[24] _Doria et Barberousse_, Pt. II. ch. xxv.
[25] The Spanish historians are silent on the subject of this expedition: or, rather, Haedo positively denies it, and says that Kheyr-ed-d[=i]n sent an embassy to the Sultan, but did not go in person. H[=a]jji Khal[=i]fa, however, is clear and detailed in his account of the visit.
[26] For an account of Stambol and the old Seraglio see the _Story of Turkey_, 260 ff.
[28] So says Jean Chesneau, French secretary at Constantinople in 1543. See Jurien de la Gravière, _Les Corsaires Barbaresques_, 13.
The dwellers on the coasts of Italy soon discovered the new spirit in the Turkish fleet; they had now to dread Corsairs on both hands, east as well as west. In the summer of 1534 Kheyr-ed-d[=i]n led his new fleet of eighty-four galleys forth from the Golden Horn, to flesh their appetite on a grand quest of prey. Entering the Straits of Messina, he surprised Reggio, and carried off ships and slaves; stormed and burnt the castle of S. Lucida next day, and took eight hundred prisoners; seized eighteen galleys at Cetraro; put Sperlonga to the sword and brand, and loaded his ships with wives and maidens. A stealthy inland march brought the Corsairs to Fondi, where lay Giulia Gonzaga, the young and beautiful widow of Vespasio Colonna, Duchess of Trajetto and Countess of Fondi. She was sister to the "heavenly Joanna of Aragon," on whose loveliness two hundred and eighty Italian poets and rimesters in vain exhausted the resources of several languages;--a loveliness shared by the sister whose device was the "Flower of Love" amaranth blazoned on her shield. This beauty Kheyr-ed-d[=i]n destined for the Sultan's harem, and so secret were the Corsairs' movements that he almost surprised the fair Giulia in her bed. She had barely time to mount a horse in her shift and fly with a single attendant,--whom she afterwards condemned to death, perhaps because the beauty revealed that night had made him overbold.[29] Enraged at her escape the pirates made short work of Fondi; the church was wrecked, and the plundering went on for four terrible hours, never to be forgotten by the inhabitants.
Refreshed and excited by their successful raid, the Turks needed little encouragement to enter with heartiness upon the real object of the expedition, which was nothing less than the annexation of the kingdom of Tunis. Three centuries had passed since the Sultans of the race of Hafs had established their authority on the old Carthaginian site, upon the breaking up of the African empire of the Almohades. Their rule had been mild and just; they had maintained on the whole friendly relations with the European powers, and many treaties record the fair terms upon which the merchants of Pisa, Venice, and Genoa were admitted to the port of Tunis. Saint Louis had been so struck with the piety and justice of the king that he had even come to convert him, and had died in the attempt. Twenty-one rulers of their line had succeeded one another, till the vigour of the Ben[=i] Hafs was sapped, and fraternal jealousies added bloodshed to weakness. Hasan, the twenty-second, stepped to the throne over the bodies of forty-four slaughtered brothers, and when he had thus secured his place he set a pattern of vicious feebleness for all sovereigns to avoid. A rival claimant served as the Corsair's pretext for invasion, and Kheyr-ed-d[=i]n had hardly landed when this miserable wretch fled the city, and though supported by some of the Arab tribes he could make no head against the Turkish guns. Tunis, like Algiers, had been added to the Ottoman Empire, against its will, and by the same masterful hands. It may be doubted whether the Sultan's writ would have run in either of his new provinces had their conqueror gainsaid it.