The Story of Malta. Ballou Maturin MurrayЧитать онлайн книгу.
corsair of his day, yet preserved some chivalrous instincts which were exhibited on occasion. A gallant saying, which is often attributed to others, was first uttered by him, if we may believe contemporary authority. It was at the time when the Turkish forces, with whom Dragut had joined in the attempt to take Malta, after struggling for months in the vain endeavor to capture the fort of St. Elmo, were engaged in the last decisive assault. The pirate, now advanced in years, lay sorely wounded and dying, when he asked the surgeon, who was by his side, "How goes the battle?" "Our soldiers have taken the fort and massacred its defenders," was the reply. "Allah be praised!" gasped the sinking corsair, "then I die content." These were his last words. Dragut was very humbly born, beginning his profession as a common seaman, at the lowest round of the ladder, that is, as cabin boy. His fortune was a strangely varied one, now a galley slave, now a soldier in the Sultan's service, now a pilot on the sea, and now a daring pirate, working his way upward by patient determination, until finally he stood as master upon the deck of his own galley, and was the terror of these seas. It was not long before he became admiral of the entire Turkish navy. Dragut had pursued his piratical and warlike career for nearly half a century. He possessed executive qualities which fitted him to act both as an admiral and as a general, a large share of his victories having been achieved upon the land. He had agreed with the Sultan of Turkey to join forces with him in the attack upon Malta, but was delayed for a few days, so the Sultan's commander began the siege without him. Mustafa Pasha made a bad piece of business of it, and did not open his attack with true soldierly skill. When Dragut arrived, important changes were promptly made, and it was while directing these movements that the famous corsair received his death wound.
We have seen that the organization of St. John did not confine itself to warfare upon the land; many of the order were trained seamen, and were always ready to take the aggressive in marine enterprises when occasion offered. The strict vows of the brotherhood compelled the members to wage ceaseless warfare against the infidels. This was the most clearly defined and determined of their purposes, in the prosecution of which they adhered tenaciously to the last. In these sea fights their well-known courage, superior weapons, and persistency nearly always insured success. Their galleys, well equipped for that period, were held in readiness for service, moored in the land-locked creeks of Grand Harbor. These were efficient vessels for the immediate service they were designed to serve. They were over one hundred feet in length and twenty-five wide, being propelled by oars or sails, according to the wind. The sails were not designed for use unless the wind was aft, as the art of tacking and sailing to windward was not then practiced. Fifty oars, that is, twenty-five on a side, was a common arrangement, and there were from three to six galley slaves at each oar, according to the size of the vessel. These men were chained in their places, and if they did not work to the satisfaction of the boatswain, the lash fell without mercy upon their bare backs. A galley was rigged with two masts, upon each of which a large square sail was hoisted. When the oars were in use, these sails were clewed up. Several cannon were fitted to each side, and one was designed to fire from the stern; but when in action, the usual plan was to ram the enemy's craft, and thus disable him, or, by boarding, to effect a capture in a hand-to-hand fight. The half-naked, half-starved slaves often dropped dead at the oars, and were ruthlessly cast into the sea. No more cruel punishment could be inflicted upon a criminal than to condemn him to the life of an oarsman in the galleys.
There is probably no more striking and significant example of the material progress of the times than that afforded by contrasting the iron-clad warship of to-day with a fighting caravel of the period of which we are speaking.
Contrary to what might reasonably be supposed, the people who lived upon the shores of the Mediterranean did not build vessels which were at all comparable in general excellence with those constructed by the Northmen at the same period. The galleons used by the Greeks, Turks, and Algerines, as well as by the Knights of St. John, were awkward and unwieldy; their hulls represented no true lines of nautical beauty or usefulness. They were not seaworthy, as the term is usually applied. When the weather was severe, the vessel was always anchored under the lee of the nearest land, or was put into some sheltered bay. These vessels carried far too much top hamper, and exposed too much surface to the wind, to be safe when a storm raged. Their free board was enormous, compared with their draught. The author has seen at Christiania, in Sweden, the hull of an ancient war craft which was dug out of the clayey soil of the country, where it had been preserved for centuries, that antedated these galleons used by the Knights at Rhodes and at Malta, it having been built at least nine hundred years ago. Its lines and construction combined three important qualities, storage capacity, buoyancy, and speed, and it was intended to lie low in the water, thus presenting but small surface to a storm on the ocean. Not one of these characteristics could be claimed for the galleys of this inland sea. The latter were crude, top-heavy, with high-curved poop and stern, and designed only for fair weather service, while the northern-made craft could ride out the fiercest storm in safety when properly managed, and were built for open ocean navigation. In fact, this model, still to be seen at the Museum in Christiania, is such as bore the Northmen across the Atlantic to our shores, centuries before the time of Columbus, whose discoveries we commemorate. The naval branch of the Order of St. John was originated soon after their expulsion from Jerusalem, and was rapidly developed while they occupied the island of Rhodes, but it did not reach its highest efficiency until after their settlement at Malta, where the situation of the island and its extraordinary harbor facilities particularly favored maritime enterprise. There they built many armed galleys, though all the material which entered into their construction was necessarily imported. There was no available wood to be found upon the island, except that which was brought from the mainland of Italy. A people entirely surrounded by water naturally came to be good boat and ship builders, and the galleons produced during the sovereignty of the Knights showed great improvement, and were famous for their staunch character compared with those of their neighbors. These vessels, however, would be considered nothing less than marine monstrosities in our day.
The galleys of the Knights did not remain long idle. When a restless spirit moved their owners, they promptly set sail for the coast of Barbary, where, surprising some unprotected settlement, they burned the place to the ground, enslaving those whose lives they spared. If there were any high officials among their prisoners, or persons of special importance, such were held for ransom. If the payment demanded for their release did not come promptly, they too became common slaves and worked with the rest at the trying galley oars. This service, if they were not in good health and strength, soon put an end to their lives. Such were the deeds of professed Christians, who, in their ignorant and bigoted zeal, actually seem to have thought themselves to be serving God by robbing, destroying, and enslaving those whom they called infidels. In the light which comes to us through the long ages, we can see another and baser motive which must have actuated these monkish freebooters, namely, the desire for plunder and to kill, "an appetite which grows by what it feeds upon." Though they tempered their piratical career with deeds of chivalry and the outward forms of religious devotion, they were none the less blood-seeking corsairs. The red flag would have been more appropriate at the masthead of their vessels than the eight-pointed cross of St. John. The spirit which had originally given birth to the order – then well named Hospitallers – had long since been lost sight of. In Jerusalem, Turk and Pilgrim alike shared their hospitality, and their model was that of the Good Samaritan. Alas, for the degeneracy that followed!
The conflict as carried on for centuries by both the Christians and the Mohammedans was equally characterized by diabolical cruelty, while tinctured by a spirit of blind fanaticism and religious frenzy. On the part of the Turks this was a genuine instinct, since they could not expect, even in the event of victory, to realize anything by way of remunerative plunder. In regard to the Knights, everything goes to show, as we have already declared, that religion was used as a convenient cloak to cover up their questionable purposes. The candid student of history will, however, honestly admit that there were many and striking exceptions to this rule. Some of the Grand Masters were undoubtedly sincere, though they were grossly bigoted. Of this, L'Isle Adam and La Vallette are striking examples.
Each fresh onslaught between the contending Christians and infidels led to increased bitterness and a desire for revenge. The terrible courage and indifference to death evinced by the followers of the crescent were more than matched by the cool, determined bravery of those who fought under the banner of the cross. Let the truth be frankly recorded. If the