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Updated: May 6, 2025
Even those hardened men of blood shrank before the horror which was proposed to them by their chief, and Sinan-Reis took up his parable and spoke the minds of all when he said that follow him to the death they would cheerfully do, but stain themselves with so awful a massacre was to place themselves outside the pale of humanity for ever.
Hardly had he done so when news came from the Levant that the fleet of the Grand Turk was at sea heading for Sicily. The fleet was composed of one hundred and twelve royal galleys, two great galeasses, and a host of brigantines and transport vessels. Sinan-Reis was in command with twelve thousand Janissaries, numerous pioneers and engineers, and all the necessary appliances for a siege.
He now brought the weight of his influence to bear upon the side of Sinan-Reis and his colleagues. "Are you going," he asked the admiral, "to allow the infidels to escape without a battle?
Around him Sinan-Reis, Mourad-Reis, and half a hundred others of their kidney were clamouring; they hurled insults at his head, they heaped opprobrium on "the corsair," they practically incited their troops to mutiny in their mad appeals to be led against the foe. But "the corsair" kept his head, and kept his temper, and saved the Ottoman fleet for his master from his great rival, Doria.
This was carried out under his own supervision, and confirmed him in the idea that disembarkation was folly; but Sinan-Reis and the Janissaries held obstinately to their opinion, while the "Joldaks," or Turkish soldiers in the galleys, grumbled among themselves that Kheyr-ed-Din must indeed be full of vanity to reject the counsels of one like Sinan-Reis.
But Barbarossa had not that absolute domination of the forces under his command which should be the prescriptive right of any leader. Sinan-Reis, the implacable be-turbaned old Osmanli, held him in bitter scorn. "Your advice may be good," he retorted, "but we think our plan the better." The admiral suggested a reconnaissance of the site, which was merely a ruse to gain time.
Into this strong place of arms Barbarossa had sent some six thousand of his best men, mostly Turkish soldiers, under the command of Sinan-Reis, a renegado Jew, and one of the fiercest and most faithful of his followers.
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