THUS DISGUISED —if a new flag could be considered a disguise—they now sailed under the guns of various medieval-looking fortresses that had been built, by various occult sects of Papist knights, on crags and ridges looking north across the strait. No cannonballs were fired in their direction, and after a few hours, when they rounded a point and gazed into the Grand Harbor of Malta, they understood why: for a whole French fleet was riding at anchor there beneath the white terraces and flowered walls of Valletta. Not just merchant ships—though there were at least a dozen of those—but men-of-war, too. Three frigates to serve as gun-platforms, and a swarm of tactical galleys.