Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/145

Rh long in assembling beneath his banner a considerable number of those mercenary troops whose services were always to be purchased by a good paymaster.

Finding his strength now once more restored to a state that would warrant active measures, and trusting that the garrison, cooped up for so long within the walls of the town, would be disheartened by the wearisome blockade to which it had been subjected, he determined again to deliver an assault. This he did on the 5th of August, 1310, and with complete success. Before nightfall on that day the white cross banner of the Hospital was waving over the ramparts of Rhodes, and the remnant of the nest of pirates who escaped the exterminating sword of the invader, had fled in confusion to the shores of Aaia.

No authentic records of this struggle now exist or appear ever to have come to the aid of the historian of the epoch, the only account of its incidents having been the somewhat apocryphal details to be gathered from a set of tapestry hangings commemorating the events of the siege, which for many years decorated the palace of the Grand-Master in the convent at Rhodes. Some of the older historians, in the dearth of more accurate records, have invented a fable which would infer that the town was captured by stratagem. Their story runs that on a dark and foggy day some of the knights covered themselves with sheep’s skins, and joining a flock of sheep which was returning into the city, they entered in its midst unperceived. Once arrived at the principal gate they seized it and admitted their confrères. Without attaching any importance to this fable, which is repeated merely as an example of the inventive powers of some of the old historians, it is no doubt probable that some stratagem was successfully practised by which the city did fall into their hands. Nothing, however, is really known, as all accurate details are wanting. It has been presumed, and probably with reason, that an extensive fire, which nearly destroyed the convent during the first century of the residence of the Order in the island, may have consumed such documentary details of the siege as were likely to have been retained amongst the public archives.

The name of Rhodes is supposed to have been derived from