The answer came loud and strong from every part of the camp.
"Allah is great! There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is His Prophet."
Within the city all was in gloom and despair. The Emperor was blamed for not surrendering earlier; many said that the "repose and security of Turkish servitude" were far preferable to this last stand for freedom.
The unfortunate Constantine listened in silence, and then went to the Cathedral of St Sophia, where he partook of his last Sacrament. Rising from a brief and troubled rest at dawn, he mounted his horse to ride back to the breach in the falling walls. His few faithful friends and attendants pressed round the master who they knew was going to his death. Looking gravely down upon them, "he prayed one and all to pardon him for any offence that he might knowingly or unknowingly have committed against any man."
The crowd answered with cries and lamentations as he rode calmly to his fate. "The distress and fall of the last Constantine," says Gibbon, "are more glorious than the long prosperity of the Byzantine Cæsars."
Standing in the gap made in the wall by the Gate of St Romanus, the Emperor and his little band awaited the rush of the Janissaries. One by one his men fell behind him and at his side, until he alone remained.
One more attack was made, and this time the infidels swarmed right into the town, trampling the body of the Emperor underfoot. All that long and dreadful day the wail of the captives ascended to the heavens, and when a search was made among the dead, only the golden eagles on his shoes identified the crushed and disfigured form of him who once was Constantine, last of his race.
The last scene in the grim drama was played when the Sultan came to the Church of St Sophia, and, riding upon his magnificent war-horse, passed in through the eastern door and bade the Mullah pronounce the formula of the faith of Islam from the high pulpit.
"Allah is great! There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is His Prophet!"
The words resounded through the aisles of the great eastern church, as they had echoed first in the desert of Arabia nearly nine hundred years before that day.