themselves
from the fire of the walls. The city, meanwhile, was repeatedly set on
fire by bombs thrown from the Turkish batteries; and during the
confusion arising from one of these partial conflagrations, a fresh mine
was run under the angle of the court bastion, and sprung with such
effect as to cause a practicable breach. The quantity of powder,
however, had been so greatly over calculated that great part recoiled
among the Turks and the garrison, by a well-timed sortie, did great
damage to the enemy's works. Before the breach, however, could be
repaired, the janissaries, recovering from their panic, again assailed
it, and, after a desperate struggle, established themselves in the ditch
and front of the bastion, while the defenders endeavoured, by changing
the direction of their guns, to enfilade the ground thus won by the
enemy, so as to prevent their penetrating into the interior, which now
lay open to them.

Great had been the panic throughout Europe at the advance of the Turks
into Austria, and their appearance before Vienna. The infidel host was
magnified, by the exaggerations of popular terror, to the number of
100,000 horse and 600,000 foot! And it was doubted whether, after
destroying the power of the House of Hapsburg, the vizir would march to
the Rhine, and annihilate the remaining strength of Christendom by the
overthrow of Louis XIV., or would cross the Alps to fulfil the famous
threat of Bayezid I., by stabbing his horse before the high altar of St
Peter's. Even among those better qualified to take a calm view of the
state of affairs, little hope was entertained that Vienna could hold out
till the armies of Poland and the empire could be collected in
sufficient force for its relief, if the Turks continued to press the
siege with that vigour and stubborn perseverance, the combination of
which in the attack of fortified places had hitherto been one of their
most remarkable military characteristics. But Kara-Mustapha, deficient
alike in martial experience and personal courage, was little qualified
either to stimulate the fanatic ardour of the Ottomans or to guide it to
victory. While within the wide enclosure of his own tents, carefully
pitched beyond the range of cannon-shot from the ramparts, he maintained
a household and harem of such luxurious magnificence as none of the
sultans had ever carried with them into the field, the rations of the
soldiers were reduced, on the pretext that the supplies expecte