With a shudder the Vizier reflected on the enormous difference between the throne of Transylvania and the stake on which he might be planted instead, and cursed softly as he murmured to himself:
"That rogue of a Christian must have prayed to his God that I might be brought to shame here;" and grasping in his terror the solitary bell-rope that hung there, and winding it round his neck, he stood by the window, so that if the rebels should burst through the gates he might leap out and hang himself, rather than that they should wreak their horrible threats upon him.
The night had now set in, but the besiegers kindled pine branches, by whose spluttering light they streamed round the monastery; and then came a sudden and continuous firing of guns and beating of drums and a frightful braying of buffalo horns.
The banner of danger had already been planted on the summit of the tower, but from no quarter did help arise, and from time to time the sound of a bell rang through the air as a chance bullet struck it.
Hassan, full of terror, drew back behind the window curtains. Suddenly a yell still more terrible than the hitherto pervading tumult filled his ear—the besiegers had discovered the cellar in which their comrades had been confined, and, bursting in the doors, liberated them, and the Transylvanian deputy along with them, who speedily left this scene of uproar behind him.
At the sight of their bound and fettered comrades, the Janissaries' wrath increased ten-fold. The leader of the released captives, waving an axe over his head with a fierce howl, and hurling himself at the iron gate, hammered away like the roaring of guns; whilst the rest of them, who hitherto had been firing at the windows from a distance, now attacked the entrances with unrestrainable fury, raining showers of blows upon the gates.
But the gates were of good strong iron plates, well barricaded below with quadraginal paving-stones. The besiegers' arms grew weary, and the mamelukes on the roof flung stones and heavy beams down upon them, doing fearful execution among their serried ranks; whilst every mameluke who fell from his perch, pierced by a bullet, was instantly torn to pieces by the crowd, which flung back his head at the defenders.
"Draw back!" cried the officer in command, who stood foremost amidst the storm of rafters and bullets. "Run for the guns! At the bottom of that hill I saw a mortar planted in the ground; draw it forth, and we'll fire upon the walls."
In an instant the whole Janissary host had withdrawn from below the monastery, and the whole din died away. Yet the dumb silence was more threatening, more terrible, than the uproar had been. Very soon a dull rumbling was audible, drawing nearer and nearer every instant; it was the rolling of a gun-carriage full of artillery. Hundreds of them were pushing it together, and were rapidly advancing with the heavy, shapeless guns. At last they placed one in position opposite the monastery; it was a heavy iron four-and-twenty pound culverin, whose voice would be audible at the distance of four leagues. This they planted less than fifteen yards from the monastery, and aimed it at the gate.
"There is no help save with God!" cried Hassan in despair; and he took off his turban lest they should thereby recognise his dead body.