Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/323

Rh the reputation of being a most skilful adept in the practice. In the present case his talents were brought to bear with his usual cunning upon the prson of the unfortunate prisoner. Djem, at the moment when he was handed over to Charles, bore within his frame the venom which was slowiy but surely compassing his end. So skilfully had the potion been administered, that it was not until the king had arrived with his protégé at Terracina that the crisis developed itself. Every finger at once pointed to the murderer, nor has any serious attempt ever been made to refute the charge.

A sad fate, indeed, was that for which the unfortunate prince had been reserved. After a sojourn of thirteen years in strange lands, far away from his native country, and at the very moment when his prospects appeared to brighten, he was smitten by the hand of the secret poisoner, from whose fell grasp he had just been torn. In subsequent years we find his son Amurath, who had been left in Egypt as an infant, residing at Rhodes under the protection of the fraternity, and receiving from its treasury a pension of 36,000 forms a year. This young prince had abandoned the faith of his father and become a Christian, for which reason he was held in great esteem by the Order.

The miserable end of Djem caused the most poignant anguish to D’Aubusson, to whom he had endeared himself through many years of kindly feeling and affectionate correspondence. The disgrace which this foul murder had cast upon Christianity affected the Grand-Master deeply, and his utter inability to avenge the dastardly act added weight to his grief. Age, too, had been creeping upon him, and was rendering him less able to bear up against his sorrow. It is from this time that we may date the commencement of that decline which ere long brought the noble old man to his grave. Throughout the remaining years of his life his position was one much to be envied. Universally admitted to be the greatest soldier and first statesman of his age, he bore a part in the politics of Europe far more influential than his rank would have apparently warranted. When Alexander, anxious to remove the stigma cast upon him by the murder of Djem, had organized