CHAPTER XXIIIThe Grand Master held inquisition of the events of the night. The storm had fallen before the dawn. The boom had been damaged, but not forced. Attacks had been repulsed that had been made on the land side of the Sanglea, and round the Bourg. There was nothing left but to repair damage, to count the slain, and to judge how praise or blame should be given out.
Pompea Colonna had come to Malta in command of four hundred of the Spanish soldiers who had been enlisted when the first peril was known. These men had been lost in strife, or scattered at different posts, till there were not more than a hundred he could array. He had been sent with these to the battery’s aid, when it was known that the Turks were over the scarp and its guns were still.
“We ran in haste,” he said, “but w
