content to follow where he led, to endorse his policy at the cost of their
lives.

It is the autocrat who is made by the circumstances of his life who
ultimately becomes supreme. The leaders among the corsairs were tried by
every test of prosperity and of adverse fortune; they emerged from the ruck
in the first instance because it was in them to display a more desperate
valour than did their contemporaries, and it was only when they emerged
triumphant from this, the first test, that they could begin to impose their
will upon others. It was then that their real trials began, as the
undisciplined are ever prone to suspicion, much given to murmuring against
a leader who is not perpetually successful.

As a rule, however, there were but few to criticise, as the office of
critic was one fraught with far too much danger to be alluring. In
maintaining their authority the leaders stopped at nothing, and the heads
of the recalcitrant were apt to part with amazing suddenness from their
bodies if they repined overmuch. The Moslem leader was, it is true, merely
_primus inter pares_, and was distinguished by no outward symbol of the
power which he possessed; but life and death lay in his hands, and life was
cheap indeed.

We have spoken hitherto of the leaders, but what of the men of which their
following was composed? Rough, rude, and reckless, these latter lived but
to fight and to plunder; to them any other life would have seemed
impossible, and indeed this was practically the fact. In the communities in
which they lived the adult male had no other means of gaining a livelihood.
Since their expulsion from their ancient homes no ordered and peaceful
method of existence had been possible for them. In the surroundings in
which their forefathers had lived the arts of peace had been carried on in