[Illustration: CARAVEL OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
With all their skill and speed, their knowledge of the coasts, and the help of their compatriots ashore, there was still the risk of capture. Sometimes their brigantines "caught a Tartar" when they expected an easy victim, and then the Moors found the tables turned, and had to grace their captors' triumph, and for years, perhaps for ever, to sit on the banks of a Venetian or Genoese galley, heavily chained, pulling the infidel's oar even in the chase of the true believers, and gazing to satiety upon the weals which the lash kept raw on the bare back of the man in front. But the risk added a zest to the Corsair's life, and the captive could often look forward to the hope of recapture, or sometimes of ransom by his friends. The career of the pirate, with all its chances, was a prosperous one. The adventurers grew rich, and their strong places on the Barbary coast became populous and well garrisoned; and, by the time the Spaniards began to awake to the danger of letting such troublesome neighbours alone, the evil was past a cure. For twenty years the exiled Moors had enjoyed immunity, while the big Spanish galleys were obstinately held in port, contemptuous of so small a foe. At last Don Pedro Navarro was despatched by Cardinal Ximenes to bring the pirates to book. He had little difficulty in taking possession of Oran and Buj[=e]ya; and Algiers was so imperfectly fortified, that he imposed his own terms. He made the Algerines vow to renounce piracy; and, to see that they kept their word, he built and garrisoned a strong fort, the "Peñon de Alger,"[2] to stop their boats from sallying forth. But the Moors had still more than one strong post on the rocky promontories of Barbary, and having tasted the delights of chasing Spaniards, they were not likely to reform, especially as the choice lay between piracy and starvation. Dig they would not, and they preferred to beg by force, like the "gentlemen of the road." So they bided their time, till Ferdinand the Catholic passed away to his account, and then, in defiance of the Peñon, and reckless of all the pains and penalties of Spanish retribution, they threw up their allegiance, and looked about for allies.