In this strait, the 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.  Whereupon the Turks broke up the siege and retired to Caniza.  For this exploit General Kisell received great honor at Kerment, and Smith was rewarded with the rank of captain, and the command of two hundred and fifty horsemen.  From this time our hero must figure as Captain John Smith.  The rank is not high, but he has made the title great, just as he has made the name of John Smith unique.