Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/255

Rh that de Lastic was the first head of the fraternity who definitely and officially was recognized as having a claim to that title.

James de Milly, grand-prior of Auvergue, was nominated the thirty-fifth Grand-Master upon the death of de Lastic. The danger of an invasion from the Ottoman emperor being imminent, de Milly, who was at the time of his election resident in his priory, lost no time in reaching Rhodes, where the presence of the supreme head was felt to be indispensable. The storm which had been so long gathering was, however, not yet ready to burst. A powerful coalition of the principal Christian nations interested in the politics of the East had induced Mahomet to postpone for a while his hostile intentions against Rhodes. Fortunately for the knights, the Hungarian campaign of 1456 had been very disastrous to him, and had ended in a serious defeat inflicted upon his army by Hunyad. De Milly followed up this check to the Ottoman arms by ravaging their coasts with his galleys, and utterly ruining the commerce of the infidel. Mahomet, in spite of the check he had received, was not the monarch to submit tamely to these aggressions on the part of men whose destruction he had already vowed. He therefore rapidly equipped a fleet, with which he proposed to carry the war into the enemy’s country. He placed 18,000 men on board his galleys, and directed their first operations against the fortress of Lango. The knights who garrisoned the castle were happily able to repel the attack, and succeeded in driving the invaders back to their ships. A similar attempt upon the island of Symia met with no better fate. The news of these successful repulses reached the fraternity at Rhodes, and lulled it into a feeling of security. It was not thought possible that the Turks, having failed upon two unimportant points, would dare to harass their head-quarters. Such was not the view taken by the Turkish leader. Coasting by night along the shores of Rhodes, be effected a landing in the bay of Malona. From thence he succeeded in ravaging a large district of the island, and securing a certain amount of booty, before the knights were in a position to repel his attack. Thence the fleet sailed to Constantinople, laden with its pillage, which, although considerable,