For three days twenty-six guns kept up the bombardment, and on the early morning of June 22 another grand assault was made. Three times repulsed and three times renewed, the attack failed in the end, and the handful of surviving Knights was left at nightfall in possession of their ruins. All attempts during the night to send reinforcements failed under the fire of Dragut's new batteries, and La Valette saw that his men were beyond all hope of rescue. The sixty shattered survivors prepared for death; worn out, they betook themselves at midnight to their little chapel, where they confessed and received the Eucharist for the last time. Dawn found them waiting, even to the wounded, who had been placed in chairs sword in hand to receive the last onslaught. Incredible as it may appear, the first assault was driven back, but the attack finally broke up the defence, and, with the exception of a few Maltese who escaped by swimming, the garrison perished to a man. June 24, St. John the Baptist's Day, was one of sorrow inside the beleaguered fortress. The Turks had soiled their victory by mutilating their dead foes and throwing them into the Grand Harbour; La Valette took reprisals, and from that time neither side thought of quarter. Nor were the besiegers greatly elated; the tiny Fort of St. Elmo had delayed them for five weeks and had cost them 8,000 men and their best general. The Order had lost 1,300 men, of whom 130 were Knights, and the disparity of the losses shows the impatience and recklessness of the Turkish attacks. Mustapha now transferred the main part of his army to the other side of the Grand Harbour, and, drawing a line of entrenchments along the heights on its eastern side, succeeded in investing completely the two peninsulas of Senglea and Il Borgo. Batteries were established and a constant bombardment commenced, the main target being Fort St. Michael at the end of Senglea, on which a converging fire was brought to bear. Unable to bring his fleet into the Grand Harbour under the guns of St. Angelo, Mustapha had eighty galleys dragged across the neck of Mount Sceberras and launched on the upper waters of the Grand Harbour. This was a blow to the besieged, as it meant an attack by sea as well as by land, and La Valette made all the preparations possible to meet the danger. Along the south-west side of Senglea, where the beach is low, he constructed, with the aid of his Maltese divers, a very firm and powerful stockade to prevent the enemy galleys from running ashore, and he also linked up Il Borgo and Senglea with a floating bridge.