"Who are ye? What are you doing?"
"We are carrying stones," answered Dzem Haman. "And you?"
"We too are carrying stones," was the answer from above.
"We are Dzem Haman's men, who are removing the stones from the path of Ali Pasha—and ye, are you not Csaky's men?"
"We are collecting stones for the head of Ali Pasha, and are Michael Angel's people," resounded from above, and at the same time a terrible rain of stones rolled down upon the heads of the Albanians, by way of confirming the statement.
"Michel Anchal is here also!" roared the terrified Albanians, falling back aghast, and creating a panic among those behind them by declaring that they were surrounded.
At these tidings, the Turkish host, harassed from before and behind, resolved itself into a disorderly mass, on which, at break of day, the Hungarian infantry began rolling enormous masses of stone and rock.
Ali Pasha attempted first on one side and then on another to break through the enemy's lines, but was everywhere driven back with fearful loss by the missiles hurled down from above. The boldest warriors, who had fought man to man in a hundred battles, fled back pale and trembling before the thundering masses of rock, which so completely smashed everything that came in their way that horse and rider were undistinguishable.
Ali Pasha tore his beard in impotent rage on perceiving that he and all his host were at the mercy of an army even now much weaker than his own.
"There is neither help nor refuge, save with the Most High God!" cried he, breaking his sword in twain in his despair; and drawing out his pistols, he pointed them at his own heart.