Page:Destruction of the Greek Empire.djvu/365

MAHOMET'S FINAL DISPOSITIONS 325 Mahomet concluded by urging all to fight valiantly, assuring his hearers that he would be at their head and would see all that passed. He finished his address by charg- ing his hearers to return to their posts, to order all under their commands to take food, and then to lie down for a few hours' rest. Silence was everywhere to be observed. They were enjoined to draw up their men in battle array at an early hour in the morning, and when they heard the sound of the trumpet summoning them to battle and saw the standard unfurled, then ' to the work in hand.' The leaders of divisions remained, after the departure of ^ersof the larger assembly, in order to receive their final orders, divisions. Hamoud, with his fleet, was to keep near the seaward walls and the archers and fusiliers 1 should be so ready to shoot, that no man dare show his head at the battlements. Zagan was to cross the bridge, and with the ships in the harbour to attack the walls on the Golden Horn. Caraja was to cross the foss — probably between Tekfour Serai and the Adrianople Gate, where was one of the three roads that Mahomet had opened into the city — and to try to capture the wall. Isaac and Mahmoud, at the head of the Asiatic division, were charged to attempt the walls near the Third Military Gate. Halil and Saraja, who were in command of the troops encamped around the sultan, opposite the third and most im- portant breach — that, namely, atthe Komanus Gate, defended by J ustiniani — were to follow the lead which the sultan would himself give them. Having thus made his final dispositions, Mahomet dis- missed his inner council, and each leader went away to his own tent to sleep and await the signal for attack. The speech to his leaders, which I have summarised in the preceding paragraphs from the report given by Crito- bulus, 2 is also recorded by Phrantzes, though at much less length. He describes it as having been made at sunset of 1 ToiKpanas ; in modern Greek the name for sporting guns is Tov<p£Kia. The Turks call them Toufeng. Ducas uses the word fjLoAv&5of}6oi. 2 Crit. xlvii. to Hi.