One ball tore along the waist of the galley, killing six of the rowers, and several oars on both sides were broken.

Two balls passed through the cabins in the poop.

But there was no pause in the advance of the galley.
The whips of the slave masters cracked, and the rowers whose oars were intact strained at them.

There was no reply from the guns, but the knights raised loud the war cry of the Order, a war cry that was never heard without striking a thrill of apprehension among their Moslem foes.
As they neared the pirate ships, the helm was put down, and the galley brought up alongside the largest of them and a broadside poured into her; then the knights, headed by their commander, leapt on to her deck.
Although a number of the crew had not yet come off from shore, the Moslems still outnumbered their assailants, and, knowing that their consorts would soon come to their aid, they threw themselves in a body on the Christians.

But in a hand-to-hand conflict like this, the knights of the Hospital were irresistible.