No cruelty, however ghastly, could extract from the
gallerians more than a certain amount of work, and the Captain Pantero
Pantera, as we have seen, even advocates that a certain minimum of
consideration should be shown to them in order that better work might be
obtained. It was probable, however, that in the case of the Christian
slaves captured by the corsairs even this minimum was to seek, as the
numbers swept off by them were so enormous that they could be used up and
replaced without inconveniencing these rovers of the sea, to whom
compassion for suffering was absolutely unknown.
The Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, or the Knights of Malta as they were
also called, used the galley in their unceasing warfare with the Moslem.
The General of the Galleys was a Grand Cross of the Order; the captains
were knights, and the second officer, or first lieutenant, was known as the
Patron. The crew of a galley of the knights had twenty-six rowing benches
and carried two hundred and eighty rowers and two hundred and eighty
combatants; the armament consisted of one bow cannon which discharged a
forty-eight pound ball, four other small guns, eight pounders, and fourteen
others which discharged stones.
"The Religion," as the Knights were in the habit of describing themselves,
had certain definite stations assigned to each knight, seaman, or officer
during action. It is to be imagined, however, that these were merely for
the preliminary stages of the fight, as it was seldom that time allowed for
more than one discharge, or at the most two, of the artillery, before the
opposing galleys met in a hand-to-hand conflict which must have immediately
become an indiscriminate melee.
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