As, in spite of the truce, the Turkish corsairs made continual descents upon the island, the grand master dispatched his galleys to the Ottoman shores, and inflicted a series of reprisals. These so aroused the anger of Mahomet II., that he swore to drive the knights of Rhodes right out of the island. With this purpose he organized an expedition, and entrusted its command to Misach Paleologus, a Greek renegade of the imperial household, who had been appointed grand vizier by the sultan, and who was continually urging his master to take possession of Rhodes. A hundred and sixty vessels of war and an army of a hundred thousand men arrived off Rhodes on the 23rd of May, 1480. The Turkish fleet endeavoured, under cover of the fire of their artillery, to effect the disembarcation of their troops, while the knights of the order, supported by the guns of the town and its forts, waded up to their waists in the sea and attacked the Ottoman boats sword in hand. [Illustration: Fig. 140.--Plan of the Island of Rhodes.--Reduced Fac-simile of one of the large Topographical Plans in the “Saintes Pérégrinations de Hiérusalem,” by Breydenhach; in folio, with copperplate figures: Lyons, 1488. (Library of M. Ambr. Firmin-Didot.)] The infidels at last succeeded in making good their landing, and entrenched themselves on Mount St. Stephen. After the knights had been vainly summoned to surrender, a German engineer who had accompanied Paleologus, and who was the superintendent of the siege operations, advised the latter to concentrate his attack on the tower of St. Nicholas, the capture of which would be certain to make him master of the place. After more than three hundred discharges of cannon a breach was effected, and the Turks rushed to the assault. Pierre d’Aubusson, grand prior of Auvergne, recently elected grand master, stood aloft in the breach and set an example of the highest courage to his knights: “Here,” said he, “is the only post of honour worthy of your grand master.” Exasperated by such an energetic resistance, the vizier determined to rid himself by foul means of Pierre d’Aubusson; but an engineer who had undertaken the treacherous commission was detected, and torn in pieces by the inhabitants of Rhodes on his way to the scaffold.