Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/407

Rh The sultan made a second entry on the 29th December, which Rafts thus describes:—“On the 29th December, the sultan, on horseback, entered the town by the gate of Kyzil Capou (the St. John or Cosquino gate), with the same pomp as on the first occasion; he visited the harbour, and admired the massive chain which closed it, and the engines of war which the infidels had made use of during the siege.”

After this visit to the town, L’Isle Adam received a notification through Achmet pasha that he was expected to pay his respects to the sultan in person. Unwilling as he was to submit to what he considered an act of degradation, the Grand-Master felt that at such a critical moment it would be most unwise to create any irritation in the mind of Solyman. He therefore, on the last day of the year, presented himself in the Ottoman camp, and demanded a farewell audience of his conqueror. Turkish pride kept the poor old man waiting at the entrance of the sultan’s pavilion through many weary hours during that winter day, and it required all the fortitude of L’Isle Adam’s character to bear with composure the slight thus cast on him. At length, the vanity of Solyman having been sufficiently gratified, the Grand-Master was admitted, when the courtesy of his reception in some measure atoned for the previous slight. An eye-witness of the interview states that, on their first meeting, each gazed in silence on the other. The sultan was the first to speak. After some words of condolence and praise for his gallant and protracted defence, Solyman proceeded to make the most brilliant offers to L’Isle Adam, urging him to abandon his religion and to take service under himself. Against such offers the mind of the Grand-Master revolted with horror. “After,” replied he, “a life spent not ingloriously in combating for my religion and maintaining its cause, I could not cast so foul a slur upon my later days as to abandon that religion for any worldly prospects whatever. Even the sultan himself must feel that I should be no longer worthy of that esteem which he has been pleased so graciously to express towards me. I only crave of his magnanimity that the terms of the capitulation may be maintained inviolate, and that I and my followers may be freely permitted to seek our fortunes in a new home.” On this head Solyman assured him that he need have no uneasiness, and the Grand-Master left the