Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/303

Rh It seems very unlikely that Paleologus, who was a man of naturally grand ideas, and who had used every device to make himself master of the town, should suddenly have taken a step so alien to his character and so menacing to his schemes.

The Christian historians, on their side, are equally at a loss to account for their success by the ordinary accidents of war. They therefore, as was common in those times and in their religion, sought to account for the happy issue of the struggle by the agency of a miraculous interposition. They record that at the most critical moment, when the Grand-Master was surrounded and well-nigh overcome by his assailants, there appeared in the heavens a cross of refulgent gold, by the side of which stood a beautiful woman clothed in dazzling white garments, a lance in her hand and a buckler on her arm; she was accompanied by a man clothed in goat skins, and followed by a band of heavenly warriors armed with flaming swords. They assert that this vision was seen not by the Christians but by the Turks, several of whom had been captured on the occasion of the last assault, and they base the statement on the narrative of these prisoners, who added that the panic caused by the extraordinary vision had been so great that many Moslems fell dead without a wound. Such a vision as this may well have terrified the barbarous hosts by whom it is supposed to have been witnessed, and as in matters religious, a ready credence was obtained in those times for the most marvellous tales, the statement was at once accepted. It soon became established as an acknowledged fact, that the safety of Rhodes was due to the personal and visible interposition of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. John the Baptist, the patron saint of the Order, supported by a chosen band of the celestial host.

To modem readers neither of these explanations seems satisfactory. It was to D’Aubusson, and to him alone, that must be attributed the success, not only of that day but also of the whole defence from the hour when the atabal of the infidel first sounded on the shores of Rhodes. His was the master spirit that had guided every effort; his was the eagle eye that had ever comprehended at a glance the exigencies