Great must have been the consternation of the Knights when the armada, commanded by Sinan Basha, appeared off their coasts, and bitter must have been the reflections of Juan d’Omedes, the Grand Master, who had all along contended that so formidable an expedition could not possibly be directed against Malta. The inhabitants of that island were, however, not left long in doubt, as Sinan, immediately on his arrival, entered the Grand Harbour, or “the Great Port,” as it was called in those days. Sinan, in his royal galley, led the way in, contemptuously assured of an easy victory over so insignificant a place of arms. He had his first rude awakening before he had traversed some quarter of a mile of the placid waters of the Great Port. The harbour, as is well known, though long, is very narrow, and, on the starboard hand of the Turkish galleys as they entered, the Commandeur de Guimeran, a Spanish Knight, had ambushed three hundred arquebusiers. As the galley of Sinan came abreast of the ambush, the Commandeur gave the order to fire. The volley at so close a range had a terrible effect, especially among the “chiourme,” or the slaves who rowed the galley, some hundred of whom were placed _hors de combat_. Sinan, in a furious rage, ordered an immediate disembarkment; but when his men landed and scaled the heights of Mount Sceberras (the elevated land on which the city of Valetta now stands) there was no one to be found, the Commandeur and the men who had formed the ambush having disappeared. Gazing from the heights at Il Borgo, the fortress on the opposite side of the harbour where the Knights then dwelt, Sinan demanded of Dragut, “If that,” pointing to the fortress, “was the place which he had told the Sultan could easily be taken?” Dragut, whom no peril ever daunted, coolly replied: “Certainly, no eagle ever built his nest on a rock more easy of access.”