though weary defenders. The Grand Master
demanded of them, if it became necessary, to die sword in hand, fighting
the infidels to the last gasp. This order was literally obeyed.
Communication with the other forts was entirely cut off, so that it was
impossible to reinforce those who were left within the crumbling walls,
but the gallant defenders managed to send word to headquarters by
employing an expert native, who made his way across the harbor in the
night, swimming mostly under water, so that the Grand Master was
informed of their exact situation. By the same means of communication,
the order was sent to them, "Hold the fort, or die fighting," in
obedience to which, every Knight faithfully laid down his life!

We know of no parallel case in warfare. Indeed, there are few more
heroic pages in history than those which record the gallant defense of
the Maltese fort of St. Elmo, before which, not only hundreds, but many
thousands of frenzied Turks, the flower of the Ottoman army, were
slaughtered in vain but savage assaults upon its walls. The few
chivalrous Knights who constituted the forlorn hope left to the last in
the fort sold their lives to the enemy at such fearful cost, killing so
many of them outright,--quarter being neither asked nor given,--as to
spread consternation among the whole army of besiegers, the remnant of
whom not long after withdrew from the island in despair. The frenzied
recklessness of the Turks was no match for the cool, determined purpose
of men who had consecrated themselves, as it were, to death.

The leader of the infidel forces, Mustafa Pasha, when surveying the
scene of the last terrible conflict, and realizing that more than half
of his invading army had been sacrificed before the walls of St. Elmo,
is reported as having said, while looking toward the other and greater
forts still held by the Knights, "If the child has required the
spilling of such rivers of blood and such myriads of lives to conquer
it, what sacrifice will not the parent demand before yielding?" Nothing
but Mohammedan frenzy, a wild, unthinking, religious zeal, infatuation
pure and simple, could have sustained this long, destructive, and
fruitless siege on the part of the Turks.

St. Elmo to-day is considered to be the most perfect and the most
absolutely impregnable of all the fortified points of the Maltese
capital. It requires two regiments of artillery and one of infantry to
man the extensive walls of this fort i