Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean | Page 8

Magnificent; and there was an added zest to robbery and murder in the fact that the pirates, as good Mohammedans, were obeying the behests of the Prophet every time that they cut a Christian throat, plundered a Christian argosy, or carried off shrieking women into a captivity far worse than death.
That a pirate should be a warrior goes without saying, that a pirate should be a statesman is a thing almost incredible; but those who will read the story of the life of Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa will be forced to admit that here, at least, was a pirate who achieved the apparently impossible. Admiral Jurien de la Gravière has remarked that the Moslem corsairs of the sixteenth century were great men, even when measured by the standard of Henry VIII., of Charles V., of Soliman the Magnificent, of Ibrahim, his Grand Vizier, or of Andrea Doria, greatest among contemporary Christian mariners. To the seaman, of course, there is much that is fascinating in the deeds of his forerunners, and the ships of the corsairs had in them something distinctive in that they were propelled by oars, and were in consequence, to a certain extent, independent of the weather. Like the sailors of all ages, to the Sea-wolves gales and storms of all sorts and descriptions were abhorrent; and in consequence they had a well-marked piracy season, which, as we shall see, covered the spring and summer, while they carefully avoided the inclement months of autumn and winter.
In a later chapter an attempt has been made to place before the reader pictures of the galley, the galeasse, and the nef, which were the names attached to the ships then in use; the name brigantine, far from having the significance attached to it by the sailor of the present day, seems to have been a generic term to denote any craft not included in the names already given.
Although the sixteenth century had outgrown the principle of the general massacre of the enemy by the victors, still chivalry to the fallen foe was far to seek, as all persons captured at sea were, no matter what their rank and status, immediately stripped and chained to the rowers' bench, where they remained until ransom, good fortune, or a kindly death, for which these unfortunates were wont to pray, should come to their release. To a large extent this savagery may be traced to the religious rancour which animated the combatants on both sides, as the fanaticism of the Moslem, of which we have already spoken, was fully matched on the side of the Christians by the bigotry of the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem, otherwise known as the Knights of Malta, who were vowed to the extermination of what they, on their side, called "the infidel." It was an age of iron, when men neither gave nor expected grace for the misfortunes which might befall them in the warrior life which they led. It was distinguished by many gallant feats of arms on both sides, but pity formed no part of the equipment of the fighting man bent on the death or capture of his enemy. Honestly and sincerely each side believed that they were doing the service of the Almighty in destroying the other party root and branch. The amount of human misery and suffering caused by the rise and progress of the Moslem corsairs was absolutely incalculable; the slavery of the rower in the galley in the time of which we speak was an agony so dreadful that in these days it is a thing which seems altogether incredible, a nightmare of horror almost impossible even to imagine.
The life of the "gallerian" was so hard that his sufferings in many cases were mercifully ended in death in a very short time, as none save those of iron constitution could stand the strain imposed by the desperate toil and wretched food. Yet there are cases on record of men who had worked at the oar for actual decades, so unconquerable in their strength that even such a life as this had not the power to break them down.
To the peaceful mariner who wished merely to trade, to the individual whose business called him overseas, this epoch must have been one of terror unspeakable. The ordinary perils of the deep were quite enough to keep timid folk at home in those days of clumsy, ill-found sailing ships, which could by no means work to windward, and did not sail remarkably well even with the most favouring breezes; when to this we add that every ship which started on a voyage in the Mediterranean had before her the chance of being captured by the corsairs, it was no wonder that he whose business led him oversea should make his last will and testament and bid