Siege of Malta by Sydney Fowler Wright

How to book mark this e-book

The innovation in this e-book is that each paragraph is book marked using this icon, so you can come back and start reading from where you left.

To book mark a paragraph in this e-book click on the Book Mark icon
This will automatically update the e-book URL (The Internet Address of this e-book) with the paragraph reference.
(For Firefox browser) To save this URL with the paragraph reference click on the Bookmarks menu option and then click Bookmark This Page menu option.
(For Microsoft IE browser) To save this URL with the paragraph reference click on the Favourites menu option and then click Add To Favourites menu option.
After you save the book mark you can go back to the same position in the ebook by clicking on the saved book mark.

The Siege Of Malta

By Sydney Fowler Wright Based on an unfinished romance by Sir Walter Scott.

THE SIEGE OF MALTA - ST. ELMO

Many times in her long history Malta has held a key position in the struggle to control the Mediterranean. Her strategic importance has been much discussed again lately. During World War II she withstood the fury of the Nazis. But, four hundred years earlier, she sustained an even more famous and dramatic siege.

For five long months in 1561 a huge Mohammedan force attacked Malta - and was defied, in a great epic of endurance, by the Knights of St. John.

The story of this siege fascinated Sir Walter Scott, who visited the island, gathered material and began writing a novel about it. Scott died before the work reached anything like a finished form. More than a century later, S. Fowler Wright traced Scott's manuscript and notes to New York, and from them wrote this splendid romance, The Siege of Malta, now published for the first time in a single volume.

It is a story of high courage and deep faith. At its centre stands the old Grand Master of the Order, La Vallette (after whom Valetta was named), grim and unshakeable as though he had been carved from the very Rock of St. Peter. But it is also a story of love undaunted amid fearful perils; of a girl who, rather than be separated from the man she loves, learns to wield a sword, and, escaping by a hairs-breadth from the clutches of the infidel, finally wins even the Grand Master's grudging admiration.

Fowler Wright - or perhaps one should say Fowler Wright and Walter Scott - paint with rich colours on a huge and teeming canvass. Here is a historical novel to stir the blood and stimulate the imagination. And its theme has become strangely relevant again today.

FOREWORD

IT was in the last year of his life, and in broken health, that Sir Walter Scott visited Malta, with the double purpose of avoiding the rigour of the northern winter and collecting material for a contemplated romance on the siege of Malta. During that time he was without the clerical assistance to which he had become accustomed, and both his Journal and the MS. of this projected book were written with a hand over which he had lost full control.

Lockhart, into whose possession the MS. came at his death, condemned it lightly as illegible nonsense, and that verdict naturally prevailed so long as its author's reputation for judgement and veracity remained unshaken.

But the fact that the entries in the Journal, made during the same period, have been deciphered, created a presumption that the MS. of the Siege of Malta ( In his journal, Scott uses the titles 'Siege of Malta' or 'Knights of Malta', indifferently, and I have followed this precedent.) would be equally legible; and the further fact that those entries are very far from nonsense and show Scott's intellect to have had, at the least, intermittent vigour (they include saner and more accurate estimates of his business position and prospects that his son-in-law was afterwards to present) suggested the possibility that it might not be wasted labour to discover what the Siege of Malta really was.

In the pursuit of this object, I traced the ownership of the MS. and its copyright to Mr. Gabriel Wells, who gave me an opportunity of inspecting it when in New York, and to whom it is a pleasure to express my gratitude, not merely for giving access to it, but for the courteous generosity of his permission to use it as the foundation of this romance.

The original MS. consists of about 75,000 words. It contains the opening scenes, and one or more later episodes, very much as they now appear. Beyond that, it is mainly an account of the Siege of Malta, which it follows to its conclusion. It is frequently inaccurate and repetitions are numerous.

When Scott started home from Naples on his last journey, in the hope of recovered health (Lockhart's suggestion that he hurried back with a premonition that death was near is not merely a doubtful guess, it is clearly disproved by Scott's own statements and by the leisurely nature of the first part of the journey) he sent this MS. to Abbotsford by sea, to await his arrival; and there is at least one reference by which he appeared to regard it as a finished work.

If he did so, it was a mistake; and had it been published in such a form it must have been a grotesque failure. But it is far more probable, as evidenced by its substance and brevity, that he considered it rather as the historical skeleton on which he would construct a complete romance in the leisure of the succeeding summer.

The short months in Malta had been used for the accumulation of historical material, and in this sense the brief MS. which he had written with his half-palsied hand had finished what he required. The opening scenes were sketched out: the historic background was complete. The romance itself could be dictated (as had become his method for creative work during several previous years) in the summer peace of his Abbotsford library.

The probability of this theory is increased by the nature of the defects of the MS. in its present form. Had it a weak or confused plot, it might be more reasonable to accept Lockhart's suggestion that it was an abortion of failing powers. But the more curious fact is that it has none. After the opening chapters, Angelica (for instance) is not mentioned at all. She fades out; and Francisco soon follows her into a similar silence. The MS. becomes nothing more than a picturesque account of the siege of Malta, vigorous in parts, but with the defects and repetitions that such a draft, so written and unrevised, would be likely to have. Whatever might have happened had Scott lived for another year, it may be asserted with entire confidence that he would not have published it in its present condition.

Its form being thus, it became natural to examine it carefully for any indications of the plot which Scott had designed to use, and this resulted in the discovery of one slight but probably significant clue.

The account of the visit of the Maltese envoy to Don Manuel, with which the story opens, contains no suggestion that he is other than he professes, unless it be in the remark of a boatman whom he first approaches, that he has the look of a heathen Moor, and in some petulance on Don Manuel's part at the medium of communication that the Grand Master had chosen. Neither of these is at all conclusive, as a genuine Maltese might have given such an impression to an Andalusian boatman, and Don Manuel would have had a similar ground of complaint against the genuine messenger. But in a later part of the MS. there is an incidental allusion to the envoy "said to have been a herald at some college of arms," as a man under suspicion of being a traitor to the Maltese cause. It is an allusion without consequence, the herald not being mentioned again, but it is obviously suggestive, and it is on the pregnant implications of that phrase, and the foundations supplied by the master of historical romance, that I have ventured to build this tale. S. FOWLER WRIGHT. SIEGE OF MALTA

CHAPTER I

THE sun was setting over the broad waters of the Straits of Gibraltar, and its western rays adorned with brilliant colours and violet shades the serrated mass which has in its wild variety one of the most impressive effects of mountain scenery in the world, when a light galley, flying the scarlet sign of the Maltese Cross, and having cast anchor in Vilheyna's harbour, but at some distance from the other shipping which it contained, dropped a small skiff, which pulled rapidly toward the quay.

From the boat a single officer disembarked, and had directed it to return, even before he was approached by the warden of the quay with a courteous but yet somewhat peremptory challenge of whom he was, and what business had brought him there.

It was a tone which may have owed something of its quality to the stranger's appearance, his turban, and the looseness of the white garments he wore, giving him more the aspect of a Turk than a Christian man. But he answered with the assurance of one confident alike in himself and the business on which he came.

"I am from Malta, on a commission from the Grand Master to the Commander of Vilheyna and Aldea Bella, to whom I will thank you to guide me without delay."

"Don Manuel will be at meat in the next hour, which is not a time when he will consent to give audience, unless the matter be one of an urgent kind."

"My commission is here," the pursuivant answered, showing a chain of gold with the insignia of Malta around his neck, "and its urgency would excuse intrusion were he engaged in his private prayers."

The Spaniard, surprised at the boldness of this reply, regarded the speaker with more intentness than before.

"He must surely," he thought, "be either Christian or a most insolent and audacious dog to have landed thus; though I have seldom seen one whom I would have more quickly called by the name of a heathen Moor. But to the Castle he shall go by his own desire, and his reception should not be a dull sight."

Having so resolved, he delayed only to give charge to an assistant officer to take order till his return, and led the way from the harbour and through a fishing village that lay on its eastern side and then by an uphill road to the great castle of Aldea Bella, which stood on a steep height overlooking the bay.

They walked on in the growing dusk until they came within sight of the castle, crowning the head of a deep precipitous valley, the wide sweep of its walls being broken by a succession of turrets, both round and square, after the fashion of the military architecture of that period. The main gate of the castle, to which the road gave access, had the usual defences of barbican, drawbridge and portcullis, which were kept guarded and closed, even in this time of comparative peace, except to those who had a recognised right of entrance.

But as they came to the wide space before the castle which was left bare to prevent the covered approach of a hostile force, they were aware of a solitary figure upon another path, which was converging upon them.

"It appears," the pursuivant's guide remarked, "that you will not need to enter the castle to meet its lord."

A moment later, they stood before the Commander of Vilheyna himself, a tall, grey old man, muscular even in age, clothed in a black cloak which bore neither ornament nor any token of rank, except the scarlet sign of the eight-pointed cross which was embroidered thereon.

Don Manuel's glance passed quickly from the stranger to the servant he knew, with a sharp enquiry of what it meant that they should be there - which did not condescend to the familiarity of a spoken word - and the man answered with the brevity which he knew his master approved: "Lord, this officer comes from Malta."

The Commander turned his gaze upon the pursuivant. "With what tidings?" he asked.

"I am to inform you that the island of Malta is threatened by the instant invasion of the whole force of the Turkish Empire. The Grand Master orders that you shall - "

"You have said enough. I do not need to be told my duty by such as you. Follow me, and be prepared to answer such questions as I may ask at a later hour."

With these words the Commander turned and led the way to she castle, the gravity of the tidings he had received being scarcely sufficient to overcome his resentment at the method by which they had been communicated. "Such," he thought, "is the degradation of the times to which we have come that the Grand Master thinks it no offence to communicate his wishes through such a channel, to one who is little less than himself in the great Order to which we belong; and who is, besides, one of the greatest nobles of Spain. I can recall a time when a knight of the Order would have been the only possible messenger to employ."

It was not until they had passed the entrance and stood in the great hall of the castle that he again showed himself to be conscious of the pursuivant's presence.

"You have told all that you need," he then said, in a tone somewhat more cordial than before but still of a condescending quality, "when you have told me that the Moors are preparing attack. We know enough of the tender mercies of the infidel to understand what their success would mean to our brothers there. But we may be sustained again, as we have been in many earlier perils. I must suppose, beyond that, that you have come to intimate the Grand Master's pleasure that I shall go to his aid with such troops as my revenues can supply or that I can solicit among my friends."

The pursuivant appeared about to reply in a speech of sufficient solemnity when the Commander abruptly checked him: "But I will spare you the trouble of telling me my duty on this occasion, which it is possible that I know better, not only than yourself, but than most of the younger brethren. You must forgive me, sir herald; I am aware that our Order, following the example of many important potentates, has of late entrusted its relations with its own members or foreign states to diplomatists of your character. It is an innovation of which I do not approve, but I will assure you in few words that I shall support the Grand Master with instant speed and with all the resources at my command."

"My lord," the pursuivant replied, with a ceremonious and even humble courtesy, which yet seemed to be of deliberate assumption rather than a natural attitude, "no one conversant with the Maltese Order could entertain doubt that your Lordship would on this occasion, as on every other of the kind, show a brilliant example to the Knights among whom you have ever been an illustrious light. The summons is of routine, as I need not say and sent indifferently to all."

"So it may be, yet it remains that it is not fitting for such as you to inform me of what my duties to the Order may be. But," he continued in a more courteous tone, 'it is the hour of the evening meal, which I will ask you to share, and after which you can tell me more than it is now convenient to hear.... Ramegas, will you make this senor's comfort your care?"

He spoke to one little less than himself in age or gravity of demeanour, and who also wore the distinctive dress of the great half-monastic Order to which the Commander belonged. But though also a servant of St. John of Jerusalem, he was not one who ranked among the dignitaries of the Order. He was one of those who were known as Brothers-at-Arms, or Serving Brothers, being men of good birth and repute, but not of such rank or wealth as would avail them to claim the high honours of Malta's Knights. Such men would often attach themselves to one of courage and high conduct among the principals of the Order; and those who did this, like Juan Ramegas, and afterwards distinguished themselves by the standard of their own conduct, might gain reputation and authority far beyond the title that they were permitted to bear: but though Ramegas had thus acquitted himself, yet at his patron's retirement from the sea-warfare upon the Turks, which was now the main occupation of the Maltese knights, to the comparative seclusion of his own Commandery of Aldea Bella, the door of preference within the Order was closed against him. His time was now largely occupied in control of the estates which Don Manuel ruled in the Order's name, and his pride may have been secretly somewhat touched that he should be so completely under the domination of one man's pleasure....

Don Manuel having withdrawn to his own apartment, the pursuivant found himself committed to Ramegas's charge, and under the necessity of introducing himself in a more personal way than the Commander had required or would probably have considered it seemly for him to do.

He gave his name as Rinaldo, and described himself as being an ensign of a noble Florentine family; but having said that, he was quick to turn the conversation adroitly to an account of improvements made upon the fortifications of Malta since Senor Ramegas had last been there, and to the reputed size of the Turkish fleet, which was reported to be taking the sea for the destruction of Malta's knights, until they were interrupted by the loud clang of the bell which announced the bringing-in of the evening meal.

CHAPTER II

RINALDO found himself directed to a seat beside Ramegas at the upper end of a long board which divided the centre of the hall, and in a place of honour inferior only to the smaller cross-table at the head, which was reserved for Don Manuel himself and those of his own blood.

The Commander of Vilheyna had taken the vows of the Order of St. John Baptist at an early age, and had been prominent for over forty years in the incessant struggle which had been waged between Christian and Infidel, between Charles V and the great Turkish Emperor Soliman, for the control of the Mediterranean. He had been present at the unsuccessful defence of Rhodes, when the Order had been expelled, though not without the honours of war, which their valiant resistance won: he had taken a distinguished part in the expedition which captured Tunis in 1535, and liberated 20,000 Christian slaves. Six years after that he had been present at the disastrous attack upon Algiers, from which Charles had retreated with a mere remnant of his men, leaving his baggage and artillery for a Turkish spoil.

Now - twentyfour years later - Charles V was dead, and his son, Philip II, ruled in a Spain which still increased in dominion, prestige and wealth. But while it gained in Northern Europe and the Atlantic, the course of events had caused a gradual abandonment of the Mediterranean, which had become little better than a Turkish lake.

Soliman still lived. He still warred in Europe, where he had overrun Transylvania and reduced the power of Hungary.

Forty years before, he had captured Rhodes, driving out the Knights of St. John, who had previously held the island for over two centuries. After that, they had been granted - by Charles V - possession of Malta and the adjacent islands for the quitrent of a yearly falcon to the Sicilian crown. With the bitter experience of Rhodes to urge them, they had made the fortifications of Malta strong, and had remained there during the intervening years in an apparent security, making it an eyrie from which they had preyed upon the commerce of the Mohammedan powers.

But now Soliman the Magnificent, as men had begun to call him, designed to repeat in his age the triumph which had adorned his youth. He planned, with the aid of the tributary powers of Egypt and Algiers, to dispatch a fleet and army of ample strength to drive the Knights from the refuge which Charles had given, and to complete the dominion of the Mediterranean.

But through all these changing fortunes of forty years, the Viceroy of Algiers had learnt that he had, upon the opposite coast of Spain, in the person of the Commander of Vilheyna, a ruthless and sleepless foe. This Viceroy of Soliman, Dragut by name, had become of a great and feared repute in the western waters of the Mediterranean, where, since the battle of Djerbeh four years before, there had been no nation of Europe disposed to dispute his power, But the galleys of Don Manuel still sallied out, as occasion offered, to strike some swift and disconcerting blow, and return, before retribution could overtake them, to shelter beneath the security of his fortress guns.

It was in recognition of these relentless and long-continued activities that Don Manuel had recently received from the King of Spain a present of two large and powerful galleys, to replace others which, after facing many years of battle and storm, had become unfit to be put to sea....

Seated at the Commander's right hand, Rinaldo observed his nephew, Francisco, to whom common repute gave a more direct relationship; but since a statute of the former Grand Master, De L'Isle Adam, had forbidden, under penalty of expulsion, that any knight of the Order should openly admit that he had broken his vows of chastity by recognition of children, the relationship of nephew had become so common as to be almost synonymous with a nearer word. It was, at least, clear to all who observed the youth so seated at the side of the older man, that they were of no distant blood.

Young though he was, Francisco had already received the honour of knighthood, and had seen active service on the decks of his uncle's galleys. It was assumed that he would, in due course, himself enter the Order, and take its monastic vows.

It was a destiny to which the sons of the Maltese knights were directed, if not compelled, by the policy on which it had based its power. The estates that the Commanders controlled, originally dowered by - ancestors or others - those who had dedicated themselves to the Order's service, had become of enormous value in all parts of the Christian world, and were now commonly held on the terms of remitting a certain yearly sum to the Treasury at Malta, beyond which they were not required to make account during peaceful days, on the understanding that threat of war, or other crisis, would place their whole resources at the Grand Master's call.

Holding estates on such terms as these, they could make no disposition of them by gift or will to a son, whether so recognised or not. The only method of succession was by submission to the Order's authority, and the acceptance of its monastic vows.

Seated on Don Manuel's other hand, Rinaldo observed the Senorita Angelica, a girl little younger than Francisco, and the Commander's actual niece, being his sister's child.

The least house-boy in the castle well knew that, as surely as Francisco would be regarded as dedicated to the service of the Order of Malta, so Angelica - from the day when, at the age of ten, on her mother's death, she had come under her uncle's authority - had been engaged to enter the Convent of Holy Cross, where she would be able to confer great benefits on her family by a life of prayer.

But, having arranged this from the first, Don Manuel had seemed in no haste to part with her to her pious calling; and the Abbess of Holy Cross was in no doubt that it would be to her own interest to defer to the Commander regarding the time of introducing his niece to the house over which she ruled.

Angelica's entrance to the holy state continued therefore to be spoken of as a settled thing, though no time was mentioned at which she would begin her novitiate. In the meantime, she had remained under the charge of Morayma, a Moorish captive, who had been her nurse at the first and her duenna in recent years.

Rinaldo had leisure enough to observe the members of Don Manuel's household, and, in particular, to let his eyes linger as much as courtesy would permit upon a type of beauty which may have differed from those which he had previously been privileged to observe, for the Commander made it plain both by his silence and by the directions to which he would lead the conversation when he occasionally interposed, that he had no intention of allowing Rinaldo's errand to be discussed in the common hearing of his retainers and of the menials at the lower end of the board.

It was only as the meal drew to its end that he said, in a voice of authority that brought instant silence upon the hall: "We have with us tonight one who brings word that the invasion of Malta, of which there have been many rumours of late, is no less than a certain thing, and the Sultan's fleet may be already upon the sea. At such a need, we can have neither choice nor wish but to go there with our utmost speed, and with all the rescue that we can raise. I will, therefore, that you shall forthwith address your minds to that end, while awaiting further orders from me.... Senor Ramegas, you shall remain to take counsel with me hereon."

His words were sufficient to clear the hall in a brief space, the murmur of excited voices only rising outside the doors. When none but Ramegas and Rinaldo remained, he addressed the latter in the tone of authority which he was accustomed to use.

"I may not ask you to tell where my duty lies, which I am not needing to know, but if you have knowledge of the Sultan's latest designs, or of any special cause from which this invasion springs, you have the season to tell me now."

"There has been something of special cause," Rinaldo replied, "though it may surely be said that the very principles on which the Order is founded are such that there can be no peace between it and the Sultan's power; and the species of piracy" - here he paused as he observed that the word was ill received, and substituted another expression -" or rather of sea-warfare as practised by us against the commerce of the Moslem states, could not fail to sustain the traditional enmity which divides the Christian world from the followers of Mahomet; but the immediate cause of the invasion that threatens now is said to be the pressure put upon the Sultan by some odalisques that his seraglio holds.

"It appears that a number of these ladies united the gold that his favour gave in a trading venture that would have brought them fortune had it arrived at its intended harbour.

"They equipped a vessel of the largest size with one of the richest cargoes that have ever been loaded into a single hold. To secure its safety, it was mounted with many guns, and half a thousand janizaries manned its upper decks to secure it from capture, if an enemy should succeed in grappling it on the sea. Its commander was one of the most famous officers in the Sultan's fleet.

"But the Knights of Malta, having obtained secret knowledge of when this vessel would put to sea, had made preparations of equal magnitude. In a word, ship and cargo were captured: the captain was mortally wounded: the crew and janizaries who survived the combat were chained to the benches of Maltese galleys, or sold in the slave-market of Venice.

"The odalisques were furious both at the loss and indignity of this issue of their adventure into the merchant's perilous ways, and they had voices which Soliman could not decline to hear. They were extremely offended on finding that it was not a simple matter to obtain redress from a Master whose power they were taught to believe was absolute in extent as well as in kind.

"There is no doubt that the capture of this vessel was felt by the Sultan to be of the nature of a personal affront, and that it roused him to extremities of effort against the Order of Malta, which he might otherwise have directed toward the more active prosecution of the Hungarian war."

"I have heard something of this before," Don Manuel replied, "though in a less detailed way. Can you tell me further to what extent the Sultan's anger is shown in the force he assembles for Malta's end?"

It was a question to which Rinaldo appeared to have no difficulty in finding a full reply. He said, as Don Manuel knew to be no more than a constant truth, that there could be little happening at Byzantium, even in the palace itself, which would not be betrayed for sufficient gold, such as the Grand Master would not neglect to provide for so great a need; but he went on to describe the counsels the Sultan had received, both from Mustapha, the Egyptian Pasha (now an old man, but of a high military repute, and having been in his youth the general in command when the Knights were driven from Rhodes), and other of his greatest lords, at a secret conference he had called, with such detailed particularity that Don Manuel was led to express some wonder that he could be so fully informed.

"I am somewhat puzzled," he said, "to understand how you can have acquired information so complete, and that even of a conference which, by your own showing, was entirely protected from hearing or observation."

For a moment, the pursuivant appeared to be disconcerted by this criticism, even beyond reasonable expectation; but, if that were so, he recovered himself very quickly, and his explanation was plausible and adroit.

"So I can suppose that it may appear, and had I not thought that personal reference would have approached impertinence, I should have mentioned before that not only have I had, owing to the nature of the office I hold, a full acquaintance with all the information that has reached the Grand Master during the last year, but I have a particular familiarity with the places and individuals of whom I am now speaking, as I was captured by the Turks at the battle of Djerbeh, and was in captivity in Egypt, and afterwards in Byzantium, for nearly three years before my friends were able to effect my ransom."

"May I conclude," Senor Ramegas interposed, with a deferential gesture toward the Commander, as though to speak unasked were in the nature of a liberty in that formidable presence, "that it is to the circumstance of your captivity that you owe the fact that you are somewhat darker in complexion than is common either in this country or your native Florence?"

"I have no doubt that you may," Rinaldo replied very readily, "though, as a fact, those who are native of Malta are sometimes even darker than the hue to which I have been burned by Egyptian suns."

"That is so," Don Manuel confirmed, as one who closes an interruption which had already exceeded its occasion, "for so I have seen it to be.... I would now have you proceed."

He addressed a few further questions to Rinaldo concerning the strength and leadership of the Turkish fleet and army, from which he learnt that Mustapha had somewhat reluctantly consented, at the Sultan's urging, to take the military control of the expedition, while the Admiral Piali would command the fleet, and Dragut, with his Barbary corsairs, would bring not only a strong support to the forces that would be engaged in the coming siege, but an experience in Mediterranean warfare, which, by the Sultan's orders, his colleagues were not lightly to overrule.

And then, having learnt all that he wished to know, Don Manuel rose with an abrupt word that he would talk again on the next day.

CHAPTER III

RINALDO fount himself in a room which was comfortably, though somewhat austerely, furnished, and of a quality which showed that the rudeness (as he was disposed to view it) of the Commander of Vilheyna did not imply that he would not be regarded as a guest of consideration.

But while he observed this circumstance with satisfaction, he dismissed it promptly from a mind which was fully occupied with more urgent and important things.

"So," he said, half-aloud, but in a tongue which only one in that castle would have been likely to understand, and which we must presume that he had learnt during the years of slavery which had darkened his countenance, "I have played the pursuivant well enough, as I had little doubt that I should.... Slave in Egypt! Well, they may prove what it means to be that, if I can shake this fruit to my father's lap, as I have good hope that I shall be able to do.... The old Spaniard would learn how to bend his back, and to answer in a more abject way.... But the niece is an Allah's dream. It will be soft cushions for her! Worse than she have been sold before now for a Sultan's pet! "

With these singular reflections, Rinaldo stretched himself on the bed and passed into the dreamless slumber of those who have health and youth, and to whom adversity is a distant and unregarded foe.

He was awakened by a beam of light falling across his face from one of the narrow windows of the turret chamber in which he lay, at which he was quick to rise, seeing that the sun was already at some height in the morning sky. He went down, to be met by Senor Ramegas, who invited him to partake of an ample breakfast, at which Don Manuel did not appear, but which was attended by Francisco and brightened by Angelica's presence, with that of the Moorish governess or duenna, who appeared to be her almost inseparable companion.

It was obvious that the absence of the Commander caused a general relaxation of the atmosphere of restraint which Rinaldo had previously experienced. Ramegas was formal still, but it might be described as a more urbane formality and of an added dignity, which did not display itself with the same assurance in Don Manuel's presence. Francisco was, in physical attributes, a striking illustration of the deeply impressed and repeated characteristics of an ancient race. Although not yet come to his full stature or strength, he was a living likeness of what his uncle must have been in his own youth. There was evidence in him already of the same pride, even of the same dignity and gravity, which made his father distinguished among a race which had come at that time to be regarded as among the most arrogant of mankind; but that which in his uncle had become fixed with the hard coldness or ice, had in him the motion and impetuosity of a torrent; and he was aflame this morning with the hardly-restrained excitement of expectation. For he did not doubt that his uncle would permit him to accompany the expedition, and surely in such a position as the dignity of his name required.

Angelica was alive also with excitement of a different kind. Like her cousin, she saw that they were at the end of the quiet life in which the years had seemed so long to the impatience of youth, but had drifted too quickly past in her uncle's estimation, as he had deferred the day when he must part with her for the convent's claim.

Now, she wondered, would she be left in the castle, alone and forgotten amidst the bustle of more urgent and important matters, or would this crisis of events cause Don Manuel to decide that the time had come when the promise should be fulfilled which had been made nearly eight years before?

If so, could she contrive any argument that would persuade him to defer a purpose which she was hopeless to change, as she knew that she had cajoled him during the last three years, though he might suppose that the delay had been his own decision, the weakness of love for her?

She knew his character well enough to realise that he would tolerate no suggestion of breaking a pledge made to the Church - that the mere proposal of such dishonour would probably produce in him an inflexible resolution for its instant consummation, and she knew that, while he lived, she was at his disposal, alike by social custom and the iron bond of the law. She had also a strong affection for him, as she knew that he had for her, and she had not herself till now been in open rebellion against the idea of a convent life, which had not been entirely repugnant, so long as it remained a vague and undated destiny. Apart from a marriage to be negotiated in the Spanish fashion with some stranger of equal rank, what hope had she of a life of similar dignity or responsibility? For she knew that, even in her novitiate years, the niece of Don Manuel would have an honoured place in the Convent of Holy Cross.

In the end she would be Abbess, when the Abbess died. She would come to an absolute control over the lives of all within the convent walls: a wide authority over the convent lands: an absolute disposal of the convent wealth. There was no other position of equal importance and independence for any woman beneath a queen in the Spain of that day. Yes, it was well enough - as a dream. To take the step tomorrow, in an irrevocable way - well, what was the haste? Let it wait for another year. And beyond that - must we look as far ahead, when the years of our life are few?

"Sir herald," Senor Ramegas remarked from his place at the head of the board, which he had held since the childhood of those who must soon have come to challenge his place had the life of the castle continued its normal course, "if I may say so without offence, which is not meant, you look more closely your part in a peaceful garb than when you appeared last night with a sword girded, and that somewhat of Turkish pattern to Spanish eyes. I have always seen that those of your office had gone unarmed, as is surely meet in such as claim to be secure from capture or ransom, and to stand aside from the strife of swords."

Rinaldo looked at the speaker the while this speech pursued its leisurely course, not in a hostile, but in a somewhat watchful way, as though weighing what it might mean; but his answer was easy and frank, and there was reason in what he said.

"What you say is true, as I do not doubt, for those who move only among men of a Christian kind, where, as I suppose, your observations have lain, but on that galley by which I came - had we fallen in with the Corsair's fleet, and had they boarded our deck, would it have availed me then that I did not fight? Had the galley fallen their prey, would they have sent me home, and by what way? No, it must have been my part to take sword with the rest and drive them back if we could."

"Yes," Ramegas replied, "I can see cause that you should feel thus; though I have heard that the heralds pass without risk between the Christian and heathen hosts in the Eastern wars. But we may both have found that the rule of the sea is of a more turbulent kind. Did you see aught of the Corsair's fleet?"

When he asked that, his thought was of the galleys of the Dey of Algiers, who was the scourge of all who did business in the western waters of the Mediterranean at that time, and so Rinaldo understood it to be.

"No," he said, "though we might have had little fear if we had, unless we had been entirely becalmed, and even then we might have escaped. For our galliot is not only very lightly built and well rigged, but it has twelve oars aside, and there are not, as I am told, more than three or four of the fastest of Dragut's fleet which could overreach its speed on a quiet sea.

"But we saw nothing of them, the Grand Master having secret knowledge of where they would be, which is a matter I have yet to speak in the Commander's ear. For I was charged, if he should have vessels that he could bring or send at a short date, that I should guide them by such a route that they would reach Malta without being waylaid, which you would not wish them to be."

"As to that," Ramegas answered, "if Dragut be one who is to be engaged in this siege, we may as well fight him soon as on a later day, and I suppose that the two galleys that Don Manuel has would not be easy to take, they having been the King's gift but a short time ago, and perhaps as large and well-found as any ships in this sea; though they may not be equal to those that are built to sail across to the Spanish Main, which are the largest the world has seen. But those, as you know, are built without oars, it being of doubtful gain for a voyage of such length to take so many men as the benches need, or to be low-waisted amid the storms of the wider sea."

"Do you say your vessels could fight the whole strength of the Corsair's fleet? "

"No, I would not say that. And, for that risk, I daresay that Don Manuel will not despise the guidance that you can give."

"Yet, I dare suppose," Rinaldo went on, "that being so newly built, and as well-found as you say, they are too swift to be greatly in fear of any fight that they might think it wiser to shun?"

"I would not boast to that height," Ramegas replied, "though they are as swift as most, or as their kind can be expected to be. They carry sail of a wide spread, and have twenty oars on each side, but they are heavy with guns, and bear crews which are not much short of a thousand men. They have thick walls, and good space for the holding of stores, being, indeed, built rather to fight than fly."

"And how soon should you say that they will be ready to put to sea?"

"It may be no more than two days, as you heard Don Manuel say that he designed that it should, for their seamen are aboard now, and we can send fighting men enough from the castle here and from the country round at a day's call."

"And for stores?"

"They are kept ever ready to sail at a quick need."

"I like not," Francisco interposed, "that we should turn from a straight course to avoid a fleet of a strength that we do not know, with two such ships as we have - and with the good aid of yours." (He addressed the last words to Rinaldo in a tone of rather perfunctory courtesy.) "I should have said that there would be few so bold on these seas that they might not trim sails to another course; and, if we be in this war, it is our part to grieve Dragut at all times, and the most we may."

Rinaldo looked at him with some curiosity as he said this, debating perhaps in his mind whether the speaker were of the courage his words conveyed, or no more than a boastful youth, who had much to learn of the stern lessons of war. He seemed about to speak, but Morayma was quicker than he.

"The Dey," she said, "has a score of ships that are swifter than those two by a mile in five, and could bay them down as the dogs deal with a wolf which may be somewhat larger than they.... I pray the Virgin," she added, for she had long since taken the Christian faith, "that you be kept widely apart." She looked with such real affection at Francisco as she said this, that it must have been easy to forgive her boast of the power of her native land.

"You will be less rash than your words intend? You will think that we would see you again?" Angelica asked, with eyes upon her cousin which were so troubled that Morayma thought it somewhat more than should be shown at that time. What (she feared) would Don Manuel think, if he should see such a glance, his niece being pledged for the convent walls?

But whether or not she read the look in a true way, she could not think that it brought response from one whose thoughts were clearly on other things. "You would not have me come back," he said, "with no better boast than a skill in avoiding foes?"

There was something of arrogance in both tone and manner as this was said which caused Rinaldo to look at the speaker again in a doubtful way. It was as though he assumed his return to be beyond doubt, and resented suggestion that it might not be made with all his foe-men beneath his feet. From the lips of one so young, who could have had little experience or practise of war - But, as Rinaldo looked, he was disposed to rebuke his own doubt for a second time. The youth might have his uncle's arrogant style, but Rinaldo thought that he was one whose boast might be made good at the last. There was a quality in him that shone like a bare sword. Rinaldo thought of a time when he had been a slave who toiled under the constant threat of the driver's lash - when he had been subject to a hundred indignities that it was hard to forget. How would the young Spaniard behave if he were reduced to buying life by endurance of such conditions as those?

But while these thoughts crossed his mind, Angelica answered in a way that showed that she was neither critical of her cousin's manner, nor conscious of rebuke to herself:

"I would have you return, as I think you will, with all the honour that you have the merit to win. For I could not think that you would come back in another way. Yet I would have you use the caution which is said to come with the years, for how can later honour be won, if life be lost on the first day?"

"Your cousin says well in that," Ramegas remarked; "for rashness is ever the snare of youth, and discretion comes at a later year."

Francisco showed no resentment at this admonition, nor did he appear impressed by any wisdom it might contain. He answered with more wit than Rinaldo would have felt sure that he had:

"So the old have said at all times, and who can show they are wrong? Yet how they came alive themselves through the foolish years to be where they are is a thing they do not explain. Their rashness should have destroyed them a hundred times."

"I would take the risk," Angelica surprised their guest by remarking, "with a gay heart, were it twice what it is likely to be, if I were sailing forth on the same track."

"Senorita," Rinaldo said, looking at her in such a way as brought her to blush as she surely had not for any glance or word that had passed between Francisco and her, "I should have said that few would wish to throw down the potent arms which you now bear for a sword which you could not wield."

"You must not think," Morayma interposed in a quick way, "that the Senorita means more than a jesting word, she knowing well the parts in the game of life which are fitting for such as she. Yet I would not have you think that she could not play a more hardy part than her looks can show, having lived a free life in these hills, where she may go in safety and honour by any path that she will, they being all in her uncle's rule, and she has even had some practise in the lighter weapons of war."

"Then," Rinaldo said, with an admiration in his eyes which was of more boldness than was perhaps becoming from a pursuivant to Don Manuel's niece, "is she doubly armed, which may be held to be less than fair."

Angelica, quickly recovering a self-control which she seldom had occasion to lose, took the explanation upon herself:

"It is true, Senor Rinaldo, that I have some little practice with rapier and poniard, and can send a shaft near the mark at times, but that is not because I am of an Amazon kind. It is because my cousin and I have been reared alone, and must have the same sports or none."

"Yet," Morayma added, as though she thought her own tuition disparaged by the inferences of this explanation, "you must not suppose that they have been taught in the same way. Angelica has no lack of all arts that belong to ladies alone, even to leech-craft and the skill in the healing of wounds which I have been able to give."

"I talked not," Angelica said, "of work but of sport. Yet I would not have you think" (and here her words were for Rinaldo alone) "that I am one who would wish to play a man's part in the dirt and horror of war; but it is possible that a caged bird may look through the bars at times and wish for the open sky."

"Knowing less of hawks," Rinaldo replied, "than it might learn in the next hour."

"Yet some would think that an hour of freedom, and the right to soar to the sun, might be worth more than a longer life in the narrow bars."

"Senorita," Rinaldo replied, "you have said a good word. Yet for such as you there should be the freedom without the fear."

"Which," Ramegas concluded, with gravity, "would be to enter heaven before we die."

Rinaldo became silent. He was not unconscious of the attraction of the girl with whom he had been making exchanges which might have been no more than idle compliment, but were, in fact, of a sincerity which surprised himself, and roused the thought that to cultivate a too friendly feeling for these Spaniards of a day's acquaintance would ill consort with some plans which were private to his own mind.

"You talk," Francisco said, "as though freedom had all the risks, and there were safety and peace in a captive's gyves. If you asked of our galley-slaves, I should say you would get a different answer from that."

Rinaldo did not respond. He seemed to have retired to his own thoughts. But Ramegas replied:

"You confound restraints of two kinds; for they may be born either of hatred or love, or of such confusion of these as may come to no certain flower. For the slave toils in dread of the driver's stripes, and is gyved in a different style from that of the sure peace of the convent walls."

The words seemed to rouse Rinaldo's attention again. He looked across at Angelica as though seeing her in a new and surprising light. As he did so, their eyes met, and hers fell.

"I had not supposed," he began, and then checked his speech. He concluded: "But it is esteemed a high calling in all the lands of the Christian pale." It was clear to all that that was not what he had been commencing to say.

After a pause, during which he appeared to be withdrawn again to his own thoughts, he said: "If, as I suppose, Don Manuel will not require my presence here, I will return to my own ship, awaiting the time when you will be ready to sail."

"I know not," Ramegas replied, "whether the Commander will wish to hear further from you upon the matter you have reported to him, but I am well assured that he will intend that the hospitality of this castle shall be yours while you wait us here."

But Rinaldo excused himself with the plea that, when all was preparation and haste, it must follow that they would be better pleased to have no strangers within the walls, and when Ramegas replied somewhat coldly to that, saying that the castle could not be incommoded by the care of a single guest, be there what bustle there might, he urged pretexts of his own occupations. Yet, being urged by Ramegas, and it being put to him that Don Manuel might consider that he would show a defect of courtesy if his hospitality should be thus contemned, he agreed that he would go aboard at that time, but would return at dusk, at the banquet hour, and remain ashore during the night.

Upon this bargain, somewhat reluctantly made by Rinaldo, who yet could advance no sufficient reason which would explain a more obdurate attitude, the little party broke up and went their several ways.

CHAPTER IV

IT was at the height of noon that Don Manuel paced the high battlements of the castle of Aldea Bella, from which he could look down upon the fishing village and the harbour where his galleys lay. The quiet peace of yesterday had been transformed into a scene of activity upon which its master could look with the satisfaction of observing the alacrity with which his orders were being carried out. His plans were complete, his directions given, and he was now able to take a space of leisure for his own reflections.

The two galleys lay at the quay. They were taking in such stores as could be hastily collected and were likely to be of most use to the Maltese garrison in the coming siege. Among these it might be observed that the decks were being loaded with planks and logs and huge baulks of timber, for the Maltese islands were naturally destitute of trees, and every beam used in its fortifications had been imported from other lands; every spar that might need to be renewed on its vessels must be obtained in the same way.

The bustle which Don Manuel's orders had aroused was not confined to the castle and its immediate vicinity. As he paced the battlements he could hear the tocsin ringing in a score of hamlets among the Andalusian hills. As though an actual invasion of the Moors - who had been driven from the land a mere half century before - were impending, he had called the people of the countryside at the need of the Maltese order, to which he belonged, and whose feudatories they were.

As he walked the length of the battlements he came upon Angelica, seated at a projecting corner which overlooked the harbour. She did not appear to observe him at first, her eyes being fixed upon the loading galleys and the smaller, more rakish form of Rinaldo's vessel, which was anchored in the outer bay. She watched them with an expression of misery which he did not miss. With the real though formal kindness with which he had always treated her, he enquired the cause of her grief.

She answered with apparent frankness: "Is it not for Francisco that I should fear? He is unpractised in war, though he knows the ways of the sea, and, as I have heard, he is to go without waiting for you."

The doubt which Morayma had felt when she had seen Angelica's concern at her cousin's coming departure did not enter Don Manuel's mind. It seemed to him that she expressed a woman's natural feeling, though it is not one to which much heed can be given when trumpets call. He sat down on the stone seat beside her as he replied: "He must go, as his fathers went, on the path of danger, without which there is no honour which can be won. He is the one heir of the name I have, yet it is so I would have it be. But the prayers of those who are innocent reach, as I well believe, to the throne of Heaven; and it is such as thou whom the Virgin herself may be prompt to hear.

"I am going myself to the court of Spain, where I will beseech our king for such aid as will be of greater use than could be rendered by my own arm, even were I much younger than I now am; and, after that, I hope to join my brethren, if I can still pass the besiegers' lines.

"I shall go at sunrise tomorrow, and the galleys should be ready to sail, as I suppose, by the next day. I am giving the command of one to Ramegas, and Francisco will have the other. I was but a few months older than he when I was engaged in a fight by which I sunk one of the corsairs' fleet. I remember the grief I had that it should have gone down before we could release the slaves who were chained to the rowers' benches, they being for the most part of Christian blood.

"For yourself, I sent word to the Abbess an hour ago, that she may expect your arrival in two days' time, which will give Morayma space to prepare your needs. You will go in her charge, but she will return when you are settled there.... I have delayed your going too long, it having been an old man's weakness to have you here. But now that our lives will be broken apart, and we know not to what end, evil or good, it would be wrong to withhold you more."

The length of this speech had given Angelica time to control the first impulse of protest against a doom which she had dreaded ever since she had heard of the intended expedition the night before. Before Don Manuel had finished, she had realised that to protest would be useless, and might even be worse than that. If there were any way of avoiding a fate from which she rebelled more resolutely as its shadow was closing upon her, it must be found by herself. And what way could there be? There was no one, of whatever rank or degree, to whom she could look for aid. No one would think of listening to any protest with more than inclination to comfort or to persuade. It would appear to all to be a settled, inescapable thing. She thought of the conversation of the morning, and she saw herself as a bird behind bars that she had not the will or the strength to break. Was there really no way? Or, if there were, would it be her courage which would be too small for her need? If the cage-door stood unlatched, would she break loose that she might soar an hour in the sun, before the falcon would strike her down?

As she pondered thus, she became aware that Don Manuel had gone. She had been scarcely conscious of his farewell words, or of the hand that had stroked her hair.

On his part, he had regarded as little that she had heard his decision without response or reply. He was accustomed to issue orders which would be taken in the same silent manner. It did not occur to him as a possible thing that she would resist his will.

After that, she met Francisco, who had just heard of the command that was to be his. He was affectionate in a preoccupied way, but it was plain that he was excited by the prospect of adventure and the dignity of his new command, to the exclusion of other emotions or any active sympathy with herself. He looked before, not behind. The playmate of his childhood days, the companion of the years that had ended but yesterday, felt that she was shut out of his life. As she saw that the warship's deck would be natural for him to tread, so he would regard the cloister's wall as being natural for her. They must go out to the world by their different roads, for the days of childhood had passed since the Maltese galley had come to anchor within the bay.

She did not suppose that he had lost affection for her, which would reassert itself under more normal conditions, and of which he would become more aware as the moment of parting came. But, for the time, nearer and more immediate excitements had left her little place in his thoughts. It would be waste of words to tell him that she did not wish to ride with Morayma in two days' time, to enter the gates of the Convent of Holy Cross.

She might tell Morayma, of course. She would be sure of sympathy, and of some measure of understanding. But there would be no power to help. Sympathy alone was something for which she had no use. She was of a character which can better endure disappointment or grief if it be kept silent in the sufferer's heart.

Resolved that she would not go, she would see the last hours of freedom pass, and would go at last, as how many thousand had gone before on the same road? For what else was there to do?

The hours passed in such thoughts until that of the evening meal returned, at which she took her accustomed place, looking pale and sad. It was a contrast to the bright vivacity of her usual expression which would have attracted attention under different conditions, but now it may be doubted whether it were noticed at all amid the excitement and talk of preparation and plan which was around her, like the buzz of a lively hive, till Don Manuel entered the hall, and which scarcely lessened even under the restraint that his presence caused; and if it were noticed by any, was it not natural that she should be grieved at the thought of parting from those who were her nearest and had been her most intimate relatives? So she was left to her own thoughts, in the midst of talk to which she gave little heed - and to a growing consciousness that she had somewhat more than her share of Rinaldo's eyes.

And with the consciousness, curiosity stirred. She had, in fact, felt a certain intimacy of understanding, of a strange, exciting novelty to her sheltered life, since the exchanges of the breakfast-table, in which, with that feminine instinct which rarely sleeps or errs, she had known that she had attracted his admiration, and could go further if she should have the will for so bold a game.

And with that consciousness of the interest she had aroused, there came a lively consideration of what Rinaldo was, and a curiosity to know much more than she did.

He had the name of a noble Florentine family - that was well. He was a herald, and so could scarcely claim equality with the niece of Vilheyna's lord. He was a trusted envoy of the Maltese Order, and in command (she had understood) of the galley in which he came. So much was clear; but she felt with the same instinctive certainty that there was much more to know. She had perceived on the previous night, as Don Manuel had failed to do, that the pursuivant's humility of word and manner were little more than a perfunctory deference. He was at ease in himself, or, if there were any awkwardness at all, it was not that of one who is embarrassed by contact with higher rank, but rather that of one who assumes obsequiousness which it is not his habit to use. She felt that there was a mystery here which she would have been glad to solve, and the puzzle kept him before her mind.

Having this imagination, she watched Rinaldo's conversation as he was questioned again by Don Manuel during the meal, for her uncle had many things on which he desired to be more fully informed to enable him to put the needs of Malta before the King; and it seemed to her that, though Rinaldo answered adroitly and well, and with the same manner of deference that he had shown on the previous day, yet he was watching his words, as though he might say the wrong thing if he were not constantly wary of speech. If Don Manuel observed this, he may have thought it to have sprung from no more than the timidity of one who was so much his inferior both in rank and age, but Angelica was sure that it had a different cause. "He is a prince in disguise, and is in fear lest he say something by which his rank will become known." She thought of nobles who had been exiled from Elizabeth's court, or from that of the King of France. But he was not of such race. Of that she was sure. He might be Italian, as he declared. But she was doubtful of that. Perhaps Hungarian? She knew less of the nobles of Eastern lands. They might (she supposed) be as dark as he. Could he be one who had lost his crown as Soliman's army had spread over Hungary and Transylvania during the last forty years, like an advancing plague? Perhaps his father had been a king who had died by the Sultan's sword. Now he sought revenge, fighting the Turkish power where he could do it the greatest harm, but keeping his name concealed till he should raise it to such a height as it held before. Yet why then assume a pursuivant's part? It was that which she could not guess. But she remembered that Ramegas had said that he was armed like a Turk when he landed first. Who, she wondered in vain, could he really be?

Doubtless, she told herself at the last, he was no more nor less than he said. She made childish mystery in a heart which would know nothing of life, beyond what it could build in a world of dreams. So she would cheat herself, and the hours go by; and the shadow of convent walls was advancing to close her in. And as she thought thus, she became aware that her uncle had risen, and was addressing the hall in sombre words, which were yet lit with a high resolve.

"You have heard, my friends," he said, "of this new affront which the infidels have advanced against the Order of Malta and the Cross of God. They seek our destruction with the same undying ferocity with which they assaulted Rhodes twenty-three years ago, and now, as then, we must defend ourselves in the power of the same Blessed Sign in which our fathers were believers and found their strength.

"Touching earthly valour, we may be loth to compare ourselves to those warriors of immortal fame, but we have been sworn by the same oath to defend the Cross with the best blood that our bodies hold. We may therefore look up to God with the same confident hope that His blessing will point our swords. And in such hope, and no vain confidence of earthly might, we take our arms in the great name of Him, whom these, His enemies, have denied and would now defy.

"And touching the summons of the Grand Master to me, his unworthy brother, you already know the orders that I have given, by which the two galleys that are mine through the gift of my Royal Master the King will sail at the first possible hour, with all the stores and men that they are fitted to bear.

"But I would not that you should think that when I have done that I have finished all that is within my will or my power. At this summons I have now had, all the wealth I own, all the revenues I control, I surrender to the use of the great Order of the Maltese Knights, for it is to no less than that that we are sworn at so great a need."

He paused a moment, and there was a deep murmur of assent and approbation from those who heard, and who were in too much reverence of him who spoke to applaud in a freer way. He went on in a lower voice, that rose again to a final intensity, as it struck a more personal note:

"We will now break up this sad festival, knowing too well that we shall not assemble here again with unbroken ranks, for there is much to be done, and it would be wrong to linger with wine-cups now.

"I go with the morning light to throw myself at the feet of my gracious Sovereign, to solicit his further aid; but I trust it will not be long before I am among you all on the field of war. And for that arch-corsair Dragut, who calls himself Viceroy of Algiers, whom we know as the enemy of our own coasts, and, who has sent a message of defiance to myself, I will say this, that there is no knight of our Order by whom he has been either loved or feared. The sword I wear is still that with which I broke his helm at Golitta's siege, and if we meet again he may find that age has been no more kind to himself than it has to me.

"And here, my friends, is a health to the Christian knight, be he whom he may, who shall meet him first."

He filled his own cup as he spoke, and as the toast was drunk the feelings of the assembly broke out at last in a shout that was unrestrained.

Don Manuel raised his hand in a gesture which was at once recognition and dismissal, and left the hall without further words.

Angelica had not been unmoved, even among her own private troubles, by the tone, stern, melancholy, and at times pathetic, in which her uncle had spoken, with a depth of feeling she had never known him to show before. But through it all the puzzle of Rinaldo continued to vex her mind. In what thoughts had he been so absorbed as Don Manuel spoke that he had failed to make the sacred sign which had been done almost mechanically by all besides at the mention of the name of God? Why had he appeared to hesitate for a moment as the toast was called, so that he had been later than others to fill and raise the cup? Had he not moved his lips in silence before he drank, as though he added invocation or prayer to that which the others heard? Was it, perhaps, his own vow that he would meet the infidel chief, and did he hesitate to drink to himself, as it might seem to him that he had been invited to do?

With such thoughts contending in a confused way with the despair that darkened her mind, Angelica went to her rest. It has been said that, if a woman's curiosity be directed upon a man, she is halfway to the mood in which she will seek his love. Angelica would have been surprised if it had been proposed to her that she could think of Rinaldo in such a way. She would have felt that any tendencies she might have were for one of a nearer blood, who had shown within the last hours that he had no such feeling for her.

Yet it was Rinaldo's dark, handsome, enigmatic face, his slender athletic form, that were on the darkness before her eyes. They were his words that were in her mind: "The potent arms which you now bear - You have said a good word - For such as you there should be the freedom without the fear." She had always been treated with the respect due to her rank. She had taken as her natural right the regard which youth and beauty receive. But here was something different from the deference which domestics pay. Something new in kind, of which she could do with more - which she was never likely to have.

Why must she be held in two days from now within the narrow compass of convent walls, while her cousin would have all the freedom of sea and air and a galley's deck? She had no love for the game of war. She was not of a masculine mind. But she longed for life - to do, and not merely to be. Her mind shrank from the thought of the Convent of Holy Cross. It was like being laid in a coffin while you yet lived.

If she could have gone to Malta, she felt that she could be useful there - perhaps as much as one who could handle a sword. She had learnt much from Morayma in nursing and the curing of wounds, which had ever been a woman's province among the Moors, and in which Morayma had more than a common skill. But to ask her uncle would, she knew, be a useless attempt. There could be no greater shame to his mind than a broken pledge; and the fact that he had given the pledge, which it was her part to pay, would not weigh with him at all. It was the custom throughout the land. Has a guardian no rights? Shall the old not judge for the young? So he would say, if he should condescend to argue at all. But to move him would, she knew, be most utterly vain. To make such request would do no more than to disturb and anger his mind at a time when he had cares and troubles enough without another from her. She had too much sense, and perhaps too much regard for him, to make such useless attempt.

But suppose - a sudden hope leapt to her heart, and her pulses beat - suppose when he had gone - suppose Francisco could be cajoled to let her go on the Santa Martha with him? Three times of four she had had her way in their differences of the past. She would persist or persuade. But not in such a matter as this. It was a wild hope! Such a hope as may seem good in the night, but will shrink to a smaller size in the cold light of day. Yet, for the moment, a hope it was, and it gave sleep, and changed her dreams to a gayer colour than they would otherwise have been likely to have.

CHAPTER V

ANGELICA waked with the ease of youth when the dawn was no more than a line of light along the eastern horizon of the Mediterranean. She looked down from her turret-window upon a harbour which was already astir. Boats moved over the water in the growing light. There was bustle and loading of stores where the two great galleys lay warped along the side of the quay. It seemed that men had not slept at all under the urgency of the preparations that Don Manuel's instructions required. She distinguished Senor Ramegas giving orders upon the quay.

Further out, she saw Rinaldo's galley, the Flying Hawk, with the Maltese cross fluttering at its peak: the eight-pointed cross, red on its ground of white, which had been the terror of the infidel through five hundred years of a war that had never ceased. The Flying Hawk had its own reputation too. It was not of a weight to face the largest Turkish galleys, but it had a speed which rendered it careless of them. In the five years since it had been built in a Venetian dockyard it had a record of raids and captures, of battles with galliots of its own kind, which it would not have been easy to match.

Angelica looked and was bitter of heart that a mere difference of sex should hold her back from part or place in the great adventure which these preparations forecast. Bitterer still, perhaps, in her secret mind, in the deep instincts of womanhood, that she was destined to a life which would be frustrated in its more natural purpose, in the fulfilment of the very difference which held her separate from the busy crowd that she watched below.

It would be no use till her uncle had gone, but then, though she could deceive herself into no more than a little hope, she would try what could be done when she had only Ramegas and Francisco to cross her will.

She went down to breakfast at a later hour, and felt a new depression when she saw that Rinaldo's seat was empty and was told that he had already gone.

"He has consented," Ramegas said, "to aid us by taking some stores on board which must else have gone on our own decks, which will be burdened enough without them. But, for some reason, which must be a better one than he gave, he will not have the Flying Hawk warped to the quay. It must all go out in barges, and be hauled aboard where he now lies. When he had consented to this, he went in haste, as though he feared it might be put in hand before he would be there to control. It might be thought that the Flying Hawk were his own babe, instead of a boat that has had five years' buffets of storm and shot, and of which he has no more than charge for this voyage. It would not be hurt by a bump, if a hawser broke."

Angelica was not interested in the bruises that Rinaldo's galley was not to get. She asked: "Will he be here again for this night?"

"No. He said he would stay aboard. We must sail tomorrow at dawn, or, to be more exact, at an hour before."

Angelica made no answer to that. What was she to him, that he should dally to say goodbye or come back for so small a cause? What, also, was he to her? It seemed that nothing was all he could ever be. Yet she would have been glad to have had him to talk to now; and for him, perhaps, to say such things to her again as it would be easy to bear in mind. But she saw that that dream was done.

And while she put this folly back from her mind, Don Manuel came to the meal, which it was seldom that he would share, it being his habit to eat alone at this hour. But now he would have all the time that he could to talk to Ramegas and Francisco, as he was taking horse in an hour from then, and Angelica found that she could be silent, and none would notice at all. She felt that she had already gone out of their lives.

She had thought that a short respite from what she feared might be won in another way, when it occurred to her that she might go with Don Manuel to Seville, and to this she almost gained his consent.

"Uncle," she said, "it is four years since I have seen Seville, and I would gladly do so again. And the King I have never seen. Would it not be well that you should present me to him? They say he never forgets any whom he has once met either for evil or good. Who can say that I might not be grieved on a far day that I had missed such a chance as this?"

Don Manuel thought, and was not averse. He saw that there was a shrewd reason in what she said. An abbess might have times when she would have petition to make to a king's throne. It may be well to be able to say you are known of him.

Angelica, watching his face, thought that her point was won.

"I see no reason against that, if it will give you joy," he said, in the way of distant kindness he had, "and it would mean but a short delay in that which you have to do. You shall surely come, if you will; though I shall be in haste for one end, and - nay, but it is useless to think, for I am not like to return here. I am more likely to sail from Cadiz, when I have put the case to the King."

"Yet," Angelica urged, "I could return alone. I could take Morayma, if you desire. It is but twenty Spanish leagues to Seville."

"It is not to be thought. I ride with but two knaves, whom I must have with me where I may go. Morayma will have much to do here. Could she leave in an hour's time? I am grieved, but it cannot be."

"Yet it is a safe road - ", Angelica began, but she let the word drop, for she saw that his attention was gone. He was talking to Francisco as though he did not know she was there. It would be useless to ask again.... And, after all, it would have spoiled her chance of a larger hope.

So Don Manuel bade her a kind farewell, which would yet have been kinder had he had fewer calls upon his emotions in other ways, and rode off on a steed which was still powerful and proud, though, like himself, it had seen days when it had been more supple of limb, and had thought him a lighter weight; and on the next day he came to the King's court at Seville.

Seville was a great city at this time, very splendid and gay. It was the frequent home of the Spanish kings, and though Spain was losing strength every year, she still seemed to be of an impregnable power.

It was more than fifty years since she had driven the Moors out of the southern end of the land. She sought to make it one of her own blood, and was now doing herself more harm than good by the severity of her Inquisition against the Jews. It was less than fifty years ahead that she would complete her ruin by driving out all her subjects of Moorish blood, being 600,000 of the best that she had.

But, at this time, the Spanish monarchy was of a great and very arrogant power, and Seville, which was the favourite residence of its kings, was magnificent in its palaces and splendid with silk and gold.

There was the glorious cathedral, which had been building for more than a century, and completed forty years ago. There was La Lonja, the great Exchange, which had been built by the present King. There was La-Torre-del-Oro, a building of still greater significance, which had been erected to receive the cargoes of gold which every year the galleons brought in to Cadiz from the mines of the Spanish Main.

There also was the Palace of Pilate, where the dukes of Alcala lived, and which was said to be an exact replica of that which had been built in Jerusalem by the Roman governor; and, strangest and loveliest of all, there was still the Moorish royal palace, the Alcazar, now become the southern residence of the kings of Spain.

Philip II received Don Manuel with the royal courtesy and munificence which it was his habit to offer to all visitors of importance. There may never have been a more accessible monarch nor one whose courtesies were of smaller worth. He had just returned from Madrid, where he had parted from Count Egmont, the prince of Gavre, after entertaining him with the lavishness which befitted his rank, and showering more substantial favours upon him. Yet he may even then have been contriving within his heart the murder which was soon to follow. He knew, already, more of the contemplated assault upon Malta than Don Manuel would have been able to tell him, and had used it with Egmont as the reason why he was unable to pay a visit to the Netherlands which (he said) he had been eager to undertake.

Now he praised the energy and devotion which the lord of Vilheyna had shown at this crisis of the fortunes of the great Order to which he belonged. He gave promises of support of the most lavish kinds, which he might mean or not, for in either event it would be his policy to give them in an equal profusion. He urged Don Manuel to convey these assurances to the Grand Master, which he was naturally eager to do.

As the news at the Spanish court indicated that the besiegers might already be surrounding the Maltese island, with such a fleet that the entry of a single vessel to its harbour would be a precarious enterprise before Don Manuel could be expected to arrive before it, he decided to proceed to Sicily in a frigate of that country which was sailing from Cadiz, and to complete his journey by such means as should seem most prudent, in the light of what he would be able to learn on arrival there.

CHAPTER VI

AFTER Don Manuel's departure, Angelica saw that the decisive hour of her life had come. By the break of dawn, the two galleys would have sailed away, and, if she were left behind, she would be doomed to the convent life to which she was more averse as its shadow fell more imminently upon her. While it had seemed a distant and yet inescapable certainty, she had endured it mainly by refusing it the tribute of thought, as one in health may reject the terror of death, though reason cannot doubt that it must be faced at last. But at the near threat of some fatal malady - at the possibility that it may be avoided - or overcome - how different will the feelings be!

So with Angelica had the vague avoided terror become real and near; and, at this extremity, the resignation with which the inevitable might have been faced had broken down as the possibility of escape, however faint, had invaded her mind.

Now she saw two possible sources of flight: to persuade Senor Ramegas to take her on the Santa Anna to Malta, or Francisco upon the Santa Martha, of which he was to have command, though under the authority of the older and more experienced captain.

But when she considered the possibility of persuading Ramegas to the granting of such permission, her reason told her that it was no more than a baseless hope. Even if she could obtain his sympathy for such a project (which was unlikely enough) his sense of fealty to her uncle would forbid the possibility that he should assist her to defy his authority in such a manner. And even if he could have been persuaded to do so, she saw that it was not fair to petition for that which would involve his own certain disgrace. For Don Manuel was not one who would hear excuse if his authority were defied.

The better, if not the only, chance lay in persuading Francisco that she would not take the veil - or, at least, not at this time - and that she was resolved to help the need of Malta in an extremity in which even women must have some functions they could fulfil.

She considered also boarding his ship at the last hour, and announcing that she was resolved to go, without asking his consent, but the thought that there would be no cabin reserved for her use, no female companion such as she designed to have, and the fear above all that she might be put ashore with the ignominy of force, if Ramegas should be consulted on such an issue, deterred her effectually. For, in her more feminine way, her pride was no less than that of Francisco or Don Manuel himself. She might brave danger, she might face the unknown with courage; but the fear of failure and ridicule were less easy to overcome.

In the same spirit, she saw that, if she should fail in resolution or power of persuasion now: if the ships should sail at the dawn and she should still be under the castle roof, she would surely go to the Convent of Holy Cross on the next day without showing that it was not cheerfully or even willingly done. It would be intolerable to her pride to remain there in passive, futile rebellion until, sooner or later, her uncle should come again and compel her to that which she had tried in vain to avoid.

On this determination she sought her cousin, and found that it would not be easy to make a favourable opportunity for the interview she desired. Two days before, she could have had his society at any hour. But how great was the difference that that time had made !

She sought him at last on the deck of the Santa Martha, through the crowded haste of the quay, to be told, after a time of enquiry that had produced only doubtful or contradictory answers, that he was with Senor Ramegas in the cabin of the other ship, so that she must wait his return, having no wish to go to him there.

And when he came he was in haste and a ruffled mood, for Ramegas had told him of more than one error into which he had fallen through inexperience and slowness to consult one who was his superior officer now, and had made it clear that their ranks held something more than a nominal difference. He had to learn that, though he was Don Manuel's nephew, Admiral of the Fleet was a position he had not yet gained.

"Francisco, can we talk somewhere alone?"

"What is it now?" he exclaimed, with an impatience which, to his cousin at least, he would rarely show. "I have much to do. We sail before dawn."

Angelica thought it best to be straight and bold. "I am coming with you," she said. "I want a cabin for my use, and one for a maid whom I shall bring."

A moment before. she had had the sense of being forgotten or pushed aside, which she had experienced at the morning meal, but there was no doubt that she had his attention now.

"Coming with us! How can you do that? It is tomorrow you are riding to Holy Cross."

"But that can wait. It has done so for eight years. Should not all help at this great need at which Malta lies? There is work for women as well as men in a leaguered town."

"Have you our uncle's word that you come?"

"He had much else of which he must think. I would not vex him with smaller things."

"You will vex him more if you come here when he thinks you at Holy Cross. As to cabins, do you know that we are to bear more than eight hundred men on this ship, and that it is laden with stores? And every hour I hear of more that must come. The men of most rank must lie in a crowded way. The slaves must sleep where they pull..

"Does Senor Ramegas know this? Then you must talk to him. I am nothing here. He would have me ask whether I am to go out by the stern."

"It would be useless to ask him. You must know that. Francis, I cannot go to that tomb at so great a time. I must come with you."

Francisco heard the pleading note in his cousin's voice and considered her request in a more serious way. As he did so, he regained the self-control that he had been near to lose as he came from Ramegas' cabin a few minutes before.

"I would have you here," he said, "with a blithe heart, but I see not how. If we would do this, and let there be wrath at a later day, yet I see not how to contrive. If I should find a cabin for you, there would be those who must be turned out, and they would not keep their tongues still for an hour.

"There are some who are sore now, and have taken tales to Senor Ramegas of how I would have them lie, which I must change, though I know not how.

"It could not be done without the knowledge coming to him and, as I think, it will be better to ask him now. He would not endure that we plan it without his will. You should ask him first. It is a small chance, or else none."

"Well," she said, "I will do that." She had no hope, but she saw that there was no other way.

She went on to the Santa Anna and found its commander upon the poop. He observed her at once, seeming to have more leisure than her cousin, and to be aware of all that went on without disturbing the calm of his own mind. He met her with grave rebuke that she should have come seeking him thus.

"Was there none you could send? Did you not know you should not be here?" But when she said she wished to speak to him alone he took her to his own cabin and listened calmly to what she said.

She came out a few minutes later with but one thought in her mind - to keep back tears from the sight of the men among whom she must make her way. Ramegas had been patient and kind. A child's folly had hindered his work, but he was too self-controlled to show anger for that. Also, she was a child of whom he was fond, and Don Manuel's niece. But the thing itself was too foolish for more than a kind rebuke. He had thought her to have more sense, and that her duty would be more plain to her eyes.

When she went, he called to one he could trust to follow her back to the castle gate.

Angelica had passed through a rough crowd, and some things which were not meant for her eyes and had not been pleasant to see. But except for the slaves who were already being labelled and chained to the benches where they must row till the voyage should end, they had mostly been men she knew. And the galley-slaves had been far beneath, in the low waist of the ship.

She saw well that she would have been queen of her cousin's ship, having all the comfort she could, among hundreds who would have run at her word. And the voyage to Malta would not be long. She would still have gone if she could; but she saw that it would not be. She had done no more than to give others a cause for jest, and to soil her pride.

When she had regained her room, and could be private to her own mood, she looked out on the harbour with eyes that were bright with tears. They were tears of anger and shame, of one who was not used to defeat. She saw Rinaldo's galley anchored far out in the bay. Why had she not asked it of him? His galley would not be so crowded of men. There might be more comfort there. "The potent arms that you now bear." She had a confident thought that he would not refuse to help her up the side of the ship. But she knew it to be a thing that she could not do. She did not trust him enough - or, at least, not in the right way.

CHAPTER VII

IT was in the later day that Morayma came to Angelica, where she still sat apart in a mood of rebellion against the fate that was closing her in. The call of sea and wind and the wide freedom of life became louder and more alluring as it seemed more hopeless that she could accept its charm. She had all the hunger of youth and she looked down on a meal which was to lie for a lifetime untasted before her eyes. At least, so it seemed to her. The Abbess of Holy Cross, had she been in a confessional mood, might have told her that the plate was not always bare.

"Senor Francisco," Morayma said, "has sent for some things he needs but lacks time to fetch. There is a yellow scarf which he says you have."

"Yes. It is in my chest. It has been there since the masquerade. I will get it now."

She went to a coffer in which she kept such clothes as she seldom wore. After turning out much that it held, she came to the scarf she sought. It was last winter that she had dressed herself as a page for the Twelfth-day masque, which her uncle had chidden somewhat at first, and then praised her, as making a pretty boy. There was not much that might not be done on that night. She had borrowed her cousin's doublet and hose; a suit that had become small for him, though it had been ample for her. The clothes were still there.

As she looked at them now, a thought came which she put away, but which would come back to her mind. "There is none," she thought, "that would guess, if my hair were shed." Then she thought: "But I should be shamed if they did." And after that: "But I am slim enough, and I stride well. I see not how they should know."

She said aloud: "It is a wild thought. It is a thing I shall never try.... I should need a sword, if I did."

She might be sure that it was a thing she would never try, yet she went to her cousin's room and found the rapier he mostly wore when he was dressed in a formal way. He had left it for a heavier sword, now that he went to the grim business of war, so it was there with the belt and dagger to which it belonged, all of which she took to her own room, with some other things which were of a man's kind.

She had some gold saved, which her uncle would give her freely at times, and this she put in a hollow belt that ran round the inside of the doublet, where it was drawn close at the waist, and was well concealed. She did not know what her need might be, but she knew that to have gold at hand is best for those who wander about. There was a pouch also hanging upon the belt, at the dagger's guard, and she put some smaller money in that for an instant need.

"It is what," she said to herself, "I shall never dare; but it can be no loss to have ordered well if my mind change at the last, as it will not do."

It was in this mood she remained till the day went down and the darkness came, though her hands had not been idle the while, and after that, as the space of escape narrowed towards its last hour, she came to a mood that was both active and bold, and though it might change with another day, it might do more before then than could be undone by too late a fear.

Through the hours of night there was coming and going of men between castle and quay, and the castle gates were not closed, nor its lights dimmed. At two hours before dawn it was easy for one who walked out with assurance enough to pass unchallenged and unobserved; and it was at about that time that an old fisherman, grounding his skiff on his own beach - to which he had returned from taking some goods to Rinaldo's galley - was aware of a young gentleman who stood at the water's edge, and asked him, in a voice that was somewhat husky and low, if he would earn some coins by pulling out again to the Flying Hawk.

Vaguely, for he was a tired man, Pedro heard a familiar sound in the voice and, had there been better light, he would more certainly have recognised Francisco's clothes and given a closer look to one who wore them with doubtful right. As it was, he thought only of time and toil.

"Senor," he said, "it will be a hard pull, and the time is short, for they weigh anchor in much less than an hour. But I will do what I can."

"There is time, if you pull well. If you get me aboard I will give you something more than I said. There is this to take."

She handed him a valise which she had found heavy enough, though it was not large. The beach at this place had a good slope, and the boat could come well ashore, but as she got aboard she wetted one leg to the knee, at which she was less than pleased. Pedro had settled more than he knew, for she had resolved that he should be the test of whether her disguise would prevail. As he knew her voice as well as herself, it had seemed a sufficient ordeal to pass, and as he pulled over the dark waters of the bay, she had a better confidence that none would guess that she was not that which she appeared, which did much to control her fear of what her greeting might be when she had climbed to the galley's deck.

They passed close enough under the stern of the Santa Anna to hear the voices of those who were casting the hawsers clear, and when they drew into the shadow of the Flying Hawk they heard the noise of men who sang at the capstan bars, and the bow anchor was already awash. Pedro pulled round to the low waist of the ship, and when he hailed that he had a gentleman to be put aboard, the rope-ladder was cast, with less pause to ask for whom it might be required than there might have been in the light of day, or at any moment than that, for the sheet-anchor was hard apeak and as it came clear of the sea-bottom the galley must fall away with the wind. The oarsmen had their long sweeps ready to pull, and Angelica found that she must be agile to seize the swaying ropes before the boat would be backed away. The valise was handled in such a sort that it was by no more than a good chance that it did not fall to the sea.

Pedro pulled away in some wonder and doubt of what he had done, for, as Angelica gave him that he had earned, she had been careless to speak in her own voice, saying farewell. It seemed a wild thought at the first, but when he heard, at a later hour, that the Senorita could not be found, he had little doubt of what he had done, about which he had sufficient sense to keep quiet. He had not seen her, he said, with an oath which his conscience allowed; for who can see in the dark?

Angelica was led by the light of lanterns that swung from the masts, and the first faint efforts of dawn, along a raised plank from which she could look down on the benches of those who were chained to the oarsman's task. She had to keep her footing with care as the ship came loose to the wind, and she heard strange-tongued cries from those who controlled the oarsmen by word and lash, bidding them dip their sweeps to a task which must be sustained till the voyage's end.

She had asked for Captain Rinaldo, not knowing if that were the proper designation to apply to the pursuivant who was also (as she understood) in command of the vessel by which he came. The seaman whom she addressed, who appeared to be of the rank of a quartermaster or boatswain, but whose features were hard to see in the wavering light, had replied in a foreign tongue, which might be Maltese for any better knowledge she had, and had led her toward the poop. He had, in fact, understood no word except 'capitan', which conveyed all that she needed to say, and her dress and manner were sufficient to indicate the part of the vessel to which she would most naturally be assigned.

When she had climbed to the high poop, she saw Rinaldo there, but the man, having led her so far, either had other work of an urgent nature upon his hands, or he did not think it necessary, or perhaps wise, to interrupt the captain in his task of guiding the ship through the harbour-mouth. He pointed to Rinaldo, with some more words of the foreign tongue he had used before, and hurried away. Angelica stood in the shadow of a short mizzenmast which rose from the poop deck. She saw Rinaldo in the light of a lantern which hung over the stern. He was clothed in somewhat looser garments than he had worn when he came ashore, and had a curved sword at his side. She was not sufficiently familiar with the equipment or crew of a Maltese warship to judge the meaning of all she saw, but was aware of a barbaric tone in her new surroundings beyond anything she had expected to meet. It was exotic, even intoxicating, in its first effect, as though she were privileged to walk in safety in Algiers or Egypt, where no Christian, other than the ingratiating ubiquitous Greek, could hope to enter, save in the heavy gyves of a slave.

Finding herself unobserved or unregarded by those around, she turned her attention to the dim forms of her uncle's galleys, coming up behind with spreading widths of canvas which hid at times the lights of the castle which she had left for so wild a path. As she looked back in a tumult of contending thoughts, she was aware of Rinaldo's voice at her side.

There was now a broadening line of dove-grey light on the rim of the eastern sky, foretelling a quiet and misty dawn. She could not see his face clearly, and he less of hers, she being in shadow and her back turned to what light there was.

"May I ask to whom I have the honour to speak?"

The words were courteous, but the tone had an inflection of satire, at which her heart stirred to a sudden fear; but it was a question she had expected, and for which she had an answer prepared.

"I must ask your grace for the way I have come aboard without leave. My name is Garcio - Don Garcio of Murcia - I am near of blood to Don Manuel, and came to give such aid as I could. I did not arrive till his galleys were near to sail, and they were so thronged that I thought it best to ask if you could find me space here."

There was no answer to this, and she added: "If I have taken too great a freedom, I have no doubt Senor Ramegas will find means to bring me to his own vessel. Or I could pace the deck here, if your cabins are full below. You would not mind that?"

She did not want to face Ramegas, but it appeared best to speak in a bold way, and, at the worst, he could not put back for her. She felt that the die had fallen now, and it might not have been unwelcome to have found herself among friends again, and to discard a dress which had served its use. Yet it was not easily to be thought that Rinaldo would be reluctant to welcome any who might come as a volunteer to the defence of the threatened isle, or to refuse hospitality on a ship which the Knights of Malta owned.

"We will speak of this at a later hour." As Rinaldo said this, he moved away without inviting reply. There had been a subtle note of ironic mockery in his voice, at which her heart stirred again to that first instinct of fear.

Yet she was of too fine a blood to be lightly frightened without a cause, and her reason told her that there could be no need for alarm. Even if he had guessed who she was - which she was not quick to believe - she must be in safety enough, with the Maltese flag over her head, and its own envoy in charge. She did not forget that she was the niece of one of the Commanders of the great Order to which the galley belonged. One who was next in rank to the Grand Master, La Valette himself.

Perhaps it was just because Rinaldo had not guessed who she was that he had dared to speak in that mocking tone. He might think her to claim a rank that she did not own. He might even think her a spy. But, even so, she need have no fear. The truth would be her secure defence. Had she been really alone she might have stirred to a sharper fear. But she looked at the two great ships that were but three furlongs behind, drawing out of the harbour now, the Santa Martha slightly in advance on the starboard side, and she knew that Ramegas - her cousin - and a hundred others upon those decks could speak for her of who she was. She looked at the beauty of sea and sky in the growing light with a mind that was more at ease than it had been since Rinaldo's coming had broken the peace of the castle life, as a stone drops in a pool.

And the scene was one of beauty and quiet peace, though it might be pregnant with menace of coming war, as the three galleys, like wide-winged birds, with white gleams of foam at their sides from the measured strokes of the oars, left the dark coastline of Spain behind, and moved outward toward the dawn.

The two galleys of Don Manuel, which had been built at Cadiz, and were the gift of the Spanish king, were each of a length of two hundred feet, being among the largest ships of their kind that were then afloat. The waist was low, where the rowers sat, and they would be drenched in a windy storm, and might even be glad of their chains at such times, without which they had been sucked away by a falling wave; but poop and bow were built high, having several decks. They were like castles, bristling with cannon, crowded with men.

They were built somewhat broad of beam and round of bow, speed being less regarded than strength, and space for armaments and for a large regiment of fighting men. But they carried three masts, and could show a spread of sail that was high and wide. They had twenty oars on either side, each being pulled by three men. With a good wind they could do ten knots an hour, if not more.

The Flying Hawk was a smaller ship of a different kind. It was lean and swift. It had some height of poop, and there were gun-decks there, where it showed teeth that were strong and sharp. But the bow was lower and pointed keenly ahead, like a falcon's beak. It had cannon there on a single deck, long brass swivel-mounted guns that could be trained ahead on a flying prey. It had great grappling-hooks hung out on either side of the prow, that could be used to grip the bulwarks of a ship that might be too shy to close with less persuasion than that. With the sharp-pointing prow, they showed like the beak and claws of the deadly bird that it claimed to be.

It had but twelve oars aside, with two rowers to each, but it could make as good speed with those on a calm sea as could the greater galleys with six-score rowers that pulled on their longer oars; and with a fair wind, it could do nigh three knots to their two.

Angelica looked at it now, gliding forward with less than its full effort of sail, and with its oars stilled for a time, that it might not draw too far ahead of her uncle's galleys, which might be said to be panting behind, and she thought it to be a ship which it would be easy to love. She was at peace with herself and with all she saw, when a man stood at her elbow and spoke to her in a tongue which she did not know, but which had some sound of that which Morayma used when she met one of her own race.

The man had on a red cap, and his jacket and drawers were linen, not over-white, which might be excused on a ship that was scarcely clear of the harbour-bar and was still busy with a crowd of men who were carrying stores to the hold, coiling cables away, and removing, raffle from off the decks.

When she answered in Spanish, and he saw that she did not understand him, he found enough words of that tongue to say that Captain Hassan wished to speak to the Senor.

"Captain Hassan?" she asked, in some surprise, thinking that this must be another officer to whom Rinaldo had referred her business; but she followed the man across the deck, and it was to Rinaldo that she was led.

He looked at her in a cold way, and there was no friendliness in his voice, as he asked:

"Senor Garcio, you are, as I understand from yourself, of a wealthy house? You are one for whom a good ransom might well be paid? Should we say of two thousand crowns, or perhaps more?"

"Yes," she said in some wonder and doubt how to reply to this most unexpected query. "What of that?"

"It may be well for you that you have such friends. You were not asked to come here, and must look for the fate of those who adventure with rashness thus."

Angelica was more puzzled than alarmed by the threat which the words contained. She still thought that, if all else should fail, she had but to reveal who she was, and her safety, at least, was sure. She looked at the Maltese flag overhead, and at the two great galleys that were scarce a gunshot away, and there was no more than a foolish jest in the words she heard.

"Captain Rinaldo," she said, "you talk in a strange way. I am on a Maltese ship, and it is Malta I come to aid. Do the Knights of Malta think that to hold their friends to ransom will aid their cause? Why, all Europe would cry them shame."

"Senor, I know not what the Knights of Malta may do. I am not of their Order, nor was I put in command when this galley was sent to sea."

"Then I will speak to who is."

"If you would do that, you must call the dead."

"Do you tell me that the Captain died, and that you, being no more than the Grand Master's envoy at first, have taken his power?"

"The Grand Master's envoy is on the third bench from the fore, on the starboard side. It is he over whom the driver is standing now with his whip raised, which he will feel the first time that his oar lags, as it is soon that it will."

"I cannot tell what you mean."

"Yet it is simple to see. You are speaking to Captain Hassan, of whom it is likely you may have heard. Six days ago, I was in command of a part of my father's fleet. I fell in with this galley, which I have long lusted to take. Being six to one, we were able to gain it with little loss, having hemmed it round. I took it by the board, for I would not batter it with our guns, more than by the shooting down of some spars to reduce its speed, which were soon repaired.

"My vessels lie with their yards aback but fifty miles off Iviza's coast, and I lead Don Manuel's ships to that place, as two cows that the butcher needs.

"Yet I will not say I have done all that I meant, for I thought that the Lord of Vilheyna would have been the best part of the prey which I took some venture to have. He would have pleased my father better than all, for he had longed to bait him for many years; since, in fact, he broke his helm at Golitta's siege, though he might have borne no malice for that. It was some words that Don Manuel said at that time which he must learn to repent. My father will not be content that either shall die till he have him impaled at his galley's stern, for he has a stake there, as you may know, which is seldom vacant of some Christian to whom he may talk at will.

"There is a chance that he may honour you in that way, but it is the larger odds that he will let you go at a good price, thinking you are too feeble and mean for that which he will keep for his major foes."

Angelica heard this with a mind that was stunned by a horror that left it numb, as the pain of a wound delays till the first shock is spent.

She did not doubt it was true; nor to whom it was that she spoke. It was to Hassan, the son-in-law of Dragut, who was the Sultan's Viceroy of Algiers, the scourge of the Mediterranean for the last thirty years, the best naval commander who supported the Turkish power. And Hassan, Barbarossa's son, was his most dreaded lieutenant, to whom he had given his daughter in reward for a former act of audacity such as that which had brought her here. At least - it was her own folly that brought her here!

She looked back at her uncle's ships, striving to make pace with the swifter vessel, and thinking that every knot they gained made it more sure that they would arrive at Malta before the Turks could obstruct their way to the harbour mouth, and she felt, illogically enough, as though she had betrayed them to the doom that they strained to reach. And yet, if she could warn.... And what way could there be to that? She saw - she could have admired at another time in another mood - the superb audacity which had anchored that galley in Aldea Bella bay, with its benches of Christian slaves: slaves too closely watched, too entirely cowed by their ruthless owners, to be able to give alarm, perhaps too terror-weakened to have used such an opportunity had it come.

But now she saw only the eyes which had looked at her so differently two mornings before - which were now cruel with derisive scorn. Was she to watch impotent here while her cousin and all her uncle's power were lured to slaughter or slavery at the Corsair's will? What would be her own fate when the truth were known, which she could not hope that she would be long able to hide?

Desperation brought its own courage. If she had abandoned her womanhood for this pit of horror and shame, was she to forget also the manhood that she assumed? The sword that she yet wore?

They were alone on the high deck, in an ample space, for Captain Hassan was not one on whom others would intrude unless they knew that they were required. Bitter passion and pride, and the wild hope that she might do something to break the trap to which her friends were now led, urged the sudden movement that brought her rapier clear of its sheath. She would have struck, in the revulsion of that instant's despair, be the consequences what they might, but he was as nimble as she. The curved scimitar leapt to light.

"Back!" he cried. "Stand away!" to the running crew. "Do I need aid for such a boy's bodkin as that?"

Angelica thrust twice with a fury replacing strength. Then she knew that her rapier was snapped off at the hilt. The scimitar skimmed over her head, which it did not cut.

"You are more worth," Captain Hassan remarked, "while you yet live. Yet I see not why you should idle here. You may look again at the pursuivant that you thought me to be. He will not last for an hour. When he faints, they will cast him over the side, and his place will be bare for you."

She looked at the bench to which he had pointed before. Standing at the poop-rail, she looked down on the face of a man who was at the extremity of exhaustion and the desperation of a great dread. His bench companion was a huge negro, with a green turban about his head, who pulled strongly and must, indeed, have been doing three-fourths of the work, but the oars were beyond the power of a single man.

The pursuivant, the real Rinaldo, pulled with the knowledge that, if the oar should fail to keep its place with the rest, the lash would descend on a back that was already swollen and raw and in a torture of pain every time that it bent for the next stroke. Nature may do much under the stimulus of such fear, but there is a limit it cannot pass. As Angelica looked, the man's body sank limply forward upon the oar. The lash descended in vain upon a back that quivered hut did not rise. The oar fouled the one that came forward from those who pulled on the bench behind. There was confusion and loss of stroke till the negro lifted it clear.

The driver called two men forward to strike off the chains of the swooning man. He shouted also for one of the slaves who were held in reserve for such a need to be brought to supply his place.

Angelica saw the pursuivant's senseless form lifted over the bench, and dragged to the vessel's side. She realised abruptly that he was to be thrown overboard while he still lived. She had known, all her life, that such things were but daily events in the merciless Mediterranean warfare that had been waged for five hundred years between the Christian and Moslem powers. For the moment she forgot her own peril, even the threat that she was to take the vacated place. She turned to Hassan with a cry in which horror and appeal had an equal part.

"Oh, not that! You can't let them throw him over. He isn't dead."

"Senor," was the cold reply, "the man had no ransom to pay." There was no mercy in Hassan's heart, for he had known the misery of a slave himself, all the bitterness and the blows, as he had toiled in Malta at the fortifications of St. Elmo, while his captors had refused to discuss any possible ransom, so that he was only released at last when Dragut made capture of a Commander of the Maltese Order, and both parties had been glad to effect exchange.

The pursuivant's body was flung over the side, to tumble for a moment and disappear among the swirling foam of the oars; but Captain Hassan's attention had left it before it fell.

Something in Angelica's voice, in the urgency of that appealing cry, in which she had forgotten the pose of manhood she had assumed, awaked memory and brought his eyes upon her with a new sharpness, even as he lifted the pipe to his mouth, the shrill note of which had been intended to summon those who would have chained her in the vacant place, and put back the wretch who was now being driven toward the bench.

"Now," he said, "you may call me fool if you will. Allah be thanked for the better light! Did not Morayma say you could use the sword? But she left the doublet unsaid. There will be no slave-bench for you - Senor Garcio. You shall have the cabin beside my own."

"I see you know who I am. There is no occasion to mock. And the sword I had was no more than a fragile thing. It might have snapped in your own hand. But if you treat me with honour, you may be sure there will be exchange or ransom agreed "

She was conscious, amid the horror of the murder she had just seen, and a host of contending fears, of some satisfaction, even relief, in the fact that he knew her for whom she was, and that the true issue alone need concern her now. She could feel confidence once again in the great name that was hers, and that might, she thought, be some protection, even in this pit to which she had slipped. Fear she must have; but, for the moment, at least, she faced him with a courage that ruled her fear. And as she heard his reply, she had need of all that she could gather from her own spirit or her race's pride.

"You will be held in honour enough. You need have no doubt about that, for it is there that your value lies. But it will be time to talk of ransom when it is asked, if at all. My father may think you a gift that our Sultan will not disdain to take from his hand; though I do not say you should look for that, for the years of the Protector of the Faithful are more than few, and it is said that his seraglio is already beyond his need. My father may think that I have done well, and that I may claim a rose for my own wreath, if I will."

Angelica checked a reply that was near her lips. It seemed that she gained coolness as well as courage from the extremity of danger which was not hers alone, but that of all who were aboard those following ships. If there were a way that they could be warned in time! She saw that the more quietly she accepted the doom that his words implied, the more freedom she was likely to have, and on the retention of such freedom must rest any hope that she could communicate with those who were now being guided to the waiting trap. She said only:

"I had no rest during last night. Will you show me the cabin I am to have?"

He saw that she accepted the position in a very quiet and sensible way, and though he might not have cared had she wept or pleaded or stormed, there being those at call who had the expertness of use in dealing with such cases as hers, yet her attitude proved her friend in securing a different treatment from that which she would have been likely to have.

"Come this way," he said, and led down a short companionway to the poop-cabins beneath their feet. She recognised in the curt order that she was now something less than either the Senorita Angelica of Vilheyna, or the Senor Garcio that she had claimed to be; but it was something gained that she was being led to the best quarters that the galley held, rather than to the hard slavery of the oar, which she would have had no strength to endure.

"There is no need," he said, as they entered the cabin in which his meals were served, "that it should be known who you are at this time, and will be better not, in two ways."

The room in which they stood was surprisingly large, though its height was little more than six feet. It was on the port side, and as they entered, looking toward the rudder, there were portholes facing them, and on their right hand, through one of which, as the ship dipped to the waves, Angelica had a glimpse of the Santa Anna. She saw the length of its starboard side, and the lifted oars gleam in the sun. She had some comfort in this nearness of friends, and a brave and yet fearful thought that their safety might be dependent upon herself. "I must warn them," she thought, "while there is time, though my life go."

While she thought this, Captain Hassan had called to a Moorish boy, and had led the way to the further of two doors which opened at their left hand.

"You will prepare this cabin," he said, in his own tongue, "for Senor Garcio's use, bringing his baggage here from the deck, and from now you will serve meals for two."

Angelica saw that she was in the stern-most of two sleeping-cabins which opened into each other and into the larger one, the suite of three taking the whole width of the stern. The Knights of Malta might crowd their fighting galleys with men, but they had spacious accommodation provided for the one, whether of themselves or not, who was likely to have command. There would be comfort for him and for one other, wife or amie, whom he might bring aboard on a safe voyage.

"You will live here," Hassan went on, when the boy had gone, speaking in Spanish again, "till we come to port, and my father will order all. You may think that you can call to your friends, but you know more than I, if you know how. For even could you swim such a length through the waves (which it would be random to think), you would be shot from these decks as you rose from the first dive, nor would your friends haul a yard that they might come by your way, for they will not pick up that which a consort drowns."

Angelica feared, as he said this, that he might have observed a moment's change in her face, for to swim to her uncle's ships had been a faint hope that had already come to her mind, though it had also filled it with fear. For, having been born at the sea's side, and of a race that had been less often on land than a ship's deck, she had learnt to swim, which she could do well, though she had never put her strength to a test such as this would be sure to be.

"If you are wise," he went on, "you will put such thoughts from your mind, for your own peace. You can bar these doors or not, as you will. While I live, you will be troubled by none till this voyage is through. And you can drive that toy" (looking at the dagger that hung from her belt) "into my back at a likely time, if your folly rise to that height; but it will be no avail to your friends nor to yourself. If you should do that, you might pray for a quick death in the next hour. There are three hundred men on this ship, besides slaves, and no woman at all. They would have no mercy on one who had wrought my death; and what they would do, should they find that which you are, I may guess but I will not say. You might be glad at the last to be impaled on the stake you will have seen at the helmsman's side, which your friends of Malta have used to the torture of those of the True Faith, as its stains attest, but which will bear Christian fruit from this day."

"I am not of those," she said, "who slay sleeping men or who will strike at the back, as I think you know."

"Are you not? There are few, either women or men, who will not do that at an urgent fear, unless they are faint of heart, which I do not think that you are. I will trust your sense as a better pledge."

"You may trust what you will. While you leave me at peace, I shall not desire evil to you. I can see that it might be to fall into more difficult hands."

"Then we are agreed for this time." He went back to the deck. Angelica remained in the larger cabin, which was furnished in the style of the Italian luxury of that time, having much of novelty to one who had been brought up in the austere atmosphere of Andalusian grandeur, while the boy Alim prepared her own cabin, fitting with soft cushions and silk coverings a deep-sided berth, which was more fit for a woman's ease than the man she proposed to be.

When he had gone, she lay down in the berth, though without discarding her clothes, for, having had no rest during the previous night, she was physically and mentally exhausted by the experiences through which she had gone. Now, while adversity threatened but paused to strike, she lay for some time devising plans by which she might reach her friends who were so near, and so much more numerous and powerful than these men by whom she was held. But her thoughts showed her no more than the strength of the trap into which she had walked, in a blind way; and, after a time, with the resilient spirit of youth, she passed into dreamless sleep, from which she waked in a mood of buoyant hope, having little cause, beyond the fact that there appeared to be a short space of days during which she need have no imminent fear.

She entered the larger cabin to find a table laden with food, and bearing signs that Captain Hassan had eaten and gone. She ate and drank with some zest, during which she was even aware of some doubt whether she would be back in the walls of Andrea Bella, if the choice could be hers, considering that it must be about the hour when she would have been setting out for the Convent of Holy Cross.

Having eaten, and observing that the air was somewhat oppressive in the low-roofed cabin, she found courage enough to seek the sun and wind that the deck would give. If she were to be Don Garcio till the voyage should end, she need not deny herself such freedom as could be expected to be attached thereto. Captain Hassan walked the deck, watching the ship's response to a gusty and changeful wind. He did not regard her at all.

She looked down at the bare-backed slaves who toiled under the constant fear of the driver's lash, and her mood sobered again to the depth of the peril in which she lay. The man who had been put in Rinaldo's place had a broad red weal across the white of his back. He did not look very strong. Probably he, too, would go over-side, if he had no ransom to pay. Many did. Others had strength to endure, and, in the end, the toil would become almost easy for them.

It was a cruel custom, doing no good to either side, Christian or Infidel, in its result. The galleys of each were pulled by the war-taken slaves of the alien race. They might equally well have each pulled on their own oars, but so the custom had been; slaves died, or were exchanged if they were of sufficient rank; ransoms were paid and repaid. It cancelled out more or less, as it had done since the days of Carthage and Rome. So long had the custom endured, and so long might it last, till the end of time.

Captain Hassan had occupation for his own mind. A cold wind came from the north. The galleys sailed close-hauled to the wind, and the oars pulled under the urgent threats of the drivers' whips. Captain Hassan had no care for his own ship. He could sail two points nearer the wind than the round-hulled vessels that came behind. He felt like a dog that brings slow-moving cattle to the place where they are appointed to die. If there should be a further rise in the wind - if there should be storm in the night, such as would break them apart - it might be the loss of almost all that he had so audaciously attempted to gain.

Angelica felt the chill of that Alpine wind which the Southerner hates to feel, either on water or land. She saw the grey of the sky and the rising sea. She saw that the galleys that held her friends were more distant then they had been on the earlier day. There was no comfort in that.

She watched them awhile over the stern-rail, and when she turned to go below, after she had been spattered by the spray of a heavy wave, she saw that she was standing beside the stake of which Captain Hassan had warned her that she might make closer acquaintance if she should do him hurt. It was a strong, upright stake, about five feet high, firmly fixed in the deck, and having a sharp point. A man being seated thereon, and the stake being thrust in so far that he would not fall off, but no more, might live, it was said, for as much as four days, while the stake would be driven in by his own weight till it should come to a vital part.

It was a form of execution very popular in Asia and Eastern Europe at that time. It resembled crucifixion in that a man might be able to think and talk for a long time after the executioner's work was done; but it was unlike in that a man could not be taken down, and his life saved. After he had once been fixed on the stake a slow death was his certain fate.

There were corsairs at that time, both Christian and Turk - between which there was little to choose in the modes of warfare they used - who would have a victim impaled by the ship's helm as a constant thing, saying that they must have someone with whom to talk while they steered.

Angelica had heard of such things, which she knew were done, but it is different to see. It was but a bare stake, which had been scrubbed clean of all but some stains that were darker than the grain of the wood. There was nothing frightful in that, nor had she much fear that she would come herself to an end so foul, yet it was not pleasant to see.

She went to her own cabin, and watched for a time, through a stern porthole, the ships where, if she could reach them, her safety lay.

Lacking air, she tried to open it, but found that it was secured beyond her strength, and, as she thought, on the outside. She went to the starboard porthole and found that it was easy to set it wide, which she was glad to do, that side being away from the wind. She wondered whether the porthole astern had been secured so that she should not signal at a place which her friends could see, and whether it might have been done in the last hour, while she was on the deck. She had a fear that she might be watched more than she knew, and resolved to be wary to hide her thoughts.

The ships lay-to during the night, resting their oars, and after the darkness fell, and when she had barred both her doors, she watched the triple masthead lights of the two ships that, at one time, were but a short distance away. She supposed that she could go on deck if she would, by no more than opening her own door; and if she were once in the sea, she thought that she would not be easy to follow or stay. But the night was dark, the waves high. She had little hope that she could do more than drown herself, if she should attempt such a swim; and though she saw that she might have no better chance till it would be too late, she could not make the resolve. She slept for that night, and waked in an April dawn to find that the ships were moving again. The wind had veered to the south of west: the sea was more quiet: the Santa Anna and Santa Martha came with a full strength of sail: the oars flashed in the foam. With a wind which was dead astern, as it now was, their speed was not greatly less than that of the Flying Hawk: they sought to recover the time that had been lost as they lay-to in the night. They made haste to their doom.

Angelica looked, and called herself coward that she had let the night go without an effort to reach their decks. She saw that her life was a small thing beside the stake for which it would be cast in the scale. She might not succeed, but it was a thing that she ought to try. Rather, that she ought to have tried; for there could be no chance now, unless it should come with another night.

Captain Hassan clearly thought it to be an impossible thing. But he might not guess how well she could swim. There were few Spanish ladies at that day who could have lived in the water at all. Few, indeed, who would have made such an attempt as she now pondered and feared, and yet thought it likely that she could do if she should have sufficient courage to try.

Yet Captain Hassan might be right. To swim in the dark to the side of a moving ship was a thing she had never tried. She thought of herself as struggling vainly among the moving blades of the oars. They were not always out. But they might be put out at any time, even while she were swimming toward the ships.

Even if they had not to be faced, she must so contrive that she must come close to the moving side, amid the darkness and tossing waves, and her cries must be heard, or something seized by which she could climb, or in a moment it would have slipped away, and she be left to a hopeless death. She should have tried while they lay-to, however rough was the sea. It was the one chance she had, and her cowardice had let it go.

As she reproached herself thus, there was a sound of distant guns that came over the sea. She looked out, and far to south there were flashes at times where sea and sky met in a vagueness of morning mist.

The firing was not heavy, but came often from single guns. It was most likely that of flight and pursuit. The dawn had come to one of the pitiless Mediterranean hawks, and had shown it a pigeon near. It was only a detail of the ruthless warfare that never ceased on the inland sea, over which merchant vessels, hugging the land, glad of the coming night, would scurry from coast to coast, as a rabbit dashes across a field where foxes prowl.

There was some signalling between Don Manuel's ships and the Flying Hawk, as though they discussed whether they should endeavour to intervene, but it came to nothing. They went on as before. Had they been drawn into such a strife, it might have been hard for Hassan to conceal the side to which he belonged, but it is likely that he would have continued the part he had chosen to play, even to the point of sinking a galley of his own land, rather than lose the greater prey that he had brought so near to the trap.

But they did not turn for a chase which they might have been too slow to reach, even had it been a Christian vessel that was in jeopard of loss, as to which they may have known more than Angelica was able to see. They held their course all that day, the wind continuing fair under a sky that was warm and blue. The sea became a bright mirror that held the sky.

In the afternoon the Flying Hawk steered a more northerly course. It must have seemed a cautious route to those who followed, leaving Algiers as far away as they well could, unless they would go round the Balearic Isles, which had been far out of the course that they ought to make. The day ended without event. The night came, and though she could make no more than a vague guess, having little knowledge of navigation or of distances on the sea, it seemed to Angelica that they could not be far from the place where the trap was set. All the day she had vexed her mind with vain plans by which she should have made a warning signal to those who followed, but she could think of none that would be likely to be understood, though they might lead to her own death. She had leisure enough, for she appeared to be disregarded by all around. The boy Alim was alert to observe her needs, but she did not know his tongue, nor he hers. If he thought her to be other than what she seemed, he made no sign. Captain Hassan gave her no notice at all: his mind, we may suppose, was on larger things.

They met no ships during these two days that were more than a flicker of distant sails, such as would fade away almost as soon as they showed on the horizon, for they were too formidable in their own aspect to invite the weak to a closer view. Curiosity would have been a fatal vice in a merchant-captain of that day, and indifference would have led to the same end by a road nearly as short. They lived longest who were most timid of mood, and would fly from peril while it was no more than a speck on the distant sea.

On the second night, Angelica lay at ease in the soft berth, though she kept her clothes on as before, for there was good reason to rest while she could, if she were to adventure that on which it was hard to resolve, but which yet would not leave her mind.

She rose after a time and looked out on a night that was dark and still. There was no moon, and the stars were few. The two sets of triple masthead lights followed at some distance apart. Perhaps they were further away than they had been during the day, but one was much in advance. They came on with some spread of canvas, but their oars were drawn in; for no weight of lashes will give men the strength to pull without rest and sleep, and the galleys did not carry a reserve of slaves sufficient for complete relief shifts during the night.

She said to herself: "It must be tried now, if at all. If I stay here, I shall be no more than a bartered slave, of such shame as I partly guess, and do not wish to know more; and I shall have the further shame in my own heart that I have not tried to do what I could. If I try and fail, I have lost no more than a life which is near to wreck, and all else will be as though I had never come. But if I succeed, I have saved my uncle's galleys from being seized and my friends from death. I shall have done more for Malta, besides, than I ever thought when I made that my excuse to come by a wilful way."

And as she thought thus, she saw that the fact that one galley was in advance gave her a double chance, for if she should fail in boarding the first, the second would still be coming in the right way; and she saw also that the distance they might be behind did not matter as much as she had been inclined to think at first. For if she could leave the ship unobserved, she could wait rather than tire herself in an effort to swim to them, doing little more than to keep herself afloat till they should be nearer to her.

Having resolved upon this, she lost no more time, but addressed her mind to the trouble of getting clear of the ship. She prayed to St. Christopher first, he being the patron saint of her house, as well as the right one to guide her through a dark flood, and crossed herself with the three names of God, and stood awhile with a hand that trembled upon the bar of the door, listening for any sound there might be before she consented to draw it back.

She knew that Captain Hassan was in the cabin beside her own, where she must hope that he slept, and so, after she had drawn the bolt back, hearing no sound, she crossed the larger cabin on quiet feet, from which she had drawn the shoes that she would not need. She should have cast more of her clothes, but had been loth to do this, not knowing what she would be able to get again, and was glad to silence a wiser thought with the fear that if she should be stopped by any upon the ship, and were not fully clad, it would be harder to deceive them as to what she proposed to do.

She went through the larger cabin, dimly lit by a lantern which swung from the roof, and up the companion ladder, which had no light but the stars, for she must first mount the poop before she could get down to the low waist of the ship. On the poop deck she stood awhile in the dark shadow of the mast, on the further side from that on which its lantern was hung.

She saw - through the helm-house window - Salim, Hassan's chief mate, a turbaned Turk with a beard that spread as loosely as the clothes he wore, standing beside the helmsman, to whom he talked as he pointed northward into the night.

Seeing that he was not looking her way, she crossed to the head of the ladder that descended to the waist of the ship. She could observe no motion. She heard no sound except the voices of the watch on the forward deck, which came clearly through the night air, but she knew that she would not be noticed by them.

Thinking that she increased her risk by delay, she descended to the oarsmen's level. She came to a vague awareness of men who lay under the stars, sprawling asleep in their chains. The overseers dozed or slept in their places alike, for they were nearly as wearied as those they drove. They must snatch sleep when they could, waking at once if the boatswain's pipe should call them to action again.

The big negro, who had partnered Rinaldo until he died, half waked as someone stumbled against his feet. He heard a splash, such as might be made by a leaping fish. He raised his head, but there was no further sound. He looked at the dim forms of those who were sleeping around, and then up at the quiet stars, and turned to slumber again.

CHAPTER VIII

SHE came to the first of the galleys on its windward side. It rose above her, a monster of moving gloom. Its masts, its wide spread of sail which towered to an incredible height among distant stars, were leaning somewhat away. So was the smooth side that slipped from her clutching hands as it slid past with such terrible speed. There was nothing to which she could hold. No one answered her cries. The whole ship seemed asleep. Only, as she came under the stern, and looked up in a last despair, high above she saw Francisco's face, on which the light shone from a stern-hung lantern, as he leaned over the rail. He was puzzled by what he heard. Did mermaids call from the sea? And it was strange that the sound should recall Angelica's voice, the more so that it had a note of pleading and fear such as he had never heard from her lips. But the sound went with the wind, where he supposed that its birth had been.

She saw the towering vessel recede, and she felt that her life was done. By instinct she kept afloat, though she did not doubt that the waste of waters would be her tomb. In that minute's despair, as she saw the ship go by, she almost lost the little chance that was still hers, for when she looked for the second galley, she waked to the realisation that it was coming up fast, and was not in line behind, but would pass some hundred yards further south.

She knew it to be the last chance of life that was hers, and she struck out again with all the strength that she still had.

How foolish she had been not to cast some of her clothes ! Even the belt, with its slender burden of gold, was still round her waist. She could not wait now to endeavour to get it free. She could only exhaust her breath in the effort to reach the ship before it should pass for ever. She did not even call as she swam.

The wide shadow of sail made a black lake of the water to which she came while there was still half the length of the ship to pass, but the hull leaned over her now. At its waterline it was further away, taking some strokes to reach, and there was again nothing to clutch. It slid past her desperate, groping hands. It was at the corner of the stern, at the last second of hope, that her chance came, in a wooden cornice across the stern. Had she been on the starboard side, it would have been lifted high from her reach, but with the ship leaning as it did from the wind, it came down at times, where she was, to the water's edge.

When she looked down in the daylight hours, she was surprised that she had done that climb with such ease in the dark, but she had been bred on the hills, and there had been no more than a steady breeze which, with the way the ship heeled thereto, had been less hindrance than help. In fact, she remembered little of what she did until she had pulled herself over the bulwark rail, and was aware of a curt crisp voice that asked:

"Now who may you be that come thus where you have no business to be?"

She confronted the small truculent form of Senor Antonio, the Genoese seaman who had been captain of the Santa Anna before Ramegas came aboard. He stood with his legs apart, and his left hand bearing down the sword-hilt, so that its blade stuck upwards jauntily at his back. Angelica had seen him once or more at her uncle's board, enough to know who he was, but they had not exchanged twenty words. He was not likely to know her in such a light as that in which she stood now, making a pool of water upon the deck.

"I am - I have swum here from the Flying Hawk. I must see Senor Ramegas at once."

"You must be content to see me. Why did they throw you out from the Flying Hawk?"

"I was not thrown. I came to bring news of weight."

"Well, you are small enough. You must tell me more."

Antonio thought it an improbable tale. He supposed that he saw one who had been cast out to drown for sufficient cause, and who would now save his life, if he could, on another deck. He expected to hear lies. But he saw that, if the tale were true, it was a bold thing to have done, and he had a belief that most of the world's valour is in the hearts of its smaller men. The slimness of the dripping form that had climbed over his rail caused him to show more patience then he would have given to one of a larger bulk. So he said: "You are small enough. You must tell me more."

"Captain Antonio, it is no time for delay of words, and I am too cold to stand longer here. The Flying Hawk is in the hands of the Moors.

He had expected a perjured tale, but not such a wild statement as that. Yet he had lived a life which had taught him to be quickly prepared for most improbable things.

"You will be hanged," he said, "if you lie. Will you say it twice?"

Angelica laughed, which she had not done in the last two days, though she shivered as she stood in the cold of the night-wind. She had been warned of evils enough since she left her home, including impaling, which is not a death to prefer; but to be threatened with hanging on the Santa Anna was an addition she had not foreseen.

"I will say it till you are tired. But I shall not be hanged on my uncle's ship, be it false or true. Senor Ramegas will explain that. We lose time standing here."

Antonio might strut through life with his head back and his plumed hat on the left side, but he was shrewd and discreet, or he would not have stood where he then did.

"You have been warned enough," he said. "Follow me."

They crossed a deck which was similar to that of the Flying Hawk, but of twice the width, and they descended to a passage which had the doors of cabins on either side. Antonio tapped upon one, calling his own name, and the voice of Ramegas invited him to come in. Angelica, hearing it, felt that she had come at last to a safe place. She could have cried on his neck.

Ramegas was awake and dressed, though it was night, and was not his watch. He was one who had always been sparing of sleep.

He thought of himself as a man of action rather than business affairs, and now he was gravely glad that a time had come when he might prove to the world that he was no less than his secret dream; yet the custom of stewardship was still his, and he sat at a table which was strewn with records and bills of accounts from which he made schedules of the men and stores that were under his charge, and the extent of the succour which he was bringing to Malta in Don Manuel's name.

His eyes passed Captain Antonio to rest on the slim, drenched form, in Francisco's clothes, that came in behind. She knew that she was recognised at the first glance, and would have come quickly forward, but he raised his hand, waving her back. He had hardly allowed the instant of first surprise to change the settled gravity of his eyes.

"Senor," Captain Antonio began, "here is one who comes up from the sea with a tale that the Moors have captured the Flying Hawk. I thought - "

"You have done well. But you should hold your watch till the truth be known. I will deal with this."

Captain Antonio showed his discretion again. Without further words he went back to the deck, where his duty lay. He looked at the Flying Hawk, running before the wind with its topsail reefed so that its consorts might not be left in the rear. It was within range of the heavier guns that the Santa Martha carried on her forward decks, though beyond gunshot of the Santa Anna, which was further away. Its oars were not out, and it was evident that it was making no effort to draw apart, which its greater speed would have made it easy to do. It could not hope to fight the two great galleys if the truth should be shown when the morning came. It was absurd to suppose that Moors would have captured it and make no attempt to part company from the heavier vessels. Besides, how could that have occurred unobserved? From where could they have come? Captain Antonio had no difficulty in concluding that the tale had been a bold lie to secure audience with Senor Ramegas, for whom he recognised that it had been well chosen, and had succeeded with speed. His conceit was chafed that he should have been the subject of such a trick, but he had seen the instant of recognition in Ramegas' eyes. He felt that he had done well to conduct Angelica below without more opposition than he had shown. And whatever mystery there might be, he felt it was one that he would soon know.

He looked again at the Flying Hawk, and then at a long brass culverin, swivel-mounted, upon the poop, that was so placed on that topmost deck that it could be swung round for forward fire with no more than a slight luff of the ship, even though the mark should be straight ahead. He gave an order that the gunner should be called to his place.

He gave order to trim a yard. There would be nothing to rouse suspicion in that. Why should they be behind the Santa Martha, as they were now?

Beyond that, he waited till Senor Ramegas should come on deck. If the tale were true, he felt that that time would not be greatly deferred.

When he had left the cabin below, Ramegas said: "You had better tell me from where you came."

"I swam from the Flying Hawk. You will give me clothes of some kind, and show me where I can change, unless you wish me to die. Then I will tell you all. But I tell you this first, for it may be that it should not wait. Rinaldo is not Rinaldo at all. He is Hassan, Dragut's son-in-law, of Tunis. The ship has a crew of Moors. There are no Christians there but those who pull at the oars."

"Is this sober truth, or no more than a girl's guess? The Maltese are a swarthy race."

"I saw the true Rinaldo cast into the sea, being yet alive. Do you think I have swum here, barely saving my life, which I thought to lose, to bring you a doubtful tale?"

"Yet I see not to what end - "

"That is what I am coming to say. It is why I am here now. The fleet of Algiers lies await, fifty miles of Iviza isle. It is to that trap you are being led."

As she said this, Ramegas had ceased to doubt that the tale was true. The fact that she had seen a man thrown overboard alive showed that it was more than the conceit of a frightened girl.

"I doubted that man," he said, "from the first. Yet I could not see what could be wrong, it being a Maltese boat, as was known by a score that I trusted well. But you must not stand thus. Come with me."

He led her to his own cabin, for there was no better place to which she could be taken at once on that crowded ship. He gave her a loose robe and some other garments of which she could make use till her own should be dried.

"How you came to be on that ship," he said, "can be told at a better time. But if this be true, as I do not doubt, you have done a great thing, at your life's risk. I praise the saints that you have come through, taking no harm."

He said no more beyond that, asking no further questions, not even how Hassan came to be in control of the Flying Hawk, for his mind was on the main issue he had to face. It seemed that it was soon to be proved whether he were fit for the command he held.

He stood in thought for a moment beside the litter of papers and parchments that he had ceased to heed, and then went on deck. He had decided that the tale he had heard was true, and that he must act on that presumption without weakness or doubt, though he saw that, if he should make mistake, he would be ruined indeed. But he had known Angelica for eight years, and he did not think her to be one who would speak or act as she had on no more than a doubtful guess.

He said to Antonio: "Have you checked our course? How far do we lie from Iviza now?"

Captain Antonio might have been more careful had the course not been set by the Flying Hawk. He had been content to keep that vessel in sight during his watch, and had felt that was as far as his duty lay. But there was no need to say that. He had sailed those seas so long that it was said that he could tell where he might be by the very scent of the air.

"We should be twenty leagues south," he said, "or it may be more, but not much."

"Then we are near trapped. The Flying Hawk is in the hands of the Moors, as it has been from when it sailed into Aldea Bella bay. Hassan, Dragut's son, has the command, so it is said. He is leading us to where the Algiers fleet lies await."

Antonio stood with his legs well apart. He threw up his head, and his jaw set, so that he looked pleased, in a grim way.

"Then you would say it is time to run. Shall we put about, with no foe in sight, or what will you have us do?"

He looked up at the quiet gravity of the man who held a command which he would have been glad to have, thinking that he would soon know of what sort he would prove to be.

Ramegas looked down at him. "We must sink him first, if we cannot lay him aboard, unless he show heels that we cannot catch."

"That is how I would have it be. Shall we creep near, and challenge him when our guns are trained?"

"We will draw as near as we may, but we will not challenge a treasoned foe. We will send a broadside among her masts, which may be useful to hold her here while we have further to say. But we may find she is too wary to let us close."

Ramegas turned to the helmsman as he said this. He said: "Bring her up to the wind. I would have you cross the track of the Santa Martha, and close in on the weather side." He turned to Captain Antonio again. "Have the guns manned, and the slaves roused, and ready to row, but show no more lights than you cannot spare. I would have waited the dawn, but the time is short. And they may take alarm if they guess we had warning brought."

Antonio saw that he was second to one who could plan in a cool and resolute mind. For as they brought the Santa Anna across her consort's stern, the stir and movement of lights, which they could not entirely avoid as their preparations were made, would be hidden from any eyes that might watch from the Flying Hawk. He issued such orders as waked the ship to a sudden life, and though the bustle that followed thereon might be concealed from the Flying Hawk, it was plain enough to the nearer eyes of those on the Santa Martha's deck. They were soon about to know what it might mean, and to receive the letter an arrow brought as the Santa Anna crossed their stern, at a distance of no more than a galley's length; after which she fell off from the wind again, sailing at their side, but somewhat faster than they, for there had been further spreading of sail while they had come up astern.

Francisco read a note that was brief and clear:

"The Flying Hawk is in the hands of the Moors. She leads us to where the Algiers fleet lies await. We must take a more southern course, but will sink her first, if she do not fly. Support me when you have read this, with all the speed that you can, and have your guns manned. I need not tell you beyond that. ^&'RAMEGAS.'

He read this by the lantern's light, and he looked again at the Santa Anna, which was shaking out all the sail she had; and as he looked he saw her oars come over the side. It was a strange thing to learn in that sudden way, but he did not doubt its truth, nor fail to see that every second was of a golden weight, now that Ramegas' ship had made it clear what she would do.

The Santa Martha waked to life at a trumpet's sound. Her oars came overside. Lights shone, and men shouted and ran at the battle-summons that they had been trained to know. Francisco did not mean that his first fight should find him far in the rear.

He looked at the Flying Hawk, and saw that her oars also were out, and at the same moment the flashes of sudden light were a tempest along her side. The thunder of half her guns sounded across the sea. She had not waited to be attacked, but had been the first to fire, even as she gathered speed for her flight.

The next moment the Santa Anna, showing no sign of hurt from the shot that had battered about her bows, luffed somewhat, and a blaze of light leaped out from her guns. As the Flying Hawk lit the darkness again with backward flashes of light from decks that were somewhat more distant now, the Santa Anna replied with all the weight of her port-side guns. But even as her broadside deafened the night, her foremast, which had been struck by a shot from the first discharge of the Flying Hawk, and had now taken the strain as the bow came up into the wind for the port guns to bear, gave a loud crack, and leaned, for a long moment, with all its spread of canvas and weight of cordage and spars, before it snapped off, at a height of about six feet from the deck, and fell outward and somewhat astern, cumbering the main shrouds and causing the port-side oars to be drawn inward in haste.

It was plain that the Santa Anna would make no speed, nor could she be handled with ease, till she had broken clear from the wreckage which dragged like a sea-anchor along her side.

Hassan, watching from a deck where a man died at his feet, joyous of heart as he would ever be when a battle came, though with some cause for wrath both at his own folly and fate's caprice, had an audacious thought that he would put about and use his forward guns at a shortened range on a wreckage which, in the dim light of the stars, he may have thought to be somewhat worse than it was. Even to board might not have been beyond his attempt, for, though his force might have been little better than one to three, he had a high belief in the fighting quality of the pirate crew, which was of the pick of his father's fleet; and the evidence of that fallen mast showed that he had gunners who did not fail.

But the thought died as it rose, his foes being not one, but two. For as the Santa Anna lost speed, her consort came up on her starboard side. She came past with a spread of all the sail that she had to a freshening wind. The whips cracked over the rowers' backs. The oars moved rhythmically and fast. As they glided by, Francisco leaned over the rail, and called to know what the damage was. Ramegas answered with words that the wind carried away. Antonio, better practised in the science of shouting at sea, could be partly heard. Between the bursting din of the guns which were now firing each for itself, as their crews could reload and train them again, his voice came clearly enough, though only to a fragment of what he said: "Hold them in play, if you can, till we get it clear."

The Santa Martha, straining to equal the speed of the Flying Hawk, put her helm down till she had interposed her own bulk between the crippled ship and her smaller, but perhaps deadlier, foe. For the first time her guns entered the fight, making the night louder than before and adding to the heavy drifts of sulphurous smoke which increased its gloom. The gun flashes stabbed into a darkness they could not lift.

Francisco saw that the Flying Hawk was drawing further away. He had a ruthless thought which showed him true to the stern creed of those who had striven for so many inconclusive centuries for the control of the central sea of the civilised world.

It was the traditional custom of both sides to avoid attack on the galley-slaves, being so largely recruited from those of their own blood. But now Francisco saw that the Flying Hawk was drawing surely away. If he luffed, to give her the weight of more than his forward guns, it would be for the last time, unless that broadside could check her speed. He had been taught that no price for victory was too high: no excuse for failure was good enough, if a possibility had been left untried. He ordered that every gun should be trained on the starboard oars of the Flying Hawk.

They were to be directed upon the oars, not the men; but the range was already long, the gunnery of that time not exact, and some of the gunners were unused to the pieces they had to work, for Don Manuel's galleys were new ships, which had not been in action before. Some of the shots went wide, but enough found their mark to shatter the starboard oars, and to scatter death among rowers who were also struck by the kicking fragments of the smashed oars that they were pulling as the broadside came.

For a moment Francisco thought that the fight was won. The Flying Hawk floundered upon the sea, like a duck with a broken leg. Being lighter, and the swifter sailer, she still kept ahead, but the distance shortened as the chase left the Santa Anna behind. Had not the wind increased at this time to half a gale, it is likely that Captain Hassan would have fought his last fight, or had a second spell of slavery which might have been even worse than that from which he had been delivered so hardly before. As it was, the Santa Martha soon found that the Flying Hawk was beyond the reach of her guns. But having struggled to that distance away, it seemed that she could do no more. She changed her course more than once, as though she would dodge pursuit in the light of a growing dawn. She spat backwards with bursts of fire that seemed no more than a demonstration of futile rage, the shots falling short, though not much.

But Captain Hassan was not one to waste powder with no better purpose than that. He fired that the sound might be carried on the wind to the ears of a fleet which should not be far distant now. He had changed the course of his flight point by point to the north with the same object, until the broadening dawn showed the long line of Formentera upon the northern horizon.

Francisco saw it as well. He looked back to see the Santa Anna far to the south. She had cleared her deck, and was sailing freely again, steering an easterly course. Urgently, she signalled for his return.

Reluctantly he gave the order which he should have done half an hour before, shaping his yards for a south-easterly course, and letting the chase go; and, as he did so, the yards of the Flying Hawk came round to the same point and she followed upon his track.

He had some cause to doubt the wisdom of his pursuit when he saw that, and still more when he saw, where the dawn-light curved to the north, making a horizon of lemon sky, the dark specks that were the Algerian fleet coming out from Formentera's easterly point, behind which they may have been at anchor during the night.

CHAPTER IX

MALTA stirred like a threatened hive.

The Knights of St. John had been preparing for this hour by excavation of solid rock, by battery and barricade, ever since Charles V had given them the islands, forty years before. Every year, as Christian power had declined and that of Islam advanced in Eastern Europe by land and sea, it had become a darker and more imminent menace; and the same causes that had brought it near had decreased their power to hold it longer at bay. Christians had ceased to think of the tomb of Christ, or of the breaking of infidel power, being at issue among themselves. Those who had adventurous rather than pious minds turned their eyes to the west, to the wealth and empire of a new world which had the lure of the hardly-known.

When Charles V gave the Maltese islands to the homeless Knights of St. John he asked no more rent than a yearly falcon to be paid to the Sicilian power. The terms seemed easy enough. Being assured that the ancient laws of the islands would be sustained, the people of Malta had accepted the arrangement with short demur. It may have seemed that the Knights received a princely gift, at no price.

But Charles knew what he did, and the Knights of Malta were well aware. Should a wolfhound give thanks that he is kennelled where he can get his fangs to the throat of the prowler around the flock?

The Knights of Malta were recruited from the most noble blood of every nation throughout the west. They drew revenues from all lands. And now that Palestine had been lost, and their Jerusalem hospitals gone, their sole object was to make war on the Turks. Charles did no more than make an eyrie for hawks, from which they would vex his foes. The form of the yearly rent may be taken as a symbol of what he did.

But meanwhile, as the years passed and the power of Islam increased, the number of the Knights became less and their revenues shrank. An English king, taking the lands of his own Church, was not likely to leave theirs.

It had been intended to build a rampart of stone such as would have made an outer wall of defence of an almost impregnable kind, but this had been abandoned after a calculation of its cost had shown that it could not have been completed without larger funds than the Order could hope to raise.

Of late years there had been few new knights from the nobles of the more Protestant lands. In five hundred names there is but one - that of the Grand Master's secretary, Sir Oliver Starkey - which has an English sound. Yet the knights had been strongly established in England once, and a Grand Master had come from that land.

And of the knights who were now arriving from all parts of Europe at the call of this final need, many, like Don Manuel, were elderly men. The Grand Master himself, John la Valette (as he would shorten his name) was near the end of his life. He was a hard-faced, bearded man, with a long straight nose, upright and sturdy enough, and still able to use a sword, though becoming slightly corpulent under his belt. He ruled all in a just but merciless way, trusting more to fear than to love.

It was said by all that he was the right man for the crisis that now came. He was a hawk that would be hard to dislodge from the eyrie where he had chosen to dwell.

Now he toiled with servants and slaves that the fort of St. Elmo might be made strong before the Turks should arrive. He was not deterred by the stiffness that comes with years, nor by the dignity of the great office he held. He put his shoulder beneath a beam.

Seeing him do that, his knights could not refuse to toil in the same way. Every day that the Turks delayed to arrive, the defences grew. Every day brought fresh succour of knights who came at their Order's call, and of volunteers who would strike a blow for the Christian cause, or sought the excitement of war. They came daily in fishing vessels, or half-decked boats that made the run from Messina when the seas were kind, and at times in larger galleys. The Sicilian vessels came in a watchful fear, ready to turn and bolt at the first horizon sight of the coming Turk. Having landed their cargoes, they were in a great haste to be gone.

The Grand Master had asked aid from Sicily, both of stores and men, as he had a right to do in return for that falcon he yearly paid, for to attack Malta was to affront Sicily, and Spain beyond that.

The Viceroy of Sicily replied with words of goodwill. He had asked instructions of his master, Philip of Spain, without which he was powerless to move. Doubtless these instructions would accord with the dignity of the Spanish crown, and the insolent unbelievers would be chastised.

Actually, the Viceroy was unsure what Philip would say, except that there would be no lack of fair and promising words, which he would seldom stint; and he was in even more doubt as to what he would wish him to do. For the time, he did nothing at all, beyond writing long reports to Madrid, which he knew that Philip would wish to have. He knew that they would be fully read and very carefully filed away.

So it was, when April changed into May, and the watchman upon St. Elmo's wall saw that two great galleys came from the west. They came fast, with a fair wind in their sails, and their oars out, but as they drew near, and signalled that they would have a pilot to guide them in, it could be seen that they had been battered, either by storm or war. Their lower sails were tattered and holed, and the foremast of the one had been broken off within a few feet of the deck. Their masthead flags were the Maltese Cross and the haughty symbol of Spain.

They came from a running, day-long fight with the swifter vessels of the Algiers fleet, which had been smaller than they, but had vexed them much, as dogs may trouble a bear. They were glad to be nearing port, for they had taken many shots where the water washes the hull, such as were not easy to plug, and the pumps of the Santa Martha were clanking upon the deck.

Angelica stood on the Santa Anna's poop in her boy's clothes, and her name was Garcio still; for Ramegas said: "You have done that in which I will have no part, either to hinder or aid. You go now where no women are, and where none should be. And you do this, being pledged, as you know, to the Convent of Holy Cross. It is for Don Manuel to resolve, and I must leave it to him. You have saved his ships at a great peril of life, and he must be grateful for that. But I cannot even guess what he will say.

"I must tell the Grand Master of whom you are, and the whole tale, for I owe my duty to him. Also, if I were silent, and it should be otherwise probed, it might be read in a worse way. But, beyond that, you will be Don Garcio still, having chosen your name, and there being no clothes here of a woman's kind that you could wear if you would.

"Even Francisco I shall not tell. You can do that or not, when you will meet him after you land, but he will hear nothing from me."

Angelica heard this and was well content. She could speak to whom she chose, and at her own time. Ramegas could not prevent this, if he would. While he would know who she was (and the Grand Master as well) she did not doubt she would walk secure. And, so far, she had had her will, for the Convent of Holy Cross was distant a thousand miles, and she was coming to Malta now.

The harbour which they approached, which was to be called Valletta in later years, was one of the best in the world as far as it was then known. It was deep and large and sheltered from every wind, and it was divided internally in a very curious way. There were, indeed, two harbours, divided by a tongue of land, having the entrances on either side of its point. The entrances were narrow and the harbours widened within. The eastern harbour was in some ways the better, and it was that which the Knights used. But they had built a star-shaped fort, which they had named St. Elmo, on the point of land which separated the two, and while that was held, the western harbour would be useless to any foe. Behind it, the tongue of land rose in a hill of rock that was solid and bare.

It was at the construction of a ravelin to this fort on its western side that the defenders toiled against time, and the Grand Master was overseeing the work. So the pilot said when Ramegas asked where he could be most quickly found.

Learning that, Ramegas decided that he would take a boat, and go straight to the Grand Master to make report, not waiting until the galleys were docked, to which others could give attention as well as he.

He hailed Francisco to tell him what he intended to do, and saying that he and Captain Antonio would be left in charge of the ships.

He decided to take Angelica with him, for he thought it best that she should be near himself till her status should be agreed, and it was partly of her that he had to make his report.

So the Santa Anna lay-to as they came to the harbour mouth, and dropped a boat which pulled for St. Elmo's beach, and the two galleys went on, the Santa Anna following in the wake of Francisco's ship.

They passed St. Elmo on their right, with a shore beyond the fort that was straight and steep; but the harbour widened upon the left, where two spurs of land ran out, long and wide, with a deep basin of water between.

At the end of the first of these spurs the castle of St. Angelo stood, where the Order of the Knights of Malta had centred its power. If that should fall, there would be nothing left it would be worth while to save; and while it stood, the Turks could not say that their purpose was won. Behind the castle at the broadening bend of the spur, was the old town known as the Bourg.

The further spur of land on the other side of the basin had been fortified also and had been named the Sanglea, its ridge being crowned by St. Michael's fort, and behind it a new town called Bermola had grown.

All the shipping was now docked or anchored within the basin between these spurs, and since there had been rumour that the Turks would come, the entrance had been secured with an iron chain of a monstrous size. The two ends, at St. Angelo and Sanglea, were secured on platforms of rock, and the chain could be lowered at will for the ships to go out or in.

It was easy to see that, while St. Elmo was held, both harbours would be closed to the attacking fleet; but if it should fall, though they would have gained access to both, and would have made the western one entirely their own, yet the Knights might do well enough, providing that they could hold the two tongues of land, St. Angelo and Sanglea, with the harbour-basin that lay between, and the two little towns behind.

So in the last days, besides setting up the great chain at the harbour-mouth, they had cut deeper the trenches around the Bourg on the land-ward side, which had not been easy to do, for the whole island was solid rock, and they had added a terreplein to the ramparts on the further side of Sanglea, and had established a three-gun battery outside St. Angelo, down at the water's edge, the use of which would be seen at a later date.

La Valette had not been sparing of toil, and he would not be sparing of blood when the time came. He meant that, while its Knights lived, the flag of Malta should fly, and that, if they must go to God with a tale of failure to tell, they should not fear the condemnation of those who fight the battle of life and faith in a lukewarm way.

And so, having made St. Angelo as safe as he could, he turned to St. Elmo next, seeking to build it so strong that the Turks would break their teeth on that at which they might make the first bite.

CHAPTER X

THE galleys went on to find their safety behind the harbour boom, and Ramegas landed on St. Elmo's shore with Angelica at his side.

He did not have to seek the Grand Master, who had seen his approach, and met him upon the beach. He wore a wide-plumed hat, and a doublet and hose of indigo velvet, dark and rich, and finely cut, but now soiled, and having been torn in places and since stitched, showing the uses to which it had been put in the last days, yet it did not seem that he had been labouring much on this, for his ruff was white and clean, as was the lace at his wrists. But he was not one of those who need care for clothes, having his dignity in himself.

He listened while Ramegas said who he was, and explained that Don Manuel would follow after he had pleaded the Order's cause at the Court of Spain.

La Valette said no more than: "He may be kept there." Few men would ever hear what he thought of Philip of Spain. So far, he had got eight hundred Spanish soldiers, for which he owed Philip little thanks, for they had been stationed in Sicily at the Spanish charge, and transferred to him on condition that the Order should find them pay, with some aid that the Pope gave. Philip, on his parsimonious side, would find means of advantaging his purse, even in a war that was truly his.

But La Valette cared nothing for the character of Philip of Spain, be it bad or good. He had to get what he could (if anything) from him for Malta's aid, and he knew that he would not improve that chance by speaking contempt aloud, which might be repeated by one of Philip's ten thousand spies He went on:

"They look to be the best ships that we have. It will be a good aid. From their look I should say you have fallen in with the Algiers fleet. But where is the Flying Hawk? I trust she has not been lost."

Angelica, looking at the man with a woman's eyes, felt that it might go ill if her fate were to be decided by him. She felt that he could be ruthless, even to the taking of life, and put it out of his mind in a second's time. He was not one whom a woman could wheedle or coax, though she were fairer than the Mother of God. Yet she supposed that he would be just in an austere way.

In fact, he had but one thought. She had seen that a faint warmth, like a winter sunlight, had come into his voice as he said: "It will be a good aid."

Ramegas told the whole tale, with a brevity that the Grand Master approved. He added: "We have little of which to boast, yet we have sunk one of their lighter craft, which became too bold, and came under the full weight of our guns, so that the Santa Martha was able to ram it, after its rudder was shot away. And there are others that must run to Tripoli or Algiers to refit before they can vex us here."

"You have done well to break that trap. How were you first warned?"

"It is that to which I must come. It is that we owe to Don Garcio here, as she is called - "

La Valette waked at the name. It was like to that of the Viceroy of Sicily, Garcio of Toledo, who had promised to send his son to Malta, that he might aid in its defence and gain a knowledge of war. It was a gesture of support, having a value beyond that of a single sword. The Grand Master looked keenly at Angelica, who showed no resemblance to the strongly marked and swarthy features of the Castilian knight, and being puzzled by what he saw, he said nothing. He returned his attention to Ramegas, from whom he heard a tale of a different kind. He said to him, not looking at Angelica again:

"You have done well. She being Don Manuel's niece, the matter is domestic to him. He is sufficient to discipline his own house. Until he come, so that she bring no disorder within our walls, she may keep the name and part which she had chosen to bear. Only Oliver must not be misled. I will have true records or none. Beyond him, none will know, unless you speak of yourselves. It is to Sir Oliver Starkey you should report. He is at St. Angelo now. He would be easy to find, but I will send one with you who will be known at the gate, where the guard are watchful for spies."

He turned to an attendant to whom, being a Piedmontese, he spoke in the Italian tongue, and went back to the scarp of the demi-lune, which he meant to have completed before the Turkish sails should be sighted by those who watched on St. Angelo's tower.

Senor Ramegas took boat again, and they rowed round the head of St. Elmo's point (for it was on the western side, overlooking the Marsa Muscetto, as the western harbour was named, that the new ravelin was being built, so that its entrance might be more surely closed to the Turkish ships) and came into the harbour that was filled with shipping, and gave approach to castle and town, and so landed beneath St. Angelo's walls.

St. Elmo was no more than a fort, or place of gun-platforms and ramparts of stone, where such shelter as its garrison had was contrived rather to save their heads from a dropping shot than to comfort their resting hours. But St. Angelo was a high-walled castle, containing noble chambers which had been cut from the solid rock, appointed as was fitting to the palace of the Grand Master of one of the noblest Orders that the world contained.

Men of many races and diverse tongues might be met at that day in Rome or Venice, in Paris or Cologne, but there was no such variety to be seen in the world's breadth as passed each other on St. Angelo's stairs, or crowded the audience-hall to which the Senors Ramegas and Garcio were now led; for Knights of the Order from all parts of the Christian world had been gathered here by the urgent call that the Grand Master had sent out, some of whom had seen little of Malta and less of each other before they came. The tongues of Provence and Germany, of Italy and Castile, contended with the more frequent Latin, which the most part of the knights could speak, though their diverse accents made it more easy to use than to understand.

But different as they might be in costume, and colour, and tongue, they were alike in the faith they held and the purpose for which they came: alike in that they were all about to be tested in the bitter ordeal of one of the most merciless struggles of East and West that the world had seen, and that the whole world would now pause to watch; as though the fate of Islam and Christianity, the future of three continents, were brought to final decision in that island arena situated so centrally in their midst.

And though they came thus to a test which they would not all equally endure, so that there would be many changes of place and repute in the coming days, and though they walked under a shadow of death from which few would escape to the life of another year, it could be observed that there was among them a confident and very resolute spirit, which might prove itself to be not less than equal to that which it came to meet. It was in such a mood that their predecessors had gathered for the defence of Rhodes forty years before; and though they had failed at last, they had been able to withdraw with safety and all the honours of war, and with the valour of their Order become a boast through the breadth of Europe for what they did. They were resolved that the record of Malta should not be less, and their hope was to make it more.

"You may wait, if you will," the usher said, with the curtness of a worried man who had much to endure. "You can observe how it is. Sir Oliver cannot see all. There are these who are before you."

Senor Ramegas answered with a cold pride, the humility which he kept for Don Manuel and the Grand Master being about all that he had: "If you will inform Sir Oliver Starkey that I am here, I do not see that you have a duty beyond that, nor that you need tender opinion as to whom he will see, nor of what I shall think fitting to do if I should be long delayed in this hall."

The usher, who was born in Auvergne, went without further words, though with some inward curses at Spanish pride, to announce his presence to the Grand Master's secretary, though he did not think it necessary to communicate the result on his return.

Senor Ramegas stood impassive for five inwardly impatient minutes, which gave his companion time to observe the rich paintings on ceiling and walls, and all the luxurious dignity of the hall of waiting, as well as the various groups of its human occupants, before the heavy curtain at the head of the hall was lifted somewhat aside, and a slender man, approaching to middle age, and being plainly but very neatly dressed, stood for a moment glancing over the hall with eyes that observed all, but did not rest on any whom he was not anxious to see.

After a second's pause he came straight to where Ramegas and Angelica stood, moving with a light step, which was quick yet without appearance of haste.

"Senor Ramegas," he said, "as I presume? Malta greets you with thanks for yourself and the aid you bring. I would talk with you at more leisure than some will need. Will you delay, of your courtesy, while I deal with those whose business may be more quickly disposed? It will be but a short while."

He spoke in Spanish, and even with an Andalusian idiom which Ramegas had not expected to hear; for he could talk, as he could correspond, in any language of Europe, and in some that were further away, though he did most in Latin, as was the diplomatic use of that time, in which tongue he had grown even accustomed to think. He spoke quietly, as one who was dealing with ease with whatever work he might have to do. He went back, having placated a man who would have become vexed, and in a short further time the usher bowed with somewhat more respect than before, to say that Sir Oliver was at leisure and would be pleased to see Senor Ramegas, if he would follow the way he led.

Sir Oliver Starkey was at this time of a most high repute throughout the western world, for a learning which could be equalled by few, whether in ancient and modern tongues, or in the sciences of the day He had held a Commandery of the Order in England till the English king (Henry VIII, now dead) had confiscated it for the Crown's use, and he had come to Malta to take an appointment which scholarship and ability equally fitted him to hold.

He controlled the wide correspondence of an Order which held property in every country in Europe, and had envoys at every Catholic court. In all its affairs outside Malta itself, La Valette had given him an absolute trust and an almost absolute power.

Now he gathered the scattered strength of the Order, both in money and men, and the stores of munitions and food which would be needed for the coming siege.

He worked now, as his custom was, in a room which was narrow and long, being the library of the Order, and having shelves along its one side loaded from floor to ceiling with books that were mainly of theological or historical kinds, with classics in ancient tongues, and some on fortifications, and the art of war both by sea and land. On the other side was a row of windows, narrow and high, that gave a wide view of hills and harbour and of the ocean beyond.

Sir Oliver sat at a wide table which was drawn from wall to window across the narrowness of this room. It was finely carved in dark oak, and its top was inlaid with crimson leather, in which were upholstered also the chairs, ample and soft, of the outer side, in which visitors of consideration were invited to sit.

Behind him, four scribes worked with diligence, on separate tables that were piled with manuscripts and letters and bound books of account, but Sir Oliver's own table was clear.

Sir Oliver rose as his visitors entered, and extended a hand to Senor Ramegas with a formal courtesy, which he had not previously used, and as though he had not seen him before.

He looked at Angelica, as expecting naturally that she would be presented to him, which Ramegas made no motion to do. Ramegas looked at the scribes, who continued their work without appearing to observe those who entered, and said:

"Most of that of which we shall have to speak will be open to all who are in your trust, but there will be one matter which should be private to us alone."

Sir Oliver looked at Angelica again, as though he connected her with this request in an agile mind. She had a feeling that he saw through her disguise, and yet without surprise, and in a way which she could not resent.

"If you will be seated," he said, "you can speak with all privacy here, if you use no Latin; and, beyond that, you should avoid the German and Roumanian tongues."

"I am unlikely," Ramegas replied, "to use those that I do not know, and Latin I will be careful to shun.

"I come to give you account of that which I have brought in Don Manuel's name, and would know first how much you will wish to learn, for I would not talk beyond that which you are willing to hear."

"I would hear all, if I may. I am told that your galleys have come showing the scars of a fight you have had with the Algiers fleet, and that the Flying Hawk is a lost ship, which I was sorry to hear.

"Before the close of the day, I will thank your care, if you can let me have tale of the men you have, of whatever rank or degree, with a separate schedule of slaves, and also a record of all stores you have brought to our aid.

"For I have two galleys preparing now, which should sail for Palermo tomorrow, at prime of day, and which I hope to see here returned before the Turks will arrive, and bringing good cargoes of things which we still need; and I may alter the requisition I make when I have seen the succour you have been able to bring."

Sir Oliver did not say that the galleys would have sailed ten days before that, had he not lacked credit or gold sufficient to purchase more than he had already bought, either of powder or food; but he had now heard from the ambassador of the Order at the Papal Court, that Pope Pius IV had given 10,000 crowns as a donation to meet their need, on which he could draw at once, it being in the hands of goldsmiths in Rome; and when he had read that dispatch, he had not let an hour pass before the galleys were warned to be ready to put to sea.

Senor Ramegas replied that there were documents already prepared giving all such detail, which could be in Sir John's hands as soon as he should return to his ship, and could send them up. On his side, he would be glad to know whether, or to what extent, his men must remain aboard, where they were too crowded for comfort or health, as Sir John would know.

Sir Oliver was prepared for that question, and had disposition already made. Some could be lodged at once in the town. Others would have accommodation found with little further delay. It was likely, when the siege would commence, that the galleys would be emptied of men, they not being of any avail against such a fleet as the Turks would be sure to bring. There were, in fact, only five that belonged to the Order, now that the Flying Hawk had been lost, so that there would be seven in all, with a flotilla of smaller vessels, which would lie securely behind the great chain, and beneath the protection of the castle guns, their crews being employed ashore.

For Senor Ramegas, when he could leave his ship, and for Don Manuel's nephew, there would be such lodging found as their position required, allowance being made for the crowded state both of castle and town.

After Sir Oliver had said this he looked at Angelica, and added: "But there was more, as I understood, that you had to say, there being nothing private in this for any who are of our part."

Being reminded thus of matters from which the conversation had turned aside, Senor Ramegas narrated the full circumstances of the voyage, including the escapade of Don Manuel's niece, and the part she had afterwards played in bringing warning of the peril into which they were being led.

As this narrative proceeded, Sir Oliver listened with an impassive face, but with an attention that missed no word. It had not gone far before he reached for a quill-pen, and began to make occasional notes, but of a brevity which did not delay what was being said.

When he heard how Angelica had swum from ship to ship in the night, and had climbed the stern of the Santa Anna, he spoke for the first time:

"It was bravely done. Malta owes the Senorita her thanks for that deed."

He looked at Angelica in a way at which she felt pleasure and a new pride. For the first time since she had left her home, she saw kindness in a man's eyes when they were turned to herself. But her pleasure had deeper sources than that, for it had been a glance which respected her in a new way.

She had lived a secure, protected life, destined to one of its permanent backwaters, which she was to have entered in the leisured manner which was characteristic of the whole pattern by which she would live and die. She had been surrounded by formidable powers, but, if she left them unchallenged, their terrors were not for her. Such thunders as she might hear would be distant and overhead.

Don Manuel's regard for her was genuine, and may have been deeper than he was aware, but she was to him no other than a pretty affectionate toy, who should accept without criticism or protest his dispositions on her behalf.

She might not doubt that Ramegas also was fond of her in his own way, but she was primarily his master's ward. His duty was to Don Manuel, not to her; and the claims of duty controlled his mind. If he knew what Don Manuel would have him do on her account, her wishes would not turn the scale by a feather's weight.

She had had admiration from the false Rinaldo, and of a kind that she had liked, and which had also been new. "The potent arms which you now bear." She remembered his look as he had said that. She sometimes thought of it in the night. In fact, she thought of him somewhat more than it may have been wisdom to do. For though he had trapped her, and threatened her liberty and honour - which she had no reason to think that he would have scrupled to sell for the best price he could get - yet she had walked into that trap, which had certainly not been set for her; and, be his intentions what they might, he had done her no wrong, and in the end she had trumped his trick. She could afford to look at all that in a generous mood.

Yet his admiration had been of a different quality from that of Sir Oliver. Rather than herself, it had admired the womanhood that was hers; and her instinct told her that such admiration, pleasant though it might be, was consistent with an oriental contempt even of that womanhood to which the roses of its homage were lightly flung.

But Sir Oliver had looked at her with the eyes of a friend.

He turned to Ramegas to ask: "You say the Grand Master has ordered that she shall keep this pretence, which has served its turn?"

"It was to be known to you, but no other, till Don Manuel's pleasure can be enquired." Angelica did not think that that was exactly what the Grand Master had said; and, whether it were or not, she felt that Sir Oliver did not approve; but, even if she were right about that, it was clear that La Valette's decision would not be questioned aloud by him.

"Unless," he said, "Don Manuel be soon here, the matter may be resolved in a way which cannot be changed at this time."

Angelica, with a somewhat fearful satisfaction, had had the same thought in her mind ever since she had climbed the stern of the Santa Anna.

He went on: "We should be glad of all aid, whether of ladies or knights, which is offered by those who are of courage and a good will." He asked her: "Have you any skill in the nursing of wounds? "

"I have been taught much," she said, "after the manner practised among the Moors, but I have done little, not having been where there was need."

"You may alter that, if you remain here. Can you write a fair hand?"

"I can write, though not well, in the Spanish style."

"Senor Ramegas, if you will leave Don Garcio to my care, I will find lodging suitable and secure, which it might not be easy to do without assistance from me, the town being as it is, and this disguise having to be maintained for some days, if not more."

Ramegas rose at that, taking it as an intimation that the interview was at an end. He said that he would be pleased to leave Angelica in Sir Oliver's care. He went, feeling that he was relieved of a burden he had been sorry to have, and that all would now be done in the best manner till Don Manuel should come.

Sir Oliver looked at Angelica in a contemplative way when he had gone, which did not disturb her ease, for she felt that she had come at last to one who sought only to help.

"We are an Order," he said, "as you know, to which no women belong. But there is no lack in the town."

She did not entirely follow his thought. She said: "I see not why I should continue to wear this garb, which has served the use which it had."

"Yet it has been so resolved. You could not have the lodging which I intend, were it to be known what you are." He added: "You must have many needs. You could have brought little away when you passed from ship to ship as you did." His mind considered the event again. "You did much for Malta, in truth. It should be recorded on our annals, to give you praise. Yet I know not. It might be that which you would not wish to be widely shown. It shall wait for this time."

She observed that, as with her uncle and Ramegas, as with La Valette, it seemed natural to Sir Oliver to suppose that the interests of the Order supplied the dominant impulse from which heroic action would come. Even Francisco had shown something of that inspiration when he had received his command. Candour caused her to say: "Malta owes me less thanks than you are urgent to see. It was not for that cause that I took the great risk which I did. But I thought of my uncle's ships, and of those I knew, who were being drawn to a trap that they did not heed. Also, I saved myself."

She smiled as she said that, thinking that she had motive and troubles enough of her own, and could be excused that those of Malta had been out of her mind. Their eves met in a laughter of understanding which was common to both, so that they were better friends than before.

"That," he said, "may all be as you will; yet it was a brave deed, such as many would not have tried, whether of women or men. I should not have done so myself, as I suppose; or, if I had, I should surely have failed."

"You think it was more than it was, for I am practised to swim." She had risen the while they talked, and as he looked at her he said: "You will need a sword." She laughed again. "It is useless to me. I have learnt that."

"Well," he said, "I am not of much avail with one myself. Yet one you must have; for if your belt be empty, as it now is, it will draw eyes which should pass you by."

The four scribes had continued their work during this time, not lifting their eyes, nor regarding what might go on, which it was not their business to do. Now Sir Oliver spoke to one in his own tongue, who, after he had listened and replied two or three times, rose and left the apartment by a door at its farther end.

"There is a chamber," Sir Oliver said, when he had gone, "where you may find more than you would be likely to hope; but I will ask, of courtesy not of right, that you make no mention to any if it should appear that a woman may have used it before."

He gave no more explanation than that, and went on to ask: "Do you lack gold? For there must be things you will need, which can be bought in the town."

She said no, she was not lacking in coin.

"Then, if you will be guided by me, you will tell Olrig, on his return, if you can talk in the Latin tongue, or permit me to do so on your behalf, how you have swum from a corsair's ship and have nothing, even of change of linen, such as one of your rank must need, and instruct him to procure all, which he will be glad to do at my word."

As he spoke, Olrig returned, and having received these instructions in a tongue which was foreign to Angelica, and she having given him a sum of money which Sir Oliver advised, he was next instructed to conduct Senor Garcia to the chamber, the keys of which Sir Oliver had previously sent him to fetch.

A short corridor led to a winding stair of stone which, after several doors had been passed, ascended to one which Olrig opened with the two keys he bore.

Angelica, observing that the room had been double-locked, may be excused, after her experiences of the last few days, if she had a moment's thought that she was being led to nothing better than an altered form of imprisonment, but her memory of Sir Oliver rebuked the doubt, the appearance of the interior of the chamber was reassuring, and any lingering apprehension ceased as Olrig laid the keys down for her own disposal and withdrew with a polite intimation, which she imperfectly understood (it being in the Latin tongue) that His Excellency desired that Senor Garcio should regard the contents of the chamber as being entirely at his own disposal.

Angelica looked round, and was puzzled but well-content. Her privacy was, at least, her own; for in addition to the keys which she now controlled, she observed that the door, itself of stout and ironbound oak, was furnished with two long and heavy bolts which could be dropped into sockets in the stone paving of the floor.

Apart from that, it was a woman's room, and one of a soft and luxurious kind, very different from the dignified simplicity of her own apartment in her uncle's castle. And it was not merely a room which was intended for feminine use, it was one which a woman had recently and (it seemed) abruptly left. Her most intimate possessions, even articles in daily use, were scattered about, as though they represented a recent toilet, nor was there any depth of dust upon them, such as would indicate that they had lain undisturbed for more than a few days at the most.

So, in fact, it had been. The Knights of St. John were a celibate religious order, and the upper chambers of the castle of St. Angelo were among the last places where a woman should have been expected to be. But the vows of celibacy, which were founded at least as much on the policy of protecting the property of the Order from private inheritance as monastic ideal, had been variously and sometimes loosely interpreted by the Commanders of the Order during succeeding centuries, and while the character of the Order had gradually changed from that of ministrants to sick and indigent pilgrims in Palestine to that of ruthless warriors who opposed their own lives as a bulwark of Christendom against the advance of the pagan power, yet it had kept itself comparatively, though not absolutely, free from the luxurious corruptions which had contributed, like an internal cancer, to the destruction of the Order of the Knights Templars, which had once been its rival in power and wealth and valour and equal in devotion to the Christian cause.

The present Grand Master, who had held office only since 1557, was known to be of a stern integrity in his interpretation of the Order's vows. But he had not been able to eradicate all the weaknesses of human nature, nor the results of the more tolerant methods of his predecessors, among the Knights he ruled. Inflexible in discipline in regard to all that came under his notice, there may still have been matters which he thought it inexpedient to go out of his way to see. There must have been many things that he did not know.

When the threat of Turkish invasion required that Malta should be organised and stript for the stark business of war, there must have been many who scurried away, either from fear of the event itself, or of consequence to themselves which the disclosure of their presence would bring, as insects run from beneath a suddenly lifted stone.

There were women, more than a few, who had found residence in the town (and one, it appeared, some use of the apartment which had been allotted to Commander La Cerda), who had made hurried departures on their own volitions, or with the impetus of hints of humiliation, if not of actual chastisement, should they further delay.

What had occasioned the sudden vacation of the chamber which he had now allocated to Angelica's use, was best known to Sir Oliver, who, while he would have concealed nothing had he been asked by the Grand Master, had yet thought it beyond his duty, or an abstract wisdom, to divert La Valette from more important considerations with a tale which would at least have incensed him further against La Cerda, who had already incurred his disapprobation from a separate cause.

It seemed enough to Sir Oliver, amid a hundred superior urgencies, that he had secured that that chamber should be so abruptly vacated, and it was now by a very fortunate chance that he was able to allot it to such an occupant that its contents would seem natural, when (as he supposed) the secret of Don Garcio's sex would be honourably revealed. He may, amid the pressure of more important things, have found a moment to congratulate himself on the prudence that had kept it locked since its previous denizen had departed, and so avoided the wider scandal which would have followed its investigation.

Be that as it may, it was for Angelica a very fortunate chance. She found herself securely and comfortably lodged; and as Sir Oliver Starkey offered to utilise her services in such clerical work as she could undertake for himself in the moment's emergency, she had occupation which may have been more useful in diverting attention from herself than important in its assistance to him.

She was content, from day to day, to sit in Sir Oliver's room, using a copyist's pen, and observing the hundred persons and activities of which he was the controlling centre, and only shadowed by the doubt of what would happen when Don Manuel should arrive and learn how his wishes had been disregarded and his authority defied.

But the days passed, and Don Manuel did not come; and on the 18th of May, as she sat at her table in Sir Oliver's room, there came, from the castle-roof over her head, the deep boom of a single gun. It came again - and again. A moment later, a gun from St. Elmo's battery answered in the same way. Men listened, and lost a breath. It was the signal that the Turkish fleet had been sighted from St. Angelo's tower.

CHAPTER XI

ANGELICA heard the gun, the signal of fate and death, and the fear that she might be compelled to return to seek the seclusion of Holy Cross faded finally from her mind. Whether or not Don Manuel would succeed in joining his brethren before the investment would be complete, she supposed that he would not wish her to take the risks of leaving, even were a suitable escort available, now that the Turkish fleet had actually arrived. For good or evil, for joy or sorrow, it seemed that she would be there till the siege should end in a day of triumph, or in such a way that she could hope for no better fate than that of a Turkish slave.

Yet, for the next two days after the sound of that warning gun, it seemed that there was no change at all. The Turks did not appear at the harbour-mouth; the Knights toiled at the completion of their defences neither more nor less than they had done before. Angelica remembered the sense that she had had of being forgotten and pushed aside when the news had first been brought to Aldea Bella, and wondered if her position would be very different now.

In the last fortnight she had seen Juan Ramegas once, when he had called upon Sir Oliver, though he had not spoken to her. She had not seen Francisco at all. She knew that, though the great galleys in which they had come were now laid up and moored under the protection of the castle guns, he had been given command of one of the smaller and swifter Maltese galliots, similar to the Flying Hawk, which still put to sea, patrolling the Sicilian route by which supplies and recruits would continue to reach the island until the investment should be complete.

Even when she had ventured at times into the narrow, climbing, stone-paved streets of the town no one had spoken or looked at her with curious eyes. There was so much of strangeness in the far-gathered crowd that nothing was strange at all.

And on the afternoon after the cannon had sounded that threefold warning note, she sat copying a schedule which Sir Oliver Starkey had been altering from day to day as new recruits had come in, and which he had now put into final form, to remain as his careful record of the forces with which the Christian nations of Europe were content, after many weeks of warning, that the Knights of Malta should face the full weight of the Turkish power.

It was a schedule which concerned itself less with differences of race than of language, of which three were spoken in France and two in Spain at that time. It began with a list of those of the Order itself, distinguishing between those who were "Knights of Justice" - that is, in their own right, having that rank, apart from the Order, in their own lands - and the serving-brothers, such as Ramegas, who were of a second rank This is the list she wrote: Knights Esquires Provence 61 15 Auvergne 25 14 France - 57 24 Italy - 164 5 Aragon - 85 2 England - 1 0 Germany - 13 1 Castile - 68 6 - - 474 67 474 - - - - ----- - - - - 541 Hired Spanish troops - 800 Garrison troops of St. Angelo - 90 Ditto of St. Elmo - 60 Grand Master's household and guard - 150 Artillerymen - 120 Crews of galleys still in commission - 700 Volunteers from Sicily, Italy, Genoa, Piedmont and other countries - 875 > Total of Regular Troops - - 3,336 Add Militia enrolled: From the Bourg - 500 > Burmola Sanglea 300 > the rest of the island 4,560 5,360 Total: 8,696

'The militia' were the whole male population of Malta, who were of sufficient vigour to lift a sword, and their fighting value only the test could prove.

The Turkish fleet, consisting of one hundred and thirty-nine oared galleys and about fifty sailing vessels of various other designations, after cruising for some time round the southern coast of the island, selected the Marsa Scirocco, a wide bay at the south-eastern corner of the island, and landed there, and in the Marsa Scala and St. Thomas's Bay, without opposition, an army of 29,000 men, which was intended to attack St. Angelo on the land side, while the fleet bombarded it from the sea. The Algerian fleet was still to come. A Council which the Grand Master had called a few days earlier had made a decision, in which his own view had overridden that of other equally experienced soldiers, and on which the course of subsequent events must have radically depended.

The old town of Citta Notabile, in the centre of the island, with its decrepit castle and almost defenceless walls, was not to be abandoned, neither was the Maltese militia to be concentrated within or around the defences of St. Angelo. St. Angelo was to depend upon its own garrison: the bulk of the Maltese militia was to remain at large upon the island. If the whole force of the Turkish attack should be directed upon Citta Notabile the militia must defend it as best they could; if upon St. Angelo, they should vex the rear of the infidels to the extent of their power.

The Turkish army, landing as it did on the south-eastern side of the island, therefore found itself opposed by no organised force capable of engaging it upon the field of battle, neither did it survey an abandoned territory from which the inhabitants had been withdrawn; but it was surrounded by the watchful, lurking hostility of the island militia. It raided inland in a great force, and saw no sign of human life and little of human occupation: it ventured small parties, seeking information or plunder or the filling of water-casks, and they did not return.

It wasted the country around its encampment and gained little, for the land was stony and poor. The goat-herds had driven their flocks to the remoter hills. The imported Sicilian draught-oxen - which had become numerous since the arrival of the Knights had resulted in much additional building throughout the island - were hidden or removed from before the advance of the marauding forces; but of these a sufficient number were captured to ensure the transportation of baggage and, in particular, of the heavy artillery, when the army should be ready to advance either to the attack of St. Angelo or to occupy the interior of the island.

Such was the position when Piali, the admiral of the Turkish fleet, came ashore from his galley to attend a Council of War which Mustapha had called that they might agree upon a plan of action in which the sea and land forces would co-operate for the defeat of the common foe.

Piali was a man of uncertain nationality and nameless birth, brought to the position he now held by the caprice of fortune and the Soldan's whim. Thirty years before Soliman the Magnificent, riding over a victorious Hungarian battlefield, had reined his horse to avoid a living babe that was crawling among the slain.

The Soldan looked down and was met by the black eyes of a child who looked boldly and curiously up at the splendid vision above him.

"Let the child live," Soliman said. "Pick him up."

He ordered that Piali should he reared with his own household. When he was grown, he gave him one of his own granddaughters for a wife.

Having no nationality of his own, Piali may have done well to rake to the sea. With the Sultan's favour, he rose rapidly to the high position he now held. He was not of the disposition of those who may not hear the summons if fortune should try the door. He fought his ships in the same way.

His body, most probably born from hardship and poverty, had grown to an almost giant coarseness and strength amid the softer surroundings of the Sultan's court. It showed signs already that it would become gross if he should live toward middle age. But now it was impelled by an abundant vitality. His manner was arrogant and overbearing. He was impatient of opposition. He came to meet Mustapha knowing his own mind, which he would be certain to speak. He was without subtlety, and might have said that he had no occasion for the practice of guile.

Mustapha was a man of different breed. He stroked the white beard of age, and though his step was still vigorous, and his eye bright, he looked more fit for the Council Chamber than the rough hazards of war. Craft and lies were the familiar weapons by which he had guarded himself through the perils of many years, and come to the lordship of Egypt which he now held. To speak his thoughts would have seemed to him no better than the act of a clumsy fool. He had the reputation of being a very fortunate and able leader of men, cautious, and yet prompt and bold to take advantage of any favourable chance. He was the most popular general in the Turkish empire, it being said that he counted the lives of his men as a miser will tale his gold, and that he would not send them rashly to death for a doubtful gain. It was he, forty years before, under Soliman's orders, who had captured Rhodes from the Knights. If he had shown reluctance to undertake this new command, and expressed doubts of its success, it did not follow that he would not be resolute to prosecute it, nor inwardly sanguine of its results. He had merely taken the precaution of being able to say afterwards, if it should fail, that it had been against his own judgement, and only undertaken in loyalty to his imperial master's will. If he should intend to meet Piali's plans with the same subtlety of precaution, he would have an opponent who would be very unlikely to perceive or avoid the trap.

The Council consisted of about a dozen of the principal military and naval commanders, but the discussion which ensued was between Mustapha and Piali only, to which the others listened in a rarely broken silence. To Mustapha, their importance lay in the fact that they might be after-witnesses of the things he said.

They sat in a circle, cross-legged on the rich softness of a carpet spread over the open ground, and a strong guard was stationed round them, but out of hearing, to make the privacy of the discussion more certain than would be possible in pavilion walls. They spoke between intervals, during which they smoked in an impressive silence. Even Piali knew that, if he should appear to speak without pauses of thought, he would lose the respect and confidence of those who heard.

"It would seem," Mustapha began, "that there are two courses between which we must make a choice. We may proceed first to make the island our own, which it can have no force to resist, outside the strong forts where the Knights have centred their power; or we can proceed at once to invest them there, both by land and sea, taking no account at the first of those who are loose in other parts of the isle, except that we must slay such as molest our rear."

"There is a thing," Piali replied, "which we must heed before either of those. I must have a harbour where I can lodge my fleet."

"Have you not harbours enough?" Mustapha inquired.

"I have none where I should be secure from a seaward foe."

"Where do you seek to be?"

"There is a fort at St. Elmo's point, which is of so small a size that it does not hold more than three score of men. If we destroy that, we have safe entrance to the best harbour there is, with a mouth of no greater breadth than we can secure by strong batteries on both sides, so that we can lie there without fear, or sally forth as we will."

Mustapha considered this in a silent gravity before he asked again: "Are you secure from the winds as you now are?"

"I am well enough from the winds, there being choice of anchorage in more places than one. I am thinking of seaward foes."

"Of whom we have word of none?"

"Of whom we may hear when it will be too late to gain the safety I seek. We may have all Christendom on our heads at a near day."

Mustapha was silent again. It was a risk which he thought small. He knew too much of the jealousies and divisions of the Christian powers to expect any concerted action from them - and if it came he thought it would be by a slow way, of which they would have warning enough. It was unlikely - but it was a possible thing, and if the Turkish fleet were to be forced to fight because it had no secure harbour in which to lie, and then, if it should have the worse, destroyed because it had no safe harbour to which to retreat, he did not intend that he should be blamed therefor.

"Are you assured," he asked, "that St. Elmo can be taken with speed, and at a light cost?"

"It can be taken with speed, and at a cost which will not be too high for the gain it brings."

Mustapha did not dissent. He smoked in silence again.

"I would," he said at length, "that Dragut were here."

"And so," Piali said, "he should be."

Mustapha did not feel moved to deny that. He said: "He should be here any day now. You know the charge that we have."

Piali was silenced in turn, and with less of deliberate choice. When he spoke it was to argue with no change of will but somewhat less arrogance than before.

"That was meant for the conduct of the main attack, as I think. We are not meant to sit still, doing nought while our foes thrive, because Dragut is slow to come. Suppose he should not come for a long time? Are we to waste all the strength we have? This is such a thing as may be well done to make ready for when he shall be here."

The firman that Soliman had given appointed Mustapha to the chief command, but it left Piali in control of the sea-forces, after he had put the army ashore. It directed both to await the arrival of Dragut, the Viceroy of the Barbary coast, and to take no decisive action without seeking counsel with him.

Mustapha, at least, saw clearly why that instruction had been given. Piali might be a bold seaman, and one whom the Sultan loved, but Soliman could not think him to be an equal admiral to the Algerian corsair, who, when he was not drunk with rum, to the scandal of all True Believers of stricter habits, had a genius for naval warfare which had done far more than could be credited to any other single commander during the past thirty years to convert the Mediterranean to a Moslem lake. Boastful, truculent, quarrelsome, drunken he might be; but his name was such that his mere presence at a naval battle was enough to give assurance of victory to his friends and dishearten his boldest foes.

"I am an old man," Mustapha said, "somewhat stricken in years, and the blood runs coldly in aged veins. I will not shrink to confess that I might have so interpreted the instructions we have received that I should have delayed to choose the place of our first assault until we had Dragut here, to join his counsel to ours.

"I might also have been too simple to doubt that the great fleet you have would be sufficient to hold these seas, even without that of Algiers, which cannot be far from our aid, until such time as we shall have resolved the siege and you can anchor in what harbour you will."

"Do you say that my fleet should be equal to face the whole Christian power, which may be stirred by this assault on an Order which is derived from all their nations alike, and that I should be careless to do that with no harbour to which I could retire at a great need?"

"I should not say that. I say you have less to fear, for they are in division amongst themselves. The English queen (whose ships are the most spiteful of all) will be content that we vex her foes. The Baltic League will not send the worst ships they have; they will not sell a spar, as I think, nor a coil of rope (unless they first have the value paid), to give an Order support which owns the head-ship of Rome, with whom they have more bitter and nearer feud than can be their hatred of us, for it is not here that their trade lies. We have Spain to fear, but her King is cautious and slow. He has nearer foes, and his fleet must guard the far land where he gets his gold. He will not weaken his power there for this barren isle. He will send many words and, it may be, a few men."

"Then what," Piali asked, "would you do?"

"I have not said you are wrong. I have but said that the old are inclined to the surer way.

"I had thought that the island could be overrun in a short time. There are but scattered houses of no defence, and a town in the midst with such walls, so it is said, as our batteries would lay flat. There would be great slaughter, or taking of slaves in a full net. Also, there would be plunder of sorts, though it is a poor land, and unlike to Rhodes, from which we sent many galleys laden with spoil even while that war was not won.

"Or if the people who are now scattered over the land should flee to St. Angelo's walls and we not be able to cut them off, as it is like that many would do, whether by the hills or along the coast, I suppose that the Knights would gain little by that. They may have men enough for the walls they defend. They must all drink, it is said, from cisterns which the rains fill. They have storehouses of corn which are well stocked, as our spies say, yet they must count to a time when they will come to the end and may not welcome that they will have more to feed.

"They may look to hold out till there will arrive strong aid from Europe at last. I do not say you are wrong in that. They may count the days. Have you thought that they may have built St. Elmo to that very end, that we may waste our own days on assault of such a fort as may fall and leave them little worse than they were before?"

"Have you thought," Piali replied, his wits being alert enough in a simple way, "that they may have left the Maltese loose for the same end, that we may chase them from shore to shore, while we gain naught that will avail us at last, and the days go by?"

Mustapha, who had thought of that, among many more difficult things, did not count it worth while to give a direct reply.

"I can see plainly," he said, "that you are bent on your own plan, and though I may have some doubt of what our lord would have had us do before Dragut come, yet I know well that there must be common purpose and good accord between two leaders placed as we now are. It may be that I am somewhat old and not swift to resolve in a bold way. If this fort be so easy to take, as you say it is, you shall have the harbour you will.

"We will survey it tomorrow morn, both by land and sea, that we may combine in such assault as you judge best."

The conference broke up at that word, leaving them both content, though there was little between them either of trust or goodwill; for Mustapha, who saw the advantage, if not the necessity, of capturing St. Elmo as clearly as Piali, but was less confident of an easy success, was satisfied that, if it should fail, the doubts he had uttered would be recalled to the minds of all who had heard, and it would be said that his wisdom had been overridden by the impetuous folly of the younger man. He saw also that, if the attack were to be commenced at that point, it could not be too sudden and swift, and though he had insured himself from the first against the worst penalties of failure, by declining to advocate that the siege should be attempted at all, and by appearing to excuse himself from accepting the chief command, so that Soliman had to thrust it upon him, yet it did not follow that, having so undertaken, he was not resolved to bring it to a successful end, and confident that he would not fail.

As for Piali, so that he had his own way, he was careless of how it came.

"The old rascal," he said to his captains as they walked back to their waiting boats, "would wander over the island till the summer is done, and at the end he would have slaughtered some peasants, and as many goats as would feed his host for two days, or perhaps three.

"He would go back boasting of what he had done, and saying that he had seen that St. Angelo was too strong to take by assault, and that he had spared the lives of his men, as though there were any merit in that. What, in Allah's name, are their lives for?

"But in war you must ever strike at a vital spot, and it is never too costly to win. St. Elmo is but a small fort. We will have it down in two days, and you will enter a harbour where you can lie without fear. though all the fleets of Christendom were cannonading without."

His captains made no answer to that, for the idea was pleasing enough; and they had learned that he was one who loved the sound of his own voice much more than to listen to theirs.

CHAPTER XII

THE same morning that the Turkish Council of War was held Francisco stood on the poop of the Curse of Islam (that being the name of the galliot of which he had been given command) which was patrolling about half a mile to the north of St. Elmo's point.

The Curse of Islam was built in the style of the Flying Hawk, and was as swift but much smaller than she. It had but one mast, and was of light draught so that it could enter inlets and shallow bays without fear that it could be followed by larger ships. Small as it was, it had fourteen oars on each side, for it was in speed that its use alike with its safety lay, whether it were hunting Turkish merchant vessels that it could plunder and sink, or running from their fighting ships that it would be too weak to endure.

Now it tacked against a light north-east wind, so that it might keep out from the shore. Its oars were in, and it moved lazily over a quiet sea, as though it drowsed in the heat of the sunny noon; but it was watchful on every side, that it might be ready to aid its friends or to avoid being cut off from the land if Turkish galleys should approach by a coast-ward way.

For though Piali had anchored the larger part of his fleet in the Marsa Scirocco and in St. Thomas's Bay, he had spread a swarm of his smaller galleys and other vessels around the islands, so that it might be said that the whole Maltese group were already invested in a loose way. He had over one hundred and eighty ships of all sizes under his control, with crews of more than nine thousand men, and now that they had landed the army and stores they brought, they were light and lean, and very hungry for prey.

Nor did they fish in an empty sea, for there were still Knights of the Order and volunteers of various ranks arriving in Sicily to assist the defence, and the Sicilian coast not being much more than sixty miles distant, and the Maltese boatmen bold and knowing shallows and currents, and often making the night their friend, were still bringing them across, and would continue to do so for several weeks, each side becoming more expert to chase or avoid their foes.

In these first days it was a game of death which was played on both sides in a clumsy, beginner's way, but Turkish galliots of the lighter kind were lurking in many of the inlets around the coast, ready to sally out on a careless prey, or for their guns to do mischief to any who should approach from the land-ward side.

The Curse of Islam put her bow into the wind, and began to glide again on the starboard tack through the peace of the summer sea, when there came a noise of guns from the north-west, and not, as it seemed to those who listened, at a great distance away, though they could see nothing, the coast in that part being hidden beyond the point of St. George's Bay, nor could they be sure whether the firing came from the land or the sea.

But Francisco did not wait to listen a second time. He felt as one who had ranged the woods for three days without sight or sound of the prey he sought, though he knew that every moment might see it leap from the thicket, and that it was round him on every side. The Curse of Islam shook out her wings. Her oars flashed over-side, and she leapt, as they smote the foam, like an unleashed dog.

Francisco went forward to see that the guns on the forward deck would be ready, and Captain Antonio stood at his side He had no duty there. He had come as a volunteer, rather than be idle on land. He watched Francisco with a critical eye. He listened to the sound of guns that became louder as the seconds passed. He had discretion enough to keep a shut mouth, and had his reward when Francisco asked: "Now what would you take it to be?"

"I should opine," Captain Antonio replied, "that the craft are small and are propelled by oars, for they approach fast, and that without favour of wind.

"They carry no cannon on either side and cannot be further distance apart than can be crossed by an arquebus ball, for it is that weapon which we have heard.

"You will have noticed that there were five shots, or it may be six, almost as one, and then after a pause that was somewhat long, there was such a chorus of shots again. I suppose that to mean that the pursuers rest oars at times, that the arquebusiers may not be spoilt in their aim by a lifting prow.

"It is most like that we shall be friendly to those who flee, but, be that as it may, it is a game that we shall decide, for we shall meet them, as I think, almost bow to bow as we are rounding the cape."

"I have no doubt," Francisco said, "you have guessed well." But as he spoke, there came the deep boom of a heavy gun, and another thereafter, showing that, if the guess were good, it had not come to the end of the tale.

Yet, as far as it went, it had been good enough, for as they rounded the cape they came in sight of a half-decked boat that fled before one about twice as large as itself, which had a single mast and a spread of sail that was of little aid, the wind blowing as it did. But behind these there were three galliots coming up, showing the black flag with the green turban thereon and the golden scimitar gleaming below, which was the battle-ensign of the Turkish navy at that time, these symbols being as near to the portrayal of a created thing as the second commandment of Moses would allow a Moslem to go.

The fleeing boat, depending on the strength of its oars alone, had crept over during the night and the earlier day from the Sicilian shore, aiming to make a landing in St. Paul's Bay, where it was thought that, as yet, no Turks would be likely to be. It was manned by six Maltese oarsmen who did not row with their backs to the bow, as is the more common style, but stood upright, looking ahead, and pushed rather than pulled the boat with the full weight of their bodies on every stroke. Don Manuel and his two servants sat in the stern, and there was a Maltese seaman who steered, making ten in all. The boat was flat-bottomed and shallow of draught, being adapted for coastal work rather than open stretches of sea, though the hardy Maltese boatmen would often use such craft for crossing to Sicily when the winds were kind.

It had come without incident, or sight of more than a distant sail, till it had rounded the curve of St. Paul's Bay, where they had thought to run into a cove which had an easy beach for the boat, and thence make cautious way overland toward St. Angelo, avoiding any advance of the Turkish army, which would have been easy to do among hills where all men were their friends, either to guide or warn.

But as they came to the full sight of the bay, they saw that at which their oars paused in a sudden fear, so that there was a moment when the boat drifted on at its own will.

"Back, men, back," an old seaman called, who was the owner of the boat, and who pushed on one of the bow oars, with his son at his side. But even as the oars were lifted to strike the water again, he altered his word: "It is too late. We are seen. There is no hope but ahead. Push, men, or our lives will pay."

What they had seen was no less than half a dozen Turkish snips of the smaller kinds that had made resort of that bay, and were anchored, more or less, at its upper end. They were not all alert to make chase, some of their men being ashore. They were, in fact, seeking water, of which there was here a little stream entering the sea, which was worth regard in an island where springs were few and most men drank that which had been stored in cisterns after the rain.

Being in a land of foes they had sent a strong party ashore, with the water-casks that they sought to fill, and the two largest galliots had trained their guns to command the beach.

The boatmen felt as a rat might do on finding itself in the very kennel of some careless dog, which stretches and yawns and has no thought of a prey. It will dart back, if it can, before its coming has been observed.

But as the seamen paused in that first panic of doubt they knew that they were too late to draw back, for they had been already seen by the watch on the nearest ship. There was an outbreak of cries. Being perceived, there was no hope in retreat. Their safety lay, as they thought, as far off as within the range of St. Elmo's guns. To reach them, they must pull across the front of St. Paul's Bay, in full sight of their foes, and then continue along the coast, keeping ahead if they could.

The boatmen pressed on the oars, while the corsair vessel that was nearest, and had first called the alarm, showed that it would soon be in hot pursuit.

Its sail rose to the wind: its oars came over-side: its anchor cable was cut.

Its sail might be little use, with the wind blowing the way it did, but its oars were nearly twice the number of those on the Maltese boat, and each was pulled by two men. Against that, its size was much more, but it was built for speed, which the Maltese boat was not. The Turks looked for an easy prey.

Don Manuel sat in the stern. He was clothed in steel and his sword lay across his knees. He said nothing, watching the pursuit with a sombre and haughty gaze that held some hatred, and some contempt, but no fear.

He could see that it was an unequal chase and that the Turkish vessel might almost reach to cross their bows before they could have a straight course ahead. Yet they must converge as they did, for if they should steer a course which would take them more out to sea, they would be further at last from the land where their safety lay. The Turks came fast. They were eager and fresh. The Maltese had been rowing for many hours. But life is a great stake. They were inured to the work they did. Their strength was neither wasted nor spared. The oars moved as one. When they crossed the corsair's bows they were still some hundreds of yards apart.

As they did so the lurks lay on their oars, steadying their deck that the arquebusiers might take a good aim. The arquebus was a heavy weapon, clumsy and slow. It was like a cannon for the use of a single man. When he had loaded it, he must set up a tripod on which he could rest it while he was taking aim. A slow-match would ignite its powder at last. There would be noise, if no more. The lighter, deadlier musket was still to come.

Now a volley came too low, or fell short. Looking back, Don Manuel saw the water spurt upward where it was struck by the heavy balls. His expression altered to that of a somewhat greater contempt than before. He thought that if they would stop often enough for that foolish firework display there might be a good chance of escape, which he had not greatly hoped until then.

He was of a generation which had been reluctant to admit the power of the new weapons or that they had ended the reign of steel. At that time a knight's age might be fairly guessed by the amount of armour he wore.

The Turkish vessel came on again, and though the boatmen strove with their utmost strength, the distance steadily shortened between them. The corsairs had seen the steel-clad form in the stern, and they toiled now for a prize of worth. The Knights of Malta were almost always men of rank and wealth in their own lands, and their ransoms were fixed at rates which were equally high.

Now the corsair's oars lifted again. It steadied somewhat as it lost speed, and the arquebuses were levelled a second time. But now the volley did not fall short: a ball glanced off one of Don Manuel's ailettes and splintered the gunwale of the boat. He stretched out a jarred arm with the satisfaction of finding it would still be equal to using a sword, and observed at that same instant that one of the foremost oarsmen had fallen forward. As he did so, the old man at his side also abandoned his oar and stooped over to lift him up.

Don Manuel rose in a quick wrath. "Boniface," he called, "is this a time to regard the dead? I have seen you in bygone days when a bullet - "

"But not through a son's heart."

"Even so, he has gone the sooner to God. We have our duties who still live. You must let him lie."

Don Manuel's voice was kindly but stern. It was, indeed, evident that it was no time to grieve for the dead, which would be to involve all in the common end. As he spoke he took the steersman's place, so that he could go forward to the oar of the dying man, whose father resumed his labour.

There was urgent need now, for the boat had lost speed in this momentary confusion, which more than offset the delay caused to their pursuers when the rowers paused for the arquebusiers to fire. Flight would have become hopeless, but for the fact that they now approached a place of shallows and outlying rocks, where they were able to take advantage of a narrow channel through which the corsair's vessel could not venture to follow but must take a course further out to sea, by which it lost half a mile, if not more.

With this timely assistance the chase was repeated on the same lines as before, with the pursuers further behind but closing more rapidly upon the Maltese craft, for the boatmen were finding it beyond human capacity to maintain the exertions with which they began their flight. And at the same time, as though to destroy the last faint hope of escape in despairing hearts, another of the Turkish galleys, a much larger vessel which had stood further out to sea, was now coming up rapidly behind, and opened fire with two of its forward guns on the fleeing boat.

They were not struck at this time, though a plunging ball, dividing the waves, passed them so closely that they were drenched by its scattered spray. And as they became aware of this fresh menace they became conscious also of a hope, which induced Don Manuel to urge them to renewed exertions.

"Push hard," he exclaimed, "there is help ahead."

For at the end of the spur of land which formed the eastern side of the cape which still hid them from the Curse of Islam and deprived them of knowledge of that approaching support, there was a group of Maltese soldiers who watched the chase, and in their midst a battery of two mortars which had been placed there by the Knights to defend the point. These mortars were clumsy weapons, even by the standards of that time, but capable of taking a heavy charge, being of stone and hollowed out of the solid rock. They were loaded with liberal charges of powder, and wooden tompions were then laid over their mouths, on which would be piled an assortment of cannonballs, stones, and bars and fragments of iron. They were discharged by means of slow-matches, such as would allow time, after their ignition, for their crews to retreat to safety. Their fire could not be accurate nor their range great, as they threw their missiles high into the air, from which they would descend with a force which might not only bring death and wounds to those unable to avoid it on narrow, unsheltered decks, but might well prove sufficient to sink vessels of considerable size.

It was evident that the drama of flight and death was now nearing its climax, and that climax may be taken, alike in its incidence and in the ruthless spirit which inspired its antagonists, as symbolic of the larger struggle which was to come.

The boatmen, with a renewed vigour of hope, which became a mere desperation should they look back at the nearness of the pursuit, rowed straight for the protection of the battery.

The Turkish corsair saw the menace of those loaded mortars, but, like a hawk too intent upon an almost captured prey to heed that it is chasing it to the very foot of a man whom it would otherwise have avoided in terror, could not resolve to leave a capture so nearly made.

"They dare not fire," the Turkish captain exclaimed, "for we are too close to their friends. They could not direct their discharge so that it could descend on one ship, and not both; and those of their part might take the more hurt, their boat being weaker than ours."

"If they follow to within the range," the captain of the battery said, "and we see that our friends cannot escape, we must not scruple to fire, for it is much better that all should sink than that the Turks should sail safely off, having taken their prey."

"Boniface," Don Manuel called from the stern, "if they lay us aboard, I must charge you to send a pistol-shot through that case in the bows where our powder lies, for we shall go to God by a clean road, and not as having been first mauled by these infidel dogs."

"So I will," the old man answered. "So I will at the last need. But you will pardon me if I delay until then, for life is dear to us all."

"You may delay till then, but be sure at the last, if the need come; for if they will not lay off the chase we shall find the land too distant to gain."

And then, as though to mock them with a second mirage of rescue, too distant for real avail, the Curse of Islam appeared round the head of the cape, coming on at a great pace, for it could make more use of the wind, and as they approached one another, though not in a direct line, it had the effect of advancing even faster than it actually did.

It was yet too distant for Francisco to see whom the boat held, but the meaning of all was too clear to misunderstand. He gave an instant order that they should steer straight to the rescue of the Maltese boat, but to train their guns upon the galley that came up further behind, it being a clear mark, with no danger that a shot would go where they would not wish.

So they fired, though at a long range, and their coming cannot be said to have been without result, for the galley, seeing the Curse of Islam approach in so bold a way, supposed her to be no more than the first of a Christian squadron which might appear at the next minute around the headland, and so put her helm up, and made off, signalling to her consorts who were further away that they should do the like.

But as though the guns of the Curse of Islam had been the overture for a concert of hell, the next moment was loud with thunder, and livid with flame.

Don Manuel had seen that the Turkish vessel was close behind. Her commander had called for a supreme effort from the oarsmen, and whether willing or under threat of the lash, they pulled so that the ship leapt ahead, and this time it was distanced by no answering spurt, for the Maltese rowers could do no more.

Don Manuel saw the prow of the approaching vessel almost over his head. - He rose up from the useless rudder. He shouted to Boniface that the time to fire the powder had come; and then, with his bare sword in his hand, and forgetting he was somewhat stiff with the passing of years, he reached up to the bowsprit above his head and swung himself on to the corsair's deck.

It was a moment before that, that the captain of the battery had realised that the Maltese boatmen were doomed, and that only vengeance remained. There was no mercy given, nor often asked in the warfare between Christian and Moslem at that day. The ferocity of the conflict was only tempered by hopes of ransom or of the price that a slave would fetch; and even these considerations were often forgotten when men were roused to a lust for blood.

The flashes of the two great mortars leapt up to the sky: their thunders deafened the air. Like Mount Etna's deadly hail, the heavy missiles flung upward by that giant discharge came rushing down from a blackened sky. They struck the water, sending high columns into the air. They crashed down on a deck where a crowd of turbaned pirates shouted and smote at one armoured figure that fought grimly its final fight. More than one went through the deck to shatter the hull below.

The Curse of Islam had no more to do than to send a broadside into a sinking vessel, the decks of which were already awash as it came up. The Maltese boat was floating bottom upwards, a shattered wreck.

Francisco looked down on a sea that was strewn with wreckage, and in which there were men that swam round like drowning rats, having little hope of a better fate.

They picked up five, who were all Turks, of whom they kept four for the labour of the oars, and threw one back, who had a wound which it would have been trouble to heal.

They saw nothing of the Maltese, nor of Don Manuel, who would have sunk with his armour's weight, had he not been already slain.

Francisco sailed back, not knowing whom he had been too late to save.

CHAPTER XIII

ANGELICA still wrote, though in a room which, for the moment, had no occupant but herself. It had an aspect of leisured learning, of wealth and secure peace. The high shelves, laden with calf and vellum-bound volumes, lettered most often in vermilion or gold, were in shadow, but the high sunlight of a morning that neared its noon patterned the softly carpeted floor through windows that showed a few white cumulus clouds moving majestically across the deep blue of the summer sky.

But as she wrote she had heard for the past two hours the low thunder of distant guns. It came from the south, where the Turkish army advanced on a wide front and was opposed by the Maltese militia and as many knights as there were good horses to mount, or the Grand Master would allow to go out of the lines.

She could not tell how the battle went, but she knew that the Turks came on, for as the hours passed the noise grew. The guns were louder, and their volume increased in another way, as though the battle were more generally joined.

Also, in the last half hour, there had been a sound of guns from the north, as though it came from the sea. It had been little at first, but now there came a twofold explosion of sound that was almost one, which was the firing of the stone mortars upon the beach, and soon after that the sound of cannon firing at once, which was the broadside by which the Curse of Islam had sunk her foe.

Angelica was not short of a task, for Sir Oliver Starkey was one who liked his records to be exact.

He must have the name of every man who would be stationed within the lines and the place he would hold. There must be space to record his wounds, or the day he would die, and perhaps a few words beyond that. There must be provision for record if he should be transferred to another front.

In all this Sir Oliver went his own way, being a man of very orderly mind, yet there was a special reason for the care which was shown in the stationing of the garrisons both of castle and town. For to give an order that would have been understood by all the four thousand men that were gathered there it would have been needful to speak in more than a dozen tongues.

It was a difficulty which had been faced by the previous Grand Master, De Lisle Adam, when the Turks had threatened attack many years before. He had arranged his knights so that those adjacent should be such as would be nearest of tongue to themselves; and though the additions to the fortifications which had been made since that day had strengthened the places once esteemed the most dangerous, and therefore of the greatest honour, so that they might now be the most difficult to assault, yet La Valette had considered it expedient to adopt his predecessor's plan, by which, when it was known, none could say that they were favoured or treated less than the first.

The Italians, under Sir Peter del Monte - who was destined to survive the siege and become Grand Master himself - stretched southward, around the Sanglea and St. Michael's fort.

On the outward side of the Bourg, which had once been protected by no more than a low wall and a shallow ditch but which was now very strongly fortified, were placed the three Langues of Provence, Auvergne and France, with the Genoese volunteers in a corner which would other wise have been too weakly supplied with men.

The Knights of Arragon, with Catalonia and Navarre, defended the bastion which faced north-east, from the end of the French line toward the head of Calcara Bay; and beyond them Castile, Portugal, Germany, England held the northern bastion in that order, from the end of the Arragon line to St. Angelo's seaward walls.

But the German ranks were no more than a tithe of what they had been before division entered the Christian Church, and England, which had been chosen before to defend that outer corner where St. Angelo looked toward the sea, was now represented by no more than a single name, that of Sir Oliver Starkey himself.

This position was met by allocating to this point a number of volunteers of various nationalities and a part of the Spanish troops which had been hired from Sicily, and it was to this body that the name of Don Garcio of Murcia had been attached.

So far, if Angelica's instinct had not erred, no one had guessed that she was other than she appeared. Sir Oliver had been scrupulous to treat her in every way as though she were a young noble of Spain who, though not of the Order, had come to assist the defence, and had been no more than consistent with this in entering Don Garcio's name among those who would be stationed beneath himself When Don Manuel should appear, as he might any day be expected to do, it would be time enough for the truth to be shown, and the responsibility would have become his. Meanwhile, Sir Oliver was careful to do or omit nothing which might attract attention or rouse suspicion in any mind.

The noon hours passed, and there was no interruption in the quiet room, except that a young page brought refreshment of wine and meat on a silver tray, as it was his habit to do, and two of Sir Oliver's scribes returned and resumed work at their own desks.

Angelica was accustomed to regard them with the smiling but distant courtesy which becomes natural among those who cannot speak the same tongue. Here, as when she passed through the more public rooms of the castle or went abroad, the cosmopolitan atmosphere of the assembled champions of Christianity, with their endless diversities of physique and manners and dress, and with their babel of tongues, was her sufficient protection against the curiosity out of which suspicion is born.

Within the castle she had encountered no women at all, though there were naturally many among the Maltese in the town, and some of these had been employed during the last days in the hard toil of improving the fortifications on which their lives would depend at last.

Now the hours passed, while the noise of conflict increased until it was plain to hear that it was no further away than the outer wall of the town. The noise of firearms was mingled with another sound that came from the mouths of men. But they died as the afternoon waned, and some time after that Sir Oliver entered the room.

He spoke first to the two scribes in their own tongues, giving them such instructions as caused them to rise and leave. He stood for a minute's space looking at Angelica in a thoughtful way. She went on with a steady pen, not lifting her eyes, until he said: "Don Garcio, there is something here you may like to see."

She looked up at that, and observed that he had in his hand an armlet of gold and rose, gaily embroidered in silk, and not looking to be of a Christian kind. He came and sat on the side of her desk in an easy way, holding it out for her to see.

"Are they words?" she said, looking at a strange scroll, which was not formed of any letters she knew.

"They are words," he said, "and very easy to read for such as know the Arabic tongue. A knight of Navarre, Sir John de Morgut, sent it to me an hour ago, asking that I should read it for him. He took it from the arm of an infidel knight - who was very splendidly dressed - whom his lance had slain."

His words reminded her of that which was most moment to know. "Has all gone well," she asked, "in the day's strife?"

"It has gone well enough, as I hear, though it has not been my part to see. The Turks are about our gates. They came close at one time, but they have paid a full price for that, such as they will not be eager to pay again.

"They have made their advance, yet I should say that we have done well enough. We did not think to hold them off in the open field."

He added, as though thinking that her question might hide a personal fear: "You are safe here. I do not know what the end may be, but it will not come in a day, nor a week from now."

"I had no such thought. Be they here for a short time or a long, I suppose that the Cross will fly from towers that they will not take."

Sir Oliver, listening to this confident reply, appeared to check something that he had been about to say. When he spoke, after a pause, he said: "I suppose you are of your uncle's blood at the last, though you may be gentler of manner and speech, as is but natural to think, and that is what I should have supposed you would say. Yet it is of that that I came to speak, for there are things that should be said now, if at all.... I will tell you what these words are that you cannot read: 'I do not come to Malta for honour or wealth. but I am seeking to save my soul.' You will see that neither wealth nor honour is his, for he has been slain by a Christian lance on the third day, having done nothing at all, and that he has saved his soul is a thing we cannot believe. We suppose that it is in hell at this hour."

"Why do you show me this?"

"Because you have come to a strife which is not as are those when Christians with Christians strive, though they may be such as a woman cannot avoid too far; but this is one in which it is believed on both sides that we fight in the cause of God against those whom He would have us hate, and for whom pity is sin.

"We know well that we have the true cause - God pity us if we should be wrong in that! - but we know that we are not wrong.... I am not telling you to doubt that, but to understand that they are as sure as we.

"Should we fail to sustain our part, there will be none left living within these walls. You may thank God for a quick death, which you may not get. And I must tell you that our defence is not sure. If we have no help from the Christian lands - and as yet we have had fair words, but no more - to hold these walls against such hordes as have come may be beyond human power. We do not complain of that, nor do we regard it with any faintness of heart. We are here to die. Before which time we propose that the infidel deaths will be more than few.

"Yet it is different for you, who should not have come. And there is yet time to go back. If Don Manuel were here, or if he were sure to arrive, I would have said nothing of this, for you are his charge. But he has not come, nor can we say that he ever will.

"Only at this noon, a boat has been sunk carrying some knight who was seeking to join our ranks. I do not say, nor suppose that it was he. But the danger to those who will attempt to reach us from now may be increased beyond what we can guess.

"First and last, he may not come.

"But there is a vessel leaving tonight, a felucca that is built only for speed, in which the nephew of the Grand Master will sail for Palermo to urge the Viceroy that he shall be more swift to our aid. You would be safe on that ship, and I could commend you to the care of good friends that I have there, so that you would have nothing further to dread."

"Sir Oliver," Angelica replied, "you speak from a kindness which is needful to thank, but it is as you would not do to the man that I ape to be. If I ask you one thing, will you answer in a true way?"

"Yes," he said, "so I will, by my knighthood's oath."

"If I accept the offer you make, after I have come as I have, will it be to augment my honour, or else my shame?"

Sir Oliver was silent for some time after this question was put.

"You have asked," he said at last, "a hard thing, which all might not resolve alike; yet if I answer with truth, as you have adjured me to do, I must say, by the Passion of God, that it will be to your greater honour to remain here, if you can be equal to that which comes, as I think you will."

"That is what I supposed you would say. And on your part, will it be to Malta an aid rather than a burden that I remain?"

"When I think what you have already done in our cause, I should call it a likely aid."

"Then I will not go on that ship."

"Yet you should give thought to the dangers that are ahead, which you may suppose less than they are. There are things that you have not seen."

"I have seen a man thrown overboard while he yet lived, for no fault but his failing strength. Are there worse matters than that?"

"Yes. I should say there are. Yet, as I hope, they may not come in your way, if you are resolved that you will not go."

"You asked me, when first I came, if I had any skill in the healing of wounds, and I answered yes. Was there purpose in what you asked?"

"There was purpose, but it is not a skill which can be put to use at this time.... As you know, we are an Order which was first of a healing kind, and all we who have taken John Baptist's vows are of some skill in such arts, though they are such as, for the most part, are not used. Yet we have good spitals within the town, which are served by such of our brethren as have vocation therefor. There are no women within its walls. If you go as you now are, you may find it to be a secret you cannot keep, and might be greatly mis-thought if it should be discovered when you are without friends at a short call, and the truth held to he no more than a wanton's lie.

"Nor, as I think, could you serve there if your sex were known, being alone among men, and it being against our custom, if not our vows, that women should be of those who work in an infirmary that our Order has built. Or, at least, I suppose you would not be allowed, except in a much greater need than we now have.

"But that which I came in truth to ask you was this: if Don Manuel shall still delay to arrive, and you stay here, is it well that you should continue this disguise which you now wear? Or shall I speak to the Grand Master thereon that the truth be shown?

"You must consider that men may die at such times as these. Who and what you are is known to none but Ramegas and me; even your cousin is not aware. If our witness were not at hand, who would believe your tale?"

"I suppose that it might be believed by those who are themselves of good conduct and faith."

"So it might. It would be to prove at your cost. And even then...."

"There is the Grand Master himself."

"So there is. But did he greatly heed what was said, as one who would hold it clearly in mind?"

"So I should have supposed. But, in truth, I cannot tell that. Is he one who will lightly forget?"

"He will not forget that which it is for our Order's good that he know. But, at this pass, his mind is set on one thing, that the Cross shall still fly from our towers. Except it bear upon that, you may talk what wisdom you will, or of things of price, and he will not hear."

"If you bring it back to his mind, what will he be most likely to say?"

"I cannot warn you of that. He may send you away, as he did a month ago all who were old or sick, or whom he thought would be less worth than their food. even those who were native born. He showed no mercy in that. He would heed no plea. But I think he would let you stay."

"Yet it is a risk which I will not choose. I think rather to wear this dress, as I have his order to do, until my uncle come, or there be more gain by a change than I see now.... Could I keep the chamber I have, if it were known who I am?"

"I should say no to that."

"Then, by your leave, I will stay as I am for the time."

Sir Oliver did not say she was wrong. He looked a doubt, and would surely have said more, but, at that moment, the Grand Master entered the room.

His good friend, the Viceroy of Sicily, had given him some advice at the first, though, being servant to Philip of Spain, he had not been able to give him much else. The advice was that he was worth more to Malta than a sword's point, and that he should guard his life with a great care, keeping away from the front of strife as a duty he owed to Malta and God Himself, though it might be bitter to do.

Seeing him now, it was easy to doubt whether that advice had fallen on heedful ears, for though he wore no arms of offence (which he may have thrown aside in the last hour) his back and breast were of steel, and he was fouled with dirt on his right side, as one who had been down in the ditch or had rubbed a wall.

He had not come now to his own place, for since the first rumour of the Turkish attack he had left the castle and taken a lodging within the town, which had been a gesture to give confidence to those who dwelt there and to hearten them to strengthen their walls while there was time.

"Sir Oliver," he said, "you are well found. I have dispositions to change."

"Is all well? I thought the strife was done for this day."

"So it is, beyond doubt. But I will have no more of this open war. I will trust to stone. There are those gone I am grieved to lose."

Sir Oliver looked a moment's surprise, for he had supposed that the Grand Master would have given the life of every man that he had, as freely as one will empty a purse which can be filled on the next day, had he thought it to Malta's gain.

So he would. But his mind was also as that of one who will not pay out a coin unless assured that it is buying its utmost worth.

All the morning the Turkish army had made its advance over some miles of land that was scanty of trees, but of an uneven surface, and divided into many small fields surrounded by low walls of stone. Against their advance the Maltese militia - ably commanded by Marshal Couppier, a famous knight of Auvergne - had opposed a guerrilla warfare, firing from behind the shelter of every wall and falling back in time to avoid too close an encounter with numbers which would have overwhelmed them by five to one.

In this way they had inflicted much loss and suffered little. The masses of the Turkish infantry had offered a mark which was not easy to miss: the stone walls had been their friends, both when they had used them to lean their arquebuses for steady aim, and to cover them when they slipped away.

A force of mounted Maltese knights, under Sir Melchior d'Egueras, knowing the ground, had been able to charge the lighter ranks of the Turkish cavalry and break them with a great loss.

In the whole of the two days' fighting up to this evening of Sunday, May 20 th, the total losses on the Maltese side were four score of all ranks, and it was estimated that those of the Turks must have been over fifteen hundred, at which it might seem that even La Valette would be well content.

But the Turks, not being satisfied to advance to the village of St. Catherine, which lay midway between St. Angelo and their former camp, and which was to be their headquarters through many subsequent weeks, finding that, whatever loss they suffered, their advance was not seriously contested, had become somewhat too bold. With fierce cries of Allah! some regiments of janissaries, being the very flower of the Turkish army, had carried their horsehair banners even up to the bastions of the Bourg, the crest of which was planted with the crowding pennons of over a hundred knights of the three langues of France, Provence and Auvergne.

Louder than the fanatic cries with which the infidel host had rushed to assault the wall, cannon and arquebus opened such a fire upon them as left no more than the options of flight or death, between which many found it too late to choose. It was then that the Grand Master himself had leapt down into the ditch, leading a charge by which he had secured that those who limped in a flying rear, expecting Paradise, might be sent to their certain hell.

It was there that a large part of that total of fifteen hundred had learnt the lesson of death, and the Grand Master, calling back his knights lest they should pursue too far for their safe return, and wiping a bloody sword (for his weight had not been enough to keep him behind the line) had reflected upon the heavy loss which must be the lot of those who offer their human flesh against the cold denial of granite walls.

So as he walked away from the bastion of the Bourg, he had said in his heart: "My knights shall ride out no more. I will trust to stone."

Now he said: "Couppier is falling back into the hills, as I have ordered before. He will make Notabile his base; but if they come there, they will find him gone. He can lead them a long race, as I think, and cause more loss than he is likely to take; but, be that as it may, I cannot have all Malta within these walls.

"It is of d'Egueras I came to speak. He shall ride out no more. I can put my knights to a better use. But I must find him other command, for he is near to the best I have. I will make him Chief of St. Elmo's fort, for de Broglio is not fit for so hard a charge. He is past his prime. I would have you make out the commission now."

Sir Oliver sat down at the word. He took parchment. He dipped a quill. But he was slow to commence to write.

"De Broglio," he said, "is a gallant knight and of great repute."

"You speak of days that are dead. He is old and fat."

"He is well loved of the knights."

"I cannot alter for that. I must have the best man there. I will have St. Elmo held till it is no more than a ruined grave, if it be there that they press attack, as I think they will."

"You can make him deputy, if you prefer. They are not men who will jar."

"Yes. It is a good thought. You can make it out in that way."

So the old knight was left at his post, to gain some more honour which it might be said that he did not need, and a wound that would not be easy to heal (of which he had more than enough in his younger days); and d'Eguaras was appointed his aide, and having got down from his horse for the last time, he crossed to St. Elmo with sixty knights of the Order in boats during the midnight hour, so that the garrison had been doubled when the dawn came, and that with knights of the greatest names that the breadth of Europe could boast.

Having disposed of that, the Grand Master went on to give instructions on other appointments that must be made. He talked in the Latin tongue, so that Angelica, by whom it could be read better than heard, did not understand much that was said, and though she looked up when the names of Ramegas and Don Francisco came into the talk, yet the eyes of the two men were not turned to her, and she judged that she was outside their thoughts.

La Valette went in some haste at last, for he had ordered that all who could should attend at evensong in San Lorenzo Church, where he purposed, after the service was done, to address his knights, exhorting them to be equal to the great occasion to which they came, speaking in the Latin tongue, which should be commonly understood, and which he was well able to do. So he hastened away, having other things that must be done before that. And Angelica went to the church with Sir Oliver at the due time, and found it crowded, so that they must stand in an aisle and be jostled by those who still pressed in at the doors, till it was trouble to breathe.

There were no more than sentries and an occasional guard along the lines of defence at this time, for there was no doubt that the Turks had had enough for the day, and had fallen back on St. Catherine and a line level therewith. They would not try storming forts again till their artillery had been brought up, after the loss they had had.

Angelica stood at one time within a few yards of her cousin's side and his eyes met hers in an idle way. It was with an effort akin to pain that she controlled her own glance that it should not respond; for the sight of one she had known so well brought back all that had been theirs so few weeks before; the distant peace of Aldea Bella, that was now so lost and far that to think that they would see it again might be held an unlikely thing.

His eyes saw her and went heedlessly on, which might not have been had she still worn the clothes that were his; but she had laid them aside, partly from discretion, lest they should be recognised by any of those who had come in her uncle's ships, and more surely because they had been through the sea-water and soiled by climbing on a ship's stern. The fact that she went in a false guise had not made her careless of what she wore.

She thought that Francisco had changed in another way, his face having become somewhat harder for all its youth, and his eyes sterner than they had been when he had had no care but to hunt in the Andalusian hills. They had both come to a school where much must be learnt in a short time.

There were few who heard the Grand Master's words, women or men, who would be alive when the summer failed. But they would all have lived in a great day.

Thinking of Francisco as she walked back, and debating in her mind whether she should make herself known to him or wait Don Manuel's coming, caused her to recall the conversation between the Grand Master and Sir Oliver, in which she had heard his name.

"I have been little," she said, "with those who have talked in the Latin tongue, though I can read it well enough, as you know; and there was no cause that I should give heed to words which were not for me. But I thought I heard the Grand Master mention Senor Ramegas, and my cousin thereafter. Am I wrong to ask what was said?"

She had to say this again, for Sir Oliver had his own thoughts and had not been heedful to her. But when he listened, he said:

"Not at all. It is what you should know. As to Senor Ramegas, it was no more than this. He should fight, as you know, under Don Manuel's pennon, being esquire to him. But Don Manuel is not here. Senor Ramegas is of gentle blood, of mature years and of very good repute, especially on the sea, though he is neither a Knight of Justice, nor has he brought us the wealth by which is bought a place in our highest rank.

"But the Grand Master would not put him to shame by placing him under another knight; and these are days when a man must be judged for what he is rather than by any title he bear. So I have orders to draw a commission by which he will have charge of the shipping which we have laid up within the boom, both while it is anchored there and if it should have occasion to sally out."

"You mean that he will be Admiral of the whole Fleet?"

"You may call it so if you will. But you will see that it may be little more than an idle charge, for in a few days, at the most, the boom may be let down for the last time, and the few ships that we have be anchored beneath our guns till the siege is done.

"Yet if there should be occasion to use the ships at a sudden chance, the Grand Master would have one in command who is both bold and discreet and of sea-craft already proved."

"He will be well pleased," Angelica said, "and so, for his sake, am I; for he was always kind to me, though he would have ordered me to the rack at my uncle's word, and thought that I should be glad to go. It is all duty with him - duty and pride. But I wonder what you will do with Captain Antonio, who was on his ship. He is one at which it is easy to laugh, yet I should call him a good man in command, and one who knows much of the sea and of how a ship can be fought in the best way."

"He is a good man, for whom a use will be found. But he is not one who could be put in command of knights, being of plebeian blood; for that is not our way, as you know."

Sir Oliver, being English-bred, had a thought that it might sometimes be well if that rule were less strictly observed; but there are things which it is better to think than to say, and even of its truth he was less than sure.

The Spanish navy, clashing with that of England in West Indian seas, must have a hidalgo on its quarter-deck, or, by preference, a noble of higher rank, even though he might be a better judge of a lace cuff than a tarry rope. The English seamen were dogs in their own phrase, but they held their own, and enough more to suggest that they might be the better led.

Yet Sir Oliver, moving among men who were gathered from those of all Europe who were of a traditional pride of race, could observe also that breeding may be more than an idle word. Gentle nurture may not be barren in its results. Pride may be a sharp spur.

But Sir Oliver said nothing of what he thought, and Angelica's interest in the plebeian Genoese was of a transient kind. She went on to enquire what station Francisco had been appointed to hold, if the Curse of Islam were to be idle against the quay.

"That is another matter that the Grand Master has wisely resolved. For, as you know, the honours of our Order are not passed from father to son, we having celibate vows, so that there is none of our knights who can have a son bearing his own name. And though Don Francisco is entered upon our rolls as one destined to take the vows when he is of a full age, yet it should be, both of courtesy and of use, when his uncle is here.

"Therefore, to avoid question of whether he should raise Don Manuel's pennon, or less than that, or in what degree he should serve, or whether he should take the vows in haste, on a day when there is much else to be done, the Grand Master has given him a separate command, and one suited to the eagerness of his youth, for it is one where he should be alert at all hours.

"He will have charge of the battery which has been placed below St. Angelo, at the water's edge, of which the purpose is to defend the great boom which guards the inner harbour where our ships will lie up."

"It is a post of great danger, or so it sounds?"

"It is a post of honour which, had it no danger, it would be unlikely to be. Those who would avoid danger should not be here.... Yet it may not be so at the first. For it is the inner basin it must defend, and that cannot be assailed till the outer harbour is won; and that is ours while St. Elmo stands; and I should say it is there, or else at the outer bastions of the Bourg, that the first weight of attack will fall."

Angelica thought of where this battery must be, which she had not seen. She was not yet as clear as she would later become as to the location of the fortified area, for she had walked little abroad except into the town, but she thought that it must be near the angle which it was Sir Oliver's part to defend - that of the English who, except himself, were not there. "It is a post to which our station is near?"

"It is closer than that. The place where the battery is now put is before the western salient of the position we hold. We should overshoot it toward the sea, and it would be our place to defend it from such attack, its own guns being pointed across our front to defend the boom which, itself, is somewhat beyond our view.

"It is exposed on the shore front, being beyond our walls. It is a battery newly made, after we had fixed the great boom: for its defence is a vital need."

Angelica asked no more about that, for she was answered enough. She saw that the way in which her cousin was handling the Curse of Islam must have been well approved for him to have been chosen for such command, he being so young. She saw also that it was likely that he had bought his own death. Yet the battery could not be attacked as yet. She must use that thought for what comfort she could.

She waked from her thoughts to the knowledge that Sir Oliver was speaking to her again.

"As you know," he said, "I have men under my command who are drawn from all lands, those of my own not being here, where many have left the faith, and those who have been steadfast have lost the lands they had. Now if, as I speak to any, it should seem to you that I am using my own tongue, it is not a thing at which to look twice, nor to remember when you have gone away."

She was puzzled at first, and then thought that she understood. "You may trust me," she said, "in that."

"So I do, or I had not spoken at all."

The fact was that there were a few English who were there under foreign names, being of the Catholic faith, and willing to help the Order at such a need; but they feared (in which they may have been wrong) that, if there should be proof of this, they would lose any lands they had, and their families might suffer alike. For the Order of St. John had been scourged enough when her father was on the throne, but Elizabeth had gone further than he, stripping any Knight of St. John that she could find in her realm till he was as bare as a new-born babe. Yet, as she watched Malta's defence, there is reason to think that she half-turned to another mood.

But these men went to their nameless graves, having no earthly honour for what they did.

CHAPTER XIV

MUSTAPHA PASHA sat his horse on the summit of Mount Calcara, from which a large part of the island of Malta could be surveyed. His chief officers were grouped around, for he had come to resolve how the attack on St. Elmo could best be made.

Like a map he saw the two great harbours spread out below, with the high tongue of land on which Valletta now stands, but which was known as Mount Sceberras then, a barren desolate rock, dividing their entrances, with St. Elmo's fort at its point. He saw that Piali was right in so far that neither harbour could be entered at all while St. Elmo stood, and it was true that it was not a large fort. It should be easy to take.

If it were down, the further north-western harbour, which was now empty, would give a safe retreat for the whole of the Turkish fleet; and the south-eastern one would be free for them to enter at a less risk, so that St. Angelo might be attacked both by land and sea.

He looked down on St. Angelo itself, with keen experienced eyes, being old in war and in all the lore of the taking of towns. He saw that to have St. Elmo would be little more than a wasting of life unless it should be a way to open the gate to the larger gain. He saw that the shape of the occupied harbour, with its out-jutting spurs of land and the basin between, in which the fleet had been moored, favoured defence, and his army had learnt something the day before of the strength of that defence on the land-ward side. Still, towns and castles had been taken before. Ships had been burnt in the harbours in which they lay. And it was said that there was a weak point in the bastioned wall that was the main defence of the Bourg. He looked round at a manacled man, who was guarded some paces behind, and called for him to be brought to his side.

Two days before, a party of a dozen of the Maltese knights had ridden out to destroy stragglers or scouts who might come too far from the Turkish lines. They had some success at first, but in the end they had been ambushed themselves by a force of Turkish infantry which had opened a heavy fire upon them from the shelter of the low stone walls, which were a continual feature of the more cultivated parts of the island. Leaning their arquebuses, which were longer and carried somewhat further than the Christian weapons, upon the walls, they were able to shoot with considerable accuracy, and the knights, having nothing to oppose but their lances, which were of little use on that broken ground, turned quickly to ride away.

There was a French knight among them, de la Riviere, who would have got clear, but looking back he saw a brother of Portugal, d'Elberne by name, fall from his horse. He was dragged by the stirrup for a time, after which the horse shook him off and fled in the haste of fear. Riviere turned and rode back.

Doing this, he drew the Turkish fire upon himself from all sides but he was not struck. He got down to find that he had returned to the aid of a dead man. D'Elberne was shot through the head: he could do nothing for him. He mounted again to ride off, and as he did so a bullet brought his horse down. He was roughly thrown and the weight of his arms made him slow to rise. When he did so, he found himself surrounded by Turks, who called on him to yield. So he must, having no choice.

He might have hoped for ransom or exchange, but he was taken before Mustapha, who thought he could be better used in another way. He was asked to tell of the strength of the Christian army, where it had mounted its guns, where its defences were weak and where strong. When he refused, he was put on the rack, and under that persuasion he began to talk. He gave much detailed information, including that the best place at which to attack the town was the station held by the Knights of Castile.

Mustapha, having learnt so much, thought it might be worth while to bring him along and hear more. Probably the taste of the rack he had already had would be sufficiently clear in his mind to render it needless to do more than hint at a second application.

"Where," he asked, "is that point which the Knights of Castile now hold in so weak a way?"

La Riviere showed no slackness to point it out. Indeed, what use would there have been in that? Over the wall the pennons of Castile blew in the wind. They could have been seen at a nearer view.

Mustapha looked long. He wished to be quite sure. But he was too old in war to be left in doubt. The Castile pennons floated over the curtain, bastion-flanked, where the Bourg line rested on the head of Calcara bay, showing no weakness at all. He saw that he had been fooled and mocked.

He turned round to the manacled prisoner, and a cruel fury was in his eyes. Few could have more control over face and voice than Mustapha Pasha when he dealt with men of his own race, and he would be subtle to hide his mind. Those who knew him best might doubt their power to guess whom he approved or whom he counted his foe. But there was no need of concealment here. His lip lifted to show yellow teeth over his beard. He spoke no word, but raised the baton he carried, and brought it down with all his force across the eyes of the French knight. Piali, standing by, gave a great laugh. He was amused that Mustapha had been beguiled, but he felt no kindness to Riviere for that. He carried a heavy staff when he climbed the hills, on which a man cannot balance himself as easily as he has learned to do on his own deck. He brought it down on the captive's head with more force than Mustapha had used, being much stronger than he. Riviere fell at the blow. Being stunned, he did not know that the whole group of officers were belabouring him in turn, each emulating the rest in the strength of the blow he dealt. Battered so, he was soon dead.

Mustapha said: "Let him be. We will have him back on the rack. He shall give better truth before I have done."

But, by God's good mercy, he spoke too late.

CHAPTER XV

THE Turkish artillery was said at this time to be the best in the world, which there is no reason to doubt. It had proved its worth on a score of battlefields in Eastern Europe: it had breached the walls of a score of towns. It was well served, its gunners being trained in the hard school of continual war.

Piali, looking down on St. Elmo's fort from Calcara's height, counted that it would be his in five days, if not less. It would be bombarded from the sea, where his galleys would be out of range of the Castle guns. He would build a battery on Mount Sceberras, which would bombard it from the land, and though that ridge was within the danger of St. Angelo's guns firing across the harbour, he thought that he could make his battery safe from them by erecting it somewhat on the further side of the ridge, which sloped down to St. Elmo in front and to the two harbours on either side, somewhat in the shape of the smooth back of a beast.

So it was agreed to be tried, and the battery was commenced with an effort that did not slacken when it had been found that it would be harder than was supposed at the first, and was taking a larger toll of the lives of men.

For it was found that the mountain was solid rock, into which it was too hard to dig, and having no soil on its face. It was rock which they could not easily trench. They must labour at first under the fire of St. Elmo's guns, and there was no surrounding material with which they might construct any defence. Every fascine, every earth-filled gabion, had to be dragged over the hills.

They built on the western side of the slope, which hid them, as they had designed, from St. Angelo's guns, but this had a defect which they should have foreseen, as perhaps they did. Had they planted their guns on the ridge's crest they would have been exposed to long-range fire from the castle, to which they could have replied in the same way, but they would also have commanded the water between the castle and fort and could have sunk any boat which hat ventured to cross the harbour to comfort St. Elmo's garrison with reinforcements or other aid. As it was, the Grand Master could learn how they did and send them such support as he would.

The Turks toiled at this work for three days, under a constant fire from St. Elmo, to which they could make no reply. They may have worked the faster that they were erecting shelter for their lives, but the whole siege was destined to be carried on in a desperation either of haste or delay; the Grand Master fighting for time and looking northward for the succour of a Christian continent that had paused to observe the strife, which it made no movement to aid, and the Turks toiling to make an end before such aid should appear.

During these days the Turks had less help from the fleet than Piali had thought to give, for it was found that the St. Elmo guns could out-range all but a few of the longest culverins that the galleys bore; and while they could have no support from the land, to have allowed his ships to close in would have been to risk them overmuch for any hurt they would be likely to do.

St. Elmo was a star-shaped fort, having four salients, the land-ward side being broken into bastion form by small rounded flanks. On the seaward side it had a high cavalier, with an intervening ditch, the guns of which could either fire out to sea, or land-ward, over the lower fort. On the western side, overlooking Marsa Muscetto harbour, was the detached ravelin, or lunette, which the knights had been building during the last days before the Turkish fleet came into sight.

The fort was small, and there might well be a confident hope in the Turkish ranks that it would not endure many hours when they should have prepared their attack; but it had somewhat more strength than appeared from the same cause that had hindered the construction of the opposing battery: the site being of solid rock, the Knights, being in less haste than the Turks, when they had first commenced to build it, had sought less to erect it upon the granite their mattocks met than to excavate it therefrom.

Yet the Turkish gunners thought it would be a simple matter to lay it flat when, their emplacements being ready on the morning of Thursday the 24th, they brought up ten heavy guns and trained them upon the fort.

These guns, which the ox-teams pulled, were all mounted on wheels, and were the best and newest of the siege artillery of that day, having been reckoned equal not merely to blowing St. Elmo down but to the reduction of St. Angelo itself. When the Grand Master knew that they were being pointed the way they were, he was well-content, let their effect on St. Elmo be what it might. Not that he was indifferent to that. But he counted days till relief should come. He did not mean that the Order should leave Malta as it had left Rhodes. And though St. Elmo were blown to the sky, while St. Angelo stood it was plain that they would not be shifted at all.

The Turkish battery consisted of ten guns of a like pattern, each throwing a solid ball of eighty pounds weight, and three columbines of somewhat older and lighter make, throwing a sixty-pound shot; and, in addition to these, there was a single basilisk, a monstrous cannon throwing a ball of one hundred and twenty pounds, but for this the gunners had little love, for it was slow and cumbrous to work, and frequently needing repair, having very complicated parts, both for directing its fire and for controlling recoil.

The battery itself could not be seen by those who crowded St. Angelo's walls to watch, but, as the guns opened, the flashes shone over the ridge, followed by the heavy thunder of their discharge; and, for the first time, St. Elmo answered with every gun she could bring to bear.

For till then, her guns had been used in a spasmodic way, firing at times at any mark that might show or sweeping the battery position after a lull, such as would cause the Turks to grow careless and bold, and so assist to their own deaths; for though there was a large store of powder and shot, both in castle and fort, yet there was a limit to what should be fired away at less than a certain mark.

But now St. Elmo replied in an intensity of desperation as the iron tempest hammered her splintering stones; and meanwhile the day, which had opened with some light rain, became misty and dull under a low grey sky. Black clouds of sulphurous smoke hung over battery and fort, and would not shift in the windless air. The gun-flashes showed more brightly as they pierced the inferno from which they came.

As the day passed the mist thickened, and in the growing gloom the guns faltered and ceased.

It was after that, in the late afternoon, that Angelica sat alone In Sir Oliver's room, where she might most often be found, for it was not only that it was there that her work and her duty lay: it was there that she felt at peace, as one being among friends and secure.

So she worked more than she need, as giving a reason for where she was - when most men would be abroad - and Sir Oliver, sending his scribes right and left as occasion came, gave no such errands to her, which might be explained by the rank she claimed and the dress she wore; and that she was of a different sort from them was very easy to see.

She was of changing moods at this time, having much loneliness, from which would rise a timid fear of what she had done and a great doubt of what its end would be likely to be in this place which was staged for death, and among men of strange nations and famous names, who had taken celibate vows, and most of whom were much older than she. For besides Sir Oliver, who was kind but full of greater affairs, she had no confident friend, so that she was tempted from hour to hour to seek Francisco and tell him all, and yet had a doubt of how much sympathy or blame she would have, which held her back, for it could always be done on the next day.

Yet she had finer moods in which she was less aware of herself or of her own weakness and fear, and more of the great drama in which she moved and in which a small part had become hers; for she saw that she had come to one of the great days of the world, which was to judge how Christian Europe was yet to fare against the rising tide of the Turkish power.

For though the Moors had been thrown from Spain fifty years before, yet, almost from the same day, the dark-skinned infidels had advanced over Eastern Europe like a creeping tide which there was no power that could stay. And the Christian lands had become weak with the blight of internal strife; and while they blasphemed their faith with tortures of stake and rack, the cloud advanced, and was little heeded except by those who were near to the place where its shadow fell. And furthest of all, the English Elizabeth, ruthless, bold and mean, called it a blessing of God that the Turks were active against the Catholic lands.

And so now, in this island arena, in the very centre of all, the test came, when a band of knights - who were not of one country, but had gathered from all parts of the Christian lands to be overmatched by the great host of their infidel foes - strove to keep the Cross afloat over their walls a sufficient time to bring the rescue that had been pledged, and that Europe was well able to give....

It was an hour when the daylight should still have been full in this later May, but the mist had become so dense that Angelica had called for the cresset-candles to be lighted along the walls, when the curtains at the main entrance were flung apart, and a knight whom she did not know strode into the room.

He was richly and gaily attired, wearing light armour of damascened steel, but not enough to hide the under colours of trunk and hose, yellow and olive-green, elaborately embroidered and pinked in a somewhat fantastic way. He had the manner of one who can give orders in the assurance that he need not wait to see them obeyed.

He glanced along the room, and asked abruptly: "Is Sir Oliver here?"

Angelica was annoyed at the manner in which this question was put, showing neither the quality of courtesy which was due to her in her true person, nor that which she had assumed, but character and training combined to prevent her from answering in the same way. She said coldly: "That is to be seen."

The reply drew the knight's gaze on herself in a way she could have spared, though she took it with composure enough. Anger gave place as he looked to a change of mood, bringing a more courteous tone. They were both puzzled by whom they met. Angelica observed that he had walked in as though the Castle were his, but she did not know that there was anyone besides the Grand Master of whom she need stand in dread.

"I would know," he said, "where Sir Oliver Starkey may best be found. Or if he will return here in a short time."

"I must know to whom I speak before answering that. It is not usual to enter here without your name being first announced."

"I am La Cerda," he said, as though that explained all. "I would know by whom I am asked." The tone had become reserved, but unsure. He was more puzzled than she as to whom it would be who answered him thus in the Andalusian tongue, and it was hard to guess who might be met in the Malta of that day.

"I am Don Garcio of Murcia."

"You are . . .? I know Murcia well." La Cerda did not look less puzzled than before. Angelica had sufficient discretion to keep silent, making it difficult for him to ask more, and at that moment Sir Oliver returned.

His appearance recalled to La Cerda's mind the purpose for which he came. It was a question about a horse's food, which it appeared that money had been unable to get.

When the Grand Master had seen that the advance of the Turkish army would divide St. Angelo from the little army which he had decided to leave loose in the island, he had given a general order that the knights' horses were to be left outside, so that Marshal Couppier might mount as many of his men as their number would allow. These horses would increase the mobility of the Maltese militia, while they would have been of no use in the town. Most of the knights had surrendered them without demur, though it may be supposed that they were not pleased. But La Cerda had thought that such orders were not for him; or, at least, not to be applied to a horse that was his, and which he valued and loved. He had ridden in and put the horse, as before, in the stable where he lodged in the town. And now he had been told by his groom that he could get neither corn nor hay. They were rationed by Sir Oliver Starkey's order, and a proffer of money had been of no avail.

"I know well," he said, striving to speak with a courtesy which it was not easy to feel, "that things are done at such times as these such as are not meant, orders being applied in a wrong way, and so I came to yourself."

Sir Oliver, listening in his own way, which was quiet and cool, thought that there might be another explanation than that. He might have come himself because his pride would not risk a rebuff which his squire would know. It was trouble of a kind with which he must often deal. La Cerda had a great power in his own land. He was used to command, as were half the knights who had now come from the ends of Europe to serve as little more than privates in this defence. And in spite of, or perhaps because of that, the Grand Master was resolved that the obedience he exacted, the discipline he maintained, should be of the strictest kind. It was as though he had to command a regiment, each of whom was a general in his own right. If he should be lax at all, where would it end? It would not be easy to tell.

Sir Oliver did not give a direct reply. He said: "I have been your friend before now."

The remark recalled the incident of a month ago, when La Cerda's mistress had left the turret chamber, to be embarked without the Grand Master's eyes being turned her way. La Cerda saw the implication of that, but the reminder was another cause of wrath brought to his mind, and the knowledge that there might be more trouble ahead, of a kind which Sir Oliver was not likely to guess.

"So you were," he said, "and it had my thanks. But that there should have been cause! And to think that I was one of those who gave him votes that he could have had no hope to obtain! And what are we now but the leather beneath his feet?"

La Cerda spoke of that which all knew. For when De Lisle Adam had died there had been stronger candidates for the Grand Master's place, and no one had thought of La Valette as a likely man. La Cerda would have called his own the much better claim, though he had not attempted to win the prize. But those who have strong friends may have strong foes. Rival factions quarrelled and strove, and yet all agreed that the Order was so reduced and in so dangerous a pass that the Grand Master must be one who would be accepted by all. And so, at last, they had compromised the claims of rivals too haughty to give way to each other, by the unanimous election of a member of whom few had thought at the first, as would often happen in the election of Popes at that time, from the same cause. And La Valette had found, to the amazement of others, and no doubt his own, that, having come to give his vote to a man of more wealth and much wider fame, he was the Grand Master himself.

"I would not say that. He regards us all as himself, being vowed to a cause which is much greater than we."

"So we are agreed. That is why we are here. It will be death for most, if not all. Yet that is a poor reason why we should have no joy while we live."

"Need we argue on that?"

"I will say no more beyond this, that I have been wroth at times that I should have so meanly withdrawn. I am, as you know, of a wide rule. In my own land there is none who will cross my will. I come here, offering life and wealth, and I find that my very chamber is not secure. I was told that I must cast off the amie who shared my bed."

"My lord," Sir Oliver replied in a patient way, rather as one who would wait till the other had spent his words than as having any aim to convince, "you will allow that we have taken celibate vows?"

"We are vowed that we will not wed. To ask more is to ask too much. I am not alone when I say that. Do you think there would be many to blame, should you put the chamber where Venetia lodged to the same use, as I daresay that you do?"

The words were randomly said, but as he spoke them his eyes fell on the slight figure of the young noble (if such he were) who had given a name which was hard to place, and the idea, which was after the custom of the time, though not of the stricter code La Valette sought to enforce, suddenly took shape as a very probable thing.

"But perhaps," he added boldly, "I say too much, speaking of that which I should not see."

Sir Oliver showed no surprise, nor any sign of offence. He answered in the same cool and patient tone as before: "You may say as you will, for my manner of life is known. But you came to speak of a horse, as I understood, and we have wandered therefrom."

"I ask no more than an order for fodder and corn, which the beast needs."

"You ask something which I am unable to give."

"What! Shall it starve?"

"Surely, no. It can be sent to the stalls here, where it will be fed with the rest."

"Then there are other horses allowed here?"

"There are horses that did not go out of the town."

"And there is this one that has come back. Why should it not be fed at my own place? I will pay what charges you set."

"I cannot offer more than I do. It is a horse that should not be here."

"I will not consent. I will speak to Valette."

"You can do as you will. It will be less trouble to me. But I do not think you are wise."

"Would he not be wroth that you have offered as much as you already have?"

Sir Oliver's eyebrows were slightly raised as he replied, but his voice kept the same level tone. "Do you think I exceed my trust? I should tell him what I have offered, and why. But I conceive that it is my part to see that he is not disturbed by the smaller things, when he had shown me his mind."

La Cerda made no answer to that. He stood in an evident indecision, wisdom fighting with pride. Perhaps it was because his eyes fell on Angelica again that Sir Oliver spoke now in a different tone, though he gave no sign that he saw.

"My lord," he said, in a brief way, "I have given more time to this than I should. I came here, having many matters upon my hands, which were not meant for delay. I ask your pardon. You must do as you will; but I cannot talk more."

He added in mitigation of the curtness of this rebuff: "It is this mist which is spreading over both land and sea which is causing fresh orders to be sent out, such as I have the Grand Master's instructions to draw. It is a matter which should not wait."

He had, in fact, a cipher letter of much secrecy to prepare, which was to be sent to Marshal Couppier through the Turkish lines during the night, if the mist should hold, though he was too discreet to say that, even in his own room. But the mention of the mist brought another thought to La Cerda's mind, on which he had already made his opinion known to his friends while the wine was passed and on which many agreed. He spoke now with the impulse of an anger that rose from another cause.

"The mist will hold during the night. So I am told by those who know these seas better than I. It is a saint's boon to us, if there were wisdom to use the chance. I would see St. Elmo blown up before dawn, so that there should not a stone stand, and every man could be brought safely away. There will not be one alive in two days from now if they are left there. They will be lost for no gain, and our foes heartened by a success that they should not have. But he asks counsel of none, or if he does, he goes his own way in the next hour. Does he think we are babes in war, because he was made Grand Master the way he was?"

Sir Oliver listened to this with an impassive face. He might have resented the tone of the allusion to the Master they were all sworn to obey, but he knew that La Cerda gave voice to an opinion which many held who had no grievance to warp their minds, and who, as La Cerda had truly said, were not children in war.

"It is a matter." he began, "which can be argued another way. If you will think -"

La Cerda broke in: "I have heard it argued enough, but there is one thing you cannot change. We have a strong fortress here, and we send our knights to one that is weak, where they will be more easy to slay. And when they are dead, as it is sure that they will soon be, we must defend these walls with a lesser force and against foes whom we have taught that we can overcome."

Angelica moved with a purpose that they should turn and see what she alone had observed. For, as the words were said, the Grand Master had stood at the door, and his face was black with wrath. And yet, though that which he had heard might be cause enough, she doubted that it were all, for she had thought his looks had been much the same as he had come in, and he was not one who would be likely to listen behind a curtain which he delayed to lift.

Now he advanced into the room, and though his anger was plain to see, yet when he spoke it was with restraint, and with the dignity which he did not lose, even when he toiled with his hands to make St. Elmo's ravelin strong.

"I may be the worst Master that this Order has ever had, but I should be more feeble of mind than I am if I did not know that there can be but one leader in time of war, though he may hear the counsel of all. And while I live, and an. Master here, if I find but one who shall murmur against my rule, or who obeys me with lagging feet while this siege shall last, I will hang him within that hour, though he be of my own blood.

"As to St. Elmo, it will stand, as I think, till it have asked a price which even those who may take it at last will think somewhat too high; and if it fall, it will be to the shame of all Christian lands."

He paused, and went on in an even quieter voice than before: "There were no more than two killed and a few hurt at the cannonading today, and the fort has suffered little that can not be mended before the dawn. So De Broglio makes report. We had, it seems, the more accurate range, and have done more harm than we took, though I would not say that tomorrow will end in the same way.

"The dead, and those who are sore hurt, will be brought over during the night, and will be replaced, that the garrison shall not be less as the days go by.

"I send the best men that I have, and you will be one tonight. You will be ready within three hours. Nor should you take this amiss, for I send one whom I know to be a most valiant knight."

La Cerda listened with a set jaw, but said nothing at all. When he was out in the air, striding back to his own lodging, he said, half-aloud, when there could be no one to hear: "So he would have my death for that word.... Yet it may turn out in another way."

When he entered his own door he gave command for the horse to be sent to the castle stalls, and within three hours he was in a boat which felt its way through the mist to St. Elmo's point.

CHAPTER XVI

WHEN La Cerda had gone, the Grand Master said: "He goes with bitter heart, thinking that he is sent to a sure death, and that, when I do that, I abuse my power. Yet I suppose that we shall all go by the same road before the winter is here.... Garcio has sent his reply!"

"The Bay of Naples is in?"

"Yes. Salvago brings fair words, and this scroll." He looked round as he spoke to see who might be there to overhear what was said, but Angelica had withdrawn, thinking that his words would not be directed to her, and not wishing to be recalled to his mind with consequences which were not easy to guess.

Sir Oliver took the scroll and read, after a preamble of compliment which was in the custom of the time, and meant nothing at all, though its absence would have meant much:

"You charge me that I have not sent an army by this day such as could have made it vain for the Turks to land, and turned them empty away, as you say that I pledged to do; but for this I cannot take a reproach, even had it been in my power to muster so large a host in so narrow a time, for I must recall that which you cannot have over-thought, to wit, that you were to send ships as I men, which you will not say was beyond your power.

"Yet, on my side, I assemble strength. By mid-June, by the fifteenth day, being but three weeks from now, if your navy be here with speed, I trust to send such a force as will grieve them sore and draw them from round your walls.

"Nor do I doubt that you can show them a bold repulse till that rescue shall come, having such walls as you have, and so goodly stored, and with such valiance of knights, of whom it may be said without vaunt that they are the flower of the lands of Christ."

There was more beyond that, but it was in those words that the core of the letter lay.

Sir Oliver read it without heat, for its purport did not surprise him at all, though the excuse it made had not been forethought, even by him.

"It is a lie," he said, "wearing a true cloak."

"And I have thought Garcio friend!"

"And so I think that he is. Is there better by word of mouth?"

"He toils ever to serve our need. They put up prayers to the saints, morn and eve, in Del Gesu church."

"The scroll may be for Philip's eyes rather than ours."

"So I have no doubt that it is. Do you see the meaning of that? "

"I see that we must trust to our own arms, under the high favour of God. But I have thought that from the first. I put no trust in the King of Spain."

"In which you may think more than is true, being English-born. Even those of your race who are yet of a constant faith have little love for that land."

Sir Oliver did not dispute that. He asked: "Has Salvago brought the grenades?"

"I have not asked. We may suppose that he has. He says that there are two score of our knights, and many hundreds of volunteers at Palermo, and nearer places along the coast, who are waiting to cross to our aid, and it is likely that they will be here before dawn if this mist be far spread. I am of a mind to raise the boom, and have ready our swifter ships that they may sally out if it lift, and be a guard to the harbour mouth.... Oliver, you must send one to St. Elmo, by the boat that crosses tonight, who will take message by word of mouth, telling De Broglio and D'Egueras both that no rescue is near and that they must hold those walls to the last stone and the last man; they must be held to the last hour that they can, leaving the count of the cost to me.... Have you one you can surely trust? You must go yourself if you doubt that. You would return before dawn. You may say what you will of Spain, so that it be clear that it has not come from my mouth, and will not go beyond them.... But they must hold that fort, though it were against the fiery legions of Hell.

"If there come no succour at all, we may fall at last, but I have in mind that we shall so fall as to shame the world which is called by the name of Christ."

"Well," Sir Oliver said, "we are not fallen as yet. I will go myself unless I can send one of whom I am wholly sure. But I must know first if the bombs have come."

La Valette said: "All that I can trust to you. I will order the ships." He went out.

Sir Oliver summoned aid. He saw that there was much to be done. He sent messengers right and left. He thought that he must go to St. Elmo himself, and he would have all things arranged so that he would not be missed. Few men guessed how much rested upon himself, but he might soon be missed if he were not there. He had little leisure to think of what La Cerda had hinted or said, yet he gave it a thought, and from that thought an idea came which he rejected at first, but when he weighed it a second time it had a better look than before.

After that, when his room was clear, he summoned a page. "Ask Don Garcio if he will come here on an urgent cause."

The page knocked on Angelica's door and had no response. After a time he decided that she was not there, and did what she had told him for such a case, and by which he had found her before. He went to the turret-roof, where she was making a habit to walk, rather than to wander too much in the streets of the crowded town.

She looked up to a clear sky in which the stars were brighter because moonrise was yet distant by two hours. The mist lay low on the water and drifted somewhat, rising at times like a sea round the turret walls. At times, at some places, it would lie so thinly that she could see the slow movements of lights upon the harbour waters beneath, where ships moved, as they did that night, not only there but across the open spaces of sea, groping through the gloom with a double fear, lest a light shown or a warning bell might bring foes as ruthless as shoal or rock, and of a more active hate.

For Salvago had been right when he had told that many would come from Sicily during the night, in the kindly cloak of the mist, which would have been called a peril in time of peace. They came in boats of all kinds, in small swift galleys, but most of all in the light feluccas such as Salvago had used, which were built only for speed, carrying no arms of weight, but being long and low, with rowers benches along the whole deck from bow to rudder, and a wide lateen sail to give support to the oars when the wind was good.

There were few that failed to come safely through, for the most part of the Turkish fleet lay at anchor in Marsa Scirocco Bay, and even the lighter galleys, ever hunting for prey, were loth to venture far in such mist and in waters they did not know. And so, when the mist rose at the dawn, and with no more than some distant booming of guns and one or two running fights which had little fruit, there were forty-two Knights of St. John and about seven hundred of other sorts who had landed, either on St. Angelo's quay or at other places along the coast, showing that there were men in the world of that day who would give their lives for a cause, having a better blood than moved in the cold hearts of its kings....

Angelica heard the words "for an urgent cause," and did not doubt what it must mean. La Valette had spoken of her to Sir Oliver, or else he to him; or perhaps Don Manuel had come on the ship that had just arrived. She did not know whether she would be glad of that, but it was with a sense of crisis that she went down, which was not removed by the question that Sir Oliver asked.

"You were with La Cerda before I came. Did he doubt who you are?"

"He had a doubt, as I thought, but was not sure."

"It is a doubt that should not be there, for your own peace. We may give him cause to see that it is not as he would be likely to guess. I have a message which must be sent to St. Elmo tonight. If I kept a woman here, should I choose her for such an errand as that?"

Angelica laughed, being quick to see what he meant, and in a great relief that he had nothing different to say.

"I suppose not. But I must suppose that that is what you purpose to do. I am very willing to go."

"You must go in La Cerda's boat, and will be back before dawn. You will go on a mission of great import and trust, but which it will be simple to do. You must put laughter aside, and listen to me with great care.

"I shall give you no writing but this." (He handed her a short note which read: "The bearer of this will bring an order from the Grand Master; and what else he may say is from myself, even as though it were writ here." He took this back when she had read it, signed and sealed it, and gave it to her again.) "The order and the message are for the two Governors of St. Elmo, whom you must ask to see together, which will be accorded with ease, the superscription of that which you bear showing that it is to be delivered to them.

"The Grand Master's order which you will then give is no more than they have been instructed before, that they must hold their ground to the last stone and the last hour, not counting the cost, which will be for his thought rather than theirs.

"But you will add this, as coming from me alone: The Viceroy (whose name you have taken for yours, though not as of Toledo by a good chance) has pledged himself that he will be here by mid-June, with a strong host to our aid; but they will give no credence to that, for he has made a condition which we shall not keep, as he knows well.

"His letter is so written, as I suppose, that it may please his master, your Spanish king, to whom a copy will be on the way before now. And who would trust Philip of Spain (you must not be vexed that I say what is known to all) must be as simple as a nun's prayer.

"You will tell them that when Don Garcio was here, about a month before now, and he was promising all the aid we could need, he asked that he might have our galleys if we should ever be besieged as we are; for, he said with truth, they would only be laid up here, they not being of a number that could face such a fleet as the Turks would send; while, if they were added to those he has, they would be very useful to him.

"To this the Grand Master agreed, for it had a fair sound, and he knew that it would please the Viceroy more than a little, he being one who cares more for sea-power than for anything that the land can yield, and he was willing to do him all the pleasure he could, both because he was seeking help at his hand and that they had been friends from an old time.

"Had Don Garcio come, and with such an array as he ought to have brought, or had he sent it under other command, it is certain that the galleys would have been his.

"Indeed, here are two that he now has, for they have been cruising and had orders already given that they should put into Messina rather than here, which they have done, and their captains are instructed to serve the Viceroy's will as though they were ordered by us.

"But what he now professes that we had pledged is that we should deliver the whole fleet to his hand before he should be active toward our help, which was neither required on their side nor is it now possible for us to do. For we cannot send the ships without crews, and with enough men for the oars, either free or slaves, and it would be what we cannot spare, with the Turks already about our walls, and in the number of which you know. Also, if the ships are laid up we may use their guns to make stronger our walls of stone.

"So you may say that it is my thought (but not using the Grand Master's name) that this is no more than a false word put in to provide excuse at a later day, against an expected default on their side. I say that the fifteenth of June will come and go, and there will be no help from your Spanish king, neither will he allow Don Garcio to expend any large sum in our cause, such as must be found if an army is to be gathered, and fully furnished, and shipped here, when the hope of Turkish spoil is not great, they not being in their own land.

"And if we say that the Viceroy is the Grand Master's friend, and perhaps ours, then it is only more sure how this letter should be read; for he must be writing in a way which he would not do of his own will.

"In a word, you may say that the Grand Master sent his own nephew to Palermo, and Commander Salvago of Genoa also, to urge that Sicily should be speedy to our relief, and to learn the truth of what to expect, whether sweet or sour, and this is what he has got. Which is to say that King Philip will not spend his crowns in our cause unless he be more assured that we cannot defend ourselves than he is now; or we must contrive to die in no more than a gradual way, that he may have time to observe."

"I know not," Angelica replied, "if you are right concerning our king, of whom my uncle is used to speak in a different way, but I shall carry your words, while I hope they may be wrong, as we all must."

"We may hope what we will," Sir Oliver replied, "but you will find that what I say will be lightly believed, even though one to whom you will speak was born in your own land.... Have you a good cloak for the night?"

"Yes. I have all I need."

"Then I will meet you upon the quay. By which time I hope to have something to send of a better kind."

He was right on that point, for he learnt within an hour's time that the Bay of Naples had brought the consignment of bombs which he had been anxious to have. These were made of porcelain, and fitted with wildfire of such a kind that it stuck where it might be scattered when the crock burst, giving torturing burns, if not death, to those among whom it fell. These bombs, which were made to be flung by hand, had been accounted very terrible weapons before gunpowder had confused the making of munitions throughout the world, and were still widely used. They were made at the great arsenal at Venice, and when La Valette had ordered two thousand of them, the lord of the arsenal, being friendly to him, had put the order in hand, and even sent the bombs on as far as Palermo, before any payment was made; but beyond that he could not be expected to go, for, if he did, it was likely that the Grand Master, being at so urgent a need, would prefer others in payment whose goods were held back for the sight of gold. And though the Order had a reputation for wealth, and for paying the bonds it gave, yet if the Turks should be victors at this time, and Malta lost, it was not certain but that it would be destroyed; nor would it be easy to guess where it might be found by one who had a debt to collect. Even great kings, being rulers of settled realms, did not always find credit easy to get when they were at war in those days, and Philip of Spain himself, at a later time, when he willed to assemble an armada to attack the coasts of the English queen, was to be delayed for a full year (to its ruin at last) because the Baltic merchants would not give him a spar, nor a coil of hemp, till they had his cash in their tills.

The master of the arsenal at Venice had given orders that these bombs should be at the Grand Master's orders, either if the cash were paid or if Don Garcio would give a pledge in the name of the King of Spain. But the Viceroy replied, with the fair words that he used to all, that he had no power except he wrote to Seville, which was a matter of time; and the Grand Master could not spare such a sum from more urgent needs till he had the gift of the Papal crowns, after which Sir Oliver had only waited for a safe chance to get the bombs over the sea, for it would have been evil indeed had they fallen a prey to the Turks, and been flung at last from the wrong hands.

But now the Bay of Naples had brought them safely to port, and Sir Oliver would send six score of them to St. Elmo on this night (not risking a larger supply at once, for fear it might not endure, and that there should be no means of getting them back), and these cases were brought to the quay from which the boats, being three in all, would put out into the mist.

La Cerda came to the quay with some retinue of his household servants, who bore his effects, but these were lighter than might have been supposed by one who knew his estate and the luxury in which he was accustomed to live, for he had said to the one esquire whom he was taking with him (as he had no choice but to do): "Gaston, we go, as I suppose, to the deaths of fools, for such are the ends of those who let life slip for less than the full price that they should be able to ask. But there is nothing better to do, for my honour has been caught in a net which I cannot otherwise break; and you and I must eat of the same dish. So we travel light, for we shall be soon back, if at all, and in such a plight, if I know war, that what we take will be left behind.

"But if you should take a wound, though it be but a broken tooth or a skinned heel, you may claim to be sent back, and I tell you before you ask that you will have a warrant from me, for I think that both you and I will be of more use alive for the defence of St. Angelo's walls than dead in St. Elmo's ditch, as we are more likely to be.

"The Grand Master is an honest and valiant man (as I have told you before), and while he lives our flag will fly, as I think; but he has neither practice nor skill in the crafts of war, nor will he listen to those who are more subtle of mind."

He added, half aloud, as one who would have his thought heard but does not invite reply: "If any man should say he has the brains of a hen they would do the bird a great wrong." And being one who liked to distribute his wit, and perceiving, by the torches' light, that there was a discreet smile on the somewhat stolid face of the squire, he entered the waiting boat gaily enough, though he was one who valued life more than a knight of St. John should be expected to do, and in spite of certain things he had left behind.

As the oars dipped and the boat slid into the mist, to be followed by one bringing the knights' pennon-lances and sundry baggage and stores, and another bringing the wildfire bombs, La Cerda was so much occupied by his own thoughts that he gave little regard to his companions, who were two knights (the one busy with Latin prayers, and the other looking eagerly forward into the mist, with his sword lying; across his knees), and the slight, cloaked form of the secretary who had roused his curiosity in Sir Oliver's room.

But as the boat grounded on St. Elmo's beach, where a flame of torches guided them to the land, and he splashed ashore, he looked back into the face of one on whom the torch-light shone, as she moved to jump from the bow in more caution than he, and there was a moment when he did not doubt that he looked into the face of a girl, and one of more beauty than most. But the next moment she leapt into the water, and came to land lightly enough, and he saw that it was the young noble (as he called himself, and as he appeared to be) with whom he had some words in Sir Oliver's room. He thought him girlish again, as he had done before, but, beyond that, Angelica's appearance in that place had the effect which Sir Oliver had foreseen. Indeed, La Cerda's thought went beyond the fact on the road it had been meant that it should take, for he supposed that Don Garcio of Murcia (but of what family could he be?) had been numbered like himself among the reinforcements for St. Elmo's garrison, and that that had come from the mere chance that he had been in Sir Oliver's room when the Grand Master appeared. "Does he send all to their deaths here on whom his eyes happen to fall," he wondered, "or was it because the youth overheard what was said to me, and Valette thought he would be best out of the way?"

But he did not dwell on this thought, for the next moment he was surrounded by knights he knew, being one who had many friends. Also, he was a man of a great repute, and they were glad that he should be raising his pennon beside their own; and, beyond that, he had the name of one who was not without some love for himself and was both wary and shrewd, so that it would seem to all that his presence there made the fort's defence to be a sound measure of war.

But, in fact, they were in good heart enough, for most of them had been prepared for a desperate strife, and this first day that the Turkish battery had opened fire they had suffered much less than their expectations had been, which was partly because the gunners had been at fault in their range at times, and partly that the fort was so deeply delved from the living rock, and most of all because the mist had come up from the sea while the day was still young.

La Cerda went off with his friends; and Angelica, when she said that she had come from the Grand Master with a message for the Governor's ears, was led by a different way, along a covered passage which flambeaux lit, and came to a chamber within the rock where De Broglio was seated alone.

She saw a short, corpulent man who was past his prime, and with the front of one who ate too much, and drank more. He looked half-soldier, half-monk, and both in a jovial way. He had a fringe of white hair, but his eyebrows were heavy and black over eyes of the same colour, which were still bright and alert. He feared little on earth, and nothing either in heaven or hell, which may have been why he was somewhat more at home with a jest than a prayer. Now he sat at ease, after toil, with a tankard beside his hand, and with his trunk-hose unbuttoned to give his belly more space than it had had during the day.

Angelica might suppose that he would not have received her in that way had he known her for what she was, but she had learnt in the last three weeks that there were many things which had been beyond the horizon of her previous life, which must now be accepted without surprise if she were to sustain her part in a natural way.

De Broglio took the letter in a careless hand. He must know first who his visitor was, and have his comfort assured: "The boat," he said, "can wait well enough. There is no need to stand thus. There is no hurt in a bench, be your legs as young as they may. And Sir John should be abed before you can get back. He should not require your answer before the dawn."

Angelica had a moment's doubt as to whom he might mean, and how much of herself he might be likely to know, but it was no more than a baseless fear, such as must come often to those who wear a disguise; for, as the conversation went on, she found that when he talked of Sir John, it was the Grand Master he meant, he having known La Valette in much earlier days, so that he would always be Sir John to him, and sometimes John alone in a careless phrase.

He did not press the point when he found that Don Garcio was not disposed to drink, for he was easy with others, as with himself; but he explained that he was driven to much consumption of wine while he had been in St. Elmo's fort, the only water supply being from a well they had sunk, and that being brackish at times, which was not surprising, they being so close to the shore.

He read the letter at last, and said: "It is a message to the Governors that you bring? Well, you must be content with one less, except you have more patience than you first showed. D'Egueras is in the ravelin, or the mist. He counts sentries, and sets them far out from the wall, where they will get an ague before the dawn. It is very well, though I have told him that the Turks will not come at this time, for I know their ways. And, if they should, they would do no good to themselves. We have but to keep a good watch on the walls. The loss would be to those who should try climbing the scarp, which is a thing I have never loved, either by darkness or day. But it was a kind thought of Sir John to send D'Egueras to me. He is in all places at once. He is one who is never still. My shoulders cannot ache while he is here, for they have no load."

He read the scroll while he talked thus, and laid it down with a look on his face as of one who deals in a good-humoured way with the fussing of fools.

"Now what," he asked, "has Sir John to say that is of such moment that it must be brought thus in the night? And what is Oliver's word, that is not from him?"

Angelica gave the message with which she had been charged, but with a sense that it had been set on too high a note, the passionate intensity of La Valette's mood seeming to be rebuffed in a careless, almost contemptuous way, as one may humour a child.

"The Grand Master will have," she said, "that St. Elmo be held to the last stone and the last man, not regarding the cost, which is for his casting alone.

"Well," de Broglio said, stretching his hand for another drink, "you can tell him to lose no sleep over that, nor to shorten yours. For what else are we here? Does he think we shall clear out in the night, or ask Piali to dine? But that is John's way. I warrant there has not been a jest from his lips since Mustapha came, nor perhaps from when he put on his Grand Master's robes, it is six years since. Not that there is much loss in that, for he jests ill."

There was a twinkling amusement in the glance he gave Angelica as he said this, making it easy to forget that they were in a little separate fort upon which the whole might of the Turkish army was being turned, both from land and sea; but his next words showed that his humour was not the obtuseness of one too stupid to see the danger in which he stood.

"As to the last man, if Sir John will be counselled by me (which I do not say that he needs) it will come to the last stone before that, for he must keep us supplied. You can tell him that we should have a somewhat greater force than we have now - not to work the guns, for which we have more than enough, but to repel assaults, which may soon be made in great force. And you can tell him that I will find shelter for all he sends, for we are still delving the rock. We cannot burrow too low when our walls shake, as they will when they have been battered enough; and, besides that, it is better that men should work than sit idly, waiting their time to die.

"And he can send as he will, either by night or day (as we can send the wounded to him) so long as the Turks mount their guns only on the west side of the hill, as Piali is doing now. You can say that we have not much to fear while he is directing the siege. He is an ox, with an ox's brains. Had he more wit where to mount a gun, he could do us tenfold the harm that we are likely to suffer now.

"But if Sir John would give us all the aid that he can, he should throw up the mouths of his longer guns and fire over the hill. He is not likely to hit more than the mountain, which will not mind, but he will cause the infidel rogues to feel an itch on their right sides. They will ever be looking up, and they cannot do us much harm while they are jumping about.... And now what has Oliver got to say more?"

"Sir Oliver would have you know that the Bay of Naples is back. It sailed, as I suppose you will know, bearing the Grand Master's nephew, and -"

"It sailed for some wildfire bombs! Has it brought those?"

"Yes. Sir Oliver - "

"That should have been said first. Not that they will be needed tonight. But they will be worth more than another hundred of men."

"There were some brought over tonight."

"Oliver is a good man. I would drink to him now, but I have taken enough, and I would not be caught in the wrong mood at a sudden chance, such as may come ever in time of war. Now you shall tell me the talk of nephews and knights, and of what Sir John thinks, but he dare not say."

"The Grand Master sent his nephew and Commander Salvago to the Viceroy to set out the great force of the Turks, and the urgent strait in which Malta is placed thereby, and to enquire by which day he could be assured that relief would come.

"He has replied with a written word, naming the fifteenth of June as the day on which he will have an army upon our shores - "

"Which I am to be assured that he will not do?"

"He says that there was a condition that our ships should be sent to him; for which he still waits."

De Broglio met this statement with a burst of laughter that filled the room.

"Was Sir John wroth? I would have gone helmless tomorrow to see his face when he read that."

"He did not look pleased, but I have no message on that from him. Sir Oliver says that we can hope little from Sicily or from Spain, at least at this time. We are to depend on ourselves; for he reads the letter in that way, and he thought that you ought to know."

"You have a discreet tongue for one in whom the disease of youth is so rank. Oliver chooses well. I will not tempt you to say more than you have heard, but you can tell him from me that (beyond the jest of the ships, which it was worth your trouble to bring, at a time which is too sober and dull) I have learnt nothing I did not know. Reynard thinks that Heaven should be pleased enough that he nets heretics in the Holland towns without killing infidels here, which it is more expensive to do. Nolite confidere in principibus. If he come at all, he will wait till there have been much slaughter on either side, so that there will be less for him to do and more honour to be won at a bargain rate. We should build nothing on him."

Angelica understood easily enough that whom he called Reynard must be her Spanish king, of whom, as she had said to Sir Oliver before, her uncle had been used to speak in a different way, but she used the discretion on which she had just been complimented, giving no answer at all.

She said that the boat would be waiting to take her back, and if the Governor had no further message to send -

De Broglio said no to that. He said he gave thanks for the bombs, praising appropriate saints. For the rest, Sir John could be assured that the Turks would not find it easy to come over St. Elmo's walls, "for," he concluded, "we are in more comfort being alone."

Angelica parted with the ceremonies of courtesy which she had observed to be practised among the Maltese knights, to which she received a jovial informality of response, and a regret that she could not make a more leisurely stay.

As she was about to leave, she was aware of the sound of a guitar in the adjoining apartment, which was the dormitory of a company of the Spanish soldiers who had been hired from the Sicilian Viceroy, and a song rose in her own tongue:

"Love is the same in every clime, In Afric heat or Arctic snow. Love was the same at every time, But only of our own we know; And when we - "

De Broglio, seeing that she had paused to listen, interrupted with the observation: "You will be able to inform Sir John that we are cheerful of spirit, and - and instant in prayer.

CHAPTER XVII

THE report that Angelica brought back from St. Elmo was satisfactory enough; though, had she seen others of the garrison, she might have met with some who would have talked in a different tone.

But, indeed, De Broglio's matter-of-course attitude (which treated death as a daily event of no more consequence than a meal) may have been of even greater avail than the higher ideality of D'Egueras (who would talk of the surrender of life as of a supreme sacrifice in a sacred cause) in giving courage and confidence to the heroic company of those who looked up the long slope of Sceberras to the hundred-fold assembly of their pitiless and implacable foe. And even to say that De Broglio was deficient in ideality is to go beyond proof, he being of those who will never speak of themselves, or of what they think, so that we must guess what we will from that which their lives show, with the chance that we may guess wrong.

It was clear that the St. Elmo garrison was yet confident in the strength of its walls and in a mood to repel attack in a resolute way; and there was cause for good heart and hope in St. Angelo also, as the night advanced, and frequent small parties of knights and volunteers came in from the sea, giving a greater effect of numbers than if they had come at once in a single ship, or in two. But this was offset as the morning dawned by the news that a Greek renegade, Ulichiali, a pirate who stood high in the confidence and regard of the Turks, had joined them from Alexandria on the previous day (though he had been able to do no more than anchor beyond St. Paul's Bay till the mist cleared), with six galleys which were heavily armed, and crowded with such men as a corsair is likely to have on board.

The Turkish battery did not open next morning against St. Elmo in the first hour, for Piali had been less than satisfied with its performance on the previous day. He was anxious that St. Elmo should fall before Dragut could arrive, so that the full credit should come to himself; and he had been disconcerted already when he had found that the fleet could not operate against it with much effect. It was now realised also that though the fort was intended primarily to defend the harbours from sea-attack, yet it was so designed, its heaviest guns being mounted on a high cavalier on the sea-ward side, that it could bring them all to bear against a land-ward assault, as they could be turned and fired over the inner fort, which was less lofty than they.

The idea of attacking it as it were from the rear, on the land-ward side, became therefore more formidable at a closer view than Piali had supposed when he had advocated it at the first. Not that he was in any doubt as to the result, the disparity of force being too great; and he was resolved, if all else should fail, that it should be taken by storm before Dragut should come, though it might be at the cost of a thousand slain.

With these thoughts in his mind, he had ordered that the battery should not open on the second day, even though the mist should have cleared, until he should be there himself to direct its fire; and, being eager to make an end, he was there at an early hour.

The Turkish cannon were heavier than those that were mounted upon the fort, but the mounds which had been built for their protection were less strong than its walls of stone, so that they had suffered more on the first day; but this damage had been well repaired in the night, and a shattered gun-carriage replaced, so that the whole of the fourteen cannon were able to open at once, directing their fire upon the cavalier with the intention of silencing the heavier artillery of the fort.

St. Elmo's guns, which had been silent till then, replied from every angle at which they could be brought to bear on the Turkish battery, and those who watched from St. Angelo's walls saw their separate flashes, and the clouds of sulphurous smoke gathering ever blacker in a still air, as they had done on the day before.

But the Grand Master had not been deaf to the request that De Broglio had sent, and St. Angelo opened fire also, with two long culverins which were mounted upon its battlements, and were intended to sweep the harbour against any hostile ships which might pass its mouth.

Now they were tilted aloft, and threw their balls across the harbour to the opposite hill. They had no better target than the smoke that hung over the Turkish battery and the gunflashes that could be seen at times. They fired short at first, striking the near side of the hill, but after that they got the range and found that they could fire over the crest, though it was not to be thought that they would do much hurt, not seeing where their shots fell.

More than once the balls bounded down the far side of the hill, falling at last into the harbour beyond with a useless splash, and the Turks watched them and laughed. But after that there came one that may be said to have paid for all. It fell on the battery mound, where it had been built of some blocks of stone. The stone it struck was flung in fragments around, and when the dust cleared, the Admiral Piali lay a senseless heap, for a splinter had struck his head.

Later in the day there came a rumour to St. Angelo that Piali was dead, at which there was rejoicing beyond the cause, for he lay in his tent with nothing worse than a broken head. But the event gave St. Elmo a respite of something less than a week, for Mustapha, taking control, ordered that, though the bombardment should be kept up, there should be no effort beyond that to obtain the fort till Dragut should arrive.

For a short space of days the event paused, with no more than cannonading at times, some sharp-shooting on both sides, and constant skirmishing along the rear of the Turkish positions, where Marshal Couppier gave them rest neither by dark nor day.

A doubt rose at this time as to whether the attack on St. Elmo were to be pressed as had first appeared, or whether the resolute front which had been shown to the first assault might have caused Mustapha, now that Piali was stilled, to decide on concentration upon the castle itself without wasting further time on the smaller objective.

The people of St. Angelo and the Bourg moved as those who look up to a black cloud which delays to burst, not knowing where it will fall but seeing that the near tempest is sure. Each day a few wounded or dead were brought in from beyond the walls or in boats from St. Elmo's point, and were tended or buried with more of care or ritual than would be thought sufficient at a later time, and each day La Valette counted a gain to him, thinking that it must bring them nearer to that on which the Christian States would become active for his relief; but on the fifth day there was a great salvo of artillery from the Turkish fleet, telling that Dragut had arrived, and giving him the welcome due to his name and the strength he brought.

He came up from the south, with thirteen galleys and two galliots under his flag, from which he landed fifteen hundred men, keeping their crews and rowers aboard, for he would not reduce the fighting strength of his fleet, in which he took more pride than in the provinces that he ruled ashore.

They were all of the same style, ships that were swift and lean and fanged, having little space for cargo below, they being no more than a pack of hunting wolves, the carnivora of the sea.

Dragut came ashore at once, and when he heard that Piali was hurt, he said that Allah was great, which those who heard could take as they would, for he cared for none.

He was met by Mustapha very courteously on the shore, and taken to his tent, where they talked for some time, finding that they could agree well enough, for their opinion of Piali was the same, though it was Dragut who gave it words.

As to attacking St. Elmo, he said it had been folly at first. They should have overrun the island, driving Marshal Couppier into the sea, and then attacked St. Angelo with their whole force. He said the ships could find harbours enough. He scoffed at the idea that Europe would gather a fleet that would be strong enough to offer battle.

"Will they come," he asked, "from England or Spain, or the Baltic seas? They would take a year to agree about that, if they ever should. We should be home months before. It is no more than a fool's fear."

But when he saw the battery that Piali had set up his contempt broke out into ribald jests. There was in Dragut, whether sober or drunk, a furious energy that was never still, and before which opposition melted away. He had, beyond that, an instinct for the essential which approached genius.

He saw that, if they were to withdraw the battery from before St. Elmo, it would be a confession of divided counsel if not of failure, of which all Europe would hear in the next week. He also saw that they would need the heavy guns that were planted there if they were to attempt to batter through the walls of Burmola or the Bourg.

Therefore they must continue the assault till St. Elmo should fall, on which he agreed with Piali that it should be the work of no more than a few days, but he did not think that his methods would have brought that result. He saw that to attack St. Elmo without speedy success would be just what the Grand Master would have them do. "Shall we be," he asked, "no more than a tail that Valette wags as he will?" He saw that to make St. Elmo's reduction sure it must be cut off from the Castle's support, and that their guns must command the harbour for that. There was no avail in a battery that skulked on the further side of the hill to avoid St. Angelo's guns. He had not landed a day before excavations were being made on the crest of Sceberras, and material being dragged up to make a higher and stronger battery there, which could reply to St Angelo's guns and sink any boats that should attempt to cross to St. Elmo's point. On the further side of the entrance to the northern harbour he landed men from the fleet, who built a four-gun battery there to bombard St. Elmo from the other side. They had heavy guns and good gunners enough, and he was determined that they should be used to the full. He directed all wi