e gentlemen, who, thus nerved by the indomitable spirit of their
chief, died to the last man in the tumbled ruins of that charnel-house
which had once been a fortress.

La Valette was ready to die; there was no man in all that garrison so
ready. With pike and sword this veteran of seventy-one years of age was
ever at the post of the greatest danger, repelling the assaults of
Janissaries and corsairs, fighting with the spirit of the youngest among
the Knights in the breaches rent in the walls of Il Borgo. In vain did his
comrades try to prevent him from this perpetual exposure; in vain did they
point out that the value of his life outnumbered that of an army. He was
very gentle with these remonstrances, but quite firm. There were plenty as
good as he to take his place should he fall, he insisted; till that time
came it was his duty to inspire all by his example, to show to the simplest
soldier that he was cared for by his Grand Master.

As things went from bad to worse, when Il Borgo became in little better
case than had St. Elmo before it, La Valette never hesitated, never looked
back, never ceased to hope that the sluggard Garcia de Toledo might send
relief; and, if he did not, then would they all perish with arms in their
hands, as had their brethren across that narrow strip of water who had held
St. Elmo to the last man. What man or woman can read without something of a
lump coming in their throat of those noble words of the Grand Master in the
last few days of the siege when all had utterly abandoned hope?

Grimed, emaciated, covered with sweat and blood and dust, did La Valette
move from post to post exhorting and encouraging his soldiers. So few had
the gallant company of the Knights become that command was necessarily
delegated to the under-officers; yet who among them did not find fresh
courage and renewed strength when that great noble, the head of the Order,
stood by their sides and spoke thus to them as man to man?--

"My brothers, we are all servants of Jesus Christ; and I feel assured
that if I and all these in command should fall you will still fight on
for the honour of the Order and the love of our Holy Church."

We have to think of what it all meant, we have dimly to try and realise the
burden which was laid upon this man, before we come to a right conception,
not only of what he endured but the terrible sacrifices he was called upon
to make. Here was no man of iron lusting for blood and greedy