text:  Slight as was the ground of offence it produced an instantaneous ferment at Constantinople: the janissaries calling to mind similar omens said to have preceded the conquest of Rhodes and of Cyprus exclaimed that the land whose soil had once been trodden by Moslem horse hoofs was the predestined inheritance of the Faithful: and the flame was fanned by the capitan-pasha Yusuf a Dalmatian renegade who independent of the hatred which from early associations he bore Venice dreaded being sent on a bootless expedition against the impregnable defences of Malta--an enterprise which since the memorable failure in the last years of Soliman had never been attempted by the Osmanlis