Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/286

258 fleet had abandoned them, and they themselves were being mowed down by the deadly fire from the ramparts. Is it surprising that under such an accumulation of obstacles they should at length give way? The mass of slain with which the breach was covered bore ample testimony to the obstinacy and determination of the assault, but the resistance of the defenders had proved too powerful for them, and at length they sought safety in flight. The terror of the fireships had been so great that but few of their boats were left to carry off the discomfited survivors. Many were drowned in the attempt to cross over to the mainland, and the remainder were borne away crestfallen and humiliated from the scene of action.

The feelings of the pasha, as from the summit of St. Stephen’s hill he witnessed the untoward conclusion of the fray, were far from enviable. his troops had been taught to consider themselves invincible, and the foe had not hitherto been found who could withstand the shock of their onset. They trusted that as it had been with the turbaned warrior of the East, so would it also prove with their Christian antagonists; but they now learnt their error at a grievous cost to themselves. That crumbling breach which, if guarded by a Moslem garrison, would have offered but a slender resistance, had, when crowned by the warriors of the Cross, rendered futile their boldest efforts, and hurled them back discomfited to their camp. Seven hundred corpses lay stretched upon the mole and breach. The pasha obtained a short truce to enable him to remove and bury them. A long trench was dug near the garden of St. Anthony, along the western shore of the port, in which they were all deposited. This trench, according to Biliotti, has recently been discovered, and the bones still found there removed into the adjoining cemetery of Mourad-Reis.

Paleologus was not the man to despair at a first failure; he was therefore speedily at work devising a new attack in another quarter. Conceiving that the knights were probably exhausting their utmost resources in the defence of St. Nicholas, he determined to break ground on a fresh point, where he might find a less obstinate resistance. Whilst D’Aubusson was returning thanks for the glorious success