After a time Constantine replied: "I fear we have underrated the new Sultan. Great as a father may be, it is possible for a son to be greater."
Perceiving the Emperor was again repenting the dismissal of Urban, the Captain held his peace until asked: "What shall we now do?"
"Your Majesty," he returned, "it is apparent our sally was a failure. We slew a number of the infidels, and put their master—may God confound him!—to inconvenience, and nothing more. Now he is on guard, we may not repeat our attempt. My judgment is that we let him try his armament upon our walls. They may withstand his utmost effort."
The patience this required was not put to a long test. There was a sudden clamor of trumpets, and the Janissaries, taking to their saddles, and breaking right and left into divisions, cleared the battery front. Immediately a vast volume of smoke hid the whole ground, followed by a series of explosions. Some balls passing over the defences ploughed into the city; and as definitions of force, the sounds they made in going were awful; yet they were the least of the terrors. Both the towers were hit, and they shook as if an earthquake were wrestling with them. The air whitened with dust and fragments of crushed stone. The men at the machines and culverins cowered to the floor. Constantine and the Genoese gazed at each other until the latter bethought him, and ordered the fire returned. And it was well done, for there is nothing which shall bring men round from fright like action.
Then, before there could be an exchange of opinion between the high parties on the tower, a man in half armor issued from the slowly rising cloud, and walked leisurely forward. Instead of weapons, he carried an armful of stakes, and something which had the appearance of a heavy gavel. After a careful examination of the ground to the gate, he halted and drove a stake, and from that point commenced zigzagging down the slope, marking each angle.
Justiniani drew nearer the Emperor, and said, in a low voice: "With new agencies come new methods. The assault is deferred."
"Nay, Captain, our enemy must attack; otherwise he cannot make the moat passable."
"That, Your Majesty, was the practice. Now he will gain the ditch by a trench."
"With what object?"
"Under cover of the trench, he will fill the ditch."