ht portend. So stunned were the maritime States that they took no
action, letting "I dare not wait upon I would." Their indecision was fatal.
Had the Venetians, the Genoese, and the Catalans at this juncture formed an
alliance, they might have chased the Turks from off the face of the waters;
but to mutual jealousy and indecision was added fear--fear of this new and
mighty power which had arisen and had swept away one of the landmarks of
Europe. So it fell out that Genoa entered into an arrangement with the
Grand Turk, and Venice concluded a treaty of commerce on April 18th, 1454.
It was the Caliph Mahomet who first fortified the Dardanelles, where he
mounted thirty heavy guns before which Jacques Loredano, the Venetian
admiral, recoiled, reporting to the Republic that henceforward none could
pass the Straits. We have, however, nothing to do with the Grand Turk in
these pages, save, and except in so far, as he had an effect on the lives
of the corsairs. This effect will develop itself as we proceed.

There is one body of men, however, concerning whom it may be as well to
treat of briefly in this place, as the lives which they led and the deeds
which they performed were inextricably entangled with those of the
corsairs. These men were the members of that association first known as the
Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem, later as the Knights of Malta. Between
them and the corsairs it was war to the death; and not only with these
robbers, but also with any ship which sailed beneath the insignia of the
Crescent.

In 1291 the Soldan of Egypt chased the Knights Hospitallers, as they were
also known, from the soil of the Holy Land; Philip IV. of France welcomed
them in the island of Cyprus, and gave them the town of Limasol as an
asylum. This for the time the knights were bound to accept, but they were
impatient of charity, resentful of tutelage, proud and independent.
Considering their own order as the greatest and most stable bulwark of the
Christian faith, they bowed before neither King nor Kaiser; and the only
boon they asked of great potentates, when allied temporarily with them in
their eternal warfare, was that on all occasions theirs should be the post
of the greatest danger.

This, indeed, they did not ask as a favour, but claimed as a right. It is
easily understood that such desperate warriors, who fought only to conquer
or die, were allies sought for eagerly by all professing the same faith.

Fulke de Villaret, Gr