ance, but the resistance, of its
garrison. Another equally pertinent is his refusal, though in opposition
to his council, to abandon the town and retire to St. Angelo. One can
hardly doubt that on his decision, in both these cases, rested the fate
of Malta.

La Valette was of a serious turn, and, as it would seem, with a tendency
to sadness in his temperament. In the portraits that remain of him, his
noble features are touched with a shade of melancholy, which, taken in
connection with his history, greatly heightens the interest of their
expression. His was not the buoyant temper, the flow of animal spirits,
which carries a man over every obstacle in his way. Yet he could comfort
the sick, and cheer the desponding; not by making light of danger, but
by encouraging them like brave men fearlessly to face it. He did not
delude his followers by the promises--after he had himself found them to
be delusive--of foreign succor. He taught them, instead, to rely on the
succor of the Almighty, who would never desert those who were fighting
in his cause. He infused into them the spirit of martyrs,--that brave
spirit which, arming the soul with contempt of death, makes the weak man
stronger than the strongest.

There is one mysterious circumstance in the history of this siege which
has never been satisfactorily explained,--the conduct of the viceroy of
Sicily. Most writers account for it by supposing that he only acted in
obedience to the secret instructions of his master, unwilling to hazard
the safety of his fleet by interfering in behalf of the knights, unless
such interference became absolutely necessary. But even on such a
supposition the viceroy does not stand excused; for it was little less
than a miracle that the knights were not exterminated before he came to
their relief; and we can hardly suppose that an astute, far-sighted
prince, like Philip, who had been so eager to make conquests from the
Moslems in Africa, would have consented that the stronghold of the
Mediterranean should pass into the hands of the Turks. It seems more
probable that Don Garcia, aware of the greater strength of the Turkish
armament, and oppressed by the responsibility of his situation as
viceroy of Sicily, should have shrunk from the danger to which that
island would be exposed by the destruction of his fleet. On any view of
the case, it is difficult to explain a course so irreconcilable with the
plan of operations concerted with the grand-master,