CIIAP. II.]

ST. JOHN ON JERUSALEM. 43

night and day -without-even for an instant ceasing;and to follow his advice at least in part, anotherbattery was added by these Turks (who have noequals for moving earth expeditiously) and anotherbasilisk and fifteen as heavy guns as the others: sothat poor St. Elmo was now thundered at by thirtyof the hugest of artillery, brought nearer to thirty-five short yards. 1 Nor can we assuredly be un-amazed at so small and defective a place resistingsuch a tremendous fire, and not at once in cinders.Yet despite all, it continued—that superhumanresistance.

On the 3rd of June, when by a singular conci-dence falls St. Elmo’s day, the Turkish engineers,from the counterscarp which they had taken, per-ceived (by striking with their harquebusses) thatthe ravelin had no flanks—discovery they couldnot have made but for want of care, which ourswere almost obliged to have, from the vigilance ofthose most excellent harquebussiers and surestaimers in the whole wide world, the Janissaries; soas to render it utterly impossible for a man to lethimself be seen an instant over the parapet withoutbeing infallibly shot dead, which constrained theguard to lie down, and it fell asleep; including thesentinel, who ought to have occupied the angle. It1 Bosio: par. iii., lib. xxv. 539.