Pan Michael drew Mushalski aside somewhat, and halting, said on a sudden, “But listen! If we should try to smother those moles in their burrows?”
“That seems to me certain death, for whole regiments of janissaries are guarding them. But let us try!”
“Regiments are guarding them, it is true; but the night is very dark, and confusion seizes them quickly. Just think, they are talking of surrender in the town. Why? Because, they say to us, ‘There are mines under you; you are not defending yourselves.’ We should close their lips if to-night we could send the news, ‘There is no longer a mine!’ For such a cause is it worth while to lay down one’s head or not?”
Pan Mushalski thought a moment, and cried, “It is worth while! As God lives, it is!”
“In one place they began to hammer not long ago,” said Pan Michael; “we will leave those undisturbed, but here and on that side they have dug in very deeply. Take fifty dragoons; I will take the same number; and we will try to smother them. Have you the wish?”
“I have, and it is increasing. I will take spikes in my belt to spike cannon; perhaps on the road I may find some.”
“As to finding, I doubt that, though there are some falconets standing near; but take the spikes. We will only wait for Ketling; he knows better than others how to succor in a sudden emergency.”
Ketling came as he had promised; he was not behind time one moment. Half an hour later two detachments of dragoons, of fifty men each, went to the breach, slipped out quickly, and vanished in the darkness. Ketling gave command to throw grenades for a short time yet; then he ceased work and waited. His heart was beating unquietly, for he understood well how desperate the undertaking was. A quarter of an hour passed, half an hour, an hour: it seemed that they ought to be there already and to begin; meanwhile, putting his ear to the ground, he heard the quiet hammering perfectly.
Suddenly at the foot of the castle, on the left side, there was a pistol-shot, which in the damp air, in view of the firing from the trenches, did not make a loud report, and might have passed without rousing the attention of the garrison had not a terrible uproar succeeded it. “They are there,” thought Ketling; “but will they return?” And then sounded the shouts of men, the roar of drums, the whistle of pipes,—finally the rattle of musketry, hurried and very irregular. The Turks fired from all sides and in throngs; evidently whole divisions had run up to succor the miners. As Pan Michael had foreseen, confusion seized the janissaries, who, fearing to strike one another, shouted loudly, fired at random, and often in the air. The uproar and firing increased every moment. When martens, eager for blood, break into a sleeping hen-house at night, a mighty uproar and cackling rise in the quiet building: confusion like that set in all at once round the castle. The Turks began to hurl bombs at the walls, so as to clear up the darkness. Ketling pointed guns in the direction of the Turkish troops on guard, and answered with grapeshot. The Turkish approaches blazed; the walls blazed. In the town the alarm was beaten, for the people believed universally that the Turks had burst into the fortress. In the trenches the Turks thought that a powerful sortie was attacking all their works simultaneously; and a general alarm spread among them. Night favored the desperate enterprise of Pan Michael and Mushalski, for it had grown very dark. Discharges of cannon and grenades rent only for instants the darkness, which was afterward blacker. Finally, the sluices of heaven opened suddenly, and down rushed torrents of rain. Thunder outsounded the firing, rolled, grumbled, howled, and roused terrible echoes in the cliffs. Ketling sprang from the wall, ran at the head of fifteen or twenty men to the breach, and waited. But he did not wait long. Soon dark figures swarmed in between the timbers with which the opening was barred.
“Who goes there?” cried Ketling.