a king of its own, while the maritime towns pa.s.sed from the domination of the Sea-wolves to that of the Christians, and from the Christians back to the Sea-wolves, according to which party happened to be the stronger for the time being.

El Maestro Fray Diego de Haedo, ”Abad de Fromesta de la Orden del Patriarca San Benito” and ”natural del Valle de Carranca,” whose _Topografia e Historia de Argel_ (or Algiers) was printed in Valladolid in the year 1612, gives an account of Hamid at this time in which he describes that monarch as an ”unpopular tyrant who sadly persecuted his va.s.sals and the friends of his father; who could by no means suffer his tyrannies and those of his ministers, the sc.u.m of the earth (”hombres baxos”), to whom he had given the princ.i.p.al offices of the kingdom. Accordingly, since the time that Ali had become Basha of Algiers, letters had been written to him importuning him to come to Tunis that he might possess himself of that city and kingdom.”

There were three princ.i.p.al conspirators--the Alcaid Bengabara, General of the Cavalry, the Alcaid Botaybo, and the Alcaid Alcadaar. Ali, however, was too shrewd a man to move until he had satisfied himself by reports from his own adherents; he, therefore, awaited the result of investigations made by spies from Algiers. At last, in the beginning of the year 1569, when the offers from the Alcaids had been three times renewed and the Basha was a.s.sured that the people in Tunis were sincere in their offer to him of the sovereignty of the kingdom--which they begged him to conquer and hold in the name of the Ottoman Empire--the ex-galley-slave no longer hesitated. He left Algiers in the month of October, leaving that city in charge of one Mami Corso, a fellow renegado. Unlike Dragut, who would have gone by sea, he set out by land with some five thousand corsairs and renegadoes. On the way he was reinforced by some six thousand cavalry of the wild tribes of the hinterland, then as ever ready to join in a fray with promise of booty: doubly ready in this case, as it was to hara.s.s so unpopular a tyrant as Hamid. Pa.s.sing through Constantine and Bona, he continued to march towards Tunis, his following augmenting as he proceeded, and adding to his forces ten light field-guns. Arriving at Beja, a town which Haedo describes as being but two short days' march from Tunis, he came upon a fortress, recently erected by Hamid, mounting fourteen bra.s.s cannon. Here he halted, whereupon Hamid sallied out to give him battle at the head of some three thousand troops, horse and foot. The engagement had scarcely begun when the three Alcaids, who had been in communication with Ali, deserted with all their following. Hamid fled to Tunis, expecting to find shelter there, but he was hotly pursued by the corsairs, who followed him up to Al-Burdon, where his summer palace was situated. Hamid, finding that his people were everywhere in revolt, fled to the Goletta, carrying with him a quant.i.ty of money, jewels, and portable valuables, and placed himself under the protection of the Spanish garrison--not, however, without the loss of the major portion of his baggage, plundered from him by certain Moors in the course of his flight.

Like Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, Ali was now lord of Algiers and Tunis, and as he was, for a corsair, a man of wide views, he treated his new subjects with consideration. He made, however, one curious mistake not to have been expected from one so politic: he demanded tribute from the tribes of the hinterland. In those days, particularly in Northern Africa, men paid tribute to an overlord because he was stronger than they; because retribution followed swiftly and suddenly upon refusal. To order tribute to be paid without being ready to strike was merely to expose the man making the demand to derision. Particularly was this the case with the fierce land-pirates of the desert, whose habit it was to exact and not to pay tribute. To Ali the Sheiks replied that ”if he wanted tribute from them he must demand it lance in hand in the field, for there and nowhere else were they accustomed to pay: that their coin was steel lance-heads and not golden aspers.” After this, says Morgan, ”the Basha thought it well to dissemble.”

Ali, being in no position to wage war in the desert against these people, had to swallow the insult and to turn his attention to regulating the internal affairs of his newly acquired kingdom. This he succeeded in doing sufficiently by the month of June in the following year to enable him to leave Tunis in the hands of one Rabadan, a Sardinian renegado, and to start himself for Constantinople. His reason for doing this was the old one of attempting to consolidate his power in Northern Africa by appealing to the Sultan for help. As long as the Goletta remained in the hands of the Spaniards no corsair could feel himself secure in either Tunis or Algiers.

The object of Ali was to beg from the Grand Turk men and s.h.i.+ps to a.s.sist him to chase the Spaniards out of Africa.

The month of June 1570, in consequence, saw Ali once more at sea in his ”Admiral galley,” steering northwards to the Golden Horn. Carrying with them a favourable breeze from the south-east, the galleys spread their huge lateen sails, and the straining rowers had rest awhile. The squadron consisted of twenty-four galleys. Off Cape Pa.s.saro, in Sicily, a small vessel was captured which gave information that five galleys of the Knights of Malta were at anchor at Licata, a small harbour in the neighbourhood, and that they were on the point of sailing for Malta. The decision of Ali was taken on the instant: were he to go in and attack them with the overwhelming force at his command the crews might escape to the sh.o.r.e; even the Knights of Malta could hardly be expected to fight twenty-four galleys with five. He was anxious to capture the s.h.i.+ps, but above all to capture those by whom they were manned: to have the satisfactory revenge of seeing the proud Knights stripped naked and chained to the benches of his own fleet.

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