Although the “renegado” was very much in evidence in the vessels of the Moslem corsairs, still of course the bulk of the fighting men, by which the galleys were manned, were Mohammedans, the descendants of the warriors who had swept through Northern Africa like a living flame in the early days of the Mohammedan conquest.
Cut adrift from the homes which had been theirs for over seven centuries—as we shall see in the next chapter—there was nothing left for the erstwhile dwellers in Andalusia but to gain their living by the strong hand. The harvest of the sea was the one which they garnered—a harvest of the goods of their mortal enemies strung out in lines of hapless merchant-vessels throughout the length and breadth of the tideless sea.
It booted not that the great Powers of Europe sent expedition after expedition against them; these they fought to the death with varying fortune, ready, when the storm had passed over their heads, to start once more on the only career which promised them the chance of acquiring riches. Their whole history is a study of warfare, waged as a rule on the petty scale, but rising at times, as in the cases already mentioned, into events of first-class historical importance.
The deeds of the buccaneers of the next century in the Spanish Main sink into comparative insignificance when compared with what was accomplished by such a man as Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, who was known, and rightly known, by his contemporaries, and for many generations of Moslem seamen yet to come, as “the King of the Sea.” The capture of Panama by Sir Henry Morgan in January 1671 was possibly as remarkable a feat of arms as was ever accomplished, but it cannot rank in its importance to civilised mankind on the same plane as those memorable battles in the Mediterranean of which mention has been made as having been fought by the Moslem corsairs.
Fighting for their own hand, the booty reaped by these men was incredible in its richness. Sea-power was theirs, and they took the fullest advantage of this fact, fearing none save the great community of the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem, which, vowed to the destruction of the infidel, neither gave nor accepted quarter.
We have said that the real interest in the lives of the corsairs arose from the fact that it was personal ascendancy, and that alone, which counted in the piratical hierarchy. Against Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa plots arose again and again, only to be defeated by the address of the man against whom they were directed.