CHAPTER XXXIIOne by one St. Elmo’s guns ceased. Hour by hour its fire became more fitful and weak, and hour by hour the Turkish batteries pushed advance. New mounds were piled, new trenches slanted ahead. New guns were hauled up from the fleet, of which Dragut would never say that he had enough. St. Angelo could be left alone. It could look idly on, watching till St. Elmo would be no more than a blackened grave of those who had been sent to its vain defence. They could wait their turn, and as they watched they could guess how it would be likely to end. Built of stone it might be, with deep roots in the living rock, but as the days passed Dragut’s boast that it should be beaten flat did not seem to be called too high.
Piali would have attacked days before. He said: “You waste powder and ti
