CHAPTER XXVIIThe record of the next week can be quickly told, but it was slow to those who must live through the waiting hours. From morn to night the batteries thundered, and did not cease. There was no doubt that Dragut knew how to place his guns. The fort was hammered from every side. Rock-built as it was, it seemed to cower under the ceaseless hail, as though its battered sides shrank and were near collapse. One by one the great stones of its parapets cracked or were splintered away.
And, as the days passed, its own fire lessened; one by one its guns ceased, till such shots as came were separate, single flashes from the canopy of smoke which now lay over it night and day. It seemed to spit back viciously, impotently, now here, now there, toward the relentless ring of its foes.
And, a
