receive the man who had lost his life testifying to the fact that there was
but one God, and that Mahomet was the Prophet of God?

True in substance and in fact is that which was said by the Frère Pierre
d'An that "it is indisputable that the sea is the Theatre of the storms and
the place in the world most capable of all sorts of violence and tragic
adventure." Those who "coveted the goods of others straying on the sea,"
called by the reverend brother "the implacable, corsairs of Barbary," were
to make life intolerable on that element for centuries to come, and if the
Crescent did not supersede the banner of the Cross in the blue waters of
the Mediterranean Sea, it remained as a portent and a dread symbol of human
misery and unutterable suffering.




CHAPTER II


THE COMING OF THE CORSAIRS

The rise and progress of the Moslem corsairs of the Mediterranean is a most
curious and interesting historical fact. The causes which led to results so
deplorable to commerce, civilisation, and Christianity are set forth in
this chapter in order that some idea may be formed of the state of affairs
in that region at the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the
sixteenth centuries, and also that the reflex action of the great triumph
of the Christian armies in Spain may be more fully understood.

The maritime Christian States of the Mediterranean at this epoch were at