Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/368

338 of slaves for the use of the kings of France and Spain was of annual occurrence, and that the merry monarch of England craved to be admitted to the same privilege. The results of this traffic must have been most profitable, not only from the proceeds of such as were sold, but also from the labour of those who were retained in the island. It has already been said that the fortresses of Rhodes and Malta show marked signs of the abundance and cheapness of labour. The numerous gangs of slaves who were awaiting the requirements of the wealthy potentates of Europe were, in the meantime, amply repaying the slender cost of their maintenance in the bagnio, by toiling at the vast defensive works for which the Order became so celebrated. Those ramparts have been reared by the drudgery and amidst the anguish of countless thousands, who, torn from their homes and their country, were condemned to drag out the remainder of their miserable life as mere beasts of burden. No existence can be conceived more utterly cheerless or more hopelessly wretched than that of the Moslem captive, whose only prospect of change from daily slavery on the public works was to be chained to the oar of a galley. Sometimes, however, it did happen that the fortune of war favoured these poor victims, and that the enslaved crew of a galley encountering a friendly antagonist were recaptured and liberated from their thraldom. In such a case piquancy was added to their joy by the fact that the haughty masters who had so long made them toil, were, in their turn, condemned to the same retributive misery and an equally hopeless degradation.