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Updated: June 29, 2025
And by reason his beard was extremely red, or carroty, from thenceforwards he was generally called Barba-rossa, which in Italian signifies Red-Beard." The capture of the Papal galleys gave Urūj what he wanted rowers.
He now called himself the King of Algiers, but still that lean, sun-dried garrison held with desperate tenacity to the tower of the redoubtable Navarro, and any moment a fresh Spanish relieving force might be upon him and chase him forth even as Uruj had been chased from Tlemcen.
With some six thousand men and sixteen galleots Urūj set forth by sea and land to the rescue of Algiers.
But, if craft and subtlety were not to be found in Uruj there was one who never failed to exhibit these qualities when they became necessary, and Kheyr-ed-Din once more came to the front. The Russian peasantry have a saying that "God is high and the Czar is far away."
In the year 1457 an obscure Roumelian or Albanian renegado named Mahomedi was banished from Constantinople by the Grand Turk; he established himself in the island of Mitylene and there married a Christian widow named Catalina, by whom he had two sons, Uruj and Khizr. The father had been a sailor and both sons adopted the same profession.
Uruj in these days was young and inexperienced, or he would not have chosen this locality for his first venture, as this coast was in close proximity to the island of Rhodes, from whence the great galleys of the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem set forth to exterminate the enemies of their faith.
No man knew when his turn might come after this awful example of what it meant to incur the wrath of Barbarossa. The corsair gave orders for the execution of Venalcadi, who, it will be remembered, was with Uruj when that warrior came by his death; but Venalcadi was popular among the pirates, and they connived at his escape.
This was in the month of September 1516. Don Diego landed "en el dia de San Hieronymo," and threw up entrenchments within gunshot of the town. De Vera opened fire on the walls of the town from his entrenchments, but hardly had he done so when Uruj, leading his corsairs, which formed the spearhead to an innumerable army of Berbers and Arabs, made a sortie.
We have no record or list of the dead and wounded in this battle, but among the latter was Uruj, who was severely hurt. Not so Kheyr-ed-Din, who escaped scatheless and took command now that his brother was incapacitated.
At this distance of time it is impossible to gauge the motives by which men such as these were actuated, more particularly in the case of Kheyr-ed-Din, whose character was a blend of the deepest subtlety and calculated ferocity. Having settled with Kara-Hassan, Uruj continued his march along the coast.
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