Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/394

364 expenditure of ammunition, and the efforts of the garrison were much impeded by this vital want. Curiously enough, we learn from Ahmed Hafiz that a similar difficulty arose in the besiegers’ camp, and that their operations were for some time suspended whilst a portion of the fleet was engaged in fetching further supplies.

Treason also shortly began to display itself. The incident of the female slave already recorded had created a dread of some similar attempt on the part of her fellow-slaves. Every one was on the alert, and whispers of treachery passed from ear to ear. At length the Jewish doctor, who had been placed in Rhodes as a spy by the sultan Selim, and who had contrived to maintain a correspondence with the Turkish leaders during the siege, was detected in the act of discharging a treasonable communication into the enemy’s camp attached to an arrow. The evidence against him was positive and conclusive; he was, nevertheless, subjected to torture. Under its influence he confessed to having informed the enemy of the scarcity of ammunition, together with many other details tending to induce them to continue the siege. His fate was such as he richly deserved, but the mischief he had caused did not end with him. But for the information he had imparted, in all human probability Rhodes would not have fallen.

As it was, the constant ill success which attended his efforts, and the fearful carnage which had decimated his troops, caused Solyman to pause and ponder well the advisability of abandoning the enterprise. At that moment the fate of the town hung suspended in the balance, and a mere trifle would have inclined it either way. It was, indeed, a glorious sight to see an army which, on the most moderate computation, must have exceeded 100,000 in number, thus baffled and held at bay by a force reduced through its many casualties to little more than 3,000 fighting men. Those fortifications with which they had at such cost surrounded their city were now crumbling beneath the artillery and the mines of the enemy. Gaping breaches laid it open in every direction, and yet, destitute as they had become of even the ordinary necessaries of life, short of powder, food, and wine, they still protracted the defence with undiminished obstinacy, determined to maintain