my thus fairly established within the
defences, directed barriers to be constructed and trenches sunk at the
head of the streets nearest the breach, while thirty rockets, fired in
the night from the steeple of St Stephen's Domkirch, announced the
extremity of their distress to their approaching friends; and all eyes
were turned to the rocky heights of the Kahlenberg, which bounded the
prospect to the west, in hope of descrying the standards of the
Christian army.

It was at Tuln, six leagues above Vienna, that Sobieski received, the
day after this assault, a despatch from Stahrenberg, containing only the
words--"There is no time to be lost!" On the 6th the Poles passed the
river by the bridge of Tuln, and the king, amazed at the supineness of
the vizir in suffering this movement to be effected without molestation,
exclaimed, "Against such a general the victory is already gained!"--and
advanced as to an assured triumph. Though far inferior in numbers to the
Turks, who, after all their losses by the sword and desertion, still
mustered 120,000 effective men, when passed in review on the 8th by the
vizir, it was in truth a gallant army which Sobieski now saw united
under his command. The Imperialists, under the Duke of Lorraine, were
not more than 20,000; but the Saxons and Bavarians, led by their
respective electors, and the contingents of the lesser states of the
empire, with the fiery hussars and cuirassiers of Poland, formed an
aggregate of 65,000 men, more than half of whom were cavalry; while in
the ranks were found, besides the German chivalry who fought for their
fatherland, many noble volunteers, who had hastened from Spain and Italy
to share in the glories anticipated under the leadership of Sobieski.
Among these illustrious auxiliaries was a young hero, who had escaped
from France in defiance of the mandate of Louis XIV., to flesh his
maiden sword in view of the Polish king, and who at a later period,
under the well-known name of Prince Eugene, himself earned deathless
fame by his achievements against those redoubted enemies, whose first
great overthrow he was destined to witness.

On the evening of the 10th the two armies were separated only by the
ridge of the Kahlenberg, and the thick forests covering its sides; and a
still more urgent message arrived from the governor, who intimated that
he had little chance of repelling another assault. "On the same night,
however," (says the diary of a Dutch officer in the