Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/494

460 reinforcement from the Bourg by means of the temporary bridge connecting that point with Senglea, and this succour reached the scene of action at the moment when the Turks were paralysed by the incident they had just witnessed. Their appearance at this critical juncture decided the fortunes of the day. With fierce shouts they dashed at the enemy, and drove them headlong over the breach. Even Candêlissa, whose reputation for courage and daring had till that moment been above suspicion, was seized with panic, and was amongst the earliest to turn his back on the scene of strife. When first landing on the rock lie had directed the boats, as their occupants left them, to draw away from the stockade into deep water, so that his troops might fight the more desperately from feeling that their retreat was cut off. Ho now found this valiant direction highly inconvenient, and as he stood up to his waist in the water beckoning them back again, he presented a spectacle not very edifying to the spectators on the Coradin hill. He hurried ignominiously into the first boat that reached the spot, and was followed by such of his troops as were able once more to scramble through or over the stockade. The remainder fell almost unresisting victims to the fury of the besieged. Their cries for quarter were met with the stern reply, “Such mercy as you showed to our brethren in St. Elmo shall be meted out to you and none other.” From that day similar acts of vengeance became known amongst the knights by the name of St. Elmo’s pay.

Candêlissa and his fugitive comrades having made good their escape, the defenders employed in their work of butchery became exposed to the fire from the enemy’s batteries, which now opened furiously on the point. In this cannonade, the young son of the viceroy of Sicily, Frederic de Toledo, was killed. La Valette had hitherto, out of consideration for his father, studiously kept him from the more exposed and dangerous posts, but the enthusiasm of the young soldier could not tamely brook this state of inglorious security. When, therefore, the reinforcement left the Bourg for Senglea, Toledo contrived to join its ranks unnoticed, and bore himself right gallantly in the short but decisive struggle that ensued. His untimely fate, whilst fighting for a cause in which he had no