Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/529

Rh captured, he ran aground the one on board which he himself was, and having reached the shore fled ignominiously. In this unfortunate engagement no less than sixty-two knights perished. St. Clement, as soon as he reached Malta, was brought before the council to answer for his conduct during the fight. The evidence adduced proved his cowardice too clearly, and the public indignation ran so high that he was stripped of his habit and then handed over to the secular power for further punishment. By its decree he was strangled in prison, and his body, enclosed in a sack, thrown into the sea.

The year 1571 was marked by the glorious victory which the combined Christian fleet gained over the Turks at the battle of Lepanto. In this action only three Maltese galleys were present, under Pietro Giustiniani, the whole expedition being under the command of Don John of Austria. The action was fought on the 7th of October, and after a desperate struggle, ended in the complete rout of the Ottoman fleet. The three Maltese galleys were on the extreme right of the centre division of Don John’s line-of-battle. Aluch All, the viceroy of Algiers, who had been manœuvring against the right wing, had succeeded in penetrating between it and the centre, and had thus gained the rear of the Christian line at a point in the immediate vicinity of Giustiniani’s galleys. Perceiving that they flew the White Cross banner, he at once dashed at them. The undying hatred to the Order common to the corsairs of Algiers was burning fiercely in his bosom, and he thought that he now saw his enemies delivered into his hands. The three Maltese vessels were no match for the division he was leading, and for the moment they were cut off from support. The struggle was fierce, for the knights fought with their usual impetuosity. Maxwell, in his life of Don John, gives a most graphic account of this incident. He says:—“The knights and their men defended themselves with a valour worthy of their heroic Order. A youth named Bernadino de Heredia, son of the Count of Fuentes, signally distinguished himself, and a Zaragozan knight, Geronimo Rainirez, although riddled with arrows like another St Sebastian, fought with such desperation that none of the Algerine boarders cared to approach him until they saw that he was dead. A knight of Burgundy leaped alone into