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The most important seaman on the Turkish side was Dragut Pasha of Tripoli since 1551 who had been the greatest of Barbarossa's lieutenants. In 1540 Dragut had been surprised and captured by Giannetin Doria, the nephew of the great Admiral, and had served four years chained to the bench of a Genoese galley.
Again, in the height of Barbarossa's power, when Charles V., hoisting the crucifix at his masthead, led his crusading Spaniards against Goletta, and it fell, after a month's desperate siege, without pause or rest the troops, half dead with heat and thirst, pressed on to Tunis to liberate twenty thousand Christian captives.
Mustafa, however, continued to work underground and ply his heavy artillery, with hardly a pause, upon the two extremities of the line of landward defences the Bastion of De Robles, and the Bastion of Castile: both were in ruins by the 27th of July, as Sālih Reïs, son of Barbarossa's old comrade, satisfied himself by a reconnaissance pushed into the very breach.
There was no mention of Raschid, that Prince of the Hafsit dynasty, whom Kheyr-ed-Din had declared to the townspeople he had come to restore to the throne of his ancestors. Too late the town sprang to arms, under a chief named Abdahar, and in the first instance accomplished a considerable success. Barbarossa's men were unprepared, and a number of them were slain.
In 1540, as we have seen, Dragut was caught by Giannettino Doria, who made him a present to his great kinsman Andrea, on whose galleys he was forced to toil in chains. La Valette, afterwards Grand Master of Malta, who had once pulled the captive's oar on Barbarossa's ships and knew Dragut well, one day saw the ex-Corsair straining on the galley bank: "Señor Dragut," said he, "usanza de guerra!
One more campaign and Barbarossa's feats are over. Great events were happening on the Algerine coasts, where we must return after too long an absence in the Levant and Adriatic: but first the order of years must be neglected that we may see the last of the most famous of all the Corsairs. To make amends for the coldness of Henry VIII., Francis I. was allied with the other great maritime power, Turkey, against the Emperor, in 1543; and the old sea rover actually brought his fleet of one hundred and fifty ships to Marseilles. The French captains saluted the Corsair's capitana, and the banner of Our Lady was lowered to be replaced by the Crescent. Well may a French admiral call this "the impious alliance." On his way Barbarossa enjoyed a raid in quite his old style; burnt Reggio and carried off the governor's daughter; appeared off the Tiber, and terrified the people of Civit
'I remember him at the Congress of Vienna, and he has not a single gray hair. Wiggins laughed. 'My good Lord Baldock, said the old wag, 'I saw Barbarossa's hair coming out of Ducroissant's shop, and under his valet's arm ho! ho! ho! and the two bon-vivans chuckled as the Count passed by, talking with, &c. &c. "The gunmaker.
She meant a flower which lay on the table; but he heeded not, and the mountain, slamming behind him, cut off his heel, so that he died in great pain. Such are a few of the legends relating to the Kyffhäuser; but it should be observed that Frederick Barbarossa's is not the only name given to the slumbering hero. We have already seen in the last chapter that one tradition calls him the Marquis John.
And then three thousand Italian-speaking labourers with dark hair and olive skins arrived on the scene. The beautiful old songs of Switzerland and the pure joys of spring were heard no more. Instead of that, the sound of hammering could be heard day and night. A jumper was driven into the mountain at the exact spot where Barbarossa's ring had hung; and then the blasting began. Nearly nine miles!
Barbarossa's old legend, that the dominion of the empire was, after long tribulation, to pass from the Hohenstaufen to the Hohenzollern, was now fulfilled; the dream long aspired after by German youth had now become a reality and a living fact.
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