64 THE HISTORY OF THE ORDER OF [book IV.

then a whole line of men fall, some of them killed,and all wounded.

At sunrise, up sprang a furious dissonance ofcannonading from the batteries and ravelin, forabout an hour, making the earth tremble, and thesea. Nor was it an exaggeration, but sad reality.It lay before their eyes. Then, and during thewhole siege, many lives were saved by having peoplewho attended to nothing else than at the smoke ofthe priming of the cannon, to shout out; at whichcry every one threw himself on his face until theball passed. Yet this at present was only theharbinger of a stately pomp, since advanced a bodyof eight thousand Turkish horse, led by Mustapha,with the great standard confided to him at Con-stantinople by Solyman’s own hands; and it wasnow planted in face of the chief bridge before St.Elmo’s principal front—signal for the assault gene-ral, which Eguaras, Mas, Miranda, and the newgovernor Montserrat prepared to withstand valiantly;and our garrison too, which those late reinforce-ments had restored nearly to its proper number, alleminently brave. Then, and in subsequent conflicts,a knight was put between every three men, toobserve these, and make them do their duty. Threecorps of aid stood under Miranda, Eguaras, and Mont-serrat. Heaps of heavy stones lay arranged along