“Cy Gist le Vainqueur du Dragon.”

In the years 1480 and 1485 under the Grand Master Pierre D’Aubusson, Rhodes withstood two great sieges from the Turks.  The first of these is described at length by the knight Merri Dupuis “temoin oculaire” who sets down:  “Je, Mary Dupuis gros et rude de sens et de entendement je veuille parler et desscrire au plus bref que je pourray et au plus pres de la verite selon que je pen voir a lueil.”  The description of that of 1485 is written by another eye-witness, the Commandeur de Bourbon, to whom “ma semble bon et condecent a raison declairer premierement les causes qui out incite mon poure et petit entendement a faire cest petit oeuvre.”

But we have no space to follow these gallant Knights, and it must suffice to say that on both occasions, after incredible exertions and terrible slaughter on both sides, the attacks of the Turks were eventually repulsed.

It was reserved for Soliman the Magnificent to finally vanquish the Knights and to expel them from Rhodes; from July 1522 until January 1523 the Knights under the heroic Villiers de L’Isle Adam maintained an all unequal struggle against the vast hosts of the Crescent, which were perpetually reinforced.  At last, on January 1st, 1523, the Knights, by virtue of a treaty with Soliman, which was honourably observed on both sides, evacuated the island in which they had been established for nearly two hundred and twenty years.

By favour of Charles V. the Knights on October 26th, 1530, took charge of the islands of Malta and Gozo, and established themselves therein; still under the Grand Mastership of L’Isle Adam, whose sword and helmet are still religiously kept in a small church in Vittoriosa, just at the back of the Admiral Superintendent’s house in the present dockyard.

The knights fortified the islands and there abode, until in 1565 the Ottoman returned once more to the attack.

It may be said that heroism is a relative term, that it has many uses and applications all equally truthful.  On the side of mere physical courage almost every man who took part in that memorable siege of Malta in the year 1565 may have been said to have earned the title of hero.  No man’s foot went back; no man’s courage quailed; no man’s face blanched when called upon to face perils so appalling that they meant an almost inevitable and speedy death; this was true or Christian and Moslem alike.  The death-roll on either side was so tremendous as to prove this contention up to the hilt.  From May 18th to September 8th, 1565—­that is to say, in one hundred and thirteen days—­thirty thousand Moslems and eight thousand Christians perished—­an average of some three hundred and thirty-six persons per day.  In that blazing torrid heat the sufferings of those who survived from day to day must have been accentuated beyond bearing by the myriads of unburied corpses by which they lived surrounded; and that the contending forces were not swept away by pestilence is an extraordinary marvel.