“We will go first to the house of our langue,” Sir Guy said, “and tell them to send down slaves to fetch up our baggage; then I will take you, Gervaise, to Sir Peter D’Aubusson, and hand you over to his care.”

On landing, Gervaise was surprised at the number of slaves who were labouring at the public works, and who formed no small proportion of the population in the streets.  Their condition was pitiable.  They were, of course, enemies of Christianity, and numbers of them had been pirates; but he could not help pitying their condition as they worked in the full heat of the sun under the vigilant eyes of numbers of overseers, who carried heavy whips, in addition to their arms.  Their progress to the upper city was slow, for on their way they met many knights, of whom several were acquainted with Sir Guy; and each, after greeting him, demanded the latest news from England, and in return gave him particulars of the state of things at Rhodes.

At last they arrived at the house of the English langue.  The Order was divided into langues or nationalities.  Of these there were eight —­ Provence, Auvergne, France, Italy, Germany, England, Aragon, and Castile and Portugal.  The French element was by far the strongest.  The Order had been founded in that country, and as it possessed no less than three langues, and held the greater part of the high official positions in the Order, it was only kept in check by the other langues acting together to demand their fair share of dignities.  The grand master’s authority was considerable, but it was checked by the council, which was composed of the bailiffs and knights of the highest order, known as Grand Crosses.  Each langue had its bailiff elected by itself:  these resided constantly at Rhodes.  Each of these bailiffs held a high office; thus the Bailiff of Provence was always the grand commander of the Order.  He controlled the expenditure, superintended the stores, and was governor of the arsenal.  The Bailiff of Auvergne was the commander-in-chief of all the forces, army and navy.  The Bailiff of France was the grand hospitaller, with the supreme direction of the hospitals and infirmaries of the Order, a hospital in those days signifying a guest house.  The Bailiff of Italy was the grand admiral, and the Bailiff of England was chief of the light cavalry.  Thus the difficulties and jealousies that would have arisen at every vacancy were avoided.

In the early days of the Order, when Jerusalem was in the hands of the Christians, the care of the hospitals was its chief and most important function.  Innumerable pilgrims visited Jerusalem, and these were entertained at the immense guest house of the Order.  But with the loss of Jerusalem and the expulsion of the Christians from Palestine, that function had become of very secondary importance although there was still a guest house and infirmary at Rhodes, where strangers and the sick were carefully attended by the knights.