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TIIE HISTORY OF THE ORDER OF [book iv.

might not have been wholly without excuse thatthe sentinel (if there were one) without sleep for solong a time should have been thrown by natureinto a slumber, contrary to his best efforts; particu-larly in such a posture. Others report he receiveda bullet through his skull,which slew him too instan-taneously to be able to cry out. This would be amore serious affair and argue some inexactitude inmaking the rounds, for why not have replaced thedead sentinel with a living one without a moment’sdelay? Blame was given to the chiefs. Yet was itnot to be over severe? Did they not act in the main,regarding so many other things, incomparably well?There are narrow bounds to man’s noblest energies.Still must we own, it was not exactly proper, to haveleft none of the knights to oversee so important apost, but entrust it entirely to forty soldiers how-ever choice, partly Spanish and partly Italians, un-der a corporal—though even of De la Cerda’s.

The Moslem engineers, entering by an embra-sure not much higher than a tall grenadier,astonished to observe no one, and unobservedthemselves, since the angle was a dead wall, raninstantly and told Pasha Mustapha, who hap-pened to be near, and without a moment’s losscalled some of his fiercest and most ferociousJanissaries, who at once leaped into the ravelin