creed.  That he had been advanced to a dignity but little less than royal in achieving the Grand Mastership was but as dust in the balance to him compared with the opportunities which it gave him to harry his life-long foes; and he who had known so well how to obey throughout all his youth and manhood was now to prove, in the most emphatic manner, that he had learned how to command.  In all those terrible hundred and thirteen days during which the siege lasted there was none to be compared to him.  As occasion occurred this man’s soul rose higher and ever higher; beseeching, imploring, commanding, by sheer force of example did he point out the way to the weaker spirits by whom he was surrounded.

To speak of weaker spirits in connection with the siege of Malta seems almost an insult; these gallant knights and soldiers were only so in comparison with their leader.  Twice during the siege of St, Elmo did the garrison send to La Valette and represent that the place was no longer tenable; but Garcia de Toledo, Viceroy of Sicily for Philip of Spain, was writing specious letters instead of sending reinforcements, and every moment gained was of importance.  Coldly did La Valette remind the Knights of their vows to the Order, and when renewed assurances came that it was only a matter of a few hours before they should be overwhelmed he replied that others could be found to take their places, that he, as Grand Master, would come in person to show them how to die.  A passion of remorse overcame these noble gentlemen, who, thus nerved by the indomitable spirit of their chief, died to the last man in the tumbled ruins of that charnel-house which had once been a fortress.

La Valette was ready to die; there was no man in all that garrison so ready.  With pike and sword this veteran of seventy-one years of age was ever at the post of the greatest danger, repelling the assaults of Janissaries and corsairs, fighting with the spirit of the youngest among the Knights in the breaches rent in the walls of Il Borgo.  In vain did his comrades try to prevent him from this perpetual exposure; in vain did they point out that the value of his life outnumbered that of an army.  He was very gentle with these remonstrances, but quite firm.  There were plenty as good as he to take his place should he fall, he insisted; till that time came it was his duty to inspire all by his example, to show to the simplest soldier that he was cared for by his Grand Master.

As things went from bad to worse, when Il Borgo became in little better case than had St. Elmo before it, La Valette never hesitated, never looked back, never ceased to hope that the sluggard Garcia de Toledo might send relief; and, if he did not, then would they all perish with arms in their hands, as had their brethren across that narrow strip of water who had held St. Elmo to the last man.  What man or woman can read without something of a lump coming in their throat of those noble words of the Grand Master in the last few days of the siege when all had utterly abandoned hope?