ourse they had taken, and
only asked that they might now be allowed to give such proofs of
devotion to the cause as should atone for their errors.

The letter was despatched by a swimmer across the harbor. But the
grand-master coldly answered, that veterans without subordination were
in his eyes of less worth than raw recruits who submitted to discipline.
The wretchedness of the knights at this repulse was unspeakable; for in
their eyes dishonor was far worse than death. In their extremity they
addressed themselves again to La Valette, renewing their protestations
of sorrow for the past, and in humble terms requesting his forgiveness.
The chief felt that he had pushed the matter far enough. It was perhaps
the point to which he had intended to bring it. It would not be well to
drive his followers to despair. He felt now they might be trusted. He
accordingly dismissed the levies, retaining only a part of these brave
men to reinforce the garrison; and with them he sent supplies of
ammunition, and materials for repairing the battered works.[1315]

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

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

The guns of th