Freed from all the trammels which bound the ordinary warrior of the day in which they lived, they were able, as we have seen, to go far; for the man in whom supreme ability is united to absolute unscrupulousness is the most dangerous foe of the human race. The despotism of the leaders among the sea-wolves was not theirs by right divine, as men considered it to be in the case of the Padishah; none the less in its practical application it was but little inferior to that wielded by the Sultan. For reasons of policy, the Sea-wolves allied themselves to the Grand Turk; for reasons of policy that monarch employed them and entrusted them with the conduct of important affairs. The bargain was really a good one on both sides; as to the sea-wolves was extended the ægis of one of the mightiest empires of the earth; while to the Sultan came “veritable men of the sea,” hardened in conflict, as fearless of responsibility as of aught else; capable in a sense that hardly any man could be capable who had grown up in the atmosphere of the court at Constantinople. To Kheyr-ed-Din the Sultan had extended his fullest confidence; he had been rewarded by seeing the renowned Doria forsake the field of battle at Prevesa, and by the perpetual slights and insults put upon his Christian foes by that great corsair. To Dragut he had now turned, and, as we have said, when Sinan Basha sailed from the Golden Horn he had orders to attempt nothing important without the advice of the corsair. It is impossible to say why the command-in-chief had not been entrusted to him, as the Sultan had the precedent of Kheyr-ed-Din upon which to go. It can only be conjectured that Soliman, having discovered how unpopular that appointment had been amongst his high officers, did not care to risk the experiment the second time; and in consequence employed Sinan. To this officer the aphorism of Seignelay applies in its fullest force. He was as brave a man as ever drew a sword in the service of his master; he was, however, a hesitating and incompetent leader, with one eye ever fixed on that distant palace on the shores of the Golden Horn in which dwelt the arbiter of his destiny and of all those who sailed beneath the banner of the Crescent. CHAPTER XVIII THE KNIGHTS OF ST. JOHN The Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem, afterwards known as the Knights of Rhodes, and eventually as the Knights of Malta—A brief sketch of the Order, including the relation of how Gozon de Dieu-Donné, subsequently Grand Master, slew the great Serpent of Rhodes; also some account of Jean Parisot de la Valette, forty-eighth Grand Master, who commanded at the Siege of Malta, in which the arms of Soliman the Magnificent were defeated after a siege lasting one hundred and thirteen days.