CIIAP. IV.]

ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM.

57

doubled from that former repulse, the enemy re-turned, with a body of mariners to reinforce them,and all they had of art and talent, and battered ourrising edifice, and threw down some of our un-finished constructions with those huge cannons.But with celerity did we rebuild what they hadthrown down.

“They then,toendthe business, prepared adequatelyshaped triremes and corresponding munitions, andwith ingenuity added certain transports in the guiseof ships of war (called parendarias in common par-lance), laden with heavy artillery and stone, inorder to establish themselves on the mole, wherethe tower had stood, and annoy the city from thatposition, destroy, make a breach, take it by storm.They also bring a cloud of flat-bottom boats, fromwhich some of the boldest of them descend easily onthe mole; and with admirable artifice determine toraise a swimming bridge, to pass thither acrossfrom St. Anthony’s church . 1 But we suspecting it,for many days and nights ever since that firstattempt, had laboured with all our strength, mentaland physical, and been adding fortification uponfortification, and men and stores of every de-

1 TJn pont de boetes et tonneaulx et par dessus clouer tables,plancbes aix et aultres cboses . . . depuis l’Eglise St. Antboinejusques ala tour St. Nicholas,—Mary Dupuis, 607.