However, comrades, this is all in the future.

Our share is but in the present, and I trust the flag of the Order will float over Rhodes as long, at least, as the lifetime of the youngest of us, and that we may bequeath the duty of upholding the Cross untarnished to those who come after us; and we can then leave the issue in God's hands." All listened respectfully to the words of their leader, although his opinion fell like cold water upon the fiery zeal and high hopes of his hearers.

The possibility of their losing Rhodes had never once entered into the minds of the majority of them.

It was likely that ere long they might be called upon to stand a siege, but, acquainted as they were with the strength of the place--its deep and seemingly impassable moat, its massive walls, and protecting towers and bastions--it had seemed to them that Rhodes was capable of withstanding all assaults, however numerous the foe, however oft repeated the invasion.

The bailiff was, as all knew, a man of dauntless courage, of wide experience and great judgment, and that he should believe that Rhodes would, although not in their time, inevitably fall, brought home to them for the first time the fact that their fortress was but an outpost of Europe, and one placed so distant from it that Christendom, in the hour of peril, might be unable to furnish them with aid.