The Prince of India; Or, Why Constantinople Fell Volume Ii Part 66

He had spoken clearly, yet she hesitated.

"Ah," he said, "you doubt Mahommed. He will be upon honor. The glory-winners, Princess, are those always most in awe of the judgment of the world."

Yet she sat silent.

"Or is it I who am in your doubt?"

"No, Count. But my household--my attendants--the poor creatures are trembling now--some of them, I was about saying, are of the n.o.blest families in Byzantium, daughters of senators and lords of the court. I cannot desert them--no, Count Corti, not to save myself. The baseness would be on my soul forever. They must share my fortune, or I their fate."

Still she was thinking of others!

More as a worshipper than lover, the Count replied: "I will include them in my attempt to save you. Surely Heaven will help me, for your sake, O Princess."

"And I can plead for them with him. Count Corti, I will go with you."

The animation with which she spoke faded in an instant.

"But thou--O my friend, if thou shouldst fall?"

"Nay, let us be confident. If Heaven does not intend your escape, it would be merciful, O beloved lady, did it place me where no report of your mischance and sorrows can reach me. Looking at the darkest side, should I not come for you, go nevertheless to the Church. Doubt not hearing of the entry of the Turks. Seek Mahommed, if possible, and demand his protection. Tell him, I, Mirza the Emir, counselled you. On the other side, be ready to accompany me. Make preparation to-night--have a chair at hand, and your household a.s.sembled--for when I come, time will be scant.... And now, G.o.d be with you! I will not say be brave--be trustful."

She extended her hand, and he knelt, and kissed it.

"I will pray for you, Count Corti."

"Heaven will hear you."

He went out, and rejoining the Emperor, rode with him from the Church to Blacherne.

CHAPTER XII

THE a.s.sAULT

The bonfires of the hordes were extinguished about the time the Christian company said their farewells after the last supper in the Very High Residence, and the hordes themselves appeared to be at rest, leaving Night to reset her stars serenely bright over the city, the sea, and the campania.

To the everlasting honor of that company, be it now said, they could under cover of the darkness have betaken themselves to the ships and escaped; yet they went to their several posts. Having laid their heads upon the breast of the fated Emperor, and pledged him their lives, there is no account of one in craven refuge at the break of day. The Emperor's devotion seems to have been a communicable flame.

This is the more remarkable when it is remembered that in the beginning the walls were relied upon to offset the superiority of the enemy in numbers, while now each knight and man-at-arms knew the vanity of that reliance--knew himself, in other words, one of scant five thousand men--to such diminished roll had the besieged been reduced by wounds, death and desertion--who were to muster on the ruins of the outer wall, or in the breaches of the inner, and strive against two hundred and fifty thousand goaded by influences justly considered the most powerful over ferocious natures--religious fanaticism and the a.s.surance of booty without limit. The silence into which the Turkish host was sunk did not continue a great while. The Greeks on the landward walls became aware of a general murmur, followed shortly by a rumble at times vibrant--so the earth complains of the beating it receives from vast bodies of men and animals in hurried pa.s.sage.

"The enemy is forming," said John Grant to his a.s.sociate Carystos, the archer.

Minotle, the Venetian bayle, listening from the shattered gate of Adrianople, gave order: "Arouse the men. The Turks are coming."

Justiniani, putting the finishing touches upon his masked repairs behind what had been the alley or pa.s.sage between the towers Bagdad and St.

Romain, was called to by his lookout: "Come up, Captain--the infidels are stirring--they seem disposed to attack."

"No," the Captain returned, after a brief observation, "they will not attack to-night--they are getting ready."

None the less, without relieving his working parties, he placed his command in station.

At Selimbria and the Golden Gate the Christians stood to arms. So also between the gates. Then a deep hush descended upon the mighty works-- mighty despite the slugging they had endured--and the silence was loaded with anxiety.

For such of my readers as have held a night-watch expectant of battle at disadvantage in the morning it will be easy putting themselves in the place of these warders at bay; they can think their thoughts, and hear the heavy beating of their hearts; they will remember how long the hours were, and how the monotony of the waiting gnawed at their spirits until they prayed for action, action. On the other hand, those without the experience will wonder how men can bear up bravely in such conditions-- and that is a wonder.

In furtherance of his plan, Mahommed drew in his irregulars, and ma.s.sed them in the s.p.a.ce between the intrenchment and the ditch; and by bringing his machines and small guns nearer the walls, he menaced the whole front of defence with a line amply provided with scaling ladders and mantelets. Behind the line he stationed bodies of hors.e.m.e.n to arrest fugitives, and turn them back to the fight. His reserves occupied the intrenchments. The Janissaries were retained at his quarters opposite St. Romain.

The hordes were clever enough to see what the arrangement portended for them, and they at first complained.

"What, grumble, do they?" Mahommed answered. "Ride, and tell them I say the first choice in the capture belongs to the first over the walls.

Theirs the fault if the city be not an empty nest to all who come after them."

The earth in its forward movement overtook the moon just before daybreak; then in the deep hush of expectancy and readiness, the light being sufficient to reveal to the besieged the a.s.sault couchant below them, a long-blown flourish was sounded by the Turkish heralds from the embrasure of the great gun.

Other trumpeters took up the signal, and in a s.p.a.ce incredibly short it was repeated everywhere along the line of attack. A thunder of drums broke in upon the music. Up rose the hordes, the archers and slingers, and the ladder bearers, and forward, like a bristling wave, they rushed, shouting every man as he pleased. In the same instant the machines and light guns were set in operation. Never had the old walls been a.s.sailed by such a tempest of bolts, arrows, stones and bullets--never had their echoes been awakened by an equal explosion of human voices, instruments of martial music, and cannon. The warders were not surprised by the a.s.sault so much as by its din and fury; and when directly the missiles struck them, thickening into an uninterrupted pouring rain, they cowered behind the merlons, and such other shelters as they could find.

This did not last long--it was like the shiver and gasp of one plunged suddenly into icy water. The fugitives were rallied, and brought back to their weapons, and to replying in kind; and having no longer to shoot with care, the rabble fusing into a compact target, especially on the outer edge of the ditch, not a shaft, or bolt, or stone, or ball from culverin went amiss. Afterwhile, their blood warming with the work, and the dawn breaking, they could see their advantage of position, and the awful havoc they were playing; then they too knew the delight in killing which more than anything else proves man the most ferocious of brutes.

The movement of the hordes was not a dash wholly without system--such an inference would be a great mistake. There was no pretence of alignment or order--there never is in such attacks--forlorn hopes, receiving the signal, rush on, each individual to his own endeavor; here, nevertheless, the Pachas and Beys directed the a.s.sault, permitting no blind waste of effort. They hurled their mobs at none but the weak places--here a breach, there a dismantled gate.

Thousands were pushed headlong into the moat. The ladders then pa.s.sed down to such of them as had footing were heavy, but they were caught willingly; if too short, were spliced; once planted so as to bring the coping of the wall in reach, they swarmed with eager adventurers, who, holding their shields and pikes overhead, climbed as best they could.

Those below cheered their comrades above, and even pushed them up.

"The spoils--think of the spoils--the gold, the women!...

_Allah-il-Allah!_... Up, up--it is the way to Paradise!"

Darts and javelins literally cast the climbers in a thickened shade.

Sometimes a ponderous stone plunging down cleaned a ladder from top to bottom; sometimes, waiting until the rounds were filled, the besieged applied levers, and swung a score and more off helpless and shrieking.

No matter--_Allah-il-Allah!_ The living were swift to restore and attempt the fatal ascents.

Every one dead and every one wounded became a serviceable clod; rapidly as the dump and c.u.mber of humanity filled the moat the ladders extended their upward reach; while drum-beat, battle-cry, trumpet's blare, and the roar of cannon answering cannon blent into one steady all-smothering sound.

In the stretches of s.p.a.ce between gates, where the walls and towers were intact, the strife of the archers and slingers was to keep the Greeks occupied, lest they should reenforce the defenders hard pressed elsewhere.

During the night the blockading vessels had been warped close into the sh.o.r.e, and, the wall of the seafront being lower than those on the land side, the crews, by means of platforms erected on the decks, engaged the besieged from a better level. There also, though attempts at escalade were frequent, the object was chiefly to hold the garrison in place.

In the harbor, particularly at the Wood Gate, already mentioned as battered out of semblance to itself by the large gun on the floating battery, the Turks exerted themselves to effect a landing; but the Christian fleet interposed, and there was a naval battle of varying fortune.

So, speaking generally, the city was wrapped in a.s.sault; and when the sun at last rode up into the clear sky above the Asiatic heights, streets, houses, palaces, churches--the hills, in fact, from the sea to the Tower of Isaac--were shrouded in ominous vapor, through which such of the people as dared go abroad flitted pale and trembling; or if they spoke to each other, it was to ask in husky voices, What have you from the gates?

Pa.s.sing now to the leading actors in this terrible tragedy. Mahommed retired to his couch early the night previous. He knew his orders were in course of execution by chiefs who, on their part, knew the consequences of failure. The example made of the Admiral in command of the fleet the day the five relieving Christian galleys won the port was fresh in memory. [Footnote: He was stretched on the ground and whipped like a common malefactor.]

"To-morrow, to-morrow," he kept repeating, while his pages took off his armor, and laid the pieces aside. "To-morrow, to-morrow," lingered in his thoughts, when, his limbs stretched out comfortably on the broad bronze cot which served him for couch, sleep crept in as to a tired child, and laid its finger of forgetfulness upon his eyelids. The repet.i.tion was as when we run through the verse of a cheerful song, thinking it out silently, and then recite the chorus aloud. Once he awoke, and, sitting up, listened. The mighty host which had its life by his permission was quiet--even the horses in their apartment seemed mindful that the hour was sacred to their master. Falling to sleep again, he muttered: "To-morrow, to-morrow--Irene and glory. I have the promise of the stars."

To Mahommed the morrow was obviously but a holiday which was bringing him the kingly part in a joyous game--a holiday too slow in coming.