called in those days.  Sinan, in his royal galley, led the way in, contemptuously assured of an easy victory over so insignificant a place of arms.  He had his first rude awakening before he had traversed some quarter of a mile of the placid waters of the Great Port.  The harbour, as is well known, though long, is very narrow, and, on the starboard hand of the Turkish galleys as they entered, the Commandeur de Guimeran, a Spanish Knight, had ambushed three hundred arquebusiers.  As the galley of Sinan came abreast of the ambush, the Commandeur gave the order to fire.  The volley at so close a range had a terrible effect, especially among the “chiourme,” or the slaves who rowed the galley, some hundred of whom were placed hors de combat.  Sinan, in a furious rage, ordered an immediate disembarkment; but when his men landed and scaled the heights of Mount Sceberras (the elevated land on which the city of Valetta now stands) there was no one to be found, the Commandeur and the men who had formed the ambush having disappeared.  Gazing from the heights at Il Borgo, the fortress on the opposite side of the harbour where the Knights then dwelt, Sinan demanded of Dragut, “If that,” pointing to the fortress, “was the place which he had told the Sultan could easily be taken?”

Dragut, whom no peril ever daunted, coolly replied: 

“Certainly, no eagle ever built his nest on a rock more easy of access.”

A corsair, who had been slave to the Knights, now approached Sinan, and told him that he had assisted at the building of the fortress; which, he averred, was so strong that if the admiral delayed until he had taken it that the winter would be upon them, although it was then only the month of July.  Sinan, as we have said, was a hesitating commander.  He had the ever-present fear of the Grand Turk before his eyes, and was not inclined for so difficult and dangerous an enterprise as this was represented to be.  Leaving the fortress in his rear, he marched off to the high land in the centre of the island, on which was situated the Citta Notabile, the capital of Malta, some seven miles distant from the sea.  On their march through the island the Turks committed their usual atrocities, murdering the wretched inhabitants, firing their dwellings, destroying their crops, and carrying off their women.  Had the siege of Notabile been pressed, the city must have fallen; but Sinan declared to Dragut that the principal object of the expedition was the reduction of Tripoli, and, in consequence, he had not the time to devote to its reduction.  Dragut, furious at this temporising policy, urged an immediate assault, and, while the contention was waxing sharp between the two leaders, a letter was brought to Sinan which had been captured in a Sicilian galley.  It was from the “Receiver” of the Order, who dwelt at Messina, to the Grand Master, informing him that he had expressly sent this ship to inform him that Andrea Doria had just returned from