witnessed like scenes. It is said that sixty thousand Greeks became the conqueror's spoil, and were scattered throughout his dominions. Phranza had to endure slavery for a time, though after a while he was released, and was allowed to ransom his wife; but he had the misery of seeing his children torn from him—his daughter consigned to the sultan's seraglio, and his son, a boy of fourteen, choosing death in preference to dishonour. The great Duke Notaras was the noblest and most distinguished of the prisoners. He showed the sultan, it is said, a vast hidden treasure of jewels and pearls. His fate was a hard one, though he hardly seems to deserve our pity, as it is whispered that he turned traitor after having submitted himself to the victor. At first the sultan flattered him with the hope of safety, but soon afterwards put both him and his two sons to death, thereby in Christian estimation conferring on them the glory of martyrdom. If we are to believe the Greek writers, he was false to his first promises of mercy, and revealed a hideous perfidy in the wholesale massacres which he perpetrated.
Mahomet, it is said, was profoundly impressed with the spectacle of the fallen city. Cruel and perfidious he may have been, but he would allow no wanton destruction, and he reproved with a blow of his scimitar a barbarous Turk whom he saw breaking the marble mosaics in the Church of St. Sophia. In that church, now suddenly converted into a mosque, on its high altar, he offered up his prayers and thanksgivings. In some respects the Turk, after his victory, contrasted favourably
