red by them, or a
personal encounter avoided, any more than such an occurrence could be
disregarded among the swashbucklers of Dumas's musketeers. The instinct
of the sword, so to speak, was stronger with these professed
religionists than was any other recognized principle. The combatants
were bound, however, by some recognized palliating rules: for instance,
to put up their swords upon the interference of a brother Knight, an
officiating priest, or a woman, which may be interpreted as an attempt
to draw a line of prevention about this barbaric custom of settling
private disputes with the sword.

When a fatal conflict occurred on the Strada Stretta, a cross painted or
cut upon the house front nearest to the spot ever after indicated the
event. There used to be a long line of these significant signs upon this
thoroughfare, but nearly all are obliterated, some by design and others
by the wear of time. The records of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries teem with entries of stabbing, wounding, and killing among the
Knights, the result of encounters upon the Strada Stretta. When there
was a common enemy to encounter, and upon whom to expend their surplus
energy, the Knights were as one man, living together in comparative
harmony, but in days of peace they were only too ready to turn their
weapons against each other in heated quarrels.

Washington Irving relates a veritable ghost story concerning a fatal
encounter which took place in this notorious Strada Stretta, as related
to him by an old Knight who once lived upon the island of Malta, and
whom he met somewhere in Italy. The basis of the story was the fact
that two Knights of the Order of St. John, one of Spain and one of
France, met and fought a duel here on a certain Good Friday, the latter
losing his life in the conflict. There was always more or less active
rivalry existing between the French and Spanish divisions of the
brotherhood. In the instance referred to there was a woman in the case,
for the Knights were as famous for their gallantry towards the ladies as
for prowess in battle. In times of peace they occupied their leisure,
not with any intellectual resort,--alas! that the truth must be told,
few of them, comparatively speaking, could read and write,--but nearly
all seem to have been experts at domestic intrigue and gambling, at
wine-bibbing and dueling. Their only study was the effective handling of
warlike weapons. The fencing-master, not the schoolmaste