Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/287

Rh of the preceding day, by a triumphal procession to the miraculous picture of Our Lady of Philermo, the pasha was moving his heavy battering train to the southern side of the city. The Jews’ quarter was selected as the new object of attack. The ramparts at this point were of extreme thickness, but were also of great age, and therefore but ill suited to resist any very severe battering. Wishing to distract the garrison, he did not confine his efforts to a single place, but at the same time opened fire on the tower of St. Mary on the one side, and on that of Italy on the other. He also commenced a general bombardment. From the huge mortars which formed part of his siege train, he hurled into the town gigantic fragments of rock and other destructive missiles, trusting thereby so to annoy the inhabitants that they would be unable to protract the defence with energy. Light balls and other combustible ingredients were also made use of, in the hope of causing a conflagration. Against all these dangers 1)’Aubusson’s ready genius was able to find a remedy. He created a temporary shelter for such of the inhabitants as were not required for the defence by the erection of large sheds with sloping sides, built against the interior of the ramparts, on such sites as were best protected from the fire of the besiegers. Others found shelter in the vaults of the churches and similar places of security, so that the pasha gained but little by his vast expenditure of ammunition. True it is, as Merry Dupuis records, that one shot struck the roof of the Grand-Master’s palace, and descending through the floor into the cellar, destroyed a hogahead of wine. The waste of the good liquor seems to have impressed the simple-minded Dupuis more than the damage to the building; but if the casualties were confined to such losses as these, the pasha might as well have economized his powder. The danger of fire hi a city built almost entirely of stone was not great, but even that was guarded against. A band was organized whose sole duty it was to watch the flaming projectiles in their descent, and quench them immediately. The roar of this bombardment was so loud that it could be heard in the island of Lango on the one side, and in that of Chateau Roux on the other.

The state of the rampart in front of the Jews’ quarter soon