painfully climbed the hill, steered over the plain, and were launched from the declivity into the shallow waters of the harbour, far above the molestation of the deeper vessels of the Greeks.  A bridge, or mole, hastily built, formed a base for one of his largest cannon.  The galleys, with troops and scaling ladders, approached the most accessible side of the walls, and, after a siege of forty days, the diminutive garrison, exhausted by a double attack, could hope no longer to avert the fate of the capital.

On Monday, May 28, preparations were made for the final assault.  Mahomet had inspired his soldiers with the hope of rewards in this world and the next.  His camp re-echoed with the shouts of “God is God; there is but one God, and Mahomet is the apostle of God”; and the sea and land, from Galata to the Seven Towers, were illuminated with the blaze of the Moslem fires.

Far different was the state of the Christians.  On that last night of the Roman Empire, Constantine Palaeologus, in his palace, addressed the noblest of the Greeks and the bravest of the allies on the duties and dangers that lay before them.  It was the funeral oration of the Roman Empire.  That same night the emperor and some faithful companions entered the Dome of St. Sofia, which, within a few hours, was to be converted into a mosque, and devoutly received, with tears and prayers, the sacrament of the Holy Communion.  He reposed some moments in the palace, which resounded with cries and lamentations, solicited the pardon of all whom he might have injured, and mounted on horseback to visit the guards and explore the motions of the enemy.  The distress and fall of the last Constantine are more glorious than the long prosperity of the Byzantine Caesars.

At daybreak on May 29 the Turks assaulted the city by sea and land.  For two hours the Greeks maintained the defence with advantage, and the voice of the emperor was heard encouraging the soldiers to achieve by a last effort the deliverance of their country.  The new and fresh forces of the Turks supplied the places of their wearied associates.  From all sides the attack was pressed.

The number of the Ottomans was fifty, perhaps one hundred, times superior to that of the Christians, the double walls were reduced by the cannons to a heap of ruins, and at last one point was found which the besiegers could penetrate.  Hasan, the Janizary, of gigantic stature and strength, ascended the outward fortification.  The walls and towers were instantly covered with a swarm of Turks, and the Greeks, now driven from the vantage ground, were overwhelmed by increasing multitudes.

Amidst these multitudes, the emperor, who accomplished all the duties of a general and a soldier, was long seen and finally lost.  His mournful exclamation was heard, “Cannot there be found a Christian to cut off my head?” and his last fear was that of falling alive into the hands of the infidels.  The prudent despair of Constantine cast away the purple.  Amidst the tumult he fell by an unknown hand, and his body was buried under a mountain of the slain.