214 THE HISTORY OF THE ORDER OF [book hi.

exceptions, and some dreaded the duplicity of theTurk, and to trust themselves to his tender mercies,and (as is usual with the brave) preferred danger,and that the enemy should have a sanguinary vic-tory. And one young man, full of fire and resolu-tion, and the boldness of a juvenile spirit, and theinspiration of what he thought his last moments, inpresence of the circle of the citizens, faced the grandmaster, and with most animated audacity: “ 0gentlemen, and people, it is indeed my first speech,but we have to do with a most perfidious tyrant. Heis within our walls, three hundred feet. Our guest,breathing and conversing with us under the sameroof. Not content with so hateful a neighbour, sodangerous a stranger, must we give him up all ourhouse? As for me, I am of a quite differentopinion. Forty days has he been guilty of thistrespass, and to above one hundred and seventypaces; and now do you want us to invite hisfarther advance? If we be with the slightest re-miniscence of our former heroism, we will suffer nosuch thing. May the divine ire plunge me intoeternal perdition, rather than allow me with theseeyes to see the sacred Knights of St. John deliverup Rhodes, this ancient bulwark of the Christianreligion, to the worst of the impious Mahometans—contaminated with every vice, and who thirst for