before the Carinthian Gate and bombarded its towers throughout a night of torrential rain. There could have been no better demonstration of the incomparable skill of the Turkish artillery, for they kept up an unbroken fire, loading and discharging their pieces almost as rapidly as in dry weather and by daylight. The constant thunder of these guns greatly stiffened my courage, but Andy thought it useless to expose the gunners to the drenching rain and so worsen their chills. The coughing of a hundred thousand Moslems was more alarming than a cannonade, he said, and alone would shatter the walls of Vienna.
I felt no desire to leave my comparatively dry quarters, for which Sinan the Builder had procured a brazier. I spent a cheerful evening with him there over a flask or two of wine, and as a result we fell into a deep sleep. Suddenly we were roused by a terrific explosion.
Certain picked troops of the garrison-Germans, Spaniards, and Hungarians-had made a surprise sortie through the Salt Gate and hurled themselves upon our unsuspecting men. They set fire to all the brushwood we had so painfully collected, to Sinan’s store sheds, the slave pens, and all the tents they could reach. It would have gone ill with the whole camp had not everything been too wet to burn properly.
The worst panic was caused by the grenades that the assailants flung into the tents and whose smoking, hissing fuses glowed in the darkness like the tails of comets. Their shells of earthenware or glass were filled with stones, nails, and other rubbish which at the moment of explosion flew in all directions, inflicting many wounds.
Sinan and I were in a daze of sleep when the storm broke and would certainly have come to a melancholy end if we had not managed to creep into an attack trench and so along to a tunnel whose mouth was concealed by a bush. The roar of the battle overhead was so terrifying that I lay there quaking, but Sinan the Builder wrapped his cloak about his head and fell at once into profound slumber.
When at dawn the janissaries began marching down the hillsides in close order for the counterattack, the enemy, as might have been expected, were panic stricken and at least five hundred of them were cut down. The janissaries, furious at losing their night’s sleep, pursued so closely on the heels of the rest that they would have followed the fugitives into the city had not the Germans hurriedly closed the gates, thereby leaving a number of their officers outside.
Heads by the hundred were borne on poles to the Sultan’s tent, while the janissaries played their music and the agas boasted of their great victory. But the destruction in the camp was many times greater than the German losses, and the agas allowed no one to count the Turkish dead, whose bodies were hastily thrown into the Danube. Preparations for our assault were delayed and the powder-stacked in readiness beneath the walls-became damp. Time was on the side of the defenders. The everlasting coughing of the Turks resounded through the camp night and day, disturbing the Sultan’s sleep and exasperating him, for he read it as a sign of rebellion. Who knows but that he had some grounds for his suspicion?
We were now nearing the middle of October, and supplies were running very short when at last we succeeded in exploding two mines and bringing down part of the wall near the Carinthian Gate. Almost before the flying debris had reached the ground the agas with swords and whips drove their men to the assault. For three days these attacks were repeated, but the men no longer believed in victory; the fighting spirit was out of them and many confessed that they would rather be killed by the scimitars of their own leaders than by the frightful two- handed swords of the Germans which at one stroke could cleave a man in half.
Even Sinan the Builder was threatened by the Seraskier’s displeasure, for too many mines had exploded ineffectually. However, further frantic efforts resulted in the widening of the breach, and the final decisive assault began. Company after company was flogged and goaded into the thick of the struggle until the ground before the Car- inthian Gate was strewn with fallen Turks. Fog lay over the ground and through it the tips of the Turkish tents stood up like the white columns of tombs. All noise was curiously muffled in this spectral sea, and it was as if legions of spirits were in conflict before the walls. No wonder that the janissaries had no heart for the enterprise. When at dusk their last attack failed, they streamed back in full retreat and began to strike their tents, that they might depart without delay from the neighborhood of this uncanny city.
When the Germans became aware of this they rang all the church bells and fired salvos in celebration of their joyful and unlooked-for victory. But when darkness fell, bonfires of a different sort blazed up in our camp. The infuriated janissaries were burning all that came to hand-enclosures, store sheds, grain sacks, and a great part of the plunder that the roving akindshas had brought in from sixty miles around and which, because of the lack of pack animals, could not be carried away. They slew the prisoners, impaled them or threw them into the flames, and although scores escaped in the confusion and were hauled up into the city by ropes, yet hundreds of Christians were burned alive in revenge, that their shrieks might reach the city and subdue the unseemly jubilation of the defenders.
Thus ended our triumphal march into the German states. The hideous menace that had brooded over Christendom melted away, and instead I was fated to witness Sultan Suleiman’s first and sharpest defeat. It was not the will of God, it seemed, that Christendom should fall.
Hitherto, experience had seemed to show that God concerned Himself but little with warlike operations, but recent events made me alter my opinion. On leaving Rome I had thought of Christendom as a plague-ridden and already doomed carcass, but now I understood that some good must have remained in it since God in His patience granted it a short period of grace, as He would have been willing to do for Sodom and Gomorrah had ten righteous men been found in them.
I shared these solemn thoughts with Andy as we wandered quietly among the heaped-up bodies of the dead, emptying purses and collecting the jeweled daggers of officers. The superstitious Moslems dared not seek out the bodies of even their own dead after dark, but Andy and I had no such scruples, and even though our business might appear to some people a little unbecoming, it would have been worse to behave like Turks and burn Christian prisoners alive. We also tended the wounded as well as we could, and ended our work of mercy by helping a moaning
Having thus come safely past the guards we returned to Sinan the Builder’s quarters-and only just in time, for he was already preparing to leave, and one of the Sultan’s bodyguard had come thither to bring Andy and me before the Seraskier. So startled was I at this unexpected summons that the burden I bore beneath my kaftan fell to the ground with a crash. With or without reason my conscience pricked me; I feared that the Grand Vizier might have heard of our little excursion to the battlefield and would have us hanged for looting the dead.
A moment’s reflection showed me that this was not possible, however, and having stowed away my booty in a chest I entrusted this to Sinan, who alone had porters at his disposal. Yet I might have saved myself the trouble, for before we reached even Buda on our homeward way all our baggage was lost in a bog. We had no time to remove our bloodstained garments, for the hour was late and the Grand Vizier was pacing impatiently up and down his tent. Seeing us he halted in surprise and cried bitterly, “By Allah, are there still men who do not fear to bloody their clothes in their sovereign’s service? Are renegades to restore my faith in Islam?”
It was clear that he put a wrong construction on our appearance, yet I would not venture to correct so exalted a lord. With almost unseemly haste he dismissed his servants from the tent, made us sit beside him and began speaking in a whisper. As he spoke he glanced about him continually, as if afraid of eavesdroppers.
“Michael el-Hakim and Antar! Sultan Suleiman has come to the conclusion that Allah will not yet permit us to capture Vienna. Tomorrow therefore he will strike camp and start for Buda with the main army, leaving me with the five thousand spahis to follow as rear guard.”
“Allah is Allah and so forth,” I said, with unfeigned relief. “May his angels Gabriel and Michael protect our flight. The decision is indeed wise and I cannot sufficiently praise the Sultan’s prudence.”
But the Grand Vizier ground his teeth and said, “How dare you talk of flight! Not even in error must you pronounce so loathsome a word, and any man who dares distort the truth about our great victory over the unbeliever shall receive a hundred strokes of the rod on the soles of his feet. But the game is not yet over, Michael el-Hakim; if Allah permits I will yet lay Vienna at the feet of the Sultan.”
“And how in God’s name is this to be done?”
“I shall send you and your brother Antar into the city!” His brilliant gaze transfixed me as he went on threateningly, “If life is dear to you you’ll not return with your mission unfulfilled. I am giving you a unique opportunity to serve the cause of Islam.”
Believing that adversity had bereft him of his wits I answered soothingly, “Noble Seraskier, I know what faith you have in my talents and Antar’s valor, but how are we two to capture a city that two hundred thousand men and a hundred thousand camels have failed to take?”
