Castelermo informed me that he had been hearing mass at a chapel of San Bartolemmeo, among the hills, where he had solemnly returned thanks to the great patron of his order, for his narrow escape at Scylla.
"And San Bartolemmeo, who was he?" I asked.
"A most blessed saint, signor. To-day is the anniversary of his martyrdom: he was flayed alive by order of Astiages, the Armenian. But my escape—maladetto! 't was a narrow one: when my hold relaxed and I fell from the broken battlement, I thought myself gone for ever. Yes, signor, but for St. John of Malta, and the beatified Madonna, I must have been dashed to pieces on those stone-flags, which received me so softly: in all my campaigns under the cardinal, in all my fighting under the winged-horse at Rome, and the Maltese flag, I never encountered an adventure equal to it!"
"Under the Maltese flag? Against the Turks, I presume?"
"Basta! ay, and Corsairs of Barbary, pirates of Greece, and, lastly, Frenchmen. You are aware that three months after the soldiers of Napoleon captured that solitary rock, where the banner of the true faith had waved so long, the hereditary vassals of the order, irritated by the tyranny of his general, Vaubois, rose in arms: with a few knights of the old Italian langue, I hastened to put myself at their head, and assist in the expulsion of those irreligious invaders. Ha! then we had something like war. The gates of Valetta, and the other cities of the isle, were shut, and their blockaded garrison reduced to the utmost famine and distress. Then ensued that long and bloody siege which lasted for two years; during which time more than twenty thousand soldiers perished by the sword or starvation. As the great master spirit of those military operations, I was in my glory; and was full of fervour, rapture, and extasy at the prospect of once more establishing my order. No pilgrim, on first beholding the holy city from afar, ever experienced the glow of indescribable feeling which possessed me, when the fleet of Portugal, sent by Lord Nelson to our assistance, burst joyously on my gaze; as the gallant ships, with their frowning tiers of artillery, their standards streaming, and white canvass swelling in the breeze, steered round the promontory, and opened their broadsides against the castle of St. Elmo. O, hour of joy! I kissed my sword, and raised my hands to the blue sky above me, in thankfulness. Lastly came the fleets of Britain and Sicily; after which the fortresses surrendered, and the soldiers of Vaubois, marching to the sea-shore, threw down their arms. All the treasured hopes, the glowing thoughts of years, were about to be accomplished: I stepped forward to receive the sword of the general; judge of my wrath, when Lord Nelson anticipated me; bowing low, Vaubois presented his sword by the hilt, and the admiral immediately handed it to a short squat fellow, a sailor, who stood behind; and who, with the most provoking indifference and sang froid, put it under his arm with those of other officers, as he received them in succession."
Castelermo heaved a deep sigh, paused, and then continued:—
"I had in my hands the same consecrated standard which Ximenes, our most illustrious grandmaster, had, in better days, unfurled against the infidels of Algeria; I was about to hoist it on the ramparts of Valetta, and at the point of the sword claim the Isle in the name of the knights of St. John of Jerusalem, when, lo! the British flag was hoisted on the turrets of St. Elmo: a cold shivering seized my frame, while my heart glowed with honest indignation at the grasping nature of England. Slowly the flag ascended, unrolling its gaudy crosses to the breeze, when the cheers of the troops, mingling with those of our fickle and perfidious vassals, were echoed back by the shipping of the allies in our harbour, and the Sicilians thundered a salute from the bastions of Ricasoli. I thought of old Villiers de l'Isle Adam, of Diomedes, of John de Valette, and the glories that had passed away for ever. Sick at heart, and disgusted with the world, I tossed into the sea beneath me the banner of Ximenes, and sheathing my sword, quitted for ever the Isle of Malta: where for two long years I had fought, toiled, and bled; animated by the proud and chivalric hope, that by restoring to its pristine grandeur the order of St. John, I should live in story, like those brave warriors who shine In the glowing pages of Vertot. But, alas! we are falling now, as the Templars fell of old."
I never interrupted him: the departed glories of his order formed a sad but favourite theme, and he continued to dwell upon it until we arrived at Reggio. The white houses of the town, the undulating hills, palm-groves, and orangeries, formed a very agreeable landscape, sloping down to the glassy bosom of the dark blue ocean.
"And this is Rhegium, so celebrated in the history of the past."
"Where guilty Circe trod the waves with feet unwetted, and where the wild warriors of Barbarossa gave all to fire and sword," said the cavaliere, as we rode over ground strewed with ruins, now rapidly becoming hidden under luxuriant masses of ivy and vine. "These shattered walls bear traces of the great earthquake of 1783; which will never be forgotten until some still greater calamity overwhelms all Calabria with destruction and horror."