AN EAST INDIAN TAN

see what passed. Bellarmine was te suade Malloch to be saved; while the by furious imprecations and catir; a it the dead come alive?-or what are mad-mad-to meet Bellarmine swim sea! Get you gone, sir-I never hur false. Bellarmine, who did not appea continued struggling to drag lúm towal place; and in the meantime I came vs si fastened round his waist and shouicer ance of the men pulling on the 10, now guided him through the water: a little grotesque, had him dragger bundle of wet rags. I prevailed vi before me, and we were both safe Malloch was lying on the grust ( seemed to all appearance either und "Who is he? and what has Bellarmine.

Before I could get time
wife, who attended as
family, interposed: 'Oh, it is Cape
drowned himself, because he wo
Mrs Bellarmine. I hope she tur
that her thriftless husband
told me himself.'

The astonishment of Bellari...
gence cannot be conceiver
explanation, which I gave **
ness, that I had felt Malloch
perceived that he was only
to escape being question
conceived, in being thus 1
which I had to give Bellar
The meeting which i
the long-lost Bellarmine a
This amiable

beloved

stancy

ai.

-

Bellarmine, it appeared he was the bearer of documents which freed him from every shadow of blame. He was also able, in consequence of information which he had collected during his imprisonment among the Pindarees, to render services to government, which led to his speedy promotion. As for the wretched Malloch, the designer of so much evil, and whose infamous schemes had, in reality, proved ultimately beneficial to his victim, he was shunned by all who knew him; and shortly after, obtaining leave of absence, he departed to Europe, there to hide his shame, and to escape the ridicule of his various misadventures.

THE KNIGHTS OF MALTA.

THE institution of the Knights of Malta was one of greater importance and utility in its day than is generally imagined. However slight may be the merit accruing from the Crusades for the recovery of the Holy Land, they are entitled to share in it largely; but they have higher claims, of a much later date, upon the gratitude of the Christian world. Almost by the unaided exertions of this band of brothers, the Ottoman power was held in check, and its extension materially impeded, on the eastern coasts of Europe. This was a great service to the whole of that continent. The knights of Malta effected, on the bosom of the Mediterranean, what John Sobieski effected on the plains of Austria; and their names should be embalmed along with his in the memory of Christendom.

Towards the middle of the eleventh century, when the Holy Land was entirely in the power of the Mohammedans, the Egyptian caliph, Monstaser-Billah, was induced to permit the erection of a Christian chapel in the city of Jerusalem, with two hospitals, one of them dedicated to St John the Almoner. These were intended for the relief

of the numerous pilgrims who then visited Palestine from all Christian countries. After Godfrey of Bouillon conquered the Holy City in 1099, the Hospital of St John became a place of great note as an establishment for healing the wounded and the sick, and was converted by Gerard, its rector, from a secular to a religious institution. He, with his brothers and sisters of charity, formally abjured the world, and assumed as their dress a black gown, having on the left breast a white cross. At the same time, a number of illustrious crusaders, burning with pious zeal, entered the body; and Godfrey of Bouillon endowed it with lands in Brabant. His example was speedily followed by other princes and barons of Europe, until the order grew wealthy, and founded many new houses both in Asia and Europe. The next step was the conjunction of the military with the religious character. Raymond du Puis succeeded to the rectorship; and having been a brave soldier in his day, he was induced by the reiterated attacks made on the Christians at their first settlement in the East, to propose to his companionsmost of them old soldiers like himself-to join the profession of arms to their other duties. The summons sounded like a trumpet in the ears of the veterans, and Raymond du Puis became the first Grand-master of the Order of the Knights-Hospitallers of St John. Three classes were established in the order-that of the Knights, who were required, at first at least, to prove a noble extraction; that of Chaplains, who were non-military; and that of HalfKnights, or Serving-Brothers, who were not of high birth, and whose duties lay both in the hospital and the field. The establishment of commanderies, as the houses were called, in different countries, rendered it proper to establish divisions called Languages in the order-as one for England, one for Germany, and so on. These were at first seven, and finally nine in number. Noble youths from all Europe soon swelled the order of the Hospitallers into a numerous force, and one of great strength, in times when a single mounted knight, cased in armour, was a match for half-a-dozen of the ordinary soldiery. Their

wealth also enabled them to hire large bodies of mercenaries to aid in their enterprises; and their European houses, or commanderies, served as depôts, whence auxiliaries were continually drafted to the wars.

This formidable body remained in Palestine during the entire period of its occupation, complete or partial, by the Latin Christians, witnessing the whole of the nine crusades, rendered necessary by the inveterate determination of the Mohammedans to recover their lost possessions. During all this time, they existed but to fight, having scarcely one month of perfect repose; and in fight they exhibited the most desperate valour on all occasions, though the abstemiousness of their rules was relaxed by degrees. They remained in the Holy Land after kings and barons had all yielded up the cause in despair. At length, in the year 1291, the Sultan Saladin drove them from their last stronghold of St John d'Acre, and compelled them to take refuge in Cyprus, then under a Latin King. They there summoned all their commanderies to send members and supplies, and were soon enabled once more to establish themselves as a powerful naval as well as military body. Their views were to harass the Mohammedans of Syria and Egypt by sea. One expedition more they made against the Saracens of Jerusalem; but they found both that city and the other fortresses of the country to be in so ruinous a state, that the approach of the Egyptian sultan forced them to fly to their ships. It was immediately after this step that Fulk de Villaret, twenty-fourth grand-master of the order, seeing the hopelessness of any secure settlement of it on lands not its own, projected a great and important conquest-that of the Island of Rhodes. Rhodes is about 120 miles in circumference, and close on the coast of Asia Minor. It was at this time nominally a possession of the Greek emperor, Andronicus, but in reality was in the power of Saracenic pirates, mixed with Greeks of the same stamp. Fulk de Villaret gathered his war-galleys, and made a bold descent on the isle. The resistance was obstinate, and years elapsed ere the knights succeeded in planting the standard of the