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garding those afflicted knights.’ Elsewhere economymight have been one reason for killing them; for ifthey lived, could it have been on air? And theywho were once so opulent, had now nothing; sothat Molay had not threepence to fee a lawyer todefend him. The scoundrels gave him leave tohave one, because they knew they had renderedhim unable to avail himself of it . 2 While such werethe nefarious transactions in Europe, Sir FulkVillaret had been accomplishing the conquest ofRhodes, rather I should say the liberation of itsnative Christian population from their lawlesstyrants, those Mahometan pirates. What becameof the Colossus of Rhodes? Nothing of it was left,the rocks telling where its feet had stood. Anearthquake threw it down, and its pieces remainedon the beach for about a century, until in an in-cursion of Arabs, a Jew bought the fragments ofbrass, and carried them away, nine hundred camelloads. Objections that it would have fallen intothe sea, savour of the hypercritical; for strangethings are brought about by earthquakes . 3 The

1 Cod. Dipl. Geros., ii., Hum. xxxiv.—Jlyrncr.—App., cxiii.

2 Seb. Paoli: Osservazioni, ii. 532.—Bosio: par. ii., lib. i.,anno 1307.—Yertot: iv. 126.

3 Anciently, to be a Bhodian was a distinction, and somecalled themselves such who had not been bom there. Bosio: par.ii., lib. i., anno 1309.

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