"Where shall we go first?" asked Liddon.
"Just show me one good cat—" began Bob, earnestly, "and I'll——"
"Oh drop your cats, Bob! Take us to the best view, to begin with, Liddon."
"Well, let's go up to Fort St. Elmo. That overlooks both harbour basins."
"Whew! Hot's the word!" exclaimed Bob Starr, wiping his brow as they gained the ramparts of the old fortress. "Now, while we are cooling off, tell us about this aged ruin which the Osprey could make over into cracked stone for a macadamised road in about five minutes."
"It isn't a ruin yet, young man," said the ensign, taking off his cap to enjoy the breeze, "and the Osprey's rifled four-inch would have to toss a good many shot up here to produce road material, I can tell you. But three hundred-and-odd years ago—in 1565, to be exact—this old fort held off a big fleet and land force for four months. The Knights of St. John defended it in great style. Sultan Solyman, who had driven the Knights from Rhodes thirty-four years before, made up his mind that Malta was too good for them. He brought about a hundred and forty vessels and an army of thirty-odd thousand men, to give them a thorough-going house-warming.
"Were there any cats—" began Starr; but the lecturer proceeded without noticing the interruption.
"These forces were reinforced, if I remember rightly"—(Cries of "Oh, you do! you do!" from the audience)—"were afterwards increased by a lot of corsairs from Algiers and pirates from Tripoli. When the fort seemed on the point of breaking up, after four months' battering, the few Knights that were left entered that little chapel over there, received the rites of the Church—the viaticum—and went out to start on their last journey. They were cut to pieces by the Turks; but two outworks still resisted and fought off the besiegers until help arrived from Sicily. Out of eight or nine thousand defenders, only six hundred were left to join in the Te Deum (you know the Knights were a religious order) as the Turks sailed off."
"O my, look at this!" Starr suddenly broke in. "Isn't she a dear!"