by G. A. Henty
“Also order me some wine and food, Sir John; I have touched nothing save water for twenty-four hours, and before that fasted somewhat strictly.”
By the time Gervaise’s wounds, which were not severe, had been bandaged, and he had eaten a hasty meal, the galley was alongside the mole, between the two harbours.
He was provided with some clothes, and went with Sir John straight to the English auberge, where the knight insisted that he should at once lie down.
“I will report your return to D’Aubusson, and will tell him it is by my orders that you are resting. Your wounds are not very deep, but you must have lost a good deal of blood, and were you to exert yourself now, and be pestered with questions, it would probably bring on an attack of fever. There is nothing to do at present, for it must be some days before they can land and bring up their guns.”
Gervaise obeyed the orders not unwillingly, for he felt that he was really weak, and was greatly worn out by want of sleep. Sir John Kendall, at Boswell’s request, issued orders that he was on no account whatever to be disturbed, and that no one was to enter his room unless he sounded the bell placed by the bedside. Gervaise indeed, falling off to sleep a few minutes after he had lain down, did not awake until the following morning. Having no idea that he had slept more than two or three hours, he sounded the bell in order to inquire whether Ralph had returned to the auberge. He was surprised to find his friend had just risen, and that he himself had been asleep some eighteen hours!
A few minutes later Ralph hurried into the room.
“Thank God that you are back again, Gervaise!” he said, as he grasped the hand of his friend. “I did not return until late in the evening, having been at work with a large body of slaves at the fortifications; and you may guess what joy I felt at the news. You are changed a good deal.”
“I don’t suppose you will think so at the end of a day or two, Ralph. I lost a good deal of blood yesterday, and have been on short rations; but I shall very soon pick up again.”
“They will bring you some broth and wine directly, Gervaise. Early as it is, the grand master has already sent down to inquire as to your health.”
“I will reply in person as soon as I have had a meal and dressed.”
“And I suppose we must all wait to hear what you have been doing until you return, Gervaise?”
“I suppose so, Ralph. Of course it is a long story; but I must tell you at once that there is nothing very exciting in it, and that it differed little from that of others who have been prisoners among the Moors, save that I was strangely fortunate, and suffered no hardships whatever. And now I want to ask you about clothes. Have my things been sold, or are they still in the store?”
“No; the question was raised but a short time since. It was mooted, by the way, by that old enemy of yours, Robert Rivers, who returned here some three months ago with a batch of knights from the English commanderies. Sir John Boswell answered him roundly, I can tell you, and said that they should be kept, were it for another fifty years, for that he would wager his life that you would sooner or later make your escape.”
“I am sorry that fellow has returned, Ralph. Has he got a commandery yet?”
“No; I believe that Sir John Kendall sent home so bad a report of him, that even the great influence of his family has not sufficed to obtain his appointment, and that he has been merely the assistant at one of the smaller manors. Sir John Boswell told me in confidence that he understood that Rivers did not at first volunteer to come out in response to the appeal of the grand master, but that the grand prior informed him that unless he took this opportunity of retrieving his character, he might give up all hope of ever obtaining advancement. Ah, here is your breakfast.”
An hour later Gervaise presented himself at the palace, clothed in the suit of armour that had been given to him by Genoa. Although he was engaged with several members of the council at the time, the grand master ordered him to be at once admitted as soon as he heard that he was in attendance.
“Welcome back, Sir Gervaise Tresham,” he said warmly, as he entered. “We all rejoice greatly at your return, and I consider it a happy omen for the success of our defence that so brave and distinguished a knight should at the last moment have arrived to take a share in it.”
The others present all shook Gervaise cordially by the hand, and congratulated him on his return.
“You must dine with me this evening,” D’Aubusson went on, “and tell us the story of your captivity and escape. At present, as you may suppose, we have too many matters on hand to spare time for aught that is not pressing and important. You will need a few days’ rest before you are fit for active service, and by that time we will settle as to what post will best suit you.”
Twice that day had Gervaise to recount his adventures, the first time to Sir John Kendall and the knights of his auberge, the second to the grand master. Most of the leading members of the Order were assembled at the palace, and, among others, he was introduced to the Viscount de Monteuil, the elder brother of D’Aubusson, one of the most famous leaders of the day. He had brought with him a considerable body of retainers, and, although not a member of the Order, had offered his services in defence of the town. The council had gratefully accepted the offer, and had unanimously named him Commander of the Forces. Many other knights and soldiers had come from different parts of Europe, animated alike by the desire to aid in the defence of Christendom against the advance of the Moslems, and to gain credit and honour by taking part in a siege that was sure to be a desperate one.
“My brother has already spoken of you to me, Sir Gervaise,” the viscount said, when the young knight was presented to him; “although indeed there was no occasion for him to do so, since the name of the knight who two years ago saved the commerce of Italy from ruin, and with a single galley destroyed or captured a great fleet of over twenty Barbary pirates, and thus for a time put a stop to the depredations of the infidels, is known throughout Europe. By the way, I am the bearer of a message to you. I took ship at Genoa on my way hither, and stayed two or three days there while she was being got ready for sea. Knowing that I was bound hither, a certain very beautiful young lady of noble family, to whom I had the honour of being introduced, prayed me that if you should by any chance have escaped from captivity—and she said that she was convinced that you would, when you heard that Rhodes was threatened, assuredly endeavour to escape and to come hither to take a share in the defence—I was to tell you that she trusted you still bore her gage, and that she, on her part, had held fast to the promise she made you.”
“I still have her gage, Viscount; for though I was for a long time deprived of it, I succeeded in regaining it when I made my escape,” Gervaise said quietly; and De Monteuil at once turned the conversation to another topic.
Gervaise found that no attempt was to be made to take the offensive against the Turks, and that they were to be permitted to advance against the city without interference. Many of the more fiery spirits among the knights chafed at this prohibition. The records of the past showed that armies as large as that of Mahomet had suffered defeat at the hands of bodies of knights no stronger than that gathered for the defence of Rhodes. D’Aubusson, however, knew that between the undisciplined hordes that gathered in countless numbers to oppose the crusaders, and the troops of Mahomet, well trained in warfare, who had borne his standard victoriously in numerous battles, there was but little comparison. They were commanded, too, by Paleologus, a general of great capacity. Under such circumstances, although victory might be possible, the chances of defeat would be far greater, and while victory could be only won at a great sacrifice of life, defeat would mean annihilation to the garrison, and the loss of the city upon whose fortifications such an enormous amount of money and labour had been expended.
On the other hand, he felt perfectly confident that the city could be successfully defended, and that at a cost of life far less than would be attained by a victory in the open field, while the blow that would be inflicted upon
the prestige and power of the enemy, by being ignominiously compelled to retire to their ships, after the failure of all their attacks, would be as great as if their army had been defeated in the field. Therefore the grand master, with the full assent of his leaders, turned a deaf ear to the entreaties of the younger knights, that they might be allowed to make a sortie. He calmly waited behind the formidable defences he had for the past ten years been occupied in perfecting, in anticipation of the assault of the Moslem host.
Accordingly, after disembarking at their leisure, the Turkish army moved forward, and took their post upon St. Stephen’s Hill. From this eminence they commanded a full view of the town, the hills sloping gently down to the foot of the walls. In later times the first care of a general commanding the defence would have been to construct formidable works upon this commanding position. But the cannon of that period were so cumbrous and slowly worked, and so inaccurate in their aim, that the advantage of occupying a position that would prevent an enemy from firing down into a town was considered to be more than counterbalanced by the weakening of the garrison by the abstraction of the force required to man the detached work, and by the risk of their being surrounded and cut off without the garrison of the town being able to aid them.
That the defence of St. Stephen’s Hill was considered unnecessary for the safety of Rhodes is shown by the fact that no attempt had been made to fortify it when, forty years later, the Moslems again besieged the city.
There was no shadow of apprehension felt by the garrison of Rhodes as the great array of their foes was seen moving on to the hill, and preparing to pitch its camp. On the summit was the great tent of the pasha; round this were the marquees of the other commanders, while the encampments of the troops stretched far away along the upper slopes of the hill.
Previous to the despatch of the expedition, the sultan had made preparations for aiding his arms by treachery. The agent he had sent to propose a temporary truce had, during his stay on the Island, made himself thoroughly acquainted with the outline of the works. A very accurate plan of them had also been obtained from an inhabitant of Rhodes, who had abandoned Christianity and taken service with the Turks.
In addition to this he had arranged with a renegade German, known as Maitre Georges, a man of very great ability as an artilleryman and engineer, to desert to the city, and there do all in his power to assist the besiegers, both by affording them information and by giving bad advice to the besieged. On the day after Paleologus, who was himself a renegade Greek, had established his camp, he sent in a herald to summon the city to surrender, at the same time making lavish promises that the lives and property of the native population should be respected, and that they should be allowed to continue to reside there, to enjoy the full exercise of their religion and of all other rights they possessed. The pasha had no real hope that the knights would obey the summons, but he thought that he might excite a spirit of disaffection among the townspeople that would, when the crisis came, greatly hamper the efforts of the defenders.
The Rhodians, however, were well satisfied with the rule of the Order. The knights, although belonging to the Catholic Church, had allowed the natives of the Island, who were of the Greek faith, perfect freedom in the exercise of their religion, and their rule, generally, had been fair and just. The wealth and prosperity of the Island had increased enormously since their establishment there, and the population had no inclination whatever to change their rule for that of the Turks. The summons to surrender being refused, the enemy made a reconnaissance towards the walls.
D’Aubusson had no longer any reason for checking the ardour of the knights, and a strong body of horsemen, under the command of De Monteuil, sallied out and drove the Turks back to their camp.
Maitre Georges, who was acting as the military adviser of the pasha, saw at once that the weakest point of the defence was Fort St. Nicholas, at the extremity of the mole along the neck of land dividing the outer from the inner port. At a short distance away, on the opposite side of the port, stood the church of St. Anthony, and in the gardens of the church a battery was at once erected. The garden was but three hundred yards from St. Nicholas, and the danger that would arise from the construction of the battery was at once perceived, and an incessant fire opened upon it from the guns on the wall round the grand master’s palace. Numbers of the workmen were killed, but the erection of the battery was pushed on night and day, and ere long three of the immense cannon that had been brought from Constantinople,—where sixteen of them had been cast under the direction of Maitre Georges—were placed in position. These cannon were eighteen feet in length, and carried stone balls of some twenty-six inches in diameter.
Before these were ready to open fire, Gervaise had entirely regained his health and strength. The grand master, being unwilling to appoint him to a separate command over the heads of knights many years his senior, had attached him to his person in the capacity of what would now be called an aide-de-camp.
“I know, Gervaise, that I can rely upon your coolness and discretion. I cannot be everywhere myself, and I want you to act as my eyes in places where I cannot be. I know that the knights, so far as bravery and devotion are concerned, will each and every one do his best, and will die at their posts before yielding a foot; but while fighting like paladins they will think of naught else, and, however hardly pressed, will omit to send to me for reinforcements. Nay, even did they think of it, they probably would not send, deeming that to do so would be derogatory, and might be taken as an act of cowardice. Now, it is this service that I shall specially look for from you. When a post is attacked, I shall, when my presence is required elsewhere, send you to represent me. I do not, of course, wish you to interfere in any way in the conduct of the defence, in which you will take such share as you can; but you are specially to observe how matters go, and if you see that the knights are pressed and in sore need of assistance to enable them to hold the post, you will at once bring the news to me, and I will hurry there with reinforcements.”
No post could have been more in accordance with the desire of Gervaise, for the portion of the wall defended by the English langue was far removed from the point selected by the Turks for their first attack, the sea front being defended half by the langue of Italy, and half by that of Castile. Fort St. Nicholas was under the command of the Cavalier Caretto, and as soon as the Turkish battery was completed, Gervaise went down there with an order from the grand master that he was for the present to consider himself as forming part of the garrison. This was pleasant for both Caretto and himself, for the Italian knight had conceived a strong friendship for the young Englishman, and had rejoiced greatly at his return from captivity, but had been so much occupied with his duty of placing the castle in all respects in a state of defence, that he had had no opportunity for a private conversation with him since his return to Rhodes.
Gervaise, on his part, was no less pleased. Caretto had shown so much tact after his release from the Moors, and had so willingly aided him in any capacity allotted to him, without in the slightest degree interposing his council unasked, that Gervaise had come to like him greatly, even before their arrival at Genoa. Circumstances there had brought them closely together, and their friendship had been cemented during their voyage to Rhodes. Caretto had gone back to Italy, where he had a commandery, a few days after Gervaise had sailed on his last voyage, and had only returned to Rhodes three months before Gervaise escaped from captivity.
“This is turning the tables,” Caretto said, with a laugh, when Gervaise presented the grand master’s order. “I was under your command last time, and now it seems that you are to be under mine. I suppose you applied to come here, in order to have a fresh opportunity of distinguishing yourself. I heard that you had been placed on D’Aubusson’s own staff.”
“Yes, and am on it still; and it is by his orders and not by my own solicitation that I am here. I will tell you what my duties are. The grand master knows the commanders of posts have their hands so full that they will have no
time for sending complete reports to him, and he considers, moreover, that they might, in some cases, however pressed, hesitate to ask for aid until too late for reinforcements to be brought up. My duty will be to let the grand master know how matters are going, and to send to him at once if it seems to me that help is needed. I should, of course, always send for reinforcements, at the request of a commander; but it is only in the event of his being too busy in the heat of the fray to think of aught but resisting an attack, that I should exercise my own judgment in the matter.”
Caretto nodded.
“It is a good thought of D’Aubusson’s. When one is in the thick of a fight in a breach, with the Moslems swarming round, it does not occur to one to draw out of the fray to send off messages. For myself, I shall be glad indeed to have that matter off my mind, though it is not every one I should care to trust with such a responsibility. Some might send off for aid when it was not needed, others might delay so long that help might come too late; but with one so cool headed as yourself I should not fear any contingency. And now, as I am not busy at present, let us have a comfortable talk as to what has happened since we met last. I was at the banquet at the grand master’s on the night when you related your adventures. You had certainly much to tell, but it seems to me for some reason or other you cut short certain details, and I could not see why, as there seemed no prospect of escape open to you, you did not accept the offer of Suleiman Ali to ransom you.”
“I saw no chance of escape at the moment, but I did not doubt that I could get away from the town whenever I chose, although it was not clear how I should proceed afterwards. It was for this opportunity I was waiting, and I felt sure that, with my knowledge of the language, it would come sooner or later. In the next place, my captors had fixed an exorbitant sum for my ransom, and I did not wish to impose upon the generosity of Suleiman. There was another reason—a private one.”
