pomoerio tubarum clangore jubilant." The Turks are observed to perform various preparatory ceremonies, solemn lavations, prayers, and lustrations. They provide themselves with sacks to hold their plunder, and ropes to bind their captives. During the whole of the 26th of July and the following night an incessant fire was kept up against the whole of the Jews' quarter, aimed high, so as to prevent the knights from remaining upon or near the walls. Under cover of this fire, storming parties were brought up during the night close to the ditch, unobserved by those in the town. About an hour after sunrise, at a signal given by the firing of a mortar, with a sudden rush from their ambush they crossed the ditch, planted the standard of Mahomet on a tower, and occupied the wall, to the number of 2,500, before the besieged had time to come up from the terreplein below. Notwithstanding the divine instinct of their Grand Master, the knights had been taken by surprise. Their own batteries were in the hands of the enemy, and might be turned against themselves in a moment. They were obliged to mount their own walls by steep stairs and ladders, fighting desperately for each step in succession with the enemy who were already pouring down into the Jewish quarter. "Then might you have seen," says Dupuis, "faire de belles armes"-for they fought, as their Vice-Chancellor tells us, like the glorious Maccabees, or like Roman nobles, well deserving to be called PATRES PATRIE. The Grand Master was the first man to mount one of the stairs. He received five wounds, one of which was at first feared to be mortal, and was thrown down twice or thrice off the stair. At last, he and his followers regained the parapet, in spite of blows, darts, showers of stones and arrows, and there maintained the combat upon more equal terms. By this time the enemy had poured in through the breach in such numbers as to embarrass and disable themselves from sheer want of room. Not an inch of ground could be seen on the wall, ditch, or glacis, so thick was the crowd: the number of which was afterwards estimated at 40,000. After two hours of the hottest fighting the Turks gave way, seized (as is asserted) with a panic at the very moment of the Grand Master's displaying his banner, on which was painted the Crucifixion, with Our Lady on the one side the Cross, and St. John on the other. A report ("fama satis constans") was subsequently gathered from the deserters, that on the unfolding of this ensign, there appeared to the whole Turkish

army a vision in the air of a golden cross shining, a glorious virgin armed with shield and spear, and a man, clothed in a poor garment, but attended by crowds in glittering attire. Once seized with a panic, they allowed themselves to be "slaughtered like swine," without offering any defence. Many were thrown headlong into the Jewish quarter, and killed to a man. Those that were trying to enter by the breach met the terror-stricken fugitives from the walls, and struck at them "as if they were dogs." Such a butchery (si grant tuerie) then took place, that it was a wonder to see. In the first surprise one of the knightly standards had been captured; which was all the gain (says Dupuis) the Turks had, and that, too, very dearly paid for, in kind as well as in lives; for the great red silken standard of the Basha, with all the others which had been planted on the walls, was left in the rout as a trophy for the victors.

The defeat of this day appears absolutely to have crushed the spirit of the besieging army. They retreated on all sides from the immediate vicinity of the walls, withdrew their artillery, and kept close within their camp, "serrés comme brebis" in the extremity of fear. It was indeed a repulse severe enough to destroy the morale of the bravest soldiery. After battering till the breach was practicable for a man to ride through it from the glacis into the town; after keeping the garrison under arms almost night and day for two months; after actually surprising them at last, and gaining the walls without resistance; they had failed, and in the most ignominious manner. When, and under what conditions, could they hope to succeed? Whatever authenticity might be supposed to attach to the reported vision of the blazing cross, there was enough seen that day of the great ensign of the Order to create a very strong impression of superhuman power fighting on that side. The eight-pointed cross of pure white, gleaming over the cuirass of every one of their knightly opponents, and most conspicuously over the well-known gilt armor of the terrible Grand Master in front of all, pressed them backwards step by step up the inner stairs, cleared the parapet, pursued them over the ditch, and struck them down by thousands. The facts might well justify, on this day as on others, to the minds of both parties the legend of EN TOTT NIKA.

Even the. Basha, with the fear of the bowstring before his eyes, and the thought of an angry master, sure to ask, if not "where

are my legions?" at any rate, "where are the keys of the town you promised to conquer ?" felt that it was useless to maintain the siege any longer. He attempted no fresh offensive operations against the town. Some fifteen days afterwards two ships sent by the King of Naples with reinforcements, both of men and material, appeared in the offing, and after a severe engagement with the Turkish gallies, under the fire, moreover, of the land batteries, succeeded in breaking the blockade and landing their cargo. The Rhodians were "truly joyous and recomforted by the vivers and refreshments" thus received; and the friendly faces were "les très bien venus et receus de ceulx da la ville." Besides actual succor, these ships conveyed the assurance of moral support and the promise of material assistance from the Powers of Christendom, a paternal admonition by Pontifical letters from the Holy See, and the report of an approaching expedition, aimed at the entire destruction of the enemy's fleet. Caoursin hints that this rumor spread to the camp of the Basha, and quickened his departure. At all events, his want of power to maintain an effective blockade showed him that his position might become dangerous, as well as useless during the ensuing winter. After ravaging the island, carrying off all the cattle he could lay hands on, and destroying the gardens and vineyards, he set sail with his whole fleet, for the harbor of Physco, on the 15th of August, the day of the Assumption of the Virgin. On that very day, 170 years before, the Hospitallers of St. John had stormed the city of Rhodes, after a siege of four years, and won the proud title of which the Infidels were so anxious to deprive them. "And you must know," says our French chronicler, "that in their retreating the Turks made not that great cheer, nor sounded their drums or trumpets, nor made the great noise that they did at the laying of the siege, but retired as coyly as they could for the fear that they had of those of the town; and so they went off to their great dishonor. And let us pray God devoutly that they may all (en tel lieu') become good Christians, and uphold the Catholic faith, or otherwise may God of his grace be pleased to destroy them altogether, that they may never harm good Christians any more. Amen." So perorates, as in Catholic duty bound, the rough and ready soldier, "rude and gross of sense and understanding," but painstaking inquirer, and strong and picturesque narrator, Mary Dupuis.

We said above that the Cross struck down its adversaries by thousands on the day of the storming. As was usual in the mêlées of those times, the great carnage took place more in the pursuit than in the actual contest. The loss on the part of the Knights was about forty killed (of whom fifteen were among their best officers), and more than 500 wounded. Of the enemy's picked troops there were found after the fight, within the walls, 133 dead or alive; the finest men, says Dupuis, that were ever looked on.

These were all thrown into the sea. In the ditch and the approaches, where the Turks were "slaughtered like swine" in their panic, there were counted 3,500 corpses, or more; exclusive of the wounded who regained the camp, where they died in great numbers, as was proved by the size of the cemeteries. The corpses that fell into the possession of the Knights when the siege was raised, were burned (to avoid a pestilence) upon huge funeral piles, made of the timber used in the Turkish works and approaches. For nine days, as in the plains of Troy, Tνраì vεкýшV кαίοvTo πυραὶ νεκύων καίοντο dauɛiai-while the good wives of Rhodes (pardon our chronicler for this touch of nature), "who saw the Turks frying in their own grease, cursed them, and said they were so fat with the figs and other fruits which they had devoured in the citizens' gardens."

Palæologus Basha escaped the bowstring after all. Undoubtedly he ran great risk of it, after so ignominious a failure in the enterprise which he had done so much to instigate. Mahomet was contented, however, with banishing him to Gallipoli; and, like that general, whose presence in the field was estimated by his greatest antagonist as equivalent to forty thousand men, consoled himself for the defeat of his lieutenant by declaring that his troops were never successful except when led by himself in person. After collecting in Bithynia during the ensuing winter an army of 300,000 men, he commenced a southward march across Asia Minor, as soon as the season admitted of commencing the campaign. There can be no doubt that Rhodes, so long the eyesore of his power, was the object of this expedition; but such absolute secrecy was maintained as to its destination, that many thought it was intended against the Soldan of Egypt. Forty years, however, were still to elapse before the banner of the Crescent should wave over the citadel of Rhodes; and Mahomet was fated to die in his

march across Bithynia, on the 3d of May,

1481.

The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes and they shone portentously on this occasion. Four comets foretold to the astrologers with great precision Mahomet's death, and the dissensions consequent thereon between his sons Bajazet and Zizim. Without professing to guarantee the prophecies as delivered before the event, we subjoin for the curious the accounts of these celestial phenomena transmitted through the poetry of the age.

"Inanci el suo spirare quatro comete
In cielo aparveno con molto isplendore
Sopra Constantinopoli molto liete,
L'una era grande, et l'altre tre minore;
E par che tutti esso quatro pianete
Si erano tutte di vario colore;
Con signi assai di variate sorte
Significando del turcho la morte.

E le tre comete minore degne e belle
Le due la coda insieme avia legata;
E una falza si attraversava quelle
Apresso agli occhi loro insanguinata;
E in mezo de loro occhii eran tre stelle,
(Lu due code una l' una avia legata :)
De le tre stelle le due negro vezo,
E una stella rossa loro in mezo."

Such were the heavenly signs-to each of which astrology assigned its due signification. The largest comet portended the death of the emperor-" Cioe el gran turcho, capo di turchia," the three others, with their varieties of color, twisted tails, and bloody scythe, foretold, with minute particularity, the course of the quarrel between Mahomet's, sons, as it

came to pass.

The news of Mahomet's death reached Rhodes, as Caoursin tells us, exactly one year after the opening of the first battery against the tower of St. Nicholas. Well pleased the Knights must have been to escape a repetition of the last year's siege, if nothing worse. It became the duty of the Vice-Chancellor and Public Orator to improve the occasion; and he has happily reported in full the Oration "De Morte Magni Thurci," delivered in the Senate of Rhodes on the day before the Kalends of June, 1481. Our readers may be edified by a slight paraphrase or summary.

"Not without God's pity," begins the pious orator," and that divine nod to which all things bow, is the poisoned wound of Christendom healed, the consuming fire quenched; the devouring serpent, the second Mahomet, the bitterest enemy of the lifegiving Cross, and of this our military Order (which has been rescued by favor of that redeeming sign alone), is dead. How did the infernal one rejoice at the coming of his abandoned comrade, and the inmates of hell receive him with shouts of joy; if, indeed, there is any joy in that abode at all. For surely the fearful mansion of that eternal misery is duly reserved for that most wicked of tyrants, who destroyed the souls of so many children, whom he drove to the denying of their faith; who dragged so many whereunto they were dedicated; who ruined holy maidens from the religious service so many noble virgins and chaste wives; who the decrepid; who profaned the relics of the slaughtered alike the young, the old, and Mahomet the temples and monasteries of the saints, and polluted with the foul rites of Catholic faith; who swallowed up inheritances, trampled on and seized for his own kingdoms principalities and cities; even to the noble imperial city of Constantinople; where he committed such enormities of cruelty, superstition, and wickedness," as Caoursin does not like to think of. tongue of a virtuous public orator sticks to the roof of his mouth, his face is suffused with blushes, and his pale lips are quivering, at speaking of crimes so savage in the presence of the Grand Master and that most illustrious assembly: he can scarcely refrain from tears but he trusts they will pardon him, inasmuch as Plato himself says that speech must be suited to facts. "Who can invent a punishment severe enough, or find in hell a place fit for such a monster, where his cruel soul may duly pay its endless penalty? Truly a second Lucifer, a second

The

In the Dutch town of M-- there resided, | at the close of the last century, an aged widow, known by the name of Madame Andrecht. The only occupants of the house, which was the widow's property, were herself and a maid servant of about the same age. As the widow was in a precarious state of health, she kept no society, and did not leave her room for weeks together. Her only recreation was, that she went in spring, when the weather was settled, to visit her son, who resided in a neighboring village, and on these excursions she was always accompanied by her servant, who was accustomed to her temper, and was the only nurse she would have about her. During these absences from town the house was uninhabited, and though carefully locked up, not guarded with any special attention.

The widow returned from her annual excursion on the 30th of June, 17-, and found that during her absence the house had been broken into, and besides other valuables, all her plate and jewels carried off. The authorities were immediately informed, and both burgomaster and police began making a diligent inquiry. It was not difficult to discover how the thieves had broken into the house. The window of a back room looked on the garden, and had been secured within by a brass screw on either side. A pane of glass had been broken on each side, the screws had been taken out, and they had carried off their plunder by the back-door, which was found unfastened. All the other windows were still securely bolted, and several rooms had not even been entered. It was evident that the thieves had set to work in great security, had taken their time, and had not been apprehensive of being disturbed. They had removed the top of a heavy old escritoire, which had been carefully locked, and had lifted out the doors. This operation had been effected so cleverly that there was not the slighest trace of violence. Out of this escritoire the jewels and other valuables had been taken. Two chests had also been broken open, and gold, silver, and apparel carried off. The value of the

objects missed amounted to about 2,000 Dutch florins.

It was conjectured that the robbery had been effected by more than one person; it was equally probable that the plan had been matured long before. It was also apparent that the robbery had been committed by persons not unacquainted with the house and the widow's circumstances. The widow's house was situated in an outlying street, and was the only respectable one in the neighborhood. Persons in inferior circumstances, and among them several suspicious characters, occupied the adjacent houses. At the end of the garden behind the house, from which side the thieves must have come, ran the inner town ditch, which was navigable, and only divided from it by a quickset hedge. The next house was a corner one, and a narrow path ran along its side and the garden. hedge to a plank laid across the ditch. It was not supposed, however, that the thieves had climbed over the hedges of the two gardens, but it was much more likely that they had come in a boat to the hedge and climbed over it. No suspicious footsteps could be noticed in the garden-walks or flower beds.

The discovery immediately caused great excitement: the whole neighborhood was astir, and a mob of curious persons surrounded the house. The police were compelled to use their utmost efforts to prevent them entering: still one of them, a baker, who lived in the house right opposite to the widow, had succeeded in finding his way in with the officers, and satisfying his curiosity. His acquaintances who had seen him enter awaited his return with impatience, to learn from him all that the police would not impart to them. Their hopes were deceived, however, for he maintained an obstinate silence, or only gave equivocal replies. A woolspinner, Leendert van N, who lived in the corner house, was far more talkative. Wherever people put their heads together, he hurried up to them, listened to their conjectures, and favored them with his own: he spoke, too, in a very decided manner,

and