Mahomet sent a message to Galata insisting that the Genoese should prevent help being sent clandestinely to the city.
Proclaims three days of plunder.
He caused his heralds to proclaim through the camp that his soldiers would be allowed to sack the city during three days: to announce that the sultan swore by the everlasting God, by the four thousand prophets, by Mahomet, by the soul of his father, and by his children, that the whole population, men, women, and children, all the treasure and whatever was found in the city should be given up freely by him to his warriors. The proclamation was received with tumultuous expressions of triumph.[381] ‘If you had heard the shouts raised to heaven with the cry, ‘There is one God, and Mahomet is his prophet,’ you would indeed have marvelled,’ adds Leonard.
No attempt was made on the Saturday, Sunday, or Monday to capture the city, but the guns were steadily pounding away during all these three days.
On Sunday the great cannon fired three times at the stockade, and at the third shot a portion of it came down. According to the Muscovite, Justiniani was wounded by a splinter from the ball and had to be led or carried into the city. He, however, recovered during the night and superintended once more the repairs of the walls.[382]
On the Sunday also every Turk was busy in completing preparations for the final attack.[383] Every man had been ordered under pain of death to be at his post.
The Turks were observed to be fetching earth, crates of vine-cuttings and other materials to level a passage across the foss, making scaling-ladders, and generally to be bringing forward all the engines for assault. When the sun set, fires and torches were lighted as on the previous night. The illuminations were accompanied by such terrible shouts that Barbaro, with not unnatural exaggeration, asserts that they were heard across the Bosporus. The soldiers, in high spirits at the thought of the coming attack, were once more feasting, after their day’s fast. The besieged, hearing the shouts, the sound of the trumpets and guitars, of pipes, fifes, and drums, and the usual din, ran to the walls, for the illumination was so great that they were in hopes that the fires were devouring tents and provisions; but, says Ducas, when they recognised that there was no alarm among their enemies, they could only pray to be delivered from the imminent danger. The illuminations continued until midnight, and then, more suddenly than they had appeared, the fires were extinguished and the camp was left in complete obscurity.
The leaders on both sides had now but few final arrangements to make for attack or for defence. The sultan, as usual, personally superintended the making of those on the Turkish side.
On Monday morning Mahomet accompanied by a large following of horsemen, which Barbaro estimates at about ten thousand, rode over to the Double Columns and arranged for the co-operation of the fleet while the general bombardment and attack were being made by the rest of his forces.[384] Admiral Hamoud, the successor of Baltoglu, was to spread out his ships on the Marmora side from St. Eugenius Gate to that of Psamatia, to prepare to enter the city by scaling-ladders from the ships, if entrance were possible, and at all events by his preparations and feigned attacks to draw off as many men as possible from the defence of the landward walls.[385]
Mahomet returned in the afternoon from the Double Columns. On the same day, and possibly on his return, the sultan summoned to him the heads of the Genoese community in Galata and confirmed the strict injunction he had already given them that on no account were they to render aid to the Greeks.[386]