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316 DESTRUCTION OF THE GEEEK EMPIEE stantinople to be captured. The princes of the West were leagued together to drive the Turks out of Europe. John Hunyadi, with a large force of infantry and cavalry, was on his way to relieve the city. 1 A great fleet prepared at the request and with the aid of the pope, the head of Christen- dom, was on its way out, and its van had already been heard of at Chios. 2 There were not wanting many in Mahomet's camp who were opposed to a continuation of the siege and who urged him to abandon it. The sultan, according to Phrantzes, was influenced and depressed by the rumours of the interference of Western Europe, especially by the news of the arrival of a fleet at Chios, 3 by the want of success which had so far attended his efforts to enter the city, by the stubbornness of the defence and the strength of the walls, and, lastly, by omens deduced from flashes of lightning which had played over the city, or from some atmospheric effect which had lighted up the dome of St. Sophia — omens which, at first interpreted as a sign of God's vengeance on the Constantinopolitans, were a little later con- strued by some of the Turks to be a token that it was taken under Divine protection. 4 1 Phrantzes, 263. 2 Leonard, p. 95 ; Phrantzes, 263 ; Crit. xlvi. 3 Crit. xlvii. 4 The accounts of this light (or darkness), which alarmed both sides, are somewhat conflicting. Perhaps here also Critobulus is the safest guide. In chapter xlvi. he mentions the religious procession already described, where the statue of the Virgin falls, and says it was 1 three or four days before the attack.' Immediately after came torrential rains with vivid flashes of lightning. Then, 1 the next day,' there was a thick fog lasting till evening. Barbaro speaks of a darkness, due, judging from his description, to an eclipse of the moon, lasting from the first to the sixth hour after sunset, as being on the 22nd. This alarmed the Greeks, he says, because of an ancient prophecy which declared that Constantinople should not be lost until the moon should give a sign in the heavens. Phrantzes (page 264) says : <pws aarpdirrov KarafSouvov e£ ovpavSov ko.1 St 5 '6t]s tt)s WKTbs &va)dev rr s ir6ecos e<rrbs SieffKeirev avrrjv. Possibly both Phrantzes and Barbaro have the same atmospheric night effects in view : that is, that there were frequent flashes of lightning during the night so long as the eclipse lasted. The statement of Pusculus, who was in the city at the time, has already been quoted. See p. 297, ante. The account of Critobulus appears clear, but it does not eliminate the miraculous, for he declares that many persons, both Bomans and foreigners, declared that they had seen the Divinity hiding Himself in the clouds.