The Prince of India; Or, Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 01

posted the warders on their walls, and over against them set the enemy in an intrenched line covering the whole landward side of the city. We

eats. We have carefully assembled and grouped those of our characters who have survived to this trying time; and the reader is informed where they are, the side with which their fortunes are cast, their present relations to each other, and the conditions which

t two leagues, and dropped them in the Golden Horn. These Constantine attacked. Justiniani led the enterprise, but was repulsed. A stone bullet sunk his ship, and he barely escaped with his life. Most of his companions were drowned; those taken were pitilessly hung. Mahommed next collected great earthen jars-their like may yet be seen in the East-and, after making them air-tight, laid a bridge upon them out toward the singl

igzag trench was completed, and a footing obtained for his

cted. Day after day the towers Bagdad and St. Romain were more and more reduced. Immense sections of them tumbling into the ditch were there utilized. Day after day the

ilence the culverins and arquebuses. Then the Emperor divided his time between the defences and Sancta Sophia-between duty as a military commander, and prayer as a Christian trustful in God. And it was noticeable that the services at which he assisted in the ancient church were according to Latin rites; whereat the malcontents in the monasteries fell into deeper sullenness, and refuse

offing down the Marmora. About the same time the Turkish flotilla was observed making ready for action. The hungry people crowded the wall from the Seven Towers to Point Serail. The Emperor rode thither

spectators. The Sultan himself was on the shore to enjoy the spectacle of a combat in which the superiority of his fleet seemed to promise him a certain victory. But the eighteen galleys at the head of the division, manned by inexperienced soldiers, and too low at the sides, were instantly covered with arrows, pots of Greek fire, and a rain of stones launched by the enemy. They were twice repulsed. The Greeks and the Genoese emulated each other in zeal. Flectanelli, captain of the imperial galley, fought like a lion; Cataneo, Novarro, Balaneri, commanding the Genoese, imitated his example. The Turkish ships could not row under the arrows with which the water was covered; they fouled each other, and two took fire. At this sight Maho

d the ditch filled?" the Sultan cried in rage. "No, my bones t

zeal, some to ambition; none of them suspected how much

of the five galleys, and the victory they achieved, we

Solomon, and swearing by it, the steel communicated itself to his will; while on the side of the besieged, failures, dissensions, watching

twenty-third of May. On the twenty-ninth-six days o

arth has its wrap of darkness, only over the seven hills of the old capital it appears to be in double folds oppressively close. Darkness and silence and vacancy, which do not require permission to enter by a gate, have possession of the str

h conditions save amongst rats and reptiles, ceased some time ago. Yet love is not dead-thanks, O Heaven, for the divine impulse!-it has merely taken on new modes of expression; it shows itself in tears, never in laughter; it has quit singing, it moans; and what moments mothers are not on the

e two notable exceptions to the statement that darkness, si

y itself long lines of men tugging with united effort at some cumbrous body behind them. There is no clamor. The labor is heavy, and the laborers in earnest. Some of them wear round steel caps, but the majority are civilians with here and there a monk, the latter by the Latin cross at his girdle an azymite. Now and then the light flashes back from a naked torso streaming with perspiration. One man in armor rides up and down the lines on horseback. He too is in earnest. He speaks low when he has occasion to stop and give a direction

n the defence who are more wrought upon by the untowardness of the situat

his empire was in desperate straits; that as St. Romain underwent its daily reduction so his remnant of Stat

n he slept. And as note was taken of him, the question was continually on the lip, What possesses the man? He is a foreigner-this is not his home-he has no kindred here-what can be his motive? And there were who said it was Christian zeal; others surmised it was soldier habit; others again, that for some reason he was disgusted with life;

n opinion he was only the lady's knight; and his battle cry, For Christ and Irene-Now! did but confirm the opinion. Time and time again, Mahommed beheld the doughty deeds of his rival, heard his shout, saw the flash of his blade, som

Romain. The gate is a hill of stone and mortar, without form; the moat almost level from side to side; and Justiniani has decided upon a

re changing their vestments, and the acolytes lighting the tall candles. The Emperor sat in his chair of state just inside the brass railing, unattended except by his sword-bearer. His hands were

in that quarter was weak, and some moments passed before the Emperor perceived a small procession advancing, and arose. The garbs were of

he city? Had it brought to them a realization of the consequences if it fell under the yoke of the Turk?-That the whole East would then be lost to Christendom, with no date for

e gate they knelt-in so f

he welcome in God's holy name. Reason instructs me that your return is for a purpose in some manner connected with the unhappy condition in which

old and stooped,

nd be driven, not only from the city, but to the frontier of Persia.' [Footnote: Von Hammer.] This prediction relieves us, and all who believe in it, from fear of Mahommed and his impious hordes, and we are grateful to Heaven for the Divine intervention. But, Your Majesty, we think to be forgiven, if we desire the honor of the deliverance to be accounted to the Holy Mother who has had our fathers in care for so many ages, and redeemed them miraculously in instances within Your Majesty's knowledge. Wherefore to our purpose.... We have been deputed by the Brotherhoods in Constantinople, united in devotion to the Most Blessed Madonna of Blacherne, to pr

on his knees, while his associate dep

ed him, distorting his features, and shaking his whole person. Recantation and repentance!-Pledge of loyalty!-Offer of service at the gates and on the shattered walls!-Heaven help him! There was no word of apo

f, shame, mortification, indignation, all heightened

position to lay his head upon the upper step. Minutes passed thus. The deputies supposed him praying for the success

d returned to them, an

slain by the enemy, whom you and they know to have been bred in denial of womanly virtue, scorning their own mothers and wives, and making merchandise of their

ch as they had come in, and

ir work of bringing stones, tree-trunks, earth in hand carts, and timbers wrenched from houses-everything, in fact, which would serve to substantially fill the moat in tha

is friends halloed. "They are

. The gun was discharged, the bullet striking below him. When the dust cleared away, he replied with his trumpet. Then the Turks, keeping their

line of Janissaries still guarding the eminence,

lding a bow in the right hand, easy in the saddle, calm, confident, the champion slackened speed when within arrow flight, but commenced caracoling immediately. A prolonged hoarse cry arose behind him. Of t

tring, and shouted, "For Christ and Irene-N

his clutch of the notch at the instant of drawing the string was a trifle light, the fault was chargeable to a passing memory. This antagonist had been his pupil. How often in the school field, practising with blunted arrows, the two had joyously mimicked the e

ried, slowly backing t

and sat upon the stone again; but no other antagonist

d finding the head was of lead, he cut it

know it by the white banner a monk will bear, with a picture of the Ma

ew minutes the door was thronged by mounted officers, who, upon re

men being pushed up to the outer edge of the moat, and the machines of every kind plied over their heads. In his ig

rrounded by nuns and monks; and presently the choir of Sancta Sophia issued from the house, ex

ed, the hands in posture of prayer, the breast covered by a portrait of the Child,

. The Mother of God would now assume the deliverance of her beloved capital. As it had been to the Avars, and later to the Russians under Askold and Dir, it would be now to Mahommed and his ferocious hordes-all Heaven would arm to punish them. They would not dare look at the picture twice, or if they did-wel

their way on foot to the southeast, chanting as they went, and as

of combat, not to more than mention the evidences of the conflict-arrows, bolts, and stones in overflight and falling in remittent showers-would have dispersed them in ordinary mood; but they were under protection

s and windows of Heaven would open for a rain of fire-perhaps the fighting angels who keep the throne of the Father would appear with swords of lightning-perhaps the Mother

he wall, and in the places it discovered them, they fell upon their faces, next by the hordes. And they-oh, a miracle, a miracle truly!-they stood still. The bowman drawing his bow, the slinger whirling his sling, the arquebusers taking aim matches in hand, the strong men at the winches of the mangonel

t; and then the long array of women in ecstasy of faith and triumph; for before they were all ascended, the hordes at the edge of the moat, and those at a distance-or rather such of them as death or wounds woul

gh the city, from cellar, and vault, and crypt, and darkened passage, the wonderful story flew; and there being none to gainsay or explain it, the miracle was accepted

mplacently twirling the Greek crosses at the whip-ends of the

postate Emperor, a muezzin would ere long, perhaps to-morrow, be calling to prayer from the dome of Hagia Sophia. Bl

ot disarm or lay aside their care. In unpatriotic distrust, they kept post behind the ruins of St. Romain, and saw to it that the l

er gun, and five heralds in tunics stiff with gold embroidery, and trousers to correspond-splendid fellows, under tur

meet him beyond the moat, and they returned with the Sultan's formal demand for the surrender of the city. The message was th

wall was by Mahommed's order. His wilfulness extended to his