ingenious John Smith, who was present in the
reconnoitering army in the regiment of the Earl of Meldritch, came
to the aid of Baron Kisell, the general of artillery, with a plan of
communication with the besieged garrison. Fortunately Smith had made
the acquaintance of Lord Ebersbraught at Gratza, in Styria, and had (he
says) communicated to him a system of signaling a message by the use
of torches. Smith seems to have elaborated this method of signals,
and providentially explained it to Lord Ebersbraught, as if he had a
presentiment of the latter's use of it. He divided the alphabet into
two parts, from A to L and from M to Z. Letters were indicated and
words spelled by the means of torches: "The first part, from A to L, is
signified by showing and holding one linke so oft as there is letters
from A to that letter you name; the other part, from M to Z, is
mentioned by two lights in like manner. The end of a word is signifien
by showing of three lights."

General Kisell, inflamed by this strange invention, which Smith
made plain to him, furnished him guides, who conducted him to a high
mountain, seven miles distant from the town, where he flashed his
torches and got a reply from the governor. Smith signaled that they
would charge on the east of the town in the night, and at the alarum
Ebersbraught was to sally forth. General Kisell doubted that he should
be able to relieve the town by this means, as he had only ten thousand
men; but Smith, whose fertile brain was now in full action, and who
seems to have assumed charge of the campaign, hit upon a stratagem for
the diversion and confusion of the Turks.

On the side of the town opposite the proposed point of attack lay the
plain of Hysnaburg (Eisnaburg on Ortelius's map). Smith fastened two
or three charred pieces of match to divers small lines of an hundred
fathoms in length, armed with powder. Each line was tied to a stake at
each end. After dusk these lines were set up on the plain, and being
fired at the instant the alarm was given, they seemed to the Turks like
so many rows of musketeers. While the Turks therefore prepared to repel
a great army from that side, Kisell attacked with his ten thousand men,
Ebersbraught sallied out and fell upon the Turks in the trenches, all
the enemy on that side were slain or drowned, or put to flight.
And while the Turks were busy routing Smith's sham musketeers, the
Christians threw a couple of thousand troops into the town. Whereup