advantage; but after his retreat Sagan Pacha, observing that the energy
of the defenders was relaxed, excited the bravest of the janizaries to
mount to the assault. A chosen company led by Hasan of Ulubad, a man of
gigantic frame, first crossed the ruins of the wall, and their leader
gained the summit of the dilapidated tower which flanked the breach.
The defenders, headed by the emperor Constantine, made a desperate
resistance. Hasan and many of his followers were slain, but the
janizaries had secured the vantage-ground, and, fresh troops pouring in
to their aid, they surrounded the defenders of the breach. The Emperor
fell amid a heap of slain, and a column of janizaries rushed into
Constantinople over his lifeless body.

About the same time another corps of the Ottomans forced an entrance into
the city at the gate of the Circus, which had been left almost without
defence, for the besieged were not sufficiently numerous to guard the
whole line of the fortifications, and their best troops were drawn to the
points where the attacks were fiercest. The corps that forced the gate of
the Circus took the defenders of the gate of Charsias in the rear, and
overpowered all resistance in the quarter of Blachern.

Several gates were now thrown open, and the army entered Constantinople
at several points. The cry that the enemy had stormed the walls preceded
their march. Senators, priests, monks, and nuns, men, women, and
children, all rushed to seek safety in St. Sophia's. A prediction current
among the Greeks flattered them with the vain hope that an angel would
descend from heaven and destroy the Mahometans, in order to reveal the
extent of God's love for the orthodox. St. Sophia's, which for some time
they had forsaken as a spot profaned by the Emperor's attempt at a union
of the Christian world, was again revered as the sanctuary of orthodoxy,
and was crowded with the flower of the Greek nation, confident of