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Updated: June 20, 2025
Then unfolding the letter, he read it, leaning against one of the merlons of the wall. "If you can devise a means to deliver Roccaleone at once into my hands you shall earn my gratitude, full pardon for your share in Monna Valentina's rebellion, and the sum of a thousand gold florins. As he read, a light of joy leapt to his eyes. Gian Maria's terms were very generous.
In the second story the south window opens on to a long balcony running the whole breadth of the tower, and the other windows on to smaller balconies. The third story is finished with a fortified parapet resting on great corbels. The last and fourth, smaller than those below, is fortified with pointed merlons, and with a round corbelled turret at each corner.
At his feet spread the foliage of the figs, the varnished leaves of the magnolias, the green balls on the orange trees. Before him the trunks of the palms shut off the blue of space, and, farther away, the sharp-pointed merlons of the wall extended to the sea, the luminous, immense sea, trembling with life as if the barkentines with their wind-filled sails were tickling its greenish surface.
Between the buttresses runs a corbel-table, supporting a battlemented parapet of Decorated character, in which the merlons are of great width in proportion to the embrasures an early feature and have the usual cruciform piercings, so splayed at the back as to leave no doubt that they were really intended for the use of archers.
On further, a blackened mass arose in dim relief against the sky, with heavy merlons on its top. "It is the embattled gate!" he exclaimed, to himself "the embattled gate! and here the beach! and, O Allah! the waves there are making the reports they used to!"
Open for Coru-hin-Irigod, and for the Jeseru traders, Ganadara and Atarazola, who are with him!" A head, black-bearded and sun-bonneted, appeared between the brick merlons of the wall above the gate, shouted down a welcome, and then turned away to bawl orders. The gate slid aside, and, after the caravan had passed through, naked slaves pushed the massive thing shut again.
Its effect, however, on the fort, was not such as had been expected. This was attributable to its form, and to its materials. It was very low, with merlons of great thickness; and was constructed of earth, and a species of soft wood common in that country, called the palmetto, which, on being struck with a ball, does not splinter, but closes upon it.
In this opening there was no heat or furore of combat; it was rather the action of novices trying their machines, or, in modern artillery parlance, finding the range. Many minutes often intervened between shots, and as the preliminary object on the part of the besiegers was to destroy the merlons sheltering the warders, did a stone strike either wall near the top, the crash was saluted by cheers.
There was a sound of running feet and men sprang to his assistance. Madame would have gone below to meet him; but her limbs seemed to refuse their office. She leaned against one of the merlons of the embattled parapet, her eyes on the spot where he should emerge from the stairs, and thus she waited, her eyes haggard, her face drawn.
Darts and stones fell ceaselessly and while the defenders sought refuge behind the merlons, unable to step out into the crenels, the battering-rams pounded at the base under the protection of the tower, hammering against the walls, and gradually weakening them; and the Africans who had outlived the first assault now attacked the blocks of stone with more security, little by little opening a breach.
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