The Siege of Malta

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VISir Oliver picked up his sword, which he did not constantly wear. He was slightly bent with his studious toils, so that, as they stood, Angelica’s height was little the less and in the supple straightness of youth she might have been held for the better man.

“We must to the wall,” he said, “and I would that you had some armour of proof, of which I should have warned you before, though it has been my thought to hold you excused, as long as I can, from the active strife which you should not see, and of which, as I suppose, you will be in no danger to-day. . . . It is the risk of a straying shot.”

“You mean that they will not attack our part of the wall?” . .

“Yes. For it is what they cannot do until they have made much further advance, unless it were from the sea, with the fleet to aid.”

“And they will not do that?”

“No. It is such a risk as Piali might not scruple to try, but Mustapha would not waste ships and men in so simple a way. It would be stone against wood, and at a short range, and our cannon pointed downward upon their decks. . . . There is no peril of that. . . . The Turks will fire from all sides, that we may be in doubt of where they will throw their strength, yet that is not in much doubt. It is St. Michael that they will pull down, if the fiends are strong.”

Sir Oliver went to the wall where he held command, rather in the routine which would not let any part remain unwatched at a time of storm than with expectation that there would be occasion for its defence. He had sent the best part of his own men to the support of those who were more likely to face attack on the Bourg front, but he had little doubt that it was on the southern side that the worst fury of storm would beat for that day.

He went on, as he ascended the winding stair, with Angelica at his side:

“There is a friend of yours who has come, so it is said, to the Turkish camp. I mean Hassan, whom you met on his own deck, and who, by Dragut’s death, is now Viceroy of the whole Barbary coast. I should have said on a deck which he had made his, having been ours at the first, and where you made him your jest, as we may suppose that he will not quickly forget. I should say that he would have more lust to meet you again than it would be pleasure to you. Which is a reason (for you) that we guard our walls.”

“Is it sure he is here?”

“There is the Flying Hawk in Massa Muscetto bay, which he is said to choose for his own ship since he took it from us, finding its speed to be hard to match. . . . There is no doubt he has come, and with him some thousands more of the corsairs that Barbary breeds. He is lord now of all Tripoli and Algiers, and it is said that Dragut’s wealth is for him, to augment his own. He keeps Mahound’s law so far that he has not Dragut’s liking for rum, but that he holds to the Prophet’s limit of wives is what I have not heard, though it may also be true.”

Angelica laughed in her quick way at a recollection which came with Sir Oliver’s words.

“I know not how many he have, nor how few, but I was to be extra to them, unless Dragut should refuse to forego my price for a better deal. . . . I thought it was time that I came away.”

It was a danger passed, at which the light spirit of youth could look back in a mocking mood, but there was no levity in the tone with which Sir Oliver made reply.

“The saints keep you from that!—as they doubtless did, with your own courage to aid. But you may well pray that you do not fall to his hands for a second time, which would be no jesting for you.”

“Well,” she replied, somewhat sobered by this, but still feeling confident against a danger so vague and far, “I suppose I am secure for this time; and I have heard you say that if we fret at a distant fear we are likely to vex our peace for that which will never be. . . . Is St. Michael in peril beyond likely defence? Are we greatly maimed if it fall?”

“I would not say that it is in peril beyond repulse, nor that we are lost if it fall. St. Michael is more strong than St. Elmo was, whether we reckon by weight of guns or by height of walls, or by its nearness to us. But the whole length of the Sanglea is less strong, and that not only where it faces the land but because its southern water is shallow, so that it is said that it may be waded at more places than one, and it is no more than a short gun-shot from shore to shore.

“If St. Michael fall we shall still stand, but we shall have a wound which will bleed much. It is a greater risk that they will cut it off, winning the Sanglea, so that the inner harbour and our galleys would be under their fire, but we may have good hope that they will not prevail, even to that.”

They spoke amid a surrounding rumble of guns, and the louder separate thunder of those that fired from the castle walls that were near at hand. It was clear that the Turks attacked with their utmost force, being insurgent on every side. Mustapha, having slain the calf, had now come for the cow, and would not be lightly denied.

Angelica watched from the outer angle of the wall, where her station was, and could see little beyond the smoke of St. Michael’s guns and that which rose and drifted over the Sanglea, which, being lower and further from her own front, was beyond her sight, though she could see part of the inner harbour where the Maltese galleys were sheltered safely as yet, and the boom at its mouth was beneath her eyes, as was the battery of which Francisco had charge. She saw him at times, waiting watchful beside his guns, though as yet they could not point at a foe. But it would not be supposed that he should attempt to look up to a place where he did not know her to be, even if he would if he had. . . .

The hours passed, and Sir Oliver came to her side.

“There is little use that I stay here, where we can but watch what we do not share. I have given command to the Chevalier de la Roye, for I have more urgent matters with which to deal. You must stay, for you make one, and give release to a man who can be used at another place. . . . But what are they that come out from the further shore?”

There was a scurry of strife at this time at the entrance to the inlet which was south of St. Michael’s fort, which was almost beyond their sight, where Mustapha’s swimmers strove with axes to break down the palisade, and Del Monte had called for volunteers to swim out and prevent the damage they sought to do.

He found no lack of those who could swim and who would risk their lives in that way, but the palisades were easier to break down than to mend, and while men fought like sharks in the reddened flood it was broken in places beyond repair. . . .

Angelica, watching from St. Angelo’s higher wall, could see ten great boats come out, one after one, from the further shore. They were loaded with men, bearing more than a thousand in all, and they came at a great pace, being propelled by those who knew that a second saved might be no less than the lives of all.

Avoiding all but such guns of St. Michael’s fort as could be hastily trained their way, which were neither many nor of much range, they came round toward the gaps in the palisade which had been broken to let them through, aiming to pass under St. Michael’s fort and take by storm the long, low water-front of the Sanglea.

“If they succeed in that,” Sir Oliver said, “they will thrust a wedge between the fort and those who defend the Sanglea on its landward side, so that those last may be surrounded and sped,” and as he spoke a rumble of distant sound arose to further confuse the tormented air, from where, far beyond their sight, Hassan’s corsairs swarmed to attack the Sanglea at its southern end.

“Francisco,” Angelica said, looking down, “is getting busy at last. But what can he hope to do?”

“Well,” Sir Oliver answered to that, “I did not know that he had guns of so great a range, for he was set there to defend the near boom. But if you ask what he can do, I must reply that it will be nothing or all.”

Francisco looked out through an embrasure from which pointed the long black muzzle of one of the culverins which he had brought from his own ship and he knew that his day had come.

“Antonio,” he asked, “could you reach them now?”

The little captain looked out over the boom, past the entrance to the inner harbour, past the spur which was crowned with St. Michael’s fort, to where the ten great boats came on, with trails of following foam, toward the gaps in the palisade which he could not see.

“I could reach them now, but there would be those who would get free, if they were speedy to turn. I will wait yet for a minute’s space.” He spoke to the man who stood waiting his word at the other gun with his linstock lit: “You said your sight was good in the day? It is now you must prove your word.”

A moment later, Angelica, looking down, saw sudden flashes that came as one from the out-thrust muzzles. She saw the great guns leap to the recoil, wrenching their chains. She heard, next instant, the double thunder of their discharge amid the din of encircling sound.

Far out, on the harbour water, a boat sank by the head, spilling its cargo of dead and maimed, and of those who would be unable to live in an element they did not know. Another boat was struggling to turn, pushing frantic oars, while the water poured through a broken side. Below, the two guns were being sponged and loaded anew, and, as it seemed, in no more than a moment’s time, they were thrust outward again, sending an even more deadly message of death to boats which had now bunched in a confusion between those who would fall back, those who would still go on, and those who lay on uncertain oars disputing among themselves. But after those second shots, there was but one mind among men who saw that their deaths were near: they turned in flight and, as they did so, the cannon thundered again.

Of the ten boats which set out, bearing about eight hundred of the janissaries which were the flower of Mustapha’s troops, and two hundred more of the Tripoli corsairs that Candelissa led, there was but one that got back to the shore; and but two hundred men, including those who were able to swim to land, who would answer their names when the roll would be called on the next day.

Antonio, overlooking the cleaning out of the culverins with a gunner’s eye, knew that their work was done for that time and, perhaps, till the siege should end. But it had been enough. It was an example of that which is frequent in the annals of war, of a device which goes beyond that for which it was thought at first; for it was a battery that would not have been erected at all but that the Grand Master had been urgent to protect the inner harbour, where the fleet must be laid up, with an ample boom, and then with guns to defend that. And so it was seen that, with longer guns, it might be used to another end, firing over Isola Point to guard the approach to the Sanglea, which would be likely to be much sooner attacked.

“We shall see no more,” Sir Oliver said, “from this point, and I cannot longer remain. But you may have a good hope that St. Michael will not go down for this day, and your cousin has won a praise which, as I suppose, will be the talk of more lands than one.”

He went with that word, but the noise of storm that beat on the Sanglea did not slacken till evening fell.