all canal is dug--there
rollers come into play; and in a few hours his small fleet is safely
transported to the open water on the south side of the island. Calling
off his men from the illusive battery, the Corsair is off for the
Archipelago: by good luck he picks up a fine galley on the way, which
was conveying news of the reinforcements coming to Doria. The old
Genoese admiral never gets the message: he is rubbing his eyes in sore
amazement, wondering what had happened to the imprisoned fleet. Never
was admiral more cruelly cheated: never did Doria curse the nimble
Corsair with greater vehemence or better cause.

Next year, 1551, Dragut's place was with the Ottoman navy, then
commanded by Sin[=a]n Pasha. He had had enough of solitary roving,
and found it almost too exciting: he now preferred to hunt in couples.
With nearly a hundred and fifty galleys or galleots, ten thousand
soldiers, and numerous siege guns, Sin[=a]n and Dragut sailed out of
the Dardanelles--whither bound no Christian could tell. They ravaged,
as usual, the Straits of Messina, and then revealed the point of
attack by making direct for Malta. The Knights of St. John were a
perpetual thorn in the side of the Turks, and even more vexatious to
the Corsairs, whose vessels they, and they alone, dared to tackle
single-handed, and too often with success. Sultan and Corsair were
alike eager to dislodge the Knights from the rock which they had been
fortifying for twenty years, just as Suleym[=a]n had dislodged them
from Rhodes, which they had been fortifying for two hundred. In July
the Turkish fleet appeared before the Marsa, wholly unexpected by the
Knights. The Turks landed on the tongue of promontory which separates
the two great harbours, and where there was as yet no Fort St. Elmo to
molest them. Sin[=a]n was taken aback by the strong aspect of the
fortress of St. Angelo on the further side of the harbour, and almost
repented of his venture. To complete his dejection, he seems to have
courted failure. Instead of boldly throwing his whole force upon the
small garrison and overwhelming them by sheer weight, he tried a
reconnaissance, and fell into an ambuscade; upon which he
incontinently abandoned all thought of a siege, and contented himself
with laying waste the interior of Malta, and taking the adjacent
island of Goza.

The quantity of booty he would bring back to Constantinople might
perhaps avail, he thought, to keep his head on his shoulders, aft