History of The Reign of Philip The Second King of Spain History of the Reign of Philip the Second, King of Spain Part 44

The knights, who had received some intimation of the course the affair was taking in Il Borgo, were greatly disconcerted by it. To surrender to others the post committed to their own keeping, would be a dishonor they could not endure. When the letter of the grand-master arrived, their mortification was extreme; and it was not diminished by the cool and cutting contempt but thinly veiled under a show of solicitude for their personal safety. They implored the bailiff of Negropont to write in their name to La Valette, and beseech him not to subject them to such a disgrace. They avowed their penitence for the course they had taken, and only asked that they might now be allowed to give such proofs of devotion to the cause as should atone for their errors.

The letter was despatched by a swimmer across the harbor. But the grand-master coldly answered, that veterans without subordination were in his eyes of less worth than raw recruits who submitted to discipline.

The wretchedness of the knights at this repulse was unspeakable; for in their eyes dishonor was far worse than death. In their extremity they addressed themselves again to La Valette, renewing their protestations of sorrow for the past, and in humble terms requesting his forgiveness.

The chief felt that he had pushed the matter far enough. It was perhaps the point to which he had intended to bring it. It would not be well to drive his followers to despair. He felt now they might be trusted. He accordingly dismissed the levies, retaining only a part of these brave men to reinforce the garrison; and with them he sent supplies of ammunition, and materials for repairing the battered works.[1315]

During this time, the Turkish commander was pressing the siege with vigor. Day and night, the batteries thundered on the ramparts of the devoted fortress. The ditch was strewed with fragments torn from the walls by the iron tempest; and a yawning chasm, which had been gradually opening on the south-western side of the castle, showed that a practicable breach was at length effected. The uncommon vivacity with which the guns played through the whole of the fifteenth of June, and the false alarms with which the garrison was hara.s.sed on the following night, led to the belief that a general a.s.sault was immediately intended. The supposition was correct. On the sixteenth, at dawn, the whole force of the besiegers was under arms. The appointed signal was given by the discharge of a cannon; when a numerous body of janizaries, formed into column, moved swiftly forward to storm the great breach of the castle.

Meanwhile the Ottoman fleet, having left its anchorage on the eastern side of the island, had moved round, and now lay off the mouth of the Great Port, where its heavy guns were soon brought to bear on the seaward side of St. Elmo. The battery on Point Dragut opened on the western flank of the fortress; and four thousand musketeers in the trenches swept the breach with showers of bullets, and picked off those of the garrison who showed their heads above the parapet.

The guns of the besieged, during this time, were not idle. They boldly answered the cannonade of the vessels; and on the land side the play of artillery and musketry was incessant. The besieged now concentrated their aim on the formidable body of janizaries, who, as already noticed, were hurrying forward to the a.s.sault. Their leading files were mowed down, and their flank cruelly torn, by the cannon of St. Angelo, at less than half a mile's distance. But though staggered by this double fire on front and flank, the janizaries were not stayed in their career, nor even thrown into disarray. Heedless of those who fell, the dark column came steadily on, like a thundercloud; while the groans of the dying were drowned in the loud battle-cries with which their comrades rushed to the a.s.sault. The fosse, choked up with the ruins of the ramparts, afforded a bridge to the a.s.sailants, who had no need of the fascines with which their pioneers were prepared to fill up the chasm.

The approach of the breach, however, was somewhat steep; and the breach itself was defended by a body of knights and soldiers, who poured volleys of musketry thick as hail on the a.s.sailants. Still they pushed forward through the storm, and, after a fierce struggle, the front rank found itself at the summit, face to face with its enemies. But the strength of the Turks was nearly exhausted by their efforts. They were hewn down by the Christians, who came fresh into action. Yet others succeeded those who fell; till, thus out-numbered, the knights began to lose ground, and the forces were more equally matched. Then came the struggle of man against man, where each party was spurred on by the fury of religious hate, and Christian and Moslem looked to paradise as the reward of him who fell in battle against the infidel. No mercy was asked; none was shown; and long and hard was the conflict between the flower of the Moslem soldiery and the best knights of Christendom. In the heat of the fight an audacious Turk planted his standard on the rampart. But it was speedily wenched away by the Chevalier de Medran, who cut down the Mussulman, and at the same moment received a mortal wound from an arquebuse.[1316] As the contest lasted far into the day, the heat became intense, and added sorely to the distress of the combatants. Still neither party slackened their efforts. Though several times repulsed, the Turks returned to the a.s.sault with the same spirit as before; and when sabre and scymitar were broken, the combatants closed with their daggers, and rolled down the declivity of the breach, struggling in mortal conflict with each other.

[Sidenote: HEROIC DEFENCE OF ST. ELMO.]

While the work of death was going on in this quarter, a vigorous attempt was made in another to carry the fortress by escalade. A body of Turks, penetrating into the fosse, raised their ladders against the walls, and, pushed forward by their comrades in the rear, endeavored to force an ascent, under a plunging fire of musketry from the garrison. Fragments of rook, logs of wood, ponderous iron shot, were rolled over the parapet, mingled with combustibles and hand-grenades, which, exploding as they descended, shattered the ladders, and hurled the mangled bodies of the a.s.sailants on the rocky bottom of the ditch. In this contest one invention proved of singular use to the besieged. It was furnished them by La Valette, and consisted of an iron hoop, wound round with cloth steeped in nitre and bituminous substances, which, when ignited, burned with inextinguishable fury. These hoops, thrown on the a.s.sailants, inclosed them in their fiery circles. Sometimes two were thus imprisoned in the same hoop; and, as the flowing dress of the Turks favored the conflagration, they were speedily wrapped in a blaze which scorched them severely, if it did not burn them to death.[1317] This invention, so simple,--and rude, as in our day it might be thought,--was so disastrous in its effects, that it was held in more dread by the Turks than any other of the fireworks employed by the besieged.

A similar attempt to scale the walls was made on the other side of the castle, but was defeated by a well-directed fire from the guns of St.

Angelo across the harbor,--which threw their shot with such precision as to destroy most of the storming party, and compel the rest to abandon their design.[1318] Indeed, during the whole of the a.s.sault, the artillery of St. Angelo, St. Michael, and Il Borgo kept up so irritating a fire on the exposed flank and rear of the enemy as greatly embarra.s.sed his movements, and did good service to the besieged.

Thus the battle raged along the water and on the land. The whole circuit of the Great Port was studded with fire. A din of hideous noises rose in the air; the roar of cannon, the rattle of musketry, the hissing of fiery missiles, the crash of falling masonry, the shrieks of the dying, and, high above all, the fierce cries of those who struggled for mastery! To add to the tumult, in the heat of the fight, a spark falling into the magazine of combustibles in the fortress, it blew up with a tremendous explosion, drowning every other noise, and for a moment stilling the combat. A cloud of smoke and vapor, rising into the air, settled heavily, like a dark canopy, above St. Elmo. It seemed as if a volcano had suddenly burst from the peaceful waters of the Mediterranean, belching out volumes of fire and smoke, and shaking the island to its centre!

The fight had lasted for some hours; and still the little band of Christian warriors made good their stand against the overwhelming odds of numbers. The sun had now risen high in the heavens, and as its rays beat fiercely on the heads of the a.s.sailants, their impetuosity began to slacken. At length, faint with heat and excessive toil, and many staggering under wounds, it was with difficulty that the janizaries could be brought back to the attack; and Mustapha saw with chagrin that St. Elmo was not to be won that day. Soon after noon, he gave the signal to retreat; and the Moslem host, drawing off under a galling fire from the garrison, fell back in sullen silence into their trenches, as the tiger, baffled in his expected prey, takes refuge from the spear of the hunter in his jungle.[1319]

As the Turks withdrew, the garrison of St. Elmo raised a shout of victory that reached across the waters, and was cheerily answered from both St. Angelo and the town, whose inhabitants had watched with intense interest the current of the fight, on the result of which their own fate so much depended.

The number of Moslems who perished in the a.s.sault can only be conjectured. But it must have been very large. That of the garrison is stated as high as three hundred men. Of these, seventeen were knights of the order. But the common soldier, it was observed, did his duty as manfully throughout the day as the best knight by whose side he fought.[1320] Few, if any, of the survivors escaped without wounds.

Suck as were badly injured were transferred at once to the town, and an equal number of able-bodied troops sent to replace them, together with supplies of ammunition, and materials for repairing, as far as possible, the damage to the works. Among those who suffered most from their wounds was the bailiff of Negropont. He obstinately refused to be removed to the town; and when urged by La Valette to allow a subst.i.tute to be sent to relieve him, the veteran answered, that he was ready to yield up his command to any one who should be appointed in his place; but he trusted he should be allowed still to remain in St. Elmo, and shed the last drop of his blood in defence of the Faith.[1321]

A similar heroic spirit was shown in the compet.i.tion of the knights, and even of the Maltese soldiers, to take the place of those who had fallen in the fortress. It was now not merely the post of danger, but, as might be truly said, the post of death. Yet these brave men eagerly contended for it, as for the palm of glory; and La Valette was obliged to refuse the application of twelve knights of the _language_ of Italy, on the ground that the complement of the garrison was full.

The only spark of hope now left was that of receiving the succors from Sicily. But the viceroy, far from quickening his movements, seemed willing to play the part of the _matador_ in one of his national bull-fights,--allowing the contending parties in the arena to exhaust themselves in the struggle, and reserving his own appearance till a single thrust from his sword should decide the combat.

Still, some chance of prolonging its existence remained to St. Elmo while the communication could be maintained with St. Angelo and the town, by means of which the sinking strength of the garrison was continually renewed with the fresh life-blood that was poured into its veins. The Turkish commander at length became aware that, if he would end the siege, this communication must be cut off. It would have been well for him had he come to this conclusion sooner.

By the advice of Dragut, the investment of the castle was to be completed by continuing the lines of intrenchment to the Great Port, where a battery mounted with heavy guns would command the point of debarkation. While conducting this work, the Moorish captain was wounded on the head, by the splinter from a rock struck by a cannon-shot, which laid him senseless in the trenches. Mustapha, commanding a cloak to be thrown over the fallen chief, had him removed to his tent. The wound proved mortal; and though Dragut survived to learn the fate of St. Elmo, he seems to have been in no condition to aid the siege by his counsels.

The loss of this able captain was the severest blow that could have been inflicted on the besiegers.

[Sidenote: HEROIC DEFENCE OF ST. ELMO.]

While the intrenchments were in progress, the enemy kept up an unintermitting fire on the tottering ramparts of the fortress. This was accompanied by false alarms, and by night attacks, in which the flaming missiles, as they shot through the air, cast a momentary glare over the waters, that showed the dark outlines of St. Elmo towering in ruined majesty above the scene of desolation. The artillery-men of St. Angelo, in the obscurity of the night, were guided in their aim by the light of the enemy's fireworks.[1322] These attacks were made by the Turks, not so much in the expectation of carrying the fort, though they were often attended with a considerable loss of life, as for the purpose of wearing out the strength of the garrison. And dreary indeed was the condition of the latter: fighting by day, toiling through the livelong night to repair the ravages in the works, they had no power to take either the rest or the nourishment necessary to recruit their exhausted strength.

To all this was now to be added a feeling of deeper despondency, as they saw the iron band closing around them which was to sever them for ever from their friends.

On the eighteenth of the month, the work of investment was completed, and the extremity of the lines was garnished with a redoubt mounting two large guns, which, with the musketry from the trenches, would sweep the landing-place, and effectually cut off any further supplies from the other side of the harbor. Thus left to their own resources, the days of the garrison were numbered.

La Valette, who had anxiously witnessed these operations of the enemy, had done all he could to r.e.t.a.r.d them, by firing incessantly on the laborers in the hope of driving them from the trenches. When the work was completed, his soul was filled with anguish; and his n.o.ble features, which usually wore a tinge of melancholy, were clouded with deeper sadness, as he felt he must now abandon his brave comrades to their fate.

On the twentieth of the month was the festival of Corpus Christi, which, in happier days, had been always celebrated with great pomp by the Hospitallers. They did not fail to observe it, even at this time. A procession was formed, with the grand-master at its head; and the knights walked clad in the dark robes of the order, embroidered with the white cross of Malta. They were accompanied by the whole population of the place, men, women, and children. They made the circuit of the town, taking the direction least exposed to the enemy's fire. On reaching the church, they prostrated themselves on the ground, and, with feelings rendered yet more solemn by their own situation, and above all by that of their brave comrades in St. Elmo, they implored the Lord of Hosts to take pity on their distress, and not to allow his enemies to triumph over the true soldiers of the Cross.[1323]

During the whole of the twenty-first, the fire of the besiegers was kept up with more than usual severity, until in some places the crumbling wall was shot away, down to the bare rock on which it stood.[1324] Their pioneers, who had collected loads of brushwood for the purpose, filled up the ditch with their fascines; which, as they were covered with wet earth, defied the efforts of the garrison to set them on fire.

Throughout the following night a succession of false alarms kept the soldiers constantly under arms. All this prognosticated a general a.s.sault. It came the next day.

With the earliest streak of light, the Turkish troops were in motion.

Soon they came pouring in over the fosse, which, choked up as it was, offered no impediment. Some threw themselves on the breach. The knights and their followers were there to receive them. Others endeavored to scale the ramparts, but were driven back by showers of missiles. The musketry was feeble, for ammunition had begun to fail. But everywhere the a.s.sailants were met with the same unconquerable spirit as before. It seemed as if the defenders of St. Elmo, exhausted as they had been by their extraordinary sufferings, had renewed their strength as by a miracle. Thrice the enemy returned to the a.s.sault; and thrice he was repulsed. The carnage was terrible; Christian and Mussulman grappling fiercely together, until the ruins on which they fought were heaped with the bodies of the slain.

The combat had lasted several hours. Amazed at the resistance which he met with from this handful of warriors, Mustapha felt that, if he would stop the waste of life in his followers, he must defer the possession of the place for one day longer. Stunned as his enemies must be by the blow he had now dealt, it would be beyond the powers of nature for them to stand another a.s.sault. He accordingly again gave the signal for retreat; and the victors again raised the shout--a feeble shout--of triumph; while the banner of the order, floating from the ramparts, proclaimed that St. Elmo was still in the hands of the Christians! It was the last triumph of the garrison.[1325]

They were indeed reduced to extremity; with their ammunition nearly exhausted; their weapons battered and broken; their fortifications yawning with breaches, like some tempest-tossed vessel with its seams opening in every direction, and ready to founder; the few survivors covered with wounds; and many of them so far crippled as to be scarcely able to drag their enfeebled body along the ramparts. One more attack, and the scene would be closed.

In this deplorable state, they determined to make an effort to communicate with their friends on the other side of the harbor, and report to them their condition. The distance was not great; and among the Maltese were many excellent swimmers, who, trained from childhood to the sea, took to it as to their native element. One of these offered to bear a message to the grand-master. Diving and swimming long under water, he was fortunate enough to escape the enemy's bullets, and landed safe on the opposite sh.o.r.e.

La Valette was deeply affected by this story, though not surprised by it. With the rest of the knights he had watched with straining eyes the course of the fight; and though marvelling that, in spite of odds so great, victory should have remained with the Christians, he knew how dearly they must have bought it. Though with little confidence in his success, he resolved to answer their appeal by making one effort to aid them. Five large barges were instantly launched, and furnished with a reinforcement of troops and supplies for the garrison. The knights thronged to the quay, each eagerly contending for the perilous right to embark in them. They thought only of their comrades in St. Elmo.

It turned out as La Valette had foreseen. The landing-place was commanded by a battery of heavy guns, and by hundreds of musketeers, menacing instant death to whoever should approach the sh.o.r.e. But the knights were not allowed to approach it; for the Turkish admiral, lying off the entrance of the Great Port, and aware of the preparations that were making, sent a flotilla of his lighter vessels into the harbor, to intercept the convoy. And so prompt were their movements, that unless the Christians had put back again with all speed, they would have been at once surrounded and captured by the enemy.

The defenders of St. Elmo, who had watched from the ramparts the boats coming to their a.s.sistance, saw the failure of the attempt; and the last ray of hope faded away in their bosoms. Their doom was sealed. Little more was left but calmly to await the stroke of the executioner. Yet they did not abandon themselves to an unmanly despair; but, with heroic constancy, they prepared to die like martyrs for the good cause to which they had consecrated their lives.

[Sidenote: Fall of St. Elmo.]

That night was pa.s.sed, not in vain efforts to repair the defences, with the hope of protracting existence some few hours longer, but in the solemn preparation of men who felt themselves standing on the brink of eternity. They prayed, confessed, received the sacrament, and, exhorting one another to do their duty, again renewed their vows, which bound them to lay down their lives, if necessary, in defence of the Faith. Some, among whom Miranda and the bailiff of Negropont were especially noticed, went about encouraging and consoling their brethren, and, though covered with wounds themselves, administering such comfort as they could to the sick and the dying;--and the dying lay thick around, mingled with the dead, on the ruins which were soon to become their common sepulchre.[1326]

Thus pa.s.sed away the dreary night; when, tenderly embracing one another, like friends who part for ever, each good knight repaired to his post, prepared to sell his life as dearly as he could. Some of the more aged and infirm, and those crippled by their wounds, were borne in the arms of their comrades to the spot, where, seated on the ruins, and wielding their ineffectual swords, they prepared, like true and loyal knights, to die upon the breach.

They did not wait long. The Turks, so often balked of their prey, called loudly to be led to the a.s.sault. Their advance was not checked by the feeble volleys thrown at random against them from the fortress; and they were soon climbing the ascent of the breach, still slippery with the carnage of the preceding day. But with all their numbers, it was long before they could break the little line of Maltese chivalry which was there to receive them. Incredible as it may seem, the struggle lasted for some hours longer, while the fate of St. Elmo hung suspended in the balance. At length, after a short respite, the Turkish host rallied for a last a.s.sault; and the tide of battle, pouring through the ample breach with irresistible fury, bore down cavalier and soldier, leaving no living thing upon the ramparts. A small party of knights, escaping in the tumult, threw themselves into the chapel; but, finding that no quarter was given to those who surrendered, they rushed out, and perished on the swords of the enemy. A body of nine cavaliers, posted near the end of the fosse, not far from the ground occupied by Dragut's men, surrendered themselves as prisoners of war to the corsairs; and the latter, who, in their piratical trade, had learned to regard men as a kind of merchandise, happily refused to deliver up the Christians to the Turks, holding them for ransom. These were the only members of the order who survived the ma.s.sacre.[1327] A few Maltese soldiers, however, experienced swimmers, succeeded, amidst the tumult, in reaching the opposite side of the harbor, where they spread the sad tidings of the loss of St. Elmo. This was speedily confirmed by the volleys of the Turkish ordnance; and the standard of the Crescent, planted on the spot so lately occupied by the banner of St. John, showed too plainly that this strong post, the key of the island, had pa.s.sed from the Christians into the hands of the infidel.[1328]

The Ottoman fleet, soon afterward doubling the point, entered Port Musiette, on the west, with music playing, and gay with pennons and streamers; while the rocks rang with the shouts of the Turkish soldiery, and the batteries on sh.o.r.e replied in thunders to the artillery of the s.h.i.+pping.

The day on which this occurred, the twenty-third of June, was that of the festival of St. John the Baptist, the patron of the order. It had been always celebrated by the knights with greater splendor than any other anniversary. Now, alas! it was to them a day of humiliation and mourning, while they had the additional mortification to see it observed as a day of triumphant jubilee by the enemies of the Faith.[1329]

To add to their distress, Mustapha sullied his victory by some brutal acts, which seem to have been in keeping with his character. The heads of four of the princ.i.p.al knights, among them those of Miranda and the bailiff of Negropont, were set high on poles looking towards the town. A spectacle yet more shocking was presented to the eyes of the besieged.

The Turkish general caused the bodies of several cavaliers--some of them, it is said, while life was yet palpitating within, them--to be scored on the bosoms with gashes in the form of a cross. Thus defaced, they were lashed to planks, and thrown into the water. Several of them drifted to the opposite sh.o.r.e, where they were easily recognized by their brethren; and La Valette, as he gazed on the dishonored remains of his dear companions, was melted to tears. But grief soon yielded to feelings of a sterner nature. He commanded the heads of his Turkish prisoners to be struck off, and shot from the large guns into the enemy's lines,--by way of teaching the Moslems, as the chronicler tells us, a lesson of humanity![1330]

The number of Christians who fell in this siege amounted to about fifteen hundred. Of these one hundred and twenty-three were members of the order, and among them several of its most ill.u.s.trious warriors.[1331] The Turkish loss is estimated at eight thousand, at the head of whom stood Dragut, of more account than a legion of the common file. He was still living, though speechless, when the fort was stormed.

He was roused from his lethargy by the shouts of victory, and when, upon turning with inquiring looks to those around, he was told the cause, he raised his eyes to Heaven, as if in grat.i.tude for the event, and expired.[1332]

The Turkish commander, dismantling St. Elmo,--which, indeed, was little better than a heap of ruins,--sent some thirty cannon that had lined the works, as the trophies of victory, to Constantinople.[1333]

Thus ended the memorable siege of St. Elmo, in which a handful of warriors withstood, for the s.p.a.ce of a month, the whole strength of the Turkish army. Such a result, while it proves the unconquerable valor of the garrison, intimates that the Turks, however efficient they may have been in field operations, had little skill as engineers, and no acquaintance with the true principles of conducting a siege. It must have been obvious, from the first, that, to bring the siege to a speedy issue, it was necessary to destroy the communications of St. Elmo with the town. Yet this was not attempted till the arrival of Dragut, who early recommended the construction of a battery for this purpose on some high land on the opposite side of the Great Port. In this he was overruled by the Turkish commander. It was not till some time later that the line of investment, at the corsair's suggestion, was continued to the water's edge,--and the fate of the fortress was decided.

St. Elmo fell. But precious time had been lost,--an irreparable loss, as it proved, to the besiegers; while the place had maintained so long and gallant a resistance as greatly to encourage the Christians, and in some degree to diminish the confidence of the Moslems. "What will not the parent cost," exclaimed Mustapha,--alluding to St. Angelo,--"when the child has cost us so dear!"[1334]

CHAPTER IV.

SIEGE OF MALTA.

Il Borgo invested.--Storming of St. Michael.--Slaughter of the Turks.--Incessant Cannonade.--General a.s.sault.--The Turks repulsed.--Perilous Condition of Il Borgo.--Constancy of La Valette.