During the night the defenders, and especially those between the stockade and the Inner Wall, heard the noise of great preparations among the enemy.
The emperor rode from Hagia Sophia to the palace of Blachern, which he had occupied during all the time of the siege. Phrantzes, who was in company with him, asks who could remain unmoved while the emperor during his last and short stay in the palace demanded pardon of all there present. ‘If a man had been made of wood or stone he must have wept over the scene.’
Depression is naturally the constant note of all the narratives of those present in the city during May 28. The Venetian closes the day’s entry by recording in a quaint passage that the fasting and rejoicing among the Turkish army went on until midnight, and that then the fires were extinguished, but that these pagans all day and night continued to beseech Mahomet that he would grant them victory and help them to capture this city of Constantinople; ‘while we Christians all day and night prayed God and St. Mary and all the saints in heaven and with many tears devoutly besought them that they would not grant such victory, that the besieged should not become victims of this accursed pagan,’ and thus ‘each side having prayed to its God, we to ours and they to theirs, the Lord Almighty with his mother in heaven decided that they must be avenged in this battle of the morrow for all the sins committed.’
Emperor’s last inspection of defenders.
Shortly after midnight of the 28th-29th the emperor, accompanied by Phrantzes, left the palace of Blachern on horseback to inspect the various stations and to see that all were on the watch. The walls and towers were occupied; the gates from the city into the Peribolos were safely closed, so that none might enter or leave.[397]
When they came to Caligaria,[398] probably on their return, they dismounted. They went up together into a tower from which, assuming it to be the one at the corner where the wall begins to descend towards the Golden Horn, which would be that most suitable for their purpose, they would have an uninterrupted view of the road and a considerable stretch of ground on both sides of it leading to the Adrianople or Chariseus Gate, while, looking in the other direction, they could see the outside of a large portion of the walls towards the Golden Horn and of the hill in front where the Crusaders had encamped in 1203 and near or upon which Caraja was at the head of the Bashi-bazouks. They heard the murmur of many voices and the noise of many preparations and were told by the guards that these sounds had continued during all the night and were caused by the transport of guns and other machines nearer to the ditch.[399] It was probably between one and two of the morning of the 29th when Phrantzes and his imperial master separated; and in all likelihood they never met again.