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Updated: May 1, 2025
Great as were those others who perished, faithful to the death as were those noble knights who died to a man in the culminating agony of St. Elmo, adroit, resourceful, master of himself and others as was the famous Dragut, there is one name and one alone that shines like a beacon light upon a hill-top when we think of the siege of Malta.
Dead or alive, great was the reward offered for the capture of Dragut, but the veteran admiral required no stimulus of this sort to urge him to put forth his utmost endeavours, to strain every nerve and sinew in the chase.
From this date he was the foremost corsair in the Mediterranean, and the feats which were performed by him showed that the Padishah had not erred in his selection. The ambition of Dragut increased with his power, and he determined, following the example of the Barbarossas, to seize and hold some strong place of arms possessed of a commodious port in which he might be the supreme ruler.
The town after a desperate and prolonged resistance was at last taken by storm; and Doria captured Aisa, a Turkish alcaid, and ten thousand prisoners of the baser sort. Of these, however, there was scarce one who owed allegiance to Dragut; the warriors of this chief neither gave nor accepted quarter, as they feared the wrath of the terrible corsair even more than death itself.
The death of Dragut, on June 23, had proved an incalculable loss, and the jealousy between Mustapha and Piali prevented their co-operation. The whole course of the siege had been marked by a feverish haste and a fear of interruption, which showed itself in ill-drawn plans. Dragut himself, early in the siege, had pointed out the necessity of more foresight, but his warnings went unheeded.
Dragut, the great Turkish corsair, considered him the only rival worthy of his valor. Each feared and respected the other, and, after several engagements in which both were wounded, they endeavored to avoid meeting, either on land or sea. One day Dragut, on visiting a galley of his fleet anchored off Algiers, found Priamo Febrer, half naked, chained to a seat with an oar in his hands.
Great towers, in which were mounted many big guns, defended the entrance to the port, which had become the headquarters of the vessels owned by Dragut, and also of those corsairs who sailed their craft under the crescent flag of the Sultan of Constantinople.
Here news was brought that the united fleet of the Emperor, Venice, and the Pope was cruising in the Adriatic, and the Captain Pasha hastened to meet it. The pick of the Corsairs was with him. Round his flagship were ranged the galleys of Dragut, Murād Reïs, Sinān, Sālih Reïs with twenty Egyptian vessels, and others, to the number of one hundred and twenty-two ships of war.
In the choking heat of the African night townsmen and corsairs wrestled in deadly conflict hand to hand and foot to foot; but these untrained landsmen stood but a poor chance against the picked fighting men of the Moslem galleys who had been inured to bloodshed from their earliest youth and trained by such a master in the art of war as Dragut.
At present, however, there was no chance of so desirable a thing happening, as Dragut was superintending the fitting out of the new expedition at Constantinople. Anxious and suspicious of the designs of the Turks, Charles ordered a concentration of his fleet at Messina.
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