But even at midnight the passage of five hundred men
could not remain long undiscovered as they clambered in over the walls.
Soon an alarm was raised and the "Africans" rushed to arms and hurried to
the quarter from which danger threatened. The townsmen were well armed and
brave, also they were numerous; but it was the old story of the break-up of
undisciplined valour by highly organised attack.
In the choking heat of the African night townsmen and corsairs wrestled in
deadly conflict hand to hand and foot to foot; but these untrained landsmen
stood but a poor chance against the picked fighting men of the Moslem
galleys who had been inured to bloodshed from their earliest youth and
trained by such a master in the art of war as Dragut. That warrior, his
great curved scimitar red to the hilt, the blood dripping from a gash in
his cheek, his clothing torn and in disarray, followed by a gigantic negro
bearing a flaming torch, was ever in the thickest of the fray. Behind him
his lieutenants Othman and Selim strove to emulate his prowess, while all
around surged his devoted band of fanatics.
"Allah! Allah!" and "Dragut! Dragut!" pealed the war-cry of the corsairs;
foot by foot and yard by yard that spearhead of dauntless dare-devils
pressed onwards into the packed masses of the "Africans," who, fighting
stubbornly, nevertheless were borne back by the fury of the terrible
onslaught. Torch-bearers among the pirates leaped into houses and set them
ablaze, the flames volleyed and crackled, the dense smoke rolled upwards to
the stainless sky, the night was a hell of blood and fire.
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