The Story of the Barbary Corsairs Part 6

(_From a MS._)]

This was the city which Dragut took without a blow in the spring of 1550. Mahdiya was then in an anarchic state, ruled by a council of chiefs, each ready to betray the other, and none owing the smallest allegiance to any king, least of all the despised king of Tunis, Hamid, who had deposed and blinded his father Hasan, Charles V.'s _protege_. One of these chiefs let Dragut and his merry men into the city by night, and the inhabitants woke up to find "Africa" in the possession of the bold Corsair whose red and white ensign, displaying a blue crescent, floated from the battlements.

So easy a triumph roused the emulation of Christendom. Where the Duke of Bourbon had failed, Dragut had conspicuously succeeded. Don Garcia de Toledo dreamed of outshining the Corsair's glory. His father, the Viceroy of Naples, the Pope, and others, promised their aid, and old Andrea Doria took the command. After much delay and consultation a large body of troops was conveyed to Mahdiya, and disembarked on June 28, 1550. Dragut, though aware of the project, was at sea, devastating the Gulf of Genoa, and paying himself in advance for any loss the Christians might inflict in Africa: his nephew, Hisar Res commanded in the city. When Dragut returned, the siege had gone on for a month, without result; a tremendous a.s.sault had been repulsed with heavy loss to the besiegers, who were growing disheartened. The Corsair a.s.sembled a body of Moors and Turks and attempted to relieve the fortress; but his ambuscade failed, Hisar's simultaneous sally was driven back, and Dragut, seeing that he could do nothing, fled to Jerba. His retreat gave fresh energy to the siege, and a change of attack discovered the weak places of the defence. A vigorous a.s.sault on the 8th of September carried the walls, a brisk street fight ensued, and the strong city of "Africa" was in the hands of the Christians.

The Sultan, Suleyman the Great, was little pleased to see a Moslem fortress summarily stormed by the troops of his ally, the Emperor.

Charles replied that he had fought against pirates, not against the Sultan's va.s.sals; but Suleyman could not perceive the distinction, and emphasized his disapproval by giving Dragut twenty galleys, which soon found their way to Christian sh.o.r.es. The lamentations of his victims roused Doria, who had the good fortune to surprise the Corsair as he was greasing his keels in the strait behind Jerba. This strait was virtually a _cul-de-sac_. Between the island and the great lake that lay behind it, the sea had worn a narrow channel on the northern side, through which light vessels could pa.s.s, with care; but to go out of the lake by the southern side involved a voyage over what was little better than a bog, and no one ever thought of the attempt.

Doria saw he had his enemy in a trap, and was in no hurry to venture in among the shoals and narrows of the strait. He sent joyous messages to Europe, announcing his triumph, and cautiously, as was his habit, awaited events.

Dragut, for his part, dared not push out against a vastly superior force; his only chance was a ruse. Accordingly, putting a bold face on the matter, he manned a small earthwork with cannon, and played upon the enemy, with little or no actual injury, beyond the all-important effect of making Doria hesitate still more. Meanwhile, in the night, while his little battery is perplexing the foe, all is prepared at the southern extremity of the strait. Summoning a couple of thousand field labourers, he sets them to work; here a small ca.n.a.l is dug--there rollers come into play; and in a few hours his small fleet is safely transported to the open water on the south side of the island. Calling off his men from the illusive battery, the Corsair is off for the Archipelago: by good luck he picks up a fine galley on the way, which was conveying news of the reinforcements coming to Doria. The old Genoese admiral never gets the message: he is rubbing his eyes in sore amazement, wondering what had happened to the imprisoned fleet. Never was admiral more cruelly cheated: never did Doria curse the nimble Corsair with greater vehemence or better cause.

Next year, 1551, Dragut's place was with the Ottoman navy, then commanded by Sinan Pasha. He had had enough of solitary roving, and found it almost too exciting: he now preferred to hunt in couples.

With nearly a hundred and fifty galleys or galleots, ten thousand soldiers, and numerous siege guns, Sinan and Dragut sailed out of the Dardanelles--whither bound no Christian could tell. They ravaged, as usual, the Straits of Messina, and then revealed the point of attack by making direct for Malta. The Knights of St. John were a perpetual thorn in the side of the Turks, and even more vexatious to the Corsairs, whose vessels they, and they alone, dared to tackle single-handed, and too often with success. Sultan and Corsair were alike eager to dislodge the Knights from the rock which they had been fortifying for twenty years, just as Suleyman had dislodged them from Rhodes, which they had been fortifying for two hundred. In July the Turkish fleet appeared before the Marsa, wholly unexpected by the Knights. The Turks landed on the tongue of promontory which separates the two great harbours, and where there was as yet no Fort St. Elmo to molest them. Sinan was taken aback by the strong aspect of the fortress of St. Angelo on the further side of the harbour, and almost repented of his venture. To complete his dejection, he seems to have courted failure. Instead of boldly throwing his whole force upon the small garrison and overwhelming them by sheer weight, he tried a reconnaissance, and fell into an ambuscade; upon which he incontinently abandoned all thought of a siege, and contented himself with laying waste the interior of Malta, and taking the adjacent island of Goza.

The quant.i.ty of booty he would bring back to Constantinople might perhaps avail, he thought, to keep his head on his shoulders, after so conspicuous a failure; but Sinan preferred not to trust to the chance. To wipe out his defeat, he sailed straight for Tripoli, some sixty-four leagues away. Tripoli was the natural antidote to Malta: for Tripoli, too, belonged to the Knights of St. John--much against their will--inasmuch as the Emperor had made their defence of this easternmost Barbary state a condition of their tenure of Malta. So far they had been unable to put it into a proper state of defence, and with crumbling battlements and a weak garrison, they had yearly expected invasion. The hour had now come. Summoned to surrender, the Commandant, Gaspard de Villiers, of the Auvergne Tongue, replied that the city had been entrusted to his charge, and he would defend it to the death. He had but four hundred men to hold the fort withal.

Six thousand Turks disembarked, forty cannons were landed, Sinan himself directed every movement, and arranged his batteries and earthworks. A heavy cannonade produced no effect on the walls, and the Turkish admiral thought of the recent repulse at Malta, and of the stern face of his master; and his head sat uneasily upon his neck. The siege appeared to make no progress. Perhaps this venture, too, would have failed, but for the treachery of a French renegade, who escaped into the trenches and pointed out the weak places in the walls. His counsel was taken; the walls fell down; the garrison, in weariness and despair, had lain down to sleep off their troubles, and no reproaches and blows could rouse them. On August 15th Gaspard de Villiers was forced to surrender, on terms, as he believed, identical with those which Suleyman granted to the Knights of Rhodes.[41] But Sinan was no Suleyman; moreover, he was in a furious rage with the whole Order. He put the garrison--all save a few--in chains, and carried them off to grace his triumph at Stambol.

Thus did Tripoli fall once more into the hands of the Moslems, forty-one years after its conquest by the Count Don Pedro Navarro.[42]

The misfortunes of the Christians did not end here. Year after year the Ottoman fleet appeared in Italian waters, marshalled now by Sinan, and when he died by Piali Pasha the Croat, but always with Dragut in the van; year by year the coasts of Apulia and Calabria yielded up more and more of their treasure, their youth, and their beauty, to the Moslem ravishers; yet worse was in store. Unable as they felt themselves to cope with the Turks at sea, the Powers of Southern Europe resolved to strike one more blow on land, and recover Tripoli. A fleet of nearly a hundred galleys and ships, gathered from Spain, Genoa, "the Religion," the Pope, from all quarters, with the Duke de Medina-Celi at the head, a.s.sembled at Messina. Doria was too old to command, but his kinsman, Giovanni Andrea, son of his loved and lost Giannettino, led the Genoese galleys. The Fates seemed adverse from the outset. Five times the expedition put to sea; five times was it driven back by contrary winds.[43] At last, on February 10, 1560, it was fairly away for the African coast. Here fresh troubles awaited it. Long delays in crowded vessels had produced their disastrous effects: fevers and scurvy and dysentery were working their terrible ravages among the crews, and two thousand corpses were flung into the sea. It was impossible to lay siege to Tripoli with a diseased army, and when actually in sight of their object the admirals gave orders to return to Jerba.

A sudden descent quickly gave them the command of the beautiful island. The Arab sheykh whose people cultivated it was as ready to pay tribute to the Spaniard as to the Corsair. Medina-Celi and his troops accordingly set to work undisturbed at the erection of a fortress strong enough to baffle the besieging genius even of the Turks. In two months a strong castle was built, with all scientific earthworks, and the admiral prepared to carry home such troops as were not needed for its defence.

Unhappily for him, he had lingered too long. He had wished to see the defences complete, and had trusted to the usual practice of the Turks, not to put to sea before May was advanced. He was about to prepare for departure when news came that the Turkish fleet had been seen at Goza.

Instantly all was panic. Valiant gentlemen forgot their valour, forgot their coolness, forgot how strong a force by sea or land they mustered: one thought alone was uppermost--the Turks were upon them!

Giovanni Doria hurried on board and embarked his Genoese; Medina-Celi more methodically and with something like _sang froid_ personally supervised the embarcation of his men; but before they could make out of the strait, where Dragut had so narrowly escaped capture, the dread Corsair himself, and Ochiali, and Piali Pasha were upon them. Then ensued a scene of confusion that baffles description. Despairing of weathering the north side of Jerba the panic-stricken Christians ran their ships ash.o.r.e, and deserted them, never stopping even to set them on fire. The deep-draught galleons stuck fast in the shallow water. On rowed the Turks; galleys and galleons to the number of fifty-six fell into their hands; eighteen thousand Christians bowed down before their scimitars; the beach, on that memorable 11th of May, 1560, was a confused medley of stranded ships, helpless prisoners, Turks busy in looting men and galleys--and a hideous heap of mangled bodies. The fleet and the army which had sailed from Messina but three months ago in such gallant array were absolutely lost. It was a _dies nefas_ for Christendom.

Medina-Celi and young Doria made good their escape by night. But when the old Genoese admiral learnt the terrible news, the loss of the fleet he loved, the defeat of the nephew he loved yet more, his dim eyes were wet. "Take me to the church," he said; and he soon received the last consolations of religion. Long as he had lived, and many as had been the vicissitudes of his great career, he had willingly been spared this last most miserable experience. On November 25, 1560, he gave up the ghost: he was a great seaman, but still more a pa.s.sionate lover of his country;--despotic in his love, but not the less a n.o.ble Genoese patriot.

FOOTNOTES:

[38] Morgan, _Hist. of Algiers_, 439.

[39] Brantome, _Hommes ill.u.s.tres etrangers_. uvres, i. 279.

[40] Froissart's _Chron._, transl. T. Johnes (1844) ii. 446, 465, ff.

[41] See the _Story of Turkey_, 170.

[42] See Jurien de la Graviere, _Les Corsaires Barbaresques_, 193-215.

[43] _Les Corsaires Barbaresques_, 266.

XIII.

THE KNIGHTS OF MALTA.

1565.

When Sultan Suleyman reflected on the magnanimity which he had displayed towards the Knights of Rhodes in allowing them to depart in peace in 1522, his feelings must have resembled those of Doria when he thought of that inconsiderate release of Dragut in 1543. a.s.suredly the royal clemency had been ill-rewarded; the Knights had displayed a singular form of grat.i.tude to the sparer of their lives; they had devoted themselves to him, indeed, but devoted themselves to his destruction. The cavaliers whom Charles V. suffered to perch on the glaring white rock of Malta, in 1530, proved in no long time to be a pest as virulent and all-pervading as even Rhodes had harboured. Seven galleys they owned, and never more, but the seven were royal vessels, splendidly armed and equipped, and each a match for two or three Turkish ships.[44] Every year they cruised from Sicily to the Levant, and many a prize laden with precious store they carried off to Malta.

The commerce of Egypt and Syria was in danger of annihilation; the Barbary Corsairs, even Dragut himself, shunned a meeting with the red galleys of "the Religion," or their black _capitana_; and the Turkish fleet, while holding undisputed sway over the Mediterranean, was not nimble enough to surprise the Maltese squadron in its rapid and incalculable expeditions. Jean de la Valette Parisot, General of the Galleys and afterwards Grand Master, Francis of Lorraine, Grand Prior of France, Romegas, prince of knights-errant, scoured the seas in search of prey:--they were as true pirates as ever weathered the "white squall." The Knights lived by plunder as much as any Corsair; but they tempered their freebooting with chivalry and devotions; they were the protectors of the helpless and afflicted, and they preyed chiefly upon the enemies of the Faith.

Meanwhile they built and built; Fort St. Elmo rose on the central promontory, Forts St. Michael and St. Angelo were strengthened; bastions were skilfully planned, flanking angles devised, ravelins and cavaliers erected, ditches deepened, parapets raised, embrasures opened, and every device of sixteenth-century fortification as practised by Master Evangelista, chief engineer of the Order, was brought into use. For the Knights knew that Suleyman lived and was mightier than ever. Their cruisers had wrought sad havoc among his subjects, and the Sultan would not long suffer the hornets of Rhodes to swarm at Malta. They lived in constant expectation of attack, and they spent all their strength and all their money in preparing for the day of the Sultan's revenge. At last the time came: Suleyman swore in his wrath that the miscreants should no longer defy him; he had suffered them to leave Rhodes as gentlemen of honour--he would consume them in Malta as one burns a nest of wasps.

At the time of the siege of 1565 the city or fortress of Malta was situated, not as Valetta now stands on the west, but on the east side of the Marsa or great harbour. To understand even the briefest narrative of one of the most heroic deeds of war that the world has seen, the position of the forts must be understood. (See the Plan.) On the northern coast of the rocky island a bold promontory or rugged tongue of land, Mount Sceberras, separates two deep bights or inlets.

The eastern of these was called Marsa Muset, or "Middle Port," but was unoccupied and without defences at the time of the siege, except that the guns of St. Elmo, the fortress at the point of the Sceberras promontory, commanded its mouth. The Marsa Kebir, or simply La Marsa, the "Great Port," was the chief stronghold of the Knights. Here four projecting spits of rock formed smaller harbours on the western side.

The outermost promontory, the Pointe des Fourches, separated the Port de la Renelle or La Arenela, from the open sea; Cape Salvador divided the Arenela from the English Harbour; the Burg, the main fortress and capital of the place, with Fort St. Angelo at its point, shot out between the English Harbour and the Harbour of the Galleys; and the Isle of La Sangle, joined by a sandy isthmus to the mainland, and crowned by Fort St. Michael, severed the Galley Harbour from that of La Sangle. All round these inlets high hills dominated the ports.

Behind Fort St. Elmo, the Sceberras climbed steeply to a considerable height. Behind the Arenela and English Harbour rose Mount Salvador, Calcara, and further back the Heights of St. Catherine. The Burg and Fort St. Michael were overtopped by the Heights of St. Margaret, whilst the Conradin plateau looked down upon the head of the Marsa and the Harbour of La Sangle. To modern artillery and engineering the siege would have been easy, despite the rocky hardness of the ground, since the Knights had not had time to construct those field-works upon the surrounding heights which were essential to the safety of the forts. Even to the skilled but undeveloped artillery of the Turks, the destruction of Malta ought not to have been either a difficult or lengthy operation, had they begun at the right place.

To those who were acquainted with the ground, who had heard of the siege of Rhodes, and knew that the Turks were not less but more formidable in 1565 than in 1522, the issue of the struggle must have appeared inevitable, when the huge Ottoman fleet hove in view on the 18th of May, 1565. One hundred and eighty vessels, of which two-thirds were galleys-royal, carried more than thirty thousand fighting men--the pick of the Ottoman army, tried Janissaries and Sipahis, hors.e.m.e.n from Thrace, rough warriors from the mountains of Anatolia, eager volunteers from all parts of the Sultan's dominions. Mustafa Pasha who had grown old in the wars of his master, commanded on land, and Piali was admiral of the fleet. Dragut was to join them immediately, and the Sultan's order was that nothing should be done till he arrived.

The Knights had not remained ignorant of the preparations that were making against them. They sent to all Europe for help, and the Pope gave money, and Spain promises: the Viceroy of Sicily would send Spanish reinforcements by the 15th of June. They worked unceasingly at their defences and did all that men could do to meet the advancing storm. All told, they mustered but seven hundred Knights, and between eight and nine thousand mercenaries of various nations, but chiefly Maltese, who could only be trusted behind walls.

The Order was fortunate in its Grand Master. Jean de la Valette, born in 1494, a Knight of St. John before he was of age, and a defender of Rhodes forty-three years ago, though now an old man retained to the full the courage and generalship which had made his career as commander of the galleys memorable in the annals of Mediterranean wars. He had been a captive among the Turks, and knew their languages and their modes of warfare; and his sufferings had increased his hatred of the Infidel. A tall, handsome man, with an air of calm resolution, he communicated his iron nerve to all his followers. Cold and even cruel in his severity, he was yet devoutly religious, and pa.s.sionately devoted to his Order and his Faith. A true hero, but of the reasoning, merciless, bigoted sort: not the generous, reckless enthusiast who inspires by sympathy and glowing example.

When he knew that the day of trial was at hand, Jean de la Valette a.s.sembled the Order together, and bade them first be reconciled with G.o.d and one another, and then prepare to lay down their lives for the Faith they had sworn to defend. Before the altar each Knight foreswore all enmities, renounced all pleasures, buried all ambitions; and joining together in the sacred fellowship of the Supper of the Lord, once more dedicated their blood to the service of the Cross.

At the very outset a grave mischance befell the Turks; Dragut was a fortnight late at the rendezvous. His voice would have enforced Piali's advice, to land the entire force and attack the Burg and St. Michael from the heights behind. Mustafa, the Seraskier, was determined to reduce the outlying Fort of St. Elmo on the promontory of Sceberras before attacking the main position, and accordingly landed his men at his convenience from the Marsa Muset, and laid out his earthworks on the land side of St. Elmo. He had not long begun when Ochiali arrived with six galleys from Alexandria, and on June 2nd came Dragut himself with a score or more galleys of Tripoli and Bona.

Dragut saw at once the mistake that had been made, but saw also that to abandon the siege of St. Elmo would too greatly elate the Knights: the work must go on; and on it went with unexampled zeal.

The little fort could hold but a small garrison, but the force was a _corps d'elite_: De Broglio of Piedmont commanded it with sixty soldiers, and was supported by Juan de Guaras, bailiff of the Negropont, a splendid old Knight, followed by sixty more of the Order, and some Spaniards under Juan de la Cerda:--a few hundred of men to meet thirty thousand Turks, but men of no common mettle. They had not long to wait. The fire opened from twenty-one guns on the last day of May and continued with little intermission till June 23rd. The besiegers were confident of battering down the little fort in a week at most, but they did not know their foes. As soon as one wall crumbled before the cannonade, a new work appeared behind it. The first a.s.sault lasted three hours, and the Turks gained possession of the ravelin in front of the gate; so furious was the onset that the defenders sent to the Grand Master to tell him the position was untenable; they could not stand a second storming party. La Valette replied that, if so, he would come and withstand it himself: St. Elmo must be held to keep the Turks back till reinforcements arrived. So of course they went on. Dragut brought up some of his largest yards and laid them like a bridge across the fosse, and a tremendous struggle raged for five terrible hours on Dragut's bridge. Again and again Mustafa marshalled his Janissaries for the attack, and every time they were hurled back with deadly slaughter. As many as four thousand Turks fell in a single a.s.sault. St. Elmo was little more than a heap of ruins, but the garrison still stood undaunted among the heaps of stones, each man ready to sell his life dearly for the honour of Our Lady and St. John.

The Turks at last remedied the mistake they had made at the beginning.

They had left the communication between St. Elmo and the harbour unimpeded, and reinforcements had frequently been introduced into the besieged fortress from the Burg. On June 17th the line of circ.u.mvallation was pushed to the harbour's edge, and St. Elmo was completely isolated. Yet this prudent precaution was more than outweighed by the heavy loss that accompanied its execution: for Dragut was struck down while directing the engineers, and the surgeons p.r.o.nounced the wound mortal. With the cool courage of his nation, Mustafa cast a cloak over the prostrate form, and stood in Dragut's place.

Five days later came the final a.s.sault. On the eve of June 23rd, after the cannonade had raged all the forenoon, and a hand-to-hand fight had lasted till the evening, when two thousand of the enemy and five hundred of the scanty garrison had fallen, the Knights and their soldiers prepared for the end. They knew the Grand Master could not save them, that nothing could avert the inevitable dawn. They took the Sacrament from each other's hands, and "committing their souls to G.o.d made ready to devote their bodies in the cause of His Blessed Son." It was a forlorn and sickly remnant of the proudest chivalry the world has ever known, that met the conquering Turks that June morning: worn and haggard faces, pale with long vigils and open wounds; tottering frames that scarce could stand; some even for very weakness seated in chairs, with drawn swords, within the breach. But weary and sick, upright or seated, all bore themselves with unflinching courage; in every set face was read the resolve to die hard.

The ghastly struggle was soon over: the weight of the Turkish column bore down everything in its furious rush. Knights and soldiers alike rolled upon the ground, every inch of which they had disputed to the last drop of their blood. Not a man escaped.

Dragut heard of the fall of St. Elmo as he lay in his tent dying, and said his Moslem _Nunc Dimittis_ with a thankful heart. He had been struck at the soldier's post of duty; he died with the shout of victory ringing in his ears, as every general would wish to die. His figure stands apart from all the men of his age:--an admiral, the equal of Barbarossa, the superior of Doria; a general fit to marshal troops against any of the great leaders of the armies of Charles V.; he was content with the eager rush of his life, and asked not for sovereignty or honours. Humane to his prisoners, a gay comrade, an inspiriting commander, a seaman every inch, Dragut is the most vivid and original personage among the Corsairs.

St. Elmo had fallen: but St. Angelo and St. Michael stood untouched.

Three hundred Knights of St. John and thirteen hundred soldiers had indeed fallen in the first, but its capture had closed the lives of eight thousand Turks. "If the child has cost us so dear," said Mustafa, "what will the parent cost?" The Turkish general sent a flag of truce to La Valette, to propose terms of capitulation, but in vain.

Mutual animosity had been worked to a height of indignant pa.s.sion by a barbarous ma.s.sacre of prisoners on both sides, each in view of the other. The Grand Master's first impulse was to hang the messenger of such foes: he thought better of it, and showed him the depth of the ditch that encircled the twin forts: "Let your Janissaries come and take that," he said, and contemptuously dismissed him.

A new siege now began. The forts on the east of La Marsa had been sorely drained to fill up the gaps in the garrison at St. Elmo, and it was fortunate that Don Juan de Cardona had been able to send a reinforcement, though only of six hundred men, under Melchior de Robles, to the Old Town, whence they contrived to reach Fort St.

Michael in safety.[45] Even six hundred men added materially to the difficulties of the siege: for, be it remembered, six hundred men behind skilfully constructed fortifications may be worth six thousand in the open. It was very hard for the besiegers to find cover. The ground was hard rock, and cutting trenches was extremely arduous work, and the noise of the picks directed the fire of the forts by night upon the sappers. Nevertheless by July 5th four batteries were playing upon St. Michael from the heights of St. Margaret and Conradin, while the guns of Fort St. Elmo opened from the other side; and soon a line of cannon on Mount Salvador dominated the English Port. An attempt to bring a flotilla of gun-boats into the Harbour of the Galleys failed, after a vigorous conflict between a party of Turkish swimmers, who strove with axes to cut the chain that barred the port, and some Maltese who swam to oppose them, sword in teeth. The battle in the water ended in the flight of the Turks.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SKETCH OF THE PORT OF MALTA IN 1565.]

Ten distinct general a.s.saults were delivered with all the fury of Janissaries against the stronghold. First, a grand a.s.sault by sea was ordered on July 15th. Three columns simultaneously advanced by night on Fort St. Michael: one landed in the Arenela and marched to attack the eastern suburb La Bormula; the second came down from the heights of St. Margaret and made straight for the bastion defended by De Robles; the third advanced from Conradin on the south-west, and a.s.saulted the salient angle at the extreme point of the spit of land on which the fort was built. In vain the Turks swarmed up the scaling-ladders; company after company was hurled down, a huddled ma.s.s of mangled flesh, and the ladders were cast off. Again the escalade began:--the Knights rolled huge blocks of masonry on the crowded throng below; when they got within arms' reach the scimitar was no match for the long two-handed swords of the Christians. At all three points after a splendid attack, which called forth all the finest qualities of the magnificent soldiery of Suleyman the Great, the Turks were repulsed with terrible loss. The Knights lost some of their bravest swords, and each one of them fought like a lion: but their dead were few compared with the unfortunate troops of Barbary, who had cut off their retreat by dismissing their ships, and were slaughtered or drowned in the harbour by hundreds. The water was red with their blood, and mottled with standards and drums and floating robes. Of prisoners, the Christians spared but two, and these they delivered over to the mob to be torn in pieces.

After the a.s.sault by water came the attack by mines; but the result was no better, for the Knights were no novices in the art of countermining, and the attempt to push on after the explosion ended in rushing into a trap. Mustafa, however, continued to work underground and ply his heavy artillery, with hardly a pause, upon the two extremities of the line of landward defences--the Bastion of De Robles, and the Bastion of Castile: both were in ruins by the 27th of July, as Salih Res, son of Barbarossa's old comrade, satisfied himself by a reconnaissance pushed into the very breach. An a.s.sault was ordered for midday of August 2nd, when the Christians were resting after the toils of the sultry morning. Six thousand Turks advanced in absolute silence to Melchior de Robles' bastion; they had almost reached their goal when the shout of the sentry brought that gallant Knight, readily awakened, to the breach, followed by Munatones and three Spanish arquebusiers. These five warriors held twenty-six Janissaries and Sipahis in check till reinforcements came; and they killed fifteen of them. Their valour saved the fort. Four hours longer the struggle lasted, till neither party could deal another blow in the raging August sun; and the Turks at last retired with a loss of six hundred dead.