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 340 DESTEUCTION OF THE GEEEK EMPIRE These consisted of the elite of his army, the veteran warriors of his bodyguard, infantry bearing shields and pikes, a body of archers, another of lancers, and, more skilled and more Assault by trustworthy than all, his body of twelve thousand Janissaries. 1 saries. These reserves were now to attempt the assault at the stockade under the immediate leadership of their great commander, while the remainder of the army made a simultaneous attack against other portions of the landward walls. Mahomet began the new assault with the utmost care. Dawn was now supplying sufficient light 2 to enable him to superintend a more elaborate plan. The assault was not to be a mere wild rush and scramble. Having urged his guards to show their valour, Mahomet put himself at their head and led them as far as the foss. 3 At the moment, says Barbaro, when the defenders were rejoicing at having driven out the three hundred from the barbicans, the pagans again fired their big gun and under cover of the smoke and dust the besiegers advanced. A huge but orderly crowd of archers, slingers, and musketeers dis- charged their arrows and other missiles. Successive volleys were steadily fired upon the Greeks and Italians defending the whole length of the stockade, so that they could hardly show a head over the battlements without being struck. The missiles fell in numbers, says Critobulus, like rain. They darkened the sky, says Leonard. When the defenders had been thrown into some confusion by this long hail of missiles, Mahomet gave the signal for advance to his ' fresh, vigorous, and invincible ' Janissaries. They rushed across the foss and attempted as their predecessors had done, to carry the stockade by storm. Ten thousand of these ' grand masters and valiant men/ says Barbaro, with admiration for a brave enemy, ' ran to the walls, not like Turks, but like lions.' Fighting in 1 Crit. lvii. 2 Leonard, p. 98 : ' Tenebrosa nox in lucem trahitur, nostris vincentibus. Et dum astra cedunt, dum Phoebi praecedit Lucifer ortum, Illalla, Illalla in martem conclamans, conglobatus in gyrum consurgit exercitus.' 3 Crit. lvii.