Himeral-pasha by the beard and smote him in the face. The one object of the naval action, he screamed, had been at all costs to prevent the relief of Coron, and by failing in this simple task the pashas had prolonged the siege possibly for weeks, though Coron had been on the point of capitulation. The sea pashas saw that the fear of losing his head had made him mad, and with united strength they cuffed and buffeted him back into his boat.
Yet because of the foolhardy conduct of the Young Moor, not all the supply ships had reached the fortress, and a state of famine still prevailed there. The Greek inhabitants of the town lacked the endurance of the Spaniards, and during the night they crept beyond the walls in search of roots and bark. Some of these men fell into the hands of Jahja’s janissaries and at his orders were gruesomely tortured next morning in full view of the garrison. This spectacle had its effect; the Spaniards surrendered and were permitted to embark and sail away with full military honors.
Thanks to the agents of the Knights of St. John, Doria kept abreast of Seraglio affairs and was well aware that Sultan Suleiman had offered Khaireddin the command of all his ships, ports, islands, and seas. It was said that Khaireddin welcomed this appointment with tears of joy, and having left the reins of government in the hands of his young son Hassan-under the guardianship of a trustworthy captain-he at once set sail for Sicilian waters in the hope of cutting off Doria’s retreat from Coron and crushing him between the Algerian vessels and the Sultan’s fleet, which he naturally supposed would give chase. Doria eluded him, however, and after a profitable engagement with a pirate, Khaireddin sailed away with his prizes to meet the sea pashas. These received him with the proper honors, though grudgingly, and Khaireddin reviled them for their cowardice and their failure to do their part in the capture of Doria. He then ordered them to release the Young Moor, whom he embraced and treated like his own son.
All this I learned from hearsay, but that autumn I saw for myself how Khaireddin’s forty ships glided majestically up the Marmara and anchored in the Golden Horn. From Scutari on the Asiatic side to the hills of Pera, the shores were white with people, and the Sultan himself stepped onto his marble quay to watch the vessels pass. Their thunderous salute echoed over land and sea and was answered by the guns of other ships anchored in the harbor. The most eminent pashas and renegade captains made haste to greet Khaireddin as he stepped ashore.
Khaireddin stood beaming under a gold-fringed canopy to receive the manifold welcome. His once-red beard was now venerably gray, and reached, with some artificial aid, to his belt. He had painted wrinkles on his face and shadows about his prominent eyes, so as to vie in age with the Sultan’s sea pashas, though I believe he was then not a day over fifty.
The inhabitants of Istanbul had much to divert them during this time. On the third day after his arrival Khaireddin set off in ceremonial procession to a reception at the Seraglio. He was attended by janissaries in red and gold, and a hundred camels followed laden with gifts for the Sultan-bales of silk and brocade and such curiosities as an uncultured pirate would collect in the course of years. Worthless trash and priceless treasures lay higgledy- piggledy together. The greatest sensation was aroused by two hundred lovely young girls bearing gold and silver dishes in which lay purses filled with gold and silver coin. These slaves had been selected for the Sultan’s harem from every known land, though the greater number were from Sicily, Italy, and Spain. When with faces unveiled they bore their treasure into the Sultan’s presence even the staidest Moslems were dazzled by their beauty; they were obliged to hold their hands before their faces and only peep through their fingers, lest they be brought into a state of impurity before the hour of prayer.
In the hall of pillars with its starry roof, Sultan Suleiman received Khaireddin, first allowing him to kiss his foot, which rested on a cushion covered with diamonds, and then stretching forth his hand in token of special favor. It was certainly the proudest moment in the life of the erstwhile potter, the spahi’s son from the island of Mytilene. When first he spoke he stammered and shed tears of joy, but the Sultan smilingly encouraged him, bidding him tell of Algeria and other African lands-of Sicily, Italy, and Spain, and above all of ships, seafaring, and the sea. Khaireddin needed no second bidding and spoke in bolder and bolder fashion, not forgetting to mention that he had brought with him the Prince of Tunis, Rashid ben-Hafs, who had fled from his bloodthirsty brother Muley-Hassan and come under Khaireddin’s protection to seek comfort and help from the Refuge of all Nations.
To my way of thinking Khaireddin acted unwisely in so promptly revealing his own selfish aims. He would have done better to speak of Doria and his big guns, the carrack of the Knights of St. John, and such things as had won him the honor of an audience with the Sultan. I believe that his childish boasting did him more harm than the slander of his bitterest enemies; in the middle of the ceremony Isken- der
good fortune, responded only by a broad smile, but the Sultan frowned.
Despite the princely gifts he brought with him, Khaireddin therefore made by no means so good an impression as he fancied. The Sultan allotted him a house to live in, as the custom was, but let him wait in vain for the three horsetail switches that had been promised him. Meanwhile Zey-pasha and Himeral-pasha vied with one another in spreading tales of his unseemly way of life, his conceit, untrust- worthiness, cruelty, and greed. These stories were the more dangerous in that they contained a grain of truth. Yet Khaireddin’s greatest error had been to stay too long at sea, for when at last he came to Istanbul, Grand Vizier Ibrahim had already started for Aleppo to open the Persian campaign, whereby Khaireddin lost his strongest support in the Divan.
But my account of Khaireddin has led me to anticipate. Between the dispatch of his invitation and his arrival, negotiations with Vienna were brought to a favorable conclusion, and having thus secured a lasting peace and permanent frontiers in the West, the Grand Vizier set his face toward the East. Many Persian noblemen who had sought the protection of the Porte accompanied him to Aleppo, the assembly point for the campaign.
I should mention that Khaireddin ignored me in a most ungrateful manner, and in his blindness seemed to think that he now needed neither my help nor the Grand Vizier’s. Hurt though I was, however, I knew the Seraglio and bided my time. Only a few days later I observed-and not without a certain malicious pleasure-that his house stood unvisited and that silence had fallen upon his name, while the townspeople began uttering ever louder complaints of his seamen. For these renegades, Moors, and Negroes, who during the summer had fought and plundered afloat and in the winter roistered and brawled in Algiers, knew nothing of the well-mannered customs of the Sultan’s capital and assumed that they could behave there as they did in their own harbors. They even went so far as to stab two Armenians who did not get out of their way quickly enough-an unheard-of occurrence in the Sultan’s city where even to bear arms was an offense and where the janissaries who kept order carried nothing but light bamboo canes. At first Khaireddin would not hear of executing the culprits, explaining that Armenians were Christians, to slay whom was an act pleasing to Allah. Only when he found that his reputation suffered and that the Sultan remained inaccessible and silent within the Seraglio did he climb down and have three men hanged and ten flogged.
But it was too late. With growing dismay he noted how abrupt were the turns of fortune in this city, and he took to dictating childish letters to the Sultan in which he alternately groveled and threatened to leave his service for that of the Emperor. Fortunately Khaireddin’s
As a last resort, the puffed-up sea captain humbled himself and sent for me to discuss certain matters. To make clear to him my rank and standing I sent him word again that my door stood open if he wished to consult me, but that I could not spare the time to go running all round the harbor looking for him. After tugging his beard for three days he came, bringing with him my old friends Torgut and Sinan the Jew, who were as shocked as himself at the Sultan’s behavior. He looked about him with wonder at the marble steps of my landing stage and at my splendid house that rose dreamlike from terraces ablaze with flowers, though the autumn was far advanced.
“What a city!” he exclaimed. “Slaves live in gilded mansions and wear kaftans of honor, while a poor old man whose whole life has been devoted to increasing the Sultan’s honor on the high seas must creep in rags to the throne without winning so much as a kind word for all his labors.”
To give outward expression to his injured feelings he had put on a plain camlet kaftan, with only a little diamond crescent in his turban in token of his dignity. I attended him with all due honor into the house and bade him be seated. Then I set the cooks to work and summoned Abu el-Kasim and Mustafa ben-Nakir, that we might all confer together as in the old days in Algiers. They came promptly. Khaireddin sent for the wares he had brought from his ship and lavished on us presents of ivory, ostrich feathers, flowered gold brocade, and silver vessels adorned with Italian coats of arms. Sighing heavily he followed these up with a purse of gold for each of us.
“Let all discord between us be forgotten,” he said. “After bestowing these presents I’m a poor man and hardly know where my next meal is to come from. Forgive me for failing to recognize you when you came aboard my ship to greet me. I was already dazed by all the rejoicings-and then you’ve grown so much handsomer!”
