Page 359 - A Knight of the White Cross

fallen from the breached wall. This novel mode of attack was altogether
unexpected. The knights had regarded the fosse that had been cut at such an

enormous expenditure of labour as forming an altogether impassable
obstruction, and were dismayed at seeing the progress made in filling it up.

D'Aubusson himself, full of resources as he was, saw that the defence was
seriously threatened, unless some plan of meeting this unexpected danger
could be devised.

He consulted Maitre Georges; but the latter could make no suggestion; his

only advice being the erection of a battery at a spot where it was almost self
evident that it could be of no utility whatever. Other circumstances
combined to render the suspicions D'Aubusson had entertained of the good

faith of the renegade almost a certainty. Georges was seized, tried, and put
to torture, and under this owned that he had been sent into the town for the

purpose of betraying it; and he was, the same day, hung in the great square.
His guilt must always be considered as uncertain. There was no proof
against him, save his own confession; and a confession extorted by torture

is of no value whatever. There are certainly many good grounds for
suspicion, but it is possible that Georges really repented his apostacy, and

acted in good faith in deserting the standard of Paleologus. He was
undoubtedly a man of altogether exceptional ability and acquirements, and
even the knights who have written accounts of the siege do justice to the

fascination of his manner and the charm of his conversation.

D'Aubusson now set to work in another direction to counteract the efforts
of the Turks. He erected an immense wooden catapult, which threw huge
pieces of rock into the midst of the Turkish works, crushing down the

wooden screens erected to hide their approaches, breaking in the covered
ways, and causing great loss of life among the besiegers. At the same time

galleries were driven below the breach, opening into the ditch, where their
exits were concealed by masses of rubbish. Through these strong working
parties issued out at night, and carried away up the passages the rocks and

other materials that the Turks had, during the day, brought, with immense
labour, from a distance to the shoot. The materials so carried away were

piled up behind the retrenchment, greatly adding to its thickness and
strength.