94 THE HISTORY OF THE ORDER OF [book IV.

to intimidate us and ours, an immensity of Moslemscovering all Scheb-Erras, marched down to the sea-side; sure sign the assaults were at hand. Thewhole night was devoted, by the grand master, tovisiting all his posts ; yet the next day had nearlypassed, when suddenly an attack was made on thepost of Castille ; and a huge red banner on a golden-headed pole, with a horse-tail flying at its end, wasplanted on its bastion, that most people thoughtBorgo taken; but not at all. The grand master,unarmed, and talking in the square, quietly tookhis helmet from his page, and putting it on hishead, advanced thither with a lance that some oneput in his hand. Nothing could stop him; noteven the revered prayers of one of the chief dig-nitaries of his order. And hastening to the bastion,where seven soldiers had just been slain by onecannon ball, he placed himself among the pikemen,at the breach, just like a private; and seemed tothink on nothing but doing his duty as such . 1

And the urgency gone, he established his resi-dence at that bastion, nor were any intercessionsof his knights, repeating Toledo’s maxim, able tochange his continuing there for the rest of the siege,declaring no other spot so especially becoming him,and that he much preferred a death honour, in com-1 Bosio : par. iii. 638.