CHAP. II.]

ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM.

73

their sufferings, or rather they prized them veryhighly, and were quite gay and hopeful, and told thegrand master’s messenger they could hold on still;although that knight saw how certain and proxi-mate was their ruin, and that they perceived it aswell as he; nor was his own coming and returningwithout excessive danger. For coming, his com-panion sitting next him had his head swept away bya cannon ball, and in returning one of his rowerswas shot dead by a harquebussade.

Yaletta himself was astonished at the eagerness ofhis knights to be appointed to that most forlorn post.In the second assault general two hundred of thatmale garrison were stretched corpses ; whom theircompanions, little by little, had removed a fewpaces inward from the parapets. It was all theycould do; wounded and weary, more was im-possible.

Except that after reposing some moments, theywere able to join in shouting Victory! victory!joyously; yet with something of the solemn was itheard at Borgo, which knew the cry of that voice.

“ Promptitude, or St. Elmo is totally gone; fortwo-thirds are killed, and not one of the restunwounded, and so tired, that they scarcely exist.Yet at daybreak comes the third assault general.”Such the tidings in a letter brought towards