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GENERAL ASSAULT ARRANGED 321 three days : to announce that the sultan swore by the ever- lasting God, by the four thousand prophets, by Mahomet, by the soul of his father, and by his children, that the whole population, men, women, and children, all the treasure and whatever was found in the city should be given up freely by him to his warriors. The proclamation was received with tumultous expressions of triumph. 1 i If you had heard the shouts raised to heaven with the cry, ' There is one God, and Mahomet is his prophet,' you would indeed have marvelled, adds Leonard. No attempt was made on the Saturday, Sunday, or Monday to capture the city, but the guns were steadily pounding away during all these three days. On Sunday the great cannon fired three times at the stockade, and at the third shot a portion of it came down. According to the Muscovite, Justiniani was wounded by a splinter from the ball and had to be led or carried into the city. He, however, recovered during the night and superintended once more the repairs of the walls. 2 On the Sunday also every Turk was busy in completing preparations for the final attack. 3 Every man had been ordered under pain of death to be at his post. The Turks were observed to be fetching earth, crates of vine-cuttings and other materials to level a passage across the foss, making scaling-ladders, and generally to be bringing forward all the engines for assault. When the sun set, fires and torches were lighted as on the previous night. The illuminations were accompanied by such terrible shouts that Barbaro, with not unnatural exaggeration, asserts that they were heard across the Bosporus. The soldiers, in high spirits at the thought of the coming attack, were once more 1 Leonard, 96, Phrant. 269 ; Barbaro adds that the Turks believed that on the morrow they would have so many Christians in hand that two slaves could be bought for a ducat : such riches that everything would be of gold, and they could have enough hair from the heads of Christian priests to make ropes with which to tie up their dogs. 2 The Moscovite, xxii. This first wound is only mentioned by the Moscovite. 3 Phrantzes, 269. Y