Page:Constantinople by Brodribb.djvu/277

metropolitan of Kief, had been sent by Pope Nicholas as his legate in the November of the preceding year, and he also brought with him a small body of troops. But the mainstay of the defence was a brave and noble warrior from Genoa, John Giustiniani, who all his life had been renowned for his daring spirit. Many were the occasions on which he had distinguished himself. Once the king of Aragon, when defeated, had, in admiration of his courage, requested leave to surrender his sword to him in person. Giustiniani came with two large ships and three hundred picked soldiers. John Grant, too, from Germany, an experienced engineer officer, rendered good service. In all, the foreign force in Constantinople numbered about two thousand. Its defence thus rested with a garrison not exceeding nine thousand, yet the emperor had to man a line of wall landwards of five miles in extent, which at every point could be directly assailed by the enemy. Other lines of fortification by the port and on the Sea of Marmora, several miles in length, had to be defended. The task was certainly one beyond human power. Of artillery the emperor is said to have had a hundred and thirty pieces, but these were generally very inferior to the Turkish ordnance. His fleet was good and powerful by comparison, but it was not numerous, consisting only of fourteen ships in addition to the Venetian galleons above mentioned. Of the walls and their capacity for resistance we have already spoken. Their defence was divided and arranged in twelve portions, of which two only were entrusted exclusively to the Greeks. In the remainder the Greeks merely shared the work with the strangers who had come to their aid.