The Grand Master survived the siege, his
monument is the noble city of "Valetta" built on Mount Sceberras. The Turks
abandoned the siege and returned to Constantinople on the arrival of some
insignificant reinforcements from Sicily. So terrible had been the
resistance of the Knights that no heart was left in their armada. Of Dragut
there remains but little to be said: he was perhaps the best educated of
the corsairs and less cruel than was usually their habit. Although not so
renowned as his more celebrated master, Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa, this is,
perhaps, because his career was cut short at the siege of Malta at a
comparatively early age. Although he never attained the rank of
Admiralissimo to the Grand Turk, that potentate, as we have seen, placed in
him the greatest confidence, and relied largely on his judgment, especially
when sea-affairs were in question. Like the Barbarossas before him, he rose
from nothing to the height to which he eventually attained by sheer force
of intellect and character. In the stormy times in which his lot was cast
he never faltered in his onward way, never repined, never looked back,
sustained as he was by a consciousness of his own capability to rule the
wild spirits by whom he lived surrounded. So it is that, whatever other
opinion we may hold of Dragut, we cannot deny that in this captain of the
Sea-wolves were blended rare qualities, which caused him to shine as a
capable administrator, a fine seaman, but above all as a supreme leader of
men.
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