ar were broken, the combatants
closed with their daggers, and rolled down the declivity of the breach,
struggling in mortal conflict with each other.

[Sidenote: HEROIC DEFENCE OF ST. ELMO.]

While the work of death was going on in this quarter, a vigorous attempt
was made in another to carry the fortress by escalade. A body of Turks,
penetrating into the fosse, raised their ladders against the walls, and,
pushed forward by their comrades in the rear, endeavored to force an
ascent, under a plunging fire of musketry from the garrison. Fragments
of rook, logs of wood, ponderous iron shot, were rolled over the
parapet, mingled with combustibles and hand-grenades, which, exploding
as they descended, shattered the ladders, and hurled the mangled bodies
of the assailants on the rocky bottom of the ditch. In this contest one
invention proved of singular use to the besieged. It was furnished them
by La Valette, and consisted of an iron hoop, wound round with cloth
steeped in nitre and bituminous substances, which, when ignited, burned
with inextinguishable fury. These hoops, thrown on the assailants,
inclosed them in their fiery circles. Sometimes two were thus imprisoned
in the same hoop; and, as the flowing dress of the Turks favored the
conflagration, they were speedily wrapped in a blaze which scorched them
severely, if it did not burn them to death.[1317] This invention, so
simple,--and rude, as in our day it might be thought,--was so disastrous
in its effects, that it was held in more dread by the Turks than any
other of the fireworks employed by the besieged.

A similar attempt to scale the walls was made on the other side of the
castle, but was defeated by a well-directed fire from the guns of St.
Angelo across the harbor,--which threw their shot with such precision as
to destroy most of the storming party, and compel the rest to abandon
their design.[1318] Indeed, during the whole of the assault, the
artillery of St. Angelo, St. Michael, and Il Borgo kept up so irritating
a fire on the exposed flank and rear of the enemy as greatly embarrassed
his movements, and did good service to the besieged.

Thus the battle raged along the water and on the land. The whole circuit
of the Great Port was studded with fire. A din of hideous noises rose in
the air; the roar of cannon, the rattle of musketry, the hissing of
fiery missiles, the crash of falling masonry, the shrieks of the dying,
and, high above all, the fierce cries o