Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/334

304 the town should be seized, and handed over to a Turkish force to be secretly landed on the island. Fortunately the plot was discovered, but owing to the determination of those who were arrested not to betray their accomplices, very few were brought to justice. The news of this attempt made Blanchefort hurry his departure from France, although he was at the time in a very feeble state of health. As the voyage progressed his illness became more and more pronounced, and when off the coast of Sicily he was so evidently in a dying state that the knights who accompanied him urged him to land there. The heroism of Blanchefort supported him in this trying hour. At all times ready to maintain the interests of the Order, even at the risk of his own life, he was now prepared to forego the comfort of spending his last moments on shore, fearing that by so doing he might cause an injury to the fraternity of which he was the chief. He felt that were he to die so close to the court of Rome the Pope would be sure to avail himself of that event to secure the nomination of a creature of his own, without reference to the council at Rhodes. He persisted, therefore, in holding on his course, and when he felt his last hour approaching, he directed that the swiftest galley in the fleet which accompanied him should be held in readiness to push on for Rhodes the instant that life had become extinct, so that the earliest intelligence of the event might be received there.

His decease occurred off the island of Zante, and in accordance with the instructions he had given, the sad intelligence was at once sent on to Rhodes, where it became known on the night of the 13th of October, 1513. The knights immediately assembled for the election of a new chief, and we find it recorded that upon this occasion there were present in the island the following numbers:—Of the langue of France, 100; Provence, 90; Auvergne, 84; Castile and Portugal, 88; Aragon, 66; Italy, 60; England, 38, and Germany, 6, making a total of 531 knights, without counting chaplains or serving brothers. Fabricius Carretto, the conventual bailiff of the langue of Italy, and consequently grand-admiral of the Order, a knight who had greatly distinguished himself in the late siege of Rhodes by his defence of Fort St. Nicholas, was nominated to the vacant office.