Dragut did not approve of having begun with attacking Fort St. Elmo; he
thought that the inland towns should have been first taken, and Mustafa
offered to discontinue the attack, but this the Corsair said could not
now be done with honor, and under him the attack went on more furiously
than ever. He planted a battery of four guns on the point guarding the
entrance of Marza Muscat, the other gulf, and the spot has ever since
been called Dragut's Point. Strange to say, the soldiers in the ravelin
fell asleep, and thus enabled the enemy to scramble up by climbing on
one another's shoulders and enter the place. As soon as the alarm was
given, the Bailiff of Negropont, with a number of knights, rushed into
the ravelin, and fought with the utmost desperation, but all in vain;
they never succeeded in dislodging the Turks, and had almost been
followed by them into the Fort itself. Only the utmost courage turned
back the enemy at last, and, it was believed, with a loss of 3,000. The
Order had twenty knights and a hundred soldiers killed, with many more
wounded. One knight named Abel de Bridiers, who was shot through the
body, refused to be assisted by his brethren, saying, 'Reckon me no more
among the living. You will be doing better by defending our brothers.'
He dragged himself away, and was found dead before the altar in the
Castle chapel. The other wounded were brought back to the Borgo in boats
at night, and La Cerda availed himself of a slight scratch to come with
them and remain, though the Bailiff of Negropont, a very old man, and
with a really severe wound, returned as soon as it had been dressed,
together with the reinforcements sent to supply the place of those
who had been slain. The Grand Master, on finding how small had been La
Cerda's hurt, put him in prison for several days; but he was afterwards
released, and met his death bravely on the ramparts of the Borgo.
The 15th of June was passed. Nothing would make the Sicilian Viceroy
move, nor even let the warships of the Order sail with their own
knights, and the little fort that had been supposed unable to hold out a
week, had for full a month resisted every attack of the enemy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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