Page:The Fall of Constantinople.djvu/364

 346 THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. The bear's skin having thus been divided, it only remained to capture the bear. The Crusaders and Venetians had been pressing on their works for the attack upon the city with all their might. Ee- wards w^ere offered to those whose scaling-ladders and covered gangways, to be thrown out from the ships' cross-trees to the walls, were first ready. The machines were prepared for hurl- ing stones. Battering-rams, ballistse, mangonels, and all the engines known to the military science of the time for attack- ing a walled city were got ready. There was no longer any question of leaving for the Holy Land. The lust of gain had fallen upon the whole of the army, and while they were mak- ing preparations for the attack they were already planning out the best course for a division of the spoil.