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The three galleys lay close together, and Uruj and his brother held a few last words of counsel. "It is agreed," answered Kheyr-ed-Din, and Hassan Ali.
Uruj had arrogated to himself the title of King of Tlemcen, but with his death this shadowy sovereignty came to an end, and the Spaniards seized upon the province. This, however, did not avail them much, as the Sultan of Fez sent against them an innumerable army, and they in their turn were dispossessed.
Urūj, the elder, soon became the reïs, or captain, of a galleot, and finding his operations hampered in the Archipelago by the predominance of the Sultan's fleet, he determined to seek a wider and less interrupted field for his depredations.
This, however, did not present an insuperable difficulty, as we have already seen in the case of Curtogali, and a similar arrangement was carried out by Uruj Barbarossa and his brother. Uruj now established himself at the island of Jerba, on the east coast of Tunis, which formed an admirable base from which to "work" the Mediterranean from the piratical point of view.
We see in the case of the two Barbarossas that they had no drop of Moslem blood in them, as both parents came from Christian stock: and yet no greater scourges ever afflicted the people from whom both their father and mother originally sprang than did Uruj and Khizr Barbarossa. The characters of the two brothers were widely different.
The prince of Tinnis took to the mountains, and Urūj Barbarossa reigned in his stead . Then Tilimsān fell into his possession, and save that the Spaniards held Oran and two or three fortresses, such as the Peñon de Alger and Bujēya, his dominions coincided with modern Algeria, and marched with the kingdoms of Tunis and Fez. He was in a position to form alliances with Fez and Morocco.
But before proceeding to the assistance of the Algerines Uruj had a personal matter to which to attend, and he wished to combine pleasure with serious business.
The doors being closed, the conspirators were one by one dragged before Uruj, who, bitterly reproaching them, gave order for their instant death. They were haled out through rows of jeering pirates, and beheaded in the street immediately in front of the principal entrance of the mosque.
The base of operations thus secured, Urūj did not keep his new ally long waiting for a proof of his prowess. One day he lay off the island of Elba, when two galleys-royal, belonging to his Holiness Pope Julius II., richly laden with goods from Genoa, and bound for Civit
When the slaughter of the twenty two was accomplished Uruj strode from the mosque over the weltering corpses of the traitors amid the plaudits of his own men, ever ready to acclaim deeds of blood and cruelty. After this there were no more plots against the corsair in Algiers.
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