Blind zeal is a force whose
possibilities a general does not always estimate. It is capable of
performing miracles, as Hunyades was to learn. His orders, his threats
of death, had no restraining effect on the minds of the crusaders. They
had come to save Europe from the Turks, and they were not to be stayed
by orders or threats. What though the enemy greatly outnumbered them,
and had cannons and scimitars against their pikes and flails, had they
not God on their side, and should God's army pause to consider numbers
and cannon-balls? They were not to be restrained; attack they would, and
attack they did.
The siege had made great progress. The reinforcement had come barely in
time. The walls were crumbling under the incessant bombardment.
Convinced that he had made a practicable breach, Mahomet, the sultan,
ordered an assault in force. The Turks advanced, full of barbarian
courage, climbed the crumbled walls, and broke, as they supposed, into
the town, only to find new walls frowning before them. The vigorous
garrison had built new defences behind the old ones, and the
disheartened assailants learned that they had done their work in vain.
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