Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/284

256 was numerous, well disciplined, and amply supplied with stores and provisions of every kind, and was, moreover, animated with the most fanatical zeal to overthrow this great bulwark of Christianity. Cheering intelligence that, to be brought by a deserter into a besieged town. The question naturally arose, how came so long-headed a man voluntarily to place himself in a position of such imminent danger? To this, Maître Georges, with sanctimonious earnestness, pleaded the pangs of an awakened conscience with such apparent conviction that many were led to believe him sincere.

Meanwhile the battery in St. Anthony’s garden had been doing its duty. The confused mass of rubbish daily increasing at the foot of St. Nicholas’ tower, and the gaping breach in its walls, rapidly enlarging in dimensions, showed D’Aubusson that unless speedy precautions were taken, the post would be lost. He therefore concentrated on the spot as large a reinforcement as could be contained within the enceinte of the work. At the same time he prepared every obstacle his ingenuity could devise to impede the operation of an assault. Taking advantage of the mass of ruined masonry which had been dislodged by the pasha’s basilisks, he with it east up a new defence across the mole. Small batteries were established wherever they could sweep the approaches to the breach, and in the shallow water of the harbour itself he sank numerous planks, studded with sharp-pointed nails, to impede the enemy were they to attempt wading across. Having thus done everything which his foresight oould suggest, he calmly awaited the onset.

On the morning of the 9th June, as soon as day broke, the alarm was given, and a large fleet of the enemy’s lighter craft, laden with soldiers, was seen bearing down in a compact mass on the devoted fort. They were landed—some on the mole, some on the rocks, and the rest plunged overboard into the shallow water. With loud shouts they rushed at the breach, and endeavoured to carry the work by a coup de main. Conspicuous on the summit stood D’Aubusson, arrayed in all the panoply of his rank, and around him was gathered the flower of that chivalry from which the Turk had so often before been compelled to recoil. Anxiously was the struggle watched by both friend and foe on the mainland. The battlements overlooking the harbour were