Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/391

Rh forced to relinquish the strife, and to retire in despair to the shelter of their trenches.

It would be a tedious task to describe the constant succession of assaults by which Solyman endeavoured to regain the advantage which had been lost on the first attempt. In each case, the means employed, both in the attack and defence, were always the same. The sudden alarm caused either by the explosion of a mine or the rush of a storming column, the hasty call to arms, the ringing of the bells, whereby the impending danger was notified to the garrison generally, the onset of the Moslem, the firm stand of the knights, the fiercely-shouted war-cry ringing out on either side, the roar of artillery, the incessant rattle of small arms, the flashing of Greek fire, and the fatal hissing of the seething pitch poured on the foe as they clambered over the breach; such were always the leading features of the picture; what need therefore to repeat the tale? The results are the only real points of importance, and these were invariably the same. Though the assaulting columns numbered thousands and tens of thousands selected from the flower of the Ottoman. army, whilst the defenders consisted of but a handful of Christians, harassed, exhausted, and weakened by their previous efforts, still upon each occasion the swarms of the infidel were forced to recoil from the impassable barrier.

It is thus that Ahmed Hafiz describes some of these assaults: “The Mussulmans descended into the ditch, carrying their fascines with them, whilst the best marksmen fired on all who dared to show their heads above the crest of the parapet. Clinging to the walls like polypi, the assailants mounted steadily under the storm of fire and steel, which rained on them from the ramparts; the noise of musketry, the discharge of cannon, the cries of the combatants filled the air with a confused tumult. Not content with receiving the victorious with fire and steel, the besieged also poured on them caldrons of boiling pitch and tar. The brave soldiers of Islam fell by hundreds, and the angels opened the gates of Paradise to their souls, for from the summit of the fortress were hurled masses of rock and of metal upon the ladders crowded with men. By