ed the inhabitants of the group by the Order of St.
John was ample, and freed the people from all fear of predatory
invasions, still the influence of the Knights was less for peace than
for war, and, as has been shown, was not calculated to permanently
improve the material condition of the common people of Malta.

The renowned Dragut, daring and reckless pirate as he was, shunned a
meeting with the red galleys of the Knights. "Fate is with them," said
this dreaded corsair, referring to the armor-clad Knights, whom he had
so often met in battle. "Our swords will not wound, nor our spears
pierce them."

La Vallette, who was at this time "General" of the galleys, proved
himself as successful at sea as he did afterwards upon the land, when,
as Grand Master, he conducted the famous and successful defense of
Malta. His career was a remarkable one. He became a Knight before he was
of age, and was conscientiously devoted to the order, body and soul, to
the very last of his life. A predatory warfare both on land and sea was
carried on incessantly by the Knights against the Turks, in which they
were almost always successful. The historians tell us that during the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Valletta became a vast slave mart,
supplied with human merchandise by means of the invasions and
sea-captures of the order. On one occasion a thoroughly organized and
well-equipped force engaged in an expedition by which the Knights
surprised and captured the city of Mondon, in Morea, whence they brought
away a large amount of riches. We find enumerated in the list of their
booty, eight hundred Turkish women and girls, whom they enslaved! The
reader will please remember that we are writing of a fraternity,--a
so-called religious brotherhood,--whose solemn vows bound them to
charity, poverty, humility, and chastity. One feels not a little
inclined to moralize, in this connection, upon the contrast between
profession and practice, and on the weakness of human nature in general.
These Knights of the cross reveled in cruel warfare; it was recreation
to them. They displayed no want of valor, but they did exhibit "a
plentiful lack" of Christian charity.

Among the beautiful women who fell into the hands of the Knights at the
capture of Mondon was one possessed of marvelous loveliness both of form
and features. Soon after her capture she became the property of Viscomte
Cicala, who finally made her his wife. Being his slave, there could be