in Melleha Bay. Hastily evacuating his
trenches, he embarked his army; but, on learning that the new troops
numbered but some 8,000, was overcome by shame and put ashore to fight
the reinforcements. It was all in vain, however, for his troops would
not stand the fierce charge of the new-comers, and, helped by the
determination of his rearguard, safely re-embarked and sailed away on
September 3.

At the moment of departure the Order had left 600 men capable of
bearing arms, but the losses of the Ottomans had been yet more
fearful. The most reliable estimate puts the number of the Turkish
army at its height at some 40,000 men, of which but 15,000 returned
to Constantinople. It was a most inglorious ending to the reign of
Solyman the Magnificent.

[Footnote 1: A reminiscence of the Syrian days of the Order.]

[Footnote 2: The name given to the different estates of the
Hospitallers scattered throughout Europe: they were so called because
they were each in charge of a "commander," sometimes also named a
"preceptor," from his duty of receiving and training novices.]

[Footnote 3: Most historians make this event part of the attack of
August 18. But Prescott (_Philip II_., vol. ii., p. 428) points out
that Balbi, who is undoubtedly the best authority for the siege as he
was one of the garrison, places it on August 7.]

CHAPTER III

THE CONSTITUTION OF THE ORDER OF ST. JOHN

Before proceeding to trace the history of the last two centuries
of the Knights at Malta it will perhaps be advisable to examine the
organisation of an Order which was the greatest and most long-lived
of all the medieval Orders of Chivalry. The siege of 1565 was its last
great struggle with its mortal foe; after that there is but little
left for the historian but to trace its gradual decadence and fall.
And, as might be expected in a decadent society, though outwardly
the constitution changed but little in the last two centuries, yet
gradually the Statutes of the Order and the actual facts became more
and more divergent.

There were three classes of members in the Hospitallers, who were
primarily distinguished from each other by their birth, and who were
allotted different functions in the Order. The Knights of Justice[1]
were the highest class of the three and were the only Knights
qualified for the Order's highest distinctions. Each langue had its
own regulations for admitting members, and all alike exercised severe
discrimination. Var