All things being thus in train he assembled his brethren and addressed them in the following terms: 

“A formidable army, composed of audacious barbarians, is descending on this island; these persons, my brothers, are the enemies of Jesus Christ.  To-day it is a question of the defence of our faith as to whether the book of the Evangelist is to be superseded by that of the Koran?  God on this occasion demands of us our lives, already vowed to His service.  Happy will those be who first consummate this sacrifice.  But that we may indeed be worthy to render it come, my dear brothers, to the foot of the altar, where we may renew our vows.  Let each one rely on the blood of the Saviour of men and in the faithful practice of the sacraments; in them we shall find so generous a contempt for death that we shall indeed be rendered invincible.”

The Knights then, headed by the Grand Master, took themselves in procession to the church.  Here they confessed and received the sacrament.  “They went out from thence as men who had received a new birth.”  The Knights, we are then told, tenderly embraced one another in all solemnity; vowing to shed the last drop of their blood in defence of their religion and its holy altars.  It was in this lofty frame of mind that the Knights of Malta awaited the coming of their hereditary foe.  Into the hearts and minds of these gallant gentlemen of the best blood in the world the Grand Master had instilled some leaven of the greatness by which he himself was inspired.  When belief is so wholehearted as it was in the case of La Valette; when it is allied to a genius for war, and a supreme gift for the inspiration of others, then that man and the force which he commands are as near to invincibility as it is permitted to fallible human beings to attain.  There were two things in which the Knights were supremely fortunate on this occasion:  the first was that they had La Valette as Grand Master, the second that Dragut was not in supreme command of the Turks, and that the siege had opened before he arrived upon the scene.  In this expedition, as in previous ones, the Turkish commanders had orders to attempt nothing really important without the advice of Dragut.  They found themselves without him when they arrived and made an initial mistake.  With La Valette in command there was no room for blundering; the ultimate result of their blunder was the defeat which they sustained.

Grand Master, Knight, and noble, soldier, peasant, and mariner, strove valiantly with the task of putting the island into a state of defence, and when at last the long-expected armada of their foes rose above that distant blue horizon in the north all had been done that skill and experience could dictate.