The little town with its little garrison had
the temper of a shrew, and held its own against him valiantly. A few
more battalions were sent, but still the town held out. The sultan,
enraged at this opposition, now despatched what he considered an
overwhelming force, with orders to take the town without delay, and to
punish the garrison as they deserved for their foolish obstinacy. But
what was his surprise and fury to receive word that the pigmy still held
out stubbornly against the leviathan, that all their efforts to take it
were in vain, and that its guns commanded and swept the pass so that it
was impossible to advance under its storm of death-dealing balls.
Thundering vengeance, Solyman now ordered his whole army to advance,
sweep that insolent and annoying obstacle from the face of the earth,
and then march on towards the real goal of their enterprise, the still
distant city of Vienna, the capital and stronghold of the Christian
dogs.
Upon Guntz burst the whole storm of the war, against Guntz it thundered,
around Guntz it lightened; yet still Guntz stood, proud, insolent,
defiant, like a rock in the midst of the sea, battered by the waves of
war's tempest, yet rising still in unyielding strength, and dashing back
the bloody spray which lashed its walls in vain.
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