Arrival of the Turkish fleet—The landing, and attack on
St. Elmo—Storming of the ravelin; Christian bearing of the
Knights—Message to the borgo, and reply of La Valette—First
assault-general—The Turks are repulsed, and the garrison
reinforced—Second and third assaults—Preparation of the Knights
for death—Capture of St. Elmo, and barbarities of the Turkish
general.
It was the 18th of May 1565, a little before sunrise when the guns
of St. Angelo gave the signal of the enemy’s approach. As the sun
rose over the western ocean it displayed the magnificent spectacle of
the whole Turkish fleet, consisting of 181 vessels, besides a number
of transports, bearing on towards the coast. They had 30,000 men on
board, the flower of the Ottoman army; 4500 being Janizaries, under
the command of Mustapha Pasha and the celebrated corsair[42] Admiral
Piali:[43] Dragut and Ouloudjali were to follow speedily with the
forces of Tripoli and Alexandria. Solyman is said to have spent five
years in the equipment of this force; far less numerous than that
formerly despatched against Rhodes, but furnished with such vast and
formidable resources of all kinds, in stores, artillery, and machines
of war, that it was thought its equal had never before been brought
together.
The defenders of Malta had ample time to survey the force prepared
for their attack; for, as though to display their strength, the
Turkish vessels made the entire circuit of the island several
times, being watched by the gallant Copier, marshal of the order,
who, at the head of a small body of horse and about 600 foot, was
charged with the duty of reconnoitring the enemy’s movements, and
harassing them during their disembarkation. Late in the day the
vessels dropped anchor opposite Citta Vecchia, the intention being to
deceive the marshal, for in reality there was no thought of landing
in that direction; and finally the whole army disembarked at Marsa
Sirocco, a bay in the vicinity of the borgo, and proceeded to fortify
their position so as to secure themselves from the sorties of the
Christians.
The first few days were spent in spirited engagements between the
skirmishing-parties on both sides, which La Valette allowed in order
that his men might get accustomed to the appearance and method of
fighting of the Turks; but the impetuosity of the knights was so
great, that it required all the authority of the grand master to
get the city-gates closed; and he saw the necessity of keeping his
men within their enclosure if he did not wish to bring on a general
engagement, which, with such unequal forces, would, he well knew,
be madness. The 20th of May fell on a Sunday; many Masses had been
said, and a solemn procession made in all the churches; the evening
of the same day the Turkish artillery opened on the town, being
principally directed against Fort St. Elmo, which was indeed the key
of the Christian position. La Valette, regardless of the entreaties
of his attendants not to expose his person, ascended the bastion of
Provence, from whence he could command a view of the whole scene.
It was indeed a splendid spectacle. Thirty thousand men drawn up in
the form of a vast crescent, and seeming to cover the whole face of
the country: the bright burning sun lit up their gilded armour and
gay attire, their standards and many-coloured tents and flags, of
which there was an infinite number of every hue; so that, to use
the expression of an historian, “they looked like a multitude of
flowers on a luxuriant meadow,” while from their ranks arose a soft
and exquisite music from all kinds of martial instruments. Sometimes
you might see a cloud of skirmishers separate from the dark mass of
troops; for the marshal and Deguarras hovered on their flanks, and
kept up a continual and harassing attack. Nevertheless both parties
felt that this kind of desultory conflict was but waste of time, and
La Valette knew as well as did the Turkish chiefs themselves that
the attack would soon commence in real earnest on St. Elmo. Nor was
he deceived; on the 24th the cannonade against that fort commenced
both from sea and land; and once more those marble balls, which had
done such terrible execution on the walls of Rhodes, were heard
thundering against the bastions with terrible effect. La Valette well
knew the importance of the post and its danger, and did what he could
to relieve it by daily reinforcements sent in boats by night, which
returned with the wounded. One day, as he stood watching the fire of
the Turks from his usual post on the Provence bastion, La Cerda, a
Spanish knight, appeared before him with a message from the garrison.
“So please you,” exclaimed the envoy, “the bailiff of Negropont bids
me say, that if the fort be not speedily succoured, it must fall; it
cannot hold out another week under the fire of the eighty-pounders.”
La Valette looked at him surprised. “What great loss has befallen
you, sir,” he said, “that makes you cry thus for help?” “My lord,”
replied La Cerda, “it is no time for delay: the castle is like a
sick man, whose strength is exhausted, and can only be kept up by
constant nourishment and care.” “I will be its physician,” said the
grand master haughtily; “I will bring with me those who, if they
cannot cure _you_ of your fears may at least save _the fortress_ by
their valour.” And, in fact, he would have himself accompanied the
reinforcements he despatched but for the interference of his council;
for, as he was wont to say, he dreaded but one thing, and that was
the possibility of a feeble defence. At length he consented that
fifty of the order, with two companies of soldiers, should return
with La Cerda to the post of danger. This reinforcement was placed
under the command of the bold Medrano, and ere it departed to the
fort was further increased by several knights from Sicily, who
volunteered to share the fortunes of their brethren.
The great battery of the Turks, finished on the last day of May,
was a curious structure; built at Constantinople in separate pieces
of timber, so as to be put together on the spot, and now erected
before the devoted fortress, whose garrison consisted of no more
than 400 men. It was of enormous size, and decorated with fourteen
standards of different colours: removed at first only 180 yards
from the castle-walls; afterwards another battery was added, which
discharged thirty heavy pieces of artillery at the distance of but
thirty yards. It was a very tempest of fire; and that the walls
could stand at all under such an assault is matter of surprise.
The outer ravelin was stormed on St. Elmo’s day, the 3d of June;
and the scene was anxiously watched from the borgo. From the other
quarters of the town every incident of the fight could be distinctly
discerned; and the Christians were compelled to be spectators of
their comrades’ danger, while they were powerless to succour them;
for St. Elmo was surrounded on all sides by its besiegers, and its
communication with the old city entirely cut off. Is all lost, then?
The parapets are crowded with turbaned heads; the ravelin is not only
in the possession of the infidels, but is levelled to the ground; its
defenders retreat to the main body of the fortress. But the Turks
press hard upon their ranks; and as both parties, mingling together
in a hand to hand fight, enter the court between the outworks and the
citadel, the confused sound of yells and cries of every description
announces to the excited beholders that a combat of no ordinary kind
is raging in that narrow space. What can it mean? Will they storm the
citadel itself before the batteries have formed a breach? There it is
again; you may almost catch the taunting words of the combatants, as
they confront each other face to face. But the Turks have surely got
the worst; for there, in that pent-up court, there comes down upon
them from the ramparts overhead such a storm of stones and wildfire
and boiling oil, such volleys of musketry and the annihilating fire
of cannon, which at that short range play on their thick masses with
horrible effect, that they are forced to fall back on the ravelin.
It was but to prepare, however, for a fresh attack; for, mad as the
design may seem, the Turks had resolved on storming St. Elmo that
very day, without waiting for the aid of breach or mine. The cry of
“Scaling-ladders for the walls!” may now be heard; and scarcely are
they brought but you may see the wild tumultuous rush with which they
throw themselves on the ramparts, only to be hurled headlong on the
rocks below. But the madness of savages has seized their ranks; they
care nothing for the risk of death,—nothing for the crushing stones
and torrents of burning pitch poured upon their defenceless heads;
they scream curses and blasphemies at their adversaries, and you may
catch their cries of rage and defeated malice, while there rises from
that narrow neck of land a thick offensive smoke, through which glare
lurid flames as in the crater of a volcano; and the dense cloud hangs
over the water, gradually concealing every thing from view, so that
at length you can but guess what kind of work is going on at that
beleaguered fortress by the sounds that issue from the spot.
What meanwhile has been the situation of the garrison? Almost a
desperate one: and yet they are the victors of the day. A hundred
men, and twenty knights besides, have fallen in their ranks: but the
bodies of three thousand of their enemies are lying on the rocks
beneath; and, spite of all their frantic efforts, they have been
compelled to retire defeated from the walls. And how have those
hundred and twenty died? Do we find in their defence the same savage
brute ferocity as was exhibited in the onslaught of their assailants?
Surely, if so, such butchery were scarcely worthy of a record from
a Christian pen. But it was not so; they combated to death, yet
died as became the champions of the cross they wore. “Save yourself,
comrade,” cried the French knight Bridier de la Gordamp; “and count
me as a dead man, for the ball is very near my heart.” “By the fair
fame of Auvergne, I will not leave you till I bear you to a place of
safety,” said his companion; and, lifting him in his arms, he carried
him through the fire to a sheltered nook. “Now go, dear brother,”
said the wounded knight, “I can but die; and down there yonder they
are fighting for the faith.” The other left him, as he desired; but
when the fight was over, he searched in vain for his comrade, alive
or dead. “Where is Bridier?” he said to the knights around him, “he
had not strength to make his way within; I surely thought he had
spoken his last word by our side.” At length a track of blood upon
the step that led to the chapel within the fortress attracted their
attention; they entered and approached the altar, and found the dead
man, with his hands clasped as if in prayer, lying at its foot; he
had felt the hand of death, and, summoning all his strength, had
crawled away to die in quiet, and in the presence of his Lord. “He
had ever led,” says Goussancourt, “a most religious life.” Much of
the same spirit is shown in other anecdotes, and a certain sweet and
noble chivalry breathes through the conduct of the knights, which
singularly contrasts with the mad barbarism of their assailants: it
is as though, through the bursts of a wild and terrible hurricane, we
caught the rich tones of some lofty martial strain.
The attack lasted from daybreak till noon; and at nightfall La
Valette succeeded in bringing off the wounded, and throwing a small
reinforcement into the place, in spite of the fire of the janizary
musketry. The bailiff and the commander Broglio, both badly wounded,
would not accept the permission granted them to retire, but, together
with many others of the garrison, preferred to remain and die at
their posts. They might be seen, regardless of their sufferings, in
the thickest of the fire, carrying earth to strengthen the ramparts,
or administering help to the wounded; and, when unable to render
more active service, you might see them drag themselves beside the
artillerymen, and help them in the working of the guns.
Meanwhile La Valette had made frequent representations to the viceroy
Toledo that his promised succours were badly needed; but they
still delayed: only a small galley arrived from Sicily, bringing
the gallant knight Miranda, who instantly volunteered to join the
garrison at St. Elmo. His presence in the fortress had an astonishing
effect,—for he was a man equally renowned for piety, courage, and
military skill,—and his presence gave new life to the defence.
Nevertheless it became every day more desperate: the ramparts were
in ruins, the garrison worn out with constant fatigue; for, after
days spent in conflict, their nights were employed in burying their
dead and the torn and mangled limbs of those dismembered by the
cannonade. Scarcely could you tell them to be men, so disfigured were
they by the smoke and the wildfire that blazed around them; their
faces bruised and burnt, and not one unwounded man among them. It was
now the 6th of June; and while the guns of those terrible batteries
still stormed against the ruins of St. Elmo, the Turks, after many
fruitless efforts, succeeded at length in almost cutting off all
communication between the fortress and the town. A wall was erected
on the ravelin, which seemed to enclose the castle and entirely to
shut it in from the mainland; and in this extremity it was determined
to despatch a messenger to La Valette to inform him that St. Elmo was
no longer tenable. Medrano, who was charged with the delivery of the
intelligence, succeeded in making his way to the borgo. A majority of
the council were for abandoning a position which it was impossible to
hold; but La Valette, although he felt bitterly the hard necessity of
refusing to recall the devoted troops, maintained that every day St.
Elmo held out was worth a week to the safety oi the island, for the
borgo could not be attacked till the castle fell; and the council
came round to his opinion. “It is a sacrifice,” wrote the grand
master; “but to such sacrifice of our life for Christendom our vows
and profession bind us. The succour from Sicily is daily expected;
and till it come, the decision of the council is, that St. Elmo must
not be abandoned, but that its defenders must abide in it until
death.”
It was a hard sentence; for the castle was rocking to its
foundations, and the noise of the miners underneath could be
distinctly heard; nevertheless Miranda and the elder knights, with
the heroic old bailiff, received it with a shout of enthusiasm.
But the younger brethren, to the number of fifty, protested that,
rather than wait tamely to be butchered like sheep in a pen, they
would sally out upon the foe, and perish to a man in one desperate
encounter. This resolution they signified in a letter to the grand
master. His reply was stern and peremptory. He bade them remember
they were bound by their vows to fight and die, not in such manner
as they willed, but as he their commander directed. That he might
not appear, however, to slight their protestation, he sent three
commissioners to report on the state of the defences. Two out of the
number sided with the remonstrants; the third, an Italian knight
named Castriot, not only declared the place still tenable, but boldly
offered himself to undertake its defence; and this he repeated to
the grand master on his return. Volunteers presented themselves on
all sides, and in such crowds that La Valette’s only embarrassment
was what selection to make. The complainants were told that their
prayer was granted; they should be relieved that very evening, and
within the walls of their convent might feel themselves, at least for
the present, in safety. Stung to the quick by this sarcastic reply,
the young knights humbly sued for forgiveness and for permission
still to die at their posts. La Valette was at first inflexible, but
yielded at length to the entreaties of the penitent brethren, and
the new levies were dismissed. The hired troops also had betrayed
their discontent. However, they too were at length shamed into
resolution; for when they found that their departure was not opposed,
and that hundreds in the ranks of their comrades on shore were eager
to take their places, they declared that they would not be the
first to retire, but would stay and die with their commanders. With
extreme difficulty a fresh reinforcement of fifteen knights was now
thrown into the fortress, who were received with such cheers and
demonstrations of rejoicing, that the Turks, led to believe some
powerful succour had arrived, were only driven to renew their fire
more heavily than before. Dragut had arrived (June 2d) with thirteen
galleys, containing each 100 men, and ten galliots, having on board
810 soldiers. With the guns of his ships he constructed a battery on
the point of land which still hears his name, and firing across Port
Musiette, swept the western flank of St. Elmo with terrible effect;
and then from land and sea, both day and night, the enemy’s artillery
continued to bombard the defences of the fort, as well as of the
castle of St. Angelo. At length a yawning chasm in the walls showed
that a practicable breach was effected; and Dragut fixed the 16th of
June for the assault-general on St. Elmo.
Let our readers, therefore, transport themselves to the heights
above the city, and watch the scene beneath. The whole Moslem fleet
gathered like a forest round the mouth of the harbour,—for the attack
is to be by sea as well as by land; the trenches filled with Turkish
troops,—all, however, preserving a profound and singular silence; and
8000 horsemen before the bridge which faces the great front of the
castle, where Mustapha Pasha commands in person, his presence being
indicated by the great standard given into his hands before leaving
Constantinople by the sultan himself. As to the garrison, they are
well prepared for the attack; and, thanks to La Valette’s constant
succours, their numbers are again complete; yet they are but 400 men.
A knight stands to every three soldiers around the walls; heaps of
stones are arranged at regular distances, with instruments of war
not known in our day, and of the most terrible description; large
hoops, which, dipped in certain combustible preparations and set on
fire, are cast among the masses of the enemy, and surround some two
or three with a circle of certain death; pots of wildfire, which
break when hurled on the heads of the storming party, and scatter
their burning contents far and wide; and other inventions of a
similar kind, then in common use, which gave a peculiar horror to the
sieges of the time. The wounded have their duties assigned to them,
namely, to bring food and wine to those on the walls, and to drag
away the dead or dying from beneath the feet of their comrades. In
short, Christians and Moslems are ready and impatient, and only wait
the signal of attack.
It was given by the planting of the sultan’s standard on the bridge;
and the yell that burst from the Turkish line warned the garrison
that their assailants were at hand. Thirty of their chosen men,
bound by fearful oaths to enter the fortress together or die in the
attempt, stormed the weakest bulwark, and would have infallibly
succeeded but for the quick eye of La Valette, who watched all
from the castle of St. Angelo, and directed two guns to bear upon
the spot, which swept twenty of them away, and the remainder were
compelled to retire. Still the attack on the other quarters was
unabated in its fury. Mad with drink and with a wild religious
fanaticism, the half-savage bodies of the Moslem troops threw
themselves on the ladders, but never reached the top. Down came the
fiery hoops and the stones and hissing wildfire, and swept them away
by twenties at a time. All up and down the walls there seemed to
flare and blaze those streams of liquid fire; and in the dense ranks
of the assailants, those on whom it fell were unable to escape. Even
when fresh stormers struggled to the parapets they met a wall of
pikes they could not pierce; hand to hand the foemen grappled amid
the showers of arrows and volleys of musketry that poured in from the
trenches: but the strong arms of the Christian knights thrust off
their enemies, and again the ladders were emptied and the walls left
free. Then Dragut and Mustapha advanced, and choosing two of the most
ferocious of their men, committed to each a splendid standard, and
bade them plant them on the walls. In a moment the gilded banners are
glittering on the ramparts; but in another they are torn away, and
their bearers are hurled lifeless into the ditch. After a terrific
conflict of six hours the infidels abandoned the attempt, leaving
more than 2000 of their companions dead under the walls. It was now
that Dragut met his doom. As he stood outside the trenches, making
dispositions with Mustapha for screening off the fire of St. Angelo,
a ball from that fort splintered a rock close beside him, and a
fragment of the stone struck him on the head. He fell on the instant
speechless and bathed in his own blood; and the pasha, to hide the
catastrophe from the soldiers, threw his cloak over him, and had him
carried to his tent, where he lived only long enough to learn the
ultimate fate of St. Elmo.
Again, then, the victory is with the Christians; there is a service
of thanksgiving in the great church of St. John’s, and a call for
fresh volunteers; for out of the four hundred who held St. Elmo that
morning not a hundred are left alive. Seventeen of the knights had
fallen, and among them the brave Medrano, who, in the act of tearing
a Turkish standard from the rampart, was himself struck down by a
bullet from an arquebuse. Before nightfall, the reinforcement, led
by thirty knights, is safe within the walls, ready, when the morning
comes, to renew the combat with undiminished valour. It is said that
La Valette himself marvelled at the ardour of his brethren: they
contended for the glorious post of sacrifice as though for martyrdom;
and such perhaps it was,—for their death was not for conquest or
ambition, but for the safety of the Christian world.
The Turks now resolved to cut off all communication between the
fortress, and St. Angelo and the town, by continuing the line of
intrenchments to the Great Harbour, where a battery of heavy guns
could command the landing-place. While the works were in progress
the garrison were kept in a state of perpetual alarm: all through
the day an incessant fire was directed against the already ruined
ramparts, and at night continual attacks, real or feigned, allowed
the exhausted defenders no interval of repose. On the 18th of the
month the investment was complete, and the little garrison knew
that their hour was come. It was with unspeakable anguish that La
Valette had watched that impassable barrier closing each day around
the devoted band, unable to offer any succour to his brethren, or
even to embarrass or retard the enemy’s work. The 20th was the
Feast of Corpus Christi, and never perhaps was it celebrated under
circumstances of greater solemnity, or such as were more calculated
to inspire devotion. The Blessed Sacrament was borne in procession
the whole circuit of the town, care only being taken to avoid such
points as were most exposed to the enemy’s artillery. At its head
walked the grand master, and after him came the Knights, clad in
their dark robes with the white cross upon their breasts. The entire
population accompanied them to the great church, where, prostrate on
the pavement, they adored the Most Holy enthroned above the altar,
and besought Him to have pity on them in their extremity, to grant
to their brethren at St. Elmo the aid which no human power could
give, and not to allow His worshippers to fall into the hands of the
enemies of the faith.
All through the 21st the cannonading continued with increased
severity, until the tottering walls of the castle were in many
places levelled to the surface of the rock on which they stood; and
on the next day the second assault was made: the whole army of the
infidels against four hundred men. Thrice the enemy renewed that
terrible charge, and thrice they were withstood. The defenders seemed
to be possessed of a supernatural strength and a presence that
was ubiquitous; and once again the shout—a feeble shout indeed—of
“Victory! victory!” which reached the borgo, told the Christians that
their comrades had gained the day. But a messenger from the fort,
diving under water, and with wonderful dexterity escaping through the
Turkish boats, brought a letter which told La Valette that two-thirds
of their numbers were fallen, and the rest, wounded and exhausted,
could scarcely lift their swords. Fresh succours were instantly
despatched, but for the first time found it impossible to approach;
for eighty of the Turkish galleys lying off the harbour darted
forward to intercept them on their way, and so rapid were their
movements, that, seeing they would infallibly be surrounded if they
attempted to force a passage, the volunteers were forced reluctantly
to retire. The garrison had watched them from the wall, and now
learnt too surely that there was nothing more to hope. Daybreak would
bring the last assault, and they could but die; but how should the
night be passed? Surely as became the Hospitallers of the Cross. They
dressed each other’s wounds, and each man comforted his fellow with
noble and religious words; Miranda and the bailiff devoted themselves
to the soldiers; and all confessed and communicated; then, embracing
one another like brethren in Christ, they went to the walls, and
those who could not stand were carried thither in a chair, and sat at
the breach grasping their swords in both hands, and waiting for the
enemy.
The morning broke at last; it was the vigil of St. John. The Turks
came on with shouts of certain victory, which were proudly answered
by the cheers of the garrison. For four long hours they withstood
charge after charge from their assailants with heroic firmness; those
who could not rise on their feet still kept up a fire of musketry,
until their ammunition was so exhausted that they were forced to
collect the grains of powder out of the pockets of their fallen
brethren. At the end of that time only sixty men were left alive; but
these maintained the defence with such undaunted courage, that at
eleven o’clock the infidels discontinued the assault, and gave them a
brief respite while they prepared to renew the combat with redoubled
fury.
As the besieged were enjoying the short breathing-space the signal
was heard for the re-commencement of the attack; the Turks poured in
on every side, and in fact there was nothing to keep them out,—the
walls were gone, and the guns silent now for want of powder,—only
a few brave men, too weak to stand, with broken limbs and ghastly
bleeding wounds; yet with their last breath, wielding their pikes and
two-handed swords, they confronted the invaders, and seemed to defy
them to do their worst. “In, followers of Islam!” shouted the pasha;
“the dogs can do you no harm!” and with yells of fiendish malice the
wild troops of the Spahis and Dahis burst into the fortress. The
gallant old bailiff D’Egueras was the first to meet them lance in
hand, and the first to fall from a blow that severed his head from
his body, and laid his white hairs on the bloody ground. Francis
Lanfreducci, before he died, struggled to the spot where a beacon
was prepared to give notice to the borgo that all hope was gone; he
fired it, and at the same moment expired from his wounds. The fight
was soon over for want of combatants, yet one was left alive—Paul of
Novara, who, summoning his last energies, charged boldly at the whole
front of his enemies and drove them bodily from the breach; then,
overpowered by numbers, he fell with his face to the foe, and the
bloody scene was over. Five Maltese soldiers alone escaped by casting
themselves into the water and swimming to the shore. Nine knights
also, it is said, who were posted near the end of the fosse, were
taken prisoners by the corsairs. These were the sole survivors of the
massacre; for the Turks gave no quarter, Mustapha having offered a
prize for every Christian head, and this in pursuance, as is said,
of orders from the sultan. Twelve others at the point of death were
found, like Bridier de Gordamp, lying before the chapel-altar, and
being seized, were hung up by the feet, and then crucified.
The pasha himself now entered the fort, and struck by the
insignificance of the place, rightly judged that the conquest of
the borgo would be no easy task. “What,” he exclaimed, “will be the
resistance of the parent when the child has cost us eight thousand
of our bravest men?” To intimidate the knights, therefore, he had
recourse to horrible barbarities. The heads of four of the principal
brethren, among them those of Miranda and the brave old bailiff, he
caused to be fixed aloft upon a pole with their faces towards the
town; then ordering search to be made among the heaps of dead that
covered the ramparts, he selected the bodies of the knights, some
of whom still breathed, and first gashing their breasts crosswise
and tearing out their hearts, he cut off their heads and feet, and
nailed their mangled trunks upon wooden crosses;[44] then, throwing
over each their scarlet surcoats, he cast them into the sea, trusting
that the waves would bear them to the foot of the castle of St.
Angelo, where they might meet the eyes of the grand master and his
knights. The evening tide brought them to the shore; the sight drew
tears from the eyes of La Valette, and those torn and mangled bodies,
being lifted reverently and tenderly, were kissed and honoured as the
relics of glorious martyrs. Happy were they in their comrades’ eyes,
thus bearing the cross, and bound to it to the last. “Grieve not for
the fall of St. Elmo,” said La Valette to his council, “but rather
give God thanks that the noble few who held it could keep their post
so long. If now they have been forced to yield, yet has their death
been glorious, and their end, which the infidels deemed disgrace, fit
funeral for Hospitallers of the Cross.”
Yet, spite of his words, the anguish of the grand master was not to
be concealed; and he changed his residence, so as no longer to see
from the windows of his palace the fort which recalled the slaughter
of his comrades; and his countenance, though it lost nothing of its
lofty serenity, was lined and worn by suffering strongly mastered and
suppressed.
From this time La Valette gave no quarter, as, notwithstanding the
contrary inhuman practice of the Turks, he had hitherto done. So far,
at least, he was justified by the laws of war; but not satisfied with
this, he was carried on to the committal of an act which,—whatever
might be the usage of those days, and whatever excuse may be framed
for it from the consideration of the ferocious barbarity of the
adversary he had to deal with, and the maddening horror inspired by
the sight of the mangled remains of his brethren, bearing on them the
marks of the torments they had undergone,—cannot but be regarded as
a stain on the pure glory of this Christian knight. He gave instant
orders for the execution of the prisoners; and that the brutal foe
might learn the sudden vengeance which their cold-blooded cruelty
had brought down upon their comrades, he caused their gory heads to
be fired into the Turkish camp. Doubtless he hoped to strike terror
into the infidels, and to teach them the danger to themselves of
converting warfare into butchery. But such fierce reprisals seldom
produce any salutary effect, while the recital gives a painful jar to
the feelings with which we love to regard these heroic champions of
the Cross.
The loss of the Christians in the defence of St. Elmo is differently
estimated; but the common account puts it at 1300 men, of whom
130 were knights.[45] When we reflect that a handful of warriors
withstood for the space of a month the whole strength of the Ottoman
army, and consider the deliberate nature of their sacrifice in an
enterprise where victory was never once contemplated, but in which
they sought only to secure the safety of the island by a prolonged
resistance, we shall not hesitate to place their devotion at least
on a level with that of the three hundred heroes of Thermopylæ,—far
above it, if we remember that in their case patriotic ardour was
rendered holy by religious zeal: “The profession of our oath,” said
the grand master in his letter, “is to sacrifice our lives for
Christendom.”