e, though they were grossly bigoted. Of this, L'Isle Adam and La
Vallette are striking examples.

Each fresh onslaught between the contending Christians and infidels led
to increased bitterness and a desire for revenge. The terrible courage
and indifference to death evinced by the followers of the crescent were
more than matched by the cool, determined bravery of those who fought
under the banner of the cross. Let the truth be frankly recorded. If the
Turks were guilty of the most barbaric atrocities, and we very well know
that they were, the Knights of St. John were not slow to retaliate in
kind. History tells us that the latter, at the siege of Malta in 1565,
not only decapitated their defenseless prisoners of war upon the
ramparts of the forts, in full sight of the enemy, but afterwards fired
their ghastly heads from mortars, and projected them by other means into
the camp of the besieging army. Alas, for the brutality of warfare,
ancient and modern! Who can forget that English officers professing to
be Christians, during the unsuccessful attempt of the natives of India
to regain their freedom, lashed their living prisoners of war to the
cannon's mouth, and applying the match, blew them into eternity? This
diabolical act, it should be remembered, was perpetrated not by
irresponsible guerrillas, or lawless banditti, but by regular English
army officers, in the nineteenth century. Wild African tribes, the
Maoris of New Zealand, or the cannibals of Fiji could do no worse, while
England poses as representing the highest degree of modern civilization
and refinement. All war involves a greater or less lapse into barbarism.
It was the first Napoleon who uttered the significant saying, born of
his own experience, "The worse the man, the better the soldier!"

But let us endeavor not to diverge too far from the immediate purpose of
these pages.

We were speaking of the peculiar order of the Knights of St. John. The
natives of Malta furnished no members to the ranks of the brotherhood.
They might and did serve effectively as men at arms, and joined in
defensive and offensive warfare as common soldiers. A certain
exclusiveness was always maintained by the fraternity as to admitting
individuals to full membership, it being realized from the outset that
an indiscriminate policy in this respect would tend to belittle the
order and weaken its influence, as well as to introduce an undesirable
element into its ranks. Hundreds of the