had never before seen a shot fired: these men very soon mutinied and refused to fight any longer. Dragut became the autocrat of Tripoli, as his great predecessor Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa had been of Algiers: from hence, in the years that were to come before his death, he carried on his sleepless and unending warfare with his Christian foes, on whom he was destined to inflict another terrible defeat when they attacked this stronghold which he had made his own. Claude de la Sangle dying on August 18th, 1557, Jean Parisot de la Valette was chosen Grand Master of the Knights of Malta in his stead on August 21st of the same year. He was, as we have said before, in succession, soldier, captain, councillor, general, and Grand Cross; he was as wise in council as he was terrible in battle; he was as much esteemed by his brethren as he was feared by the infidel. Under his governorship “the Religion” regained the ancient authority which it had once possessed, especially in some of the German Provinces and in the Republic of Venice. So great was the influence of La Valette that he succeeded in making the “Languages” (or confederations of Knights) of Germany and Venice pay their “responsions,” which had been allowed to get into arrear. These “responsions” were a tax levied on the “Languages “ exclusively for the purpose of combatting the infidel, and La Valette brought all the firmness of his high character to bear, in order to induce these Knights to do what, he reminded them, was their simple and obvious duty. Fired by the highest conception of the office he had been called upon to execute, La Valette allowed none of those under his command to be slack in their performance of their duties. In him dwelt the real old crusading spirit. He saw life with the single eye, for that which was paramount was the utter destruction of the infidel. There are many men who have a high conception of duty; there are but few who can inspire those with whom they are brought in contact. Of these latter was Jean Parisot de la Valette; in him the pure flame of religious enthusiasm burnt with so clear a light as to act as an illuminant for the paths of others. In him dwelt that rare quality of lifting others almost to that plane on which he dwelt himself, of making men nobler and better almost in spite of themselves. So it was that, when La Valette stooped to remind others of his brother Knights that they owed money to the Order, that money was paid at once.