The strange news spread quickly from mouth to mouth, and La Valette, as soon as he was convinced of its truth, ordered a sortie to be made from the walls and the intrenchments of the enemy to be destroyed, as a precaution in case of their return; for indeed the whole thing seemed inexplicable, and, as he suspected, might be nothing but a feint to conceal some deep design. Women and children worked with right good will at the task of destruction; and before nightfall the complicated works of the Turkish engineers presented a spectacle of utter confusion. A party was also despatched to take possession of the abandoned fortress of St. Elmo; and the infidels, from the decks of their vessels, had the chagrin of seeing the banner of St. John floating once more over those hardly-contested walls. They could hear, too, the sonorous peal of the church-bells, silent for three months, except to give out martial signals or notes of alarm; but which now burst merrily forth from every tower and steeple, to celebrate at once the birthday of the Mother of God and the unhoped-for deliverance of her clients. Never sounded sweeter music to human ears than that which once more summoned the faithful to Mass; and doubtless the Rhodians who might be found among the population were not slow in attributing their happy fortune to the intercession of Our Lady of Philermos.[46] La Valette headed the people in a procession to the great church of St. John, where with hearts flowing over with joy, they gave thanks to God and His blessed Mother for the mercy so signally vouchsafed. Nor was it long before the certainty of the good news was ascertained, and its cause explained by intelligence of the arrival of the Sicilian troops.
Meanwhile the pasha had scarcely entered his vessel when he was overwhelmed with shame at the thought of having abandoned the city at the first rumour of relief. The whole Christian forces scarcely numbered half his own; and it seemed as though by an able movement he might easily crush the new-comers, and regain his position before the town, which he well knew was at its last extremity. To land again, after having but just completed so hurried an embarkment, had certainly a foolish look about it; but the council of war agreed it was the only measure that could retrieve the honour of their arms; and so, despite the unwillingness of the troops, they were once more put on shore, and marched in the direction of the Christian forces. The two armies came up to one another in the neighbourhood of Citta Notabile, and an engagement immediately took place. The Sicilians were commanded by Ascanio de la Corña; while the knights who accompanied them were led by Alvarez de Sandé, who led the attack with characteristic ardour. The Turkish soldiers, dispirited and fatigued, scarcely made a show of resistance; but at the first charge turned and fled to the Port of St. Paul, where the Bey of Algiers, with 1500 men, was waiting to cover their retreat to the boats. The unfortunate pasha, endeavouring in vain to rally the fugitives, was hurried along with his cowardly troops, and twice narrowly escaped falling into the hands of the Christians. The Sicilians followed the pursuit as though it had been a stag-hunt; and in their thoughtless impetuosity threw off their cuirasses, and broke their ranks, to enable them the more speedily to overtake the flying enemy,—an imprudence which was near costing them dear: for on arriving at the place of embarkation, they were met by the Bey of Algiers, who charged them with great fury, and would have carried off a number of prisoners but for the timely arrival of De Sandé. Then the Turks no longer preserved even the form of a retreat; there was a general rush to the boats, the Christians pursuing the infidels even into the sea, where great numbers of the enemy were slain, or perished in the waters. This victory put the last stroke to the discomfiture of the pasha, and before sunset the sails of the Moslem fleet were seen sinking on the eastern horizon.
Such was the end of this memorable siege, which had lasted four months; the last of which may be said to have been little else than one continuous battle.[47] It is said that when the news of the result was brought to Solyman, he tore the letter to fragments and trampled it under his feet, repeating the exclamation of Mahomet after the failure of his Rhodian expedition,—“My arms are invincible only in my own hands,”—and swearing to return in person the ensuing year, and put every Christian in the island to the sword. Nevertheless he thought it prudent to adopt a different policy to that usually practised by Ottoman sovereigns towards their officers, with whom failure was the certain forerunner of a disgraceful death. Following the precedent he had set himself after the retreat from Vienna, he proclaimed through Constantinople that Mustapha had met with a brilliant success, that he was bringing captive all the knights who had survived the slaughter; but that, as the Maltese rocks were unfit to maintain a garrison, the Ottoman clemency had been content with the destruction of the fortifications; so that should the Christian corsairs have the audacity to return, they would be at the mercy of his fleets, and would not fail to be again speedily “exterminated.”
Whatever may be thought of the truthfulness of the sultan’s proclamation of victory, there can be but little question that Malta, after the raising of the siege, resembled nothing less than a fortified city, and rather bore the resemblance of one which had been dismantled and destroyed. Full 200 knights, and more than 9000 soldiers and citizens, had perished during the three months of conflict; and at the moment when the enemy retired not 600 men of all ranks or classes were to be found within the city-walls. On the other hand the loss of the Turks was computed at 30,000 men amounting to nearly three-fourths of the original besieging army.
There was a joyful meeting between the Christian forces; for the chief and officers of the newly-arrived troops lost no time in proceeding to the borgo, where they were received by La Valette and his companions as their deliverers. Yet a proud and honest satisfaction was felt by the gallant defenders of the city, as they thought that they had won the victory for themselves; for the enemy’s fire had slackened, and his assaults had grown feebler every day, and he had fled from the walls ere certain intelligence had reached him of the landing of the succours. It was an affecting scene which was then witnessed in the ruined streets of the borgo. “The knights,” says Vertot, “embraced one another with a loving tenderness: but when they called to mind the loss of so many brave and illustrious men; when they looked around them and beheld the shattered state of the city, the walls and ramparts all shaken and destroyed, guns dismounted and houses overthrown, and saw, moreover, the pale and emaciated countenances of the inhabitants, the knights, and the grand master himself, with matted hair and beards, their dress dirty and disordered,—for many had never laid aside their clothes for months,—and the greater part of them covered with wounds, and with arms and heads bound up and bandaged, and the traces of suffering and privation on the faces of all,—none could restrain their tears at the touching spectacle; and while some wept in remembering their misfortunes, others shed tears of joy to think that Malta had at any rate been saved at last.”
The borgo received the new name of Vittoriosa; and a plan already occupied the mind of La Valette for securing the island against any fresh attacks, by laying the foundations of a new city whose defences should be impregnable. As to the joy which the news of the Christian success spread through Europe, it was of a nature impossible to describe. “At Rome,” says Vertot, “the day on which the news was announced was kept as a high festival; all public business was suspended; the courts of justice and the shops were closed; only the churches were open, and the people ran in crowds to thank God for the happy event.” As Innocent VIII. to D’Aubusson, so Pius IV. to La Valette made offer of the cardinalate; but the grand master in his humility declined the dignity, begging it might rather be bestowed on his brother, the Bishop of Vabres, for that he had himself grown old in the profession of arms. But, indeed, honours poured in upon La Valette on every side; and money too, to help forward the erection of the new capital. There was need of expedition, for rumours thickened fast of another armament in preparation at Constantinople for the last trial at “extermination;” and a singular dispensation for continuing work on all Sundays and festivals was granted by Pope Pius V. for the rapid completion of a city which was to be the bulwark of the Christian world. The first stone was laid on the 28th of March 1566, by the grand master in person, and bore the impress of a golden lion on a bloody field, which was his family device. “But,” says a modern writer, “it was Europe rather than the order, which gave to the young city the name of La Valetta.”[48]
Every year, on the 8th of September, the memory of the great deliverance was renewed by a solemn religious ceremony within the church of St. John: the victorious standard of the order was borne to the altar by a knight in the helmet and armour of the ages of Crusade,—for to Jerusalem was the lingering look of the Hospitallers still directed with a fond and sorrowful regret,—and by his side were carried the sword and poniard of La Valette, whose portrait was on that day publicly exhibited to the people. As the procession passed into the church, and the standard was laid at the foot of the altar, the action was proclaimed by flourishes of trumpets and salvoes of artillery from the forts. Mass was said by the prior of the order; and while the gospel was being read the grand master held aloft the hero’s sword unsheathed, as though to notify to all Christendom, and to all the enemies of the faith, that the Knights of St. John were ever ready to do battle for the Cross.
The grand master did not long survive his triumph, or live to see the completion of his city; he received a stroke of the sun on a hot day in July, while engaged in his favourite diversion of hawking, and expired on the 21st of August 1568, retaining his consciousness to the last. “O my God!” he was heard frequently to exclaim, “send me one of Thy blessed angels to help me in this last hour.” A cloud of darkness gathered for a while over his soul, and he seemed wrestling for the first time in his life with the emotion of fear: he, who had met so many dangers with such serene intrepidity, and who slept with a pet lioness in his bed-chamber, trembled for a moment before the approach of death; but very soon the trouble passed, and a sweet tranquillity again appeared upon his countenance, as, devoutly pronouncing the names of Jesus and Mary, he departed without a struggle. He was buried in the chapel of Our Lady of Philermos within the church of St. Lawrence; but his body was afterwards removed to the new church of Our Lady of Victories, whose foundations he had himself begun as an offering of thanksgiving to the holy Mother of God.
With the siege of Malta our sketch of the order of Hospitallers, or rather of its struggles with the power of the Moslems in defence of Europe and of Christendom, must conclude. Its galleys continued to maintain their supremacy over the infidels on all the coasts of the Mediterranean, and bore a distinguished part in the victory of Lepanto, a notice of which will be given in another page. After an existence of six centuries the order of St. John still preserved its sovereign character, up to that period when, in common with almost every other of the ancient institutions of Europe, it was swept away before the conquering arm of Buonaparte. Even now it may be styled dethroned rather than extinct;[49] and its restoration at some future day is at least no more visionary a dream than that which looks forward to the recall of other exiled and abeyant dynasties.