The Story of the Barbary Corsairs | Page 5

only too prone to prey upon his fellows, though hardly in the
brutal manner of his ancestors. He preys upon inferior intelligence,

upon weakness of character, upon the greed and upon the gambling
instinct of mankind. In the grandest scale he is called a financier; in the
meanest, a pickpocket. This predatory spirit is at once so ancient and so
general, that the reader, who is, of course, wholly innocent of such
reprehensible tendencies, must nevertheless make an effort to
understand the delights of robbery considered as a fine art. Some cynics
there are who will tell us that the only reason we are not all thieves is
because we have not pluck enough; and there must certainly be some
fascination, apart from natural depravity or original sin, to make a man
prefer to run countless risks in an unlawful pursuit sooner than do an
honest day's work. And in this sentence we have the answer: It is
precisely the risk, the uncertainty, the danger, the sense of superior skill
and ingenuity, that attract the adventurous spirit, the passion for sport,
which is implanted in the vast majority of mankind.
Our Moorish robbers had all this, and more, to attract them. Brave and
daring men they had shown themselves often before in their tussles
with the Spaniards, or in their wild sea courses and harryings of
Christian shores, in Sardinia, perhaps, or Provence; but now they
pursued a quest alluring beyond any that had gone before, a righteous
vengeance upon those who had banished them from house and home,
and cast them adrift to find what new anchorage they might in the
world--a Holy War against the slaughterers of their kith and kin, and
the blasphemers of their sacred Faith. What joy more fierce and jubilant
than to run the light brigantine down the beach of Algiers and man her
for a cruise in Spanish waters? The little ship will hold but ten oars a
side, each pulled by a man who knows how to fight as well as to
row--as indeed he must, for there is no room for mere landsmen on
board a firkata. But if there be a fair wind off the land, there will be
little rowing; the big lateen sail on her one mast will span the narrow
waters between the African coast and the Balearic Isles, where a
convenient look-out may be kept for Spanish galleons or perhaps an
Italian polacca. Drawing little water, a small squadron of brigantines
could be pushed up almost any creek, or lie hidden behind a rock, till
the enemy hove in sight. Then oars out, and a quick stroke for a few
minutes, and they are alongside their unsuspecting prey, and pouring in
their first volley. Then a scramble on board, a hand-to-hand scuffle, a

last desperate resistance on the poop, under the captain's canopy, and
the prize is taken, the prisoners ironed, a jury crew sent on board, and
all return in triumph to Algiers, where they are received with
acclamations.
Or it might be a descent on the shores of their own beloved Andalusia.
Then the little vessels are run into the crevices between the rocks, or
even buried in the sand, and the pirates steal inland to one of the
villages they know so well, and the loss of which they will never cease
to mourn. They have still friends a-many in Spain, who are willing
enough to help them against the oppressor and to hide them when
surprised. The sleeping Spaniards are roused and then grimly silenced
by the points of swords; their wives and daughters are borne away on
the shoulders of the invaders; everything valuable is cleared; and the
rovers are soon sailing merrily into the roads at Algiers, laden with
spoil and captives, and often with some of the persecuted remnant of
their race, who thankfully rejoin their kinsmen in the new country. To
wreak such vengeance on the Spaniard added a real zest to life.
[Illustration: CARAVEL OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
(Jurien de la Gravière.)]
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